William de Lancaster I

William de Lancaster I, or William Fitz Gilbert, was a nobleman of the twelfth century in Northwest England. He is possibly also referred to as William de Tailboys (de Taillebois), was the first person of whom we have any record to bear the name of Lancaster and pass it on to his descendants as a family name.

Titles and Positions

Earliest holdings

The general impression given by William's appearances in documents during his own lifetime, is that his own family origins lay in western Cumberland. This may however partly be due to the fact that the Register of St Bees is such a good source for information about the families of northwest England in his time. He is better remembered for the power he later wielded in Westmorland (especially Kendal) and Lancashire, to the east.

Muncaster in Cumberland. According to William Farrer, in his 1902 edition of Lancashire Pipe Rolls and early charters, p. 305,

It appears that he was possessed of the lordship of Mulcaster (now Muncaster), over the Penningtons of Pennington in Furness, and under Robert de Romilly, lord of Egremont and Skipton, who held it in right of his wife, Cecilia, daughter and heiress of William de Meschines.

According to Farrer, this title would have been one of those granted by Roger de Mowbray, son of Nigel de Albini, having come into his hands after the decease with male heirs of Ivo de Taillebois. He also believes that this grant to William de Lancaster came to be annulled.

Workington, Lamplugh and Middleton. The manors of Workington and Lamplugh in Cumberland were given by William de Lancaster, in exchange for Middleton in Westmorland, to a relative, Gospatric, son of Orme, brother-in-law of Waldieve, Lord of Allerdale. [1]

Hensingham. The Register of St Bees shows that both William and his brother Roger granted land in this area.

Ulverston. See Farrer in "Lancashire Inquests, Extents, and Feudal Aids" who argues that this may have been held by William and perhaps his father Gilbert, before it was granted by Stephen, Count of Boulogne and Mortain, to Furness Abbey in 1127. The possible connection of William's father Gilbert to Furness will be discussed further below.

Enfeoffment from Roger de Mowbray.

A major enfeoffment by Roger de Mowbray put William in control of what would become of the Barony of Kendal, plus Warton, Garstang, and Wyresdale in Lancashire, as well as Horton in Ribblesdale and "Londsdale" - the latter two sometimes apparently being interpreted as indicating possession of at least part of what would become the Wapentake of Ewcross in the West Riding of Yorkshire.

William de Lancaster is often described as having been a Baron of Kendal. In fact this is not so clear. William Farrer wrote, in the Introduction to his Records of Kendal:

After a careful review of the evidence which has been sketched above, the author is of opinion that no barony or reputed barony of Kentdale existed prior to the grants of 1189-90; and that neither William de LANCASTER, son of Gilbert, nor William de LANCASTER II, his son and successor, can be rightly described as "baron" of Kentdale.

Part of the problem comes from the time he lived in:

• Fewer records were kept than later times.
• Inheritance rules and other regularities which help us guess what happened in the later Middle Ages were not yet fixed and predictable in their workings.
• William lived in a time of turmoil, with two rival claims to the throne of England (Stephen of England and Empress Matilda) and a major period of Scottish rule under David I of Scotland in the Northwest of England where William's holdings were.

What became the Barony of Kendal is generally accepted as having come together under Ivo de Taillebois (d.1194) in the time of William Rufus. And, as will be discussed below, at least in later generations William was depicted by his family as having been a Taillebois. A continuity is therefore often asserted between what Ivo held, and what William later held, despite the fact that William had no known hereditary claim on Kendal. (This is apparently also the reason for the frequent assertion that William held the entire wapentake of Ewcross, even though it seems that the family of Roger de Mowbray kept hold of at least Burton in Kendal. William held two parts of it, mentioned above, while Ivo had held another, Clapham. The rest is speculation.)

According to Farrer, the Barony of Kendal became a real barony only in the time of William's grand daughter Hawise, who married Gilbert son of Roger fitz Reinfrid. Both he and his son William de Lancaster III, both successors of William de Lancaster I (and possibly of Ivo de Taillebois) were certainly Barons of Kendal.

