a wealthy knight and intimate friend of Philip Augustus. Robert imprisoned him in his castle of Bonneville. But his servant, the keeper of the castle, William D'Epinay, was bribed into conniving at Hugh's escape. Richard, angry at the loss of so important a prisoner, ordered D'Epinay to be hanged, and imposed a fine of twelve hundred marks on his master. Two hundred and forty marks of this were still unpaid on 29 Jan. 1204, when King John remitted one hundred marks (Patent Rolls, p. 38).
Immediately after his accession John sent Robert and others to William the Lion of Scotland, Robert's father-in-law, to arrange an interview between the two sovereigns for 20 Nov. 1199 (Rog. Hov. iv. 140). On 6 Jan. 1200 he received from the king a grant of all the honours and lands which had belonged to Walter Espec in the county of Northumberland, including Wark, where Robert built a castle [see Espec, Walter]. In the succeeding years he witnessed several royal charters, chiefly at places in the north of England, but on 7 Oct. 1203 was again at Bonneville-sur-Touques (Charter Rolls, p. 111 b), and seems to have been in Normandy in John's service during the later months of that year, returning to England before 22 Feb. 1204, when he was at York (ib. pp. 114 a, 119 b; Rotuli Normanniæ, p. 113). In the spring of 1205 he had some difficulty with John, possibly about the balance of his fine, and his lands were ordered to be seized (Close Rolls, i. 24 b), but an order for their restoration was soon issued (ib. i. 31). On 28 Feb. 1206 he received license, whenever he should take the cross, to pledge his lands for money to any one of the king's subjects any time during the following three years (Hunter, Rotuli Selecti, p. 17). This permission was renewed on 26 Feb. 1207. We do not know whether Robert took the crusading vow. For some reason, possibly on account of the arrears of his fine, his son Robert was in the king's hands as a hostage on 13 Feb. of that year (Patent Rolls, p. 59 b). Robert seems to have let another prisoner escape, a certain Thomas de Bekering, and on 28 Dec. 1207 was acquitted of a fine of three hundred marks for this new offence (Close Rolls, i. 99). On 10 April 1209 he was sent with others by the king to meet the king of Scotland (Patent Rolls, p. 91).
In 1212 Robert seems to have assumed the monastic habit, and on 15 May of that year John therefore handed over the custody of his lands to Philip de Ulecot (Close Rolls, i. 116 b). His profession cannot, however, have lasted long, for on 30 Jan. 1213 the king committed to him the forest and county of Cumberland (Patent Rolls, p. 96 b), while on 25 Feb. he was made one of a commission to inquire into grievances, more especially the exactions of the royal officers in the counties of Lincoln and York (ib. p. 97). Among other royal favours which he received this year was that of a license to send across the seas a ship laden with wool and hides to bring back wine in exchange (9 Sept. Close Rolls, i. 149 b). He interceded with the king in favour of his suzerain in Holderness, William of Aumâle, and succeeded in getting him a safe-conduct as a preliminary to a reconciliation (1 Oct. Patent Rolls, p. 104b). On 3 Oct. he was one of the witnesses to John's surrender of the kingdom to the pope, and was one of the twelve great men who undertook to compel John to keep his promises made in favour of the English church (Charter Rolls, p. 195; Literæ Cantuarienses, Rolls Ser. i. 21). During the troubled year 1214 and the early part of 1215 he continued in John's service as sheriff of Cumberland, and on 10 April 1215 received the royal manors of Sowerby, Carleton, and Oulsby, all near Penrith in Cumberland and Westmoreland (Close Rolls, i. 194). About the same time John ordered Peter des Roches [q. v.] to do all that he could to secure the election of Robert's aunt as abbess of Barking, and in no wise permit the election of the sister of Robert FitzWalter, one of the baronial leaders (ib. i. 202).
But John failed, despite these favours, to secure Ros's adherence in his struggle with the barons. According to Roger of Wendover (ii. 114), Ros was one of the chief ‘incentors of this pest’ (i.e. the baronial resistance to the king) in the meeting of the magnates at Stamford in the week following 19 April. He was one of the twenty-five barons elected to compel the observance of the Great charter (Matt. Paris, ii. 605), and took part in the resistance to John after his absolution from his oath by the pope. In consequence he was excommunicated by Innocent IV in January 1216 (Rog. Wend. ii. 169). After the king's successes in the north in the early part of that year, a castle belonging to Robert was one of the only two that remained in the possession of the barons in the north of England (ib. ii. 167). John granted his lands to William, earl of Aumâle, on 27 Jan. 1216 (Close Rolls, i. 246 b). He was summoned to deliver up Carlisle Castle, and expressed his readiness to do so, merely asking for a safe-conduct for an interview, which the king promised (ib. i. 269). John repeated the offer on 12 April, but it led to nothing.
