Leader ot the baronial opposition to King John.
Fitwalter was one of the new official aristocracy created by Henry I and Henry II and mistrusted by king John.
He served King John in his Norman wars and, taken prisoner by Philip II of France, forced to pay a heavy ransom for his release.
. . . in 5th John 1203 Robert FitzWalter, being trusted, together with Saire de Quincey, also a Surety, to keep the Castle of Ruil in France, delivered it up to the King of that realm as soon as he came before it with an army. |
| - the first recorded public act of Fitzwalter, the two cousins were joint constables of the castle |
On discovery of his plotting against King John in 1212, Fitzwalter and his family sought refuge in France. The following year, he was persuaded to retrun to England and, with other barons, was reconciled to King John.
Discovered plotting against the king again, Baynard castle, his London residence, was almost entirely destroyed and his lands seized, thus binding him to the barons' cause.
Fitzwalter was selected as one of the commissioners who hoped to cement the differences of opinion at the meeting at Erith Church, and he was subsequently leader of the barons, styled "Marshal of the Army of God and the Holy Church".
As King John attempted to elude the provisions of the Magna Carta made in 1215, Fitzwalter was one of the delegation of barons who travelled to France to invite the dauphin Louis to accept the throne of England. On the arrival of Louis in England, Fitzwalter, William de Mandeville and William de Huntingfield, reduced the counties of Essex and Suffolk to the the prince's authority.
One of the leaders of the barons during the rebellion against King John of 1215, Fitzwalter was cut off at the seige of Rochester Castle and forced to return to London.
On the death of King John and the accession of his son as Henry III in 1216, the imprisoned FitzWalter, along with a majority of the rebel barons, had no more use for the dauphin and sent him back to France.
Despite being imprisoned, FitzWalter was allowed to take up the Cross in 1218 and took part in the famous siege of Damietta.
He died peacefully in England in 1234 and was buried before the High Altar of Dunmow Priory.
Matilda the Fair (called "Maid Marion"), Fitzwalter's daughter by his first wife Gunora (daughter of Robert, second lord of Valoines), is said to have been poisoned by King John.
His second wife, Rohese, survived him in 1834.
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John Lackland
by K Norgates , 1902
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