The Scottish period

Egremont Castle. During the Scottish occupation, according to several websites, William was castellan in the castle of Egremont under William Fitz Duncan.

Note that during this period William seems to have lost control of some of his more southerly English enfeoffments, for example those in Yorkshire, which apparently corresponded to the later Wapentake of Ewcross.

Concerning other specific holdings and ranks

Furness and the Forests. According to a later grant to Gilbert Fitz Reinfrid, William must have held some position over the whole forest of Westmarieland (the Northern or Appleby Barony of Westmorland), Kendal and Furness. His claims in Furness may have gone beyond just the forest, but this appears to have put him in conflict with the claims of the Furness Abbey, and this conflict continued over many generations. His family may have had links there before him. Some websites report that his father Gilbert was known as "Gilbert of Furness". (This apparently comes from a 17th century note by Benjamin Ayloffe, mentioned below.)

Lancaster Castle. According to Dugdale, the eminent English antiquarian, he was governor of Lancaster Castle in the reign of Henry II, about 1180.

Seneschal. According to a note written by the 17th century antiquarian Benjamin Ayloffe, which is reproduced in the introduction of Walford Selby's collection of Lancashire and Cheshire Records, p.xxix, William was Seneschallus Hospitii Regis, or steward of the king's household. The same note also states that William's father was the kings "Receiver for the County of Lancaster".

Ancestry

Most securely, we can say that William's father was named Gilbert, and his mother was Godith. They are both mentioned clearly in a benefaction of William to St Mary de Pré. Indeed, William was often referred to as William the son of Gilbert.

William was also said to have descended from both Ivo de Taillebois and Eldred of Workington, contemporaries of William Rufus, but the exact nature of the relationship is unclear and indeed controversial. Most likely, the connection is through daughters or illegitimate sons of these two men. Some sources exist, as follows. ..

1. The most widespread account, that Ivo was simply the father Eldred, and Eldred the father (or grandfather) of Gilbert, unfortunately now seems to be wrong, or at least has gone out of favor.

The two authorities for a direct line of father-son descent from Ivo to Eldred to Ketel to Gilbert to William de Lancaster were records made much later in Cockersand Abbey and St Mary’s Abbey in Yorkshire. See for example William Farrer’s comments in 1902: “The Lancashire Pipe Rolls of 31 Henry I., A.D. 1130, and of the Reigns of Henry II., A.D. 1155-1189; Richard I., A.D. 1189-1199; and King John, A.D. 1199-1216” See p.vii (Addenda and Corrigenda) concerning p.389 I.18. Also see what he wrote in 1909: “The Chartulary of Cockersand Abbey of the Premonstratensian Order” See p.305-8.

2. A connection to the Taillebois family, if it was indeed one family, seems to be justifiable as follows. The Coucher Book of Furness Abbey contains a concord (CCVI on pages 344-345 of the edition printed for the Chetham Society in 1887) wherein Helewise, grand-daughter and heir of William is party. In the genealogical notice it is claimed that William had been known as William de Tailboys, before receiving the right to be called "Willelmum de Lancastre, Baronem de Kendale". This is the only relatively contemporary evidence for this assertion however, and it is has in fact been argued by William Farrer that William was not Baron in Kendal, but rather an under-lord there.

3. Concerning the connection to Eldred, in a Curia Regis Roll item dated 1212, R., 55, m. 6, Helewise and her husband Gilbert Fitz Reinfrid make claims based upon the fact that "Ketel filius Eutret" was an "antecessor" of Helewise. More intriguingly, in one charter to St Leonard's York William refers to Ketel, the son of Elred, as his avunculus, which would literally mean "maternal uncle" (but the word was not always used precisely, the more general meaning of uncle might might have been intended). (A 1357 charter printed in Ragg 1910 repeats the claim that Ketel son of Aldred was the avunculus of William son of Gilbert.)

Therefore Godith may have been a daughter of Elred of Workington, while Gilbert may have been a relative of Ivo de Taillebois, either through illegitimate sons, or perhaps one of his seeming brothers. There was in any case a Tailboys family present in Westmorland during the 12th century, for example in Cliburn, and these were presumably relatives of William de Lancaster. This family used the personal Ivo at least once.

