Notes |
Robert de Vipont(d. 1228), administrator and magnate, came of a family t h a t t o o k its name from Vieuxpont-en-Auge (Calvados) in Normandy. He was t h e y o u n ger son of William de Vieuxpont (d. in or before 1203), who beca m e a n i m p ortant Anglo-Scottish land owner, and his wife, Maud de Morvil l e ( d . c . 1210), whose father Hugh ( in 1170 one of the assassins of Tho m a s B e c ket) forfeited the barony of Westmorland in 1173. Robert's elder b r o t h e r, Ivo, inherited their father's estates in Northamptonshire and N o r t h u mberland, while Robert had entered royal service by 1195, and was c u s t o d ian of the honours of Peverel, Higham Ferrers, and Tickhill in the l a t t e r y ears of Richard I' s reign.
But he achieved much greater eminence under John. At first he was princ i p a l l y employed in Normandy, especially as a paymaster of troops and di r e c t o r of military works, including those on Rouen Castle, and in 1203 h e b e c a m e bailli of the Roumomois. His services were rewarded by the gra nt o f V i e u xpont itself, formerly held by an uncle who had joined the Fr enc h, a n d a l so by grants in England. In February 1203 he was given cust od y o f t h e c astles of Appleby and Brough, to which the lordship of West m or la n d w as added a month later; then in October 1203 custody during pl e a s u r e was changed to a grant in fee simple, for the service of four kn i g h t s , and Vieuxpont had become one of the leading barons in northern E n g l a n d.
He was also to be given a number of valuable wardships, while his wife , I d o n e a , the daughter of John de Builli, whom he married before June 1213 , b r o u g ht him lands in Bedfordshire and a claim to the Yorkshire honour o f T i c k h ill. After leaving Normandy with John in December 120 3 Vieuxpon t w a s i n f r equent attendance on the king until the end of 1205, when he b e c a m e i ncreasingly involved in northern administration.
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