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Person Info

• Name: Richard FITZ EUSTACE, Constable Of Chester
• Sex: M
• Death: Before 1157 ^d


Parents:

• Father:
  
• Eustace Fitz John De BURGO, Constable Of Chester Birth: Before 1100 Death: Jul 1157 in Consyllt, Near Basingwerk, N Wales
Mother:

• Agnes De HALTON

Family:
Marriage:

• Albreada LIZOURS, Baroness Of Pontfract on Abt 1150 .^m1
  
• Albreada LIZOURS, Baroness Of Pontfract Birth: Abt 1131 Death: After 1194

Children:

1. John Fitz Richard, Constable Of Chester Birth: Abt 1145 Death: 11 Oct 1190 in Tyre, Holy Land
2. Robert Fitz Richard Birth: 2
3. Aubrey FITZ EUSTACE

Bibliography

Sources for birth and parent Information

parents:

[Ref: CP VII p677 (with corr in XIV p436), CP XII/2 p274(d), Foss Judges p263, Keats-Rohan DD p885, Keats-Rohan DD p919, Watney WALLOP #588],

father:

[Ref: Richard Borthwick SGM 11/6/1998],

mother:

[Ref: Keats-Rohan DD p250],

note:

[Ref: Wurts MCBarons p426]

Sources for death Information

date:

1157 [Ref: Keats-Rohan DD p885]

1163 [Ref: CP VII p677, Keats-Rohan DD p537, Sanders Baronies p138]

1178 [Ref: Watney WALLOP #588]

before 1157 [Ref: Richard Borthwick SGM 11/6/1998]

before 1167 [Ref: Keats-Rohan DD p553]

by 1165-6 [Ref: BaildonWP BAILDON v1p347]

probably v.p (by 1157) [Ref: CP XII/2 p274(d)]

v.p [Ref: Bevan DD++ p885]

Sources with Information about marriage to Albreada LIZOURS, Baroness Of Pontfract

date:

abt 1150 [Ref: BaildonWP BAILDON v1p351, CP V p518note (with corr in XIV p327)]

first marriage of Albreada LIZOURS [Ref: ES III.4 #709, Holloway WENTWORTH p12]

first marriage of Albreda [Ref: Burke Peerage p769, Keats-Rohan DD p553],

names:

[Ref: CP V p518note (with corr in CP XIV p327), CP VII p677 (with corr in CP XIV p436), Keats-Rohan DD p537]

Robert Fitz Eustace & Aubrey de Lisours [Ref: Wightman LACY p261],

child:

[Ref: BaildonWP BAILDON v1p351, Burke Peerage p769, CP V p518note, CP VII p677, DNB v31p388, Foss Judges p390, Keats-Rohan DD p250, Keats-Rohan DD p553, Keats-Rohan DD p885, Richardson RoyalAnc v3p463, Sanders Baronies p138, Watney WALLOP #588]

Sources with Inaccurate marriage information

child:

Roger Fitz Richard Lord of Warkworth (#11320) [Ref: Watney WALLOP #588]

Research Notes:
of Halton, Cheshire [Ref: Richardson RoyalAnc v3p463]
Lord of Halton, Cheshire [Ref: Sanders Baronies p138(3)]

Hereditary Constable of Chester [Ref: BaildonWP BAILDON v1p347, Holloway WENTWORTH p12, Sanders Baronies p138(3)]

Baron of Halton [Ref: BaildonWP BAILDON v1p347, Holloway WENTWORTH p12]

his death v.p is suggested by a charter of Richard's elder half-brother, William de Vescy, dated while Eustace was living, but making provision for the sould of the grantor's mother and his brothers Richard and Geoffrey [Ref: CP++ Vescy 7/18/2003 (CP XII/2 p274)]

I notice that in several recent postings under a variety of headers John de Lacy, Constable of Chester (d. ca. 1190) has with confidence been called son of Robert FitzEustace.
This is conventionally an issue fraught with confusion. One poster, probably quite wisely, has referred instead to this father (as husband of "Albreda Lisoiers") as "Richard (Robert) FitzEustace" (< >, 11 June 98). There's a problem here.
The trouble springs from a tendency for conflict to arise between accounts of descent from the FitzEustace line given by researchers interested in the Lacy family and those interested in the FitzRobert (Wark[worth)]/Clavering) family. Only readers happening to be so unlucky as to have an interest in both are likely to find it a problem. On balance, if Lacy, then 'Robert' inclines to be chosen; if Wark(worth)/Clavering, then 'Richard'. Sadly it's not even quite so simple as that. Briefly, among the traditional readings, for John de Lacy's father with Aubrey de Lisours --
These choose 'Richard': Burke's Ext.& Dorm. Peerage ["Clavering"]; Turton (95); Hodgson, Northumberland County History; Clay, _Early Yorkshire Charters_, III, chart 199; DNB ["Roger de Lacy" and "Eustace FitzJohn"]; and CP XII, pt 2 [1959, "Vescy", 274, note d].
These choose 'Robert': CP VII (1959, "Lincoln", chart p 677) [WTM: corrected to "Richard" in XIV]; Wightman, _The Lacy Family in England and Normandy 1066-1194_; Le Patourel and others deferring to Wightman.
JH Round says the father of John de Lacy remains undetermined (e.g.in "Who was Alice de Vere", Trans Essex Arch Soc n.s. vol 3).
Wightman, as the most recent among these and often unproblematically accepted by subsequent historians, seems in principle (in spite of the weight of previous readings) a man to stick with. Unfortunately, Wightman (showing no awareness of Round on the subject) skirts the issue altogether by never considering the argument for - or indeed mentioning - the name Richard FitzEustace. And more unfortunately, he appears to have inherited "Robert" from the rough chart in CP VII "Lincoln", p 677, which he has obviously copied line-for-line and without awareness of its supercession by "Richard", 30 years later, in CP XII, pt 2. [WTM: and which was corrected in XIV]