Descendants and relatives

William married Gundreda, perhaps his second wife, who was said to be the daughter of William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey. She was the widow of Roger, the Earl of Warwick. Note that King Stephen's son, William, married Gundred's niece, Isabel de Warenne. This implies a very close relationship with the King's party.

William had issue:

• Avicia, who married first to William de Peveral, and secondly to Richard de Morville, constable of Scotland.
• William, who became William de Lancaster II, and whose legitimate heir Helewise de Lancaster married Gilbert son of Roger Fitz Reinfrid.
• Jordan, who died young, and is mentioned in a benefaction to St Mary de Pré in Leicester. In the same benefaction, William II is also mentioned, apparently an adult.
• Agnes who married Alexander de Windsore (Farrer 1906).
• Sigrid, married to William the clerk of Garstang. (Farrer 1906).
• Warine de Lancaster, royal falconer, and ancestor of a family known as "de Lea". A charter in the Cockersand Chartulary says one of the William de Lancasters was his uncle, while another charter there says that William de Lancaster confirmed a grant made by his father to Warine, so he seems to be a son of a brother of William de Lancaster I.

Gilbert fitz Reinfrid and Helewise's son William also took up the name de Lancaster, becoming William de Lancaster III. He died without male heirs, heavily indebted - apparently due to payments demanded after he and his father were involved in the Baron's revolt.

William de Lancaster III's half brother Roger de Lancaster of Rydal inherited some of the Lancaster importance. It is thought that Roger was a son of Gilbert Fitz Reinfrid, but not of Helewise de Lancaster. Roger is widely thought to be the ancestor of the Lancasters of Howgill and Rydal in Westmorland. (In fact the line starts with one John de Lancaster of Howgill, whose connection to Roger de Lancaster and his son, John de Lancaster of Grisedale and Stanstead, is unclear except for the fact that he took over Rydal and Grasmere from the latter John.)

The Lancasters of Sockbridge, Crake Trees, and several other manors in Westmorland, were apparently descended from William de Lancaster II's illegitimate son Gilbert de Lancaster.

The de Lea family eventually lost power in the time of Thomas de Lancaster, who was a member of the Plantagenet royal family.

Another Lancaster family, in Rainhill in Lancashire, also seems to have claimed descent, given that they used the same coat of arms as Gilbert Fitz Reinfrid and his sons (argent, two bars gules, with a canton of the second, and a "lion of England", either white or gold, in the canton). However the exact nature of the link is unknown. A branch of this family lived in Herstmonceaux in Sussex in recent centuries.

References

• F. W. Ragg (1910) "De Lancaster". In Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society. pp.395-493.
• W. Farrer (1906) "The Lancaster Fee of Warton and Garstang". In William Farrer & J. Brownbill A History of the County of Lancaster: Volume 1. pp.357-66.
• "The Lancaster Family-by H.F. Lancaster- 1902" Library of Congress Call CS71.L245 1902
• Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700 by Frederick Lewis Weis, Lines 34-24, 38-25, 88-25.
• Keats-Rohan Domesday Descendants

External links

• Notes on the Westmorland de Lancasters, Barons of Kendal, and their origins
• Notes by Andrew Lancaster on the Lancaster Surname
• Steve Hissem's De Lancaster Webpage
• The Lancaster webpage on the Stirnet Website
• A Debate on the GEN-MEDIEVAL Rootsweb List
• Paul Lawrence's webpage concerning the Lawrence family of Ashton who descend from the de Lancasters
• Dugdale's Monasticon. Cockersand Abbey and St Mary's Abbey in Yorkshire.
• Farrer's Introduction to his Records of Kendal. On British History Online. On Edenlinks website.
• The Register of St Bees
• Photos from book The Lancaster Family Cir 1902 and pictures of Lancaster Castle a website of Wade Lancaster
• The Lancaster webpage on mysite website and an ongoing work of Wade Lancaster