Unfortunately, the business of given names here isn't as trivial as we might like. Those familiar with the similar problem of who is the father of Roger FitzRichard (antecedent of the Wark(worth)/Clavering line) -- is it Richard FitzEustace? -- will know how identities in this generation have been utterly confounded by the erroneous attribution of names. A mistake that even the much-relied-on scholar Clay makes in _Early Yorkshire Charters_, where he calls the same man Roger FitzRichard and Roger FitzRoger. Obviously an easy resolution of the father-of-John-de-Lacy puzzle might seem within reach if we adopted the formula offered by < >, viz. "Richard (Robert) FitzEustace", with the presumption that Richard and Robert are the same man. But naturally this conflation of names/identities can be only as good as the document it's found written on.
I hope someone here may have found an argument explicitly confronting the Robert/Richard FitzEustace choices. Failing that, the husband of Aubrey de Lisours and father of John de Lacy, Constable of Chester, must remain quite simply a (----) FitzEustace, son of Eustace FitzJohn. Contrary to historians' blithe assumption, Wightman cannot be taken as a fresh source of any special value on this particular Lacy sequence, and any assignment of either Robert or Richard FitzEustace as father of John de Lacy, while the choice we hit on may be correct, must be made independent of Wightman, Clay, Complete Peerage, Burke, Turton et al. (And I hope friends here will forgive me if once again I ask if we can please refrain from citing ES unless it gives a _source_ excluding -- and hopefully more reliable than - the ones we already have?) [Ref: Cristopher Nash SGM 7/2/1998]

Wightman is ignorant of a number of connections concerning this family, so I don't necessarily trust him.
The question is, what is the father of John called in almost contemporary charters, such as those involving the Lisours, and those where John confirms the gifts of his ancestors? Is there actually documentary evidence that John's father was ever called Robert? If not, I see no reason to interject the name Robert into this fray. The name Richard did occur in this family. Robert did not. I think the problem is that no document made during his lifetime calls him Richard, as he may have predeceased his father, Eustace Fitz John, and definitely predeceased his step-father, Robert FitzCount, who succeeded as constable in right of his wife (Agnes FitzNeel/Nigel). Richard was dead by 1163. John was constable by 1166 according to the Pipe Roll [PR 12 Hen. II, 51].
WILLIAM FARRER states [Honours and Knights Fees 2:201] that John the Constable "attested a charter of Robert de Ros, as 'JOHN SON OF RICHARD SON OF EUSTACE' during the period 1147-53" [emphasis mine], citing Chartul. of Rievaux, 22. That might have been while Richard was still alive, and contemporary enough for me (as long as there is no reason to believe it was spurious). So again, unless there is SOME document which calls him Robert, I see no reason not to call him Richard. We might refer to him, then, as 'Richard (not Robert) FitzEustace' to help correct the error.
William de Vescy definitely stated he had a [half?] brother named Richard. See EYC 2:407 (no. 1110), "for the health of the soul of Richard and Geoffrey his brothers, and for the welfare of Agnes, his father's wife...." [William's mother was Beatrice.] And there is no question that Eustace FitzJohn was John the Constable's grandfather, as John calls "Eustachii filii Johannis avi mei et uxoris illius Agnetis, avie mee". Lewis C. Lloyd and Doris Stenton also state that John's father was Richard FitzEustace [Sir Christopher Hatton's Book of Seals, nos. 515n, 517, 519.] [Ref: Paul Reed SGM 7/3/1998]

at roughly the same time as that charter [1150-1157], "Agnes fillia Willelmi constabularii Cestrie" [Agnes, daughter of William FitzNeel, constable of Chester] also confirmed the charter that Eustace FitzJohn "vir meus' [my husband] had made to the nuns of Watton [EYC 2:406-7, no. 1109]. She included the following clause: "Hanc autem elemosinam dedi pro salute [domini et] mea et pro anima Ricardi filii mei et Galfridi et ceterorum amicorum meorum...." We therefore know from this that Agnes (FitzNeel) definitely had a son named Richard. Geoffrey [Galfridi] was not called her son, and was therefore her step-son, the brother of William de Vescy by his mother Beatrice/Beatrix. [Ref: Paul Reed SGM 7/3/1998]



Pedigree of Richard FITZ EUSTACE, Constable Of Chester
                            /-----Ranulf The Moneyer
                   /-----Richard FITZRANULF
          /-----John FITZRICHARD
 /-----Eustace Fitz John De BURGO, Constable Of Chester
Richard FITZ EUSTACE, Constable Of Chester
|                  /-----Nigell De HALTON, Constable Of Chester
|         /-----William FITZ NIGEL, Constable Of Chester
 \-----Agnes De HALTON
         |         /-----Yarfield Of Widness
          \-----Adeliz Of Widness



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