William (Forz) de Forz (abt. 1192 - 1241)

Ancestors

Husband of Aveline (Montfichet) de Forz — married before 1216 in England

Descendants

Died Mar 1241 at about age 49 in En Route to Jerusalem (Crusades)

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Magna Carta Surety Baron William de Forz was one of the twenty-five medieval barons who were surety for Magna Carta in 1215. Join: Magna Carta Project Discuss: magna_carta

Biography

Birth

William de Forz (latinised as de Fortis or de Fortibus^[1]) was a son of William de Forz and Hawisa, Countess of Aumale in NE Normandy.^[2][3][4] His birth date is uncertain but is likely to have been in the early 1190s,^[1] and he may have been born in Poitou, though some sources suggest Holderness in Yorkshire (see below).

Inheritance, Marriage and Children

Through his mother he was titular Count of Aumale, a County in Normandy,^[2][3] though this was a title without any substance in the form of landholdings - Philip Augustus of France captured Aumale in 1196.^[1]

In 1214 William came to England, under safe-conduct, to secure his inheritance of the English lands held by his mother. These were mainly in Yorkshire, Cumberland and Lincolnshire.^[2] His English inheritance included the Baronies of Burstwick and of Skipton, both in Yorkshire.^[5] King John, fairly unusually, did not charge him a large fine for coming into his inheritance^[1] but made it a condition of his enjoying the revenues from these lands that he marry Aveline de Montfichet.^[2] Aveline died in 1239.^[2][3]

William and Aveline had at least one son, William^[2][3][6][7] and probably a daughter whom he tried unsuccessfully to marry to a son of William de Longespée, Earl of Salisbury.^[1][2]

Magna Carta and Aftermath

In 1214 William served in King Johns campaign in Poitou^[1] but the next year he joined the Barons who compelled King John to sign the Magna Carta, of which he was one of the Surety Barons.^[2][3][4] During the rebellion that followed, William supported King John, who granted him lands and castles confiscated from rebels.^[1][2] For a few months in the summer of 1216 William abandoned the royal cause, but, by the accession of Henry III in October he was again supporting the royal government.^[2]

Reign of Henry III

When rebel Barons returned to allegiance, William resisted official attempts to make him restore confiscated lands to them. By May 1220 he had surrendered most of them, though he held onto Castle Bytham, Lincolnshire, which had been in his family's possession in the past.^[2] Later that year he was twice denied the post of Seneschal of Poitou and Gascony.^[2]

At the end of 1220 William left the court and rebelled. The reasons are not entirely clear, but it is likely the main motive was his desire to retain Caste Bytham. He was excommunicated in January 1221, and fled North, but made his peace with the government. As part of the terms of this, he was required to pay for some of the costs of the campaign against him. Castle Bytham was destroyed, though he made an unsuccessful legal attempt in 1236 to recover it.^[2]

William's relationship with Henry III's administration remained difficult until the later 1220s, when he was sent of diplomatic missions. In 1230 he went to Poitou with Henry III.^[2] He appears on occasion to have engaged in piracy: in 1227 Henry III wrote to him , "just as we have enjoined you orally other times", to restore to one William Burghley 21 barrels of wine which he had seized from a ship.^[1]

Death

William died in 1241, in the Mediterranean^[3][4] on his way to Jerusalem.^[2] His burial place is not known.^[2] J W Clay, in his The Extinct and Dormant Peerages of the Northern Counties of England, states that he was buried in Meaux Abbey^[8] but there is no good source for this.

Research Notes

Delaforce Family History

A great deal of information about William's ancestors and descendants (albeit unsourced) is available at Patrick Delaforce and Ken Baldry's Delaforce Family History website, Chapter 38.

Birthplace

Note by Chet Snow, April 6, 2017

Neither William de Forz (b: ca. 1192-1241) nor his father ever lived in the Norman County of "Aumale" (translated in English, Aumale = Albemarle) although the family held the title of "Comte d'Aumale" = Earl of Albemarle, in English.

As William's father was from Fors in Poitou (a former French province consisting of the Charentes and Vienne areas sometimes counted as being in Aquitaine, sometimes not), and as some biographies indicate that he traveled to England from Poitou at about 21 years old to claim his English-lands birthright from the English King, in 1214, this would lead one to believe he was most-likely born in "Poitou, France".

Some genealogies, however, state he was born in Holderness, East Riding, Yorkshire, where his parents apparently also had a castle, and he was later also known as "Lord of Holderness" - but that is a lesser title than Earl of Albemarle (Comte d'Aumale).

Magna Carta 800th Anniversary Biography

For the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta in 2015, Professor Nigel Saul wrote a set of biographies of the Surety Barons. He and the Magna Carta 800th Anniversary Committee generously gave permission for them to be reproduced on WikiTree. They can be viewed here.

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7} Ralph V Turner. William De Forz, Count of Aumale: An Early Thirteenth-Century English Baron, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 115, No. 3 (Jun. 17, 1971), pp. 221-249, JSTOR
2. ↑ ^{2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.15} Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, entry for 'Forz [Fortibus], William de, count of Aumale', print and online 2004, revised online 2005
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5} Charles Cawley. "Medieval Lands": entry for William de Forz d. 1241
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1 4.2} Cokayne, George Edward. The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom, new edition, Vol. I, St Catherine Press, 1910, p. 355, AUMALE 5
5. ↑ I J Sanders. English Baronies, A Study of their Origin and descent 1086-1327, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1960, pp. 83 and 142
6. ↑ Douglas Richardson. Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, 4 vols (ed. Kimball G. Everingham), 2nd edition. Salt Lake City: the author, 2011, Vol I, pp. 455-456
7. ↑ Douglas Richardson. Royal Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, 5 vols (ed. Kimball G. Everingham), Salt Lake City: the author, 2013, Vol II, pp. 189-190
8. ↑ John William Clay, The Extinct and Dormant Peerages of the Northern Counties of England, James Nisbet & Co, London, 1913, p. 2, Internet Archive

• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, entry for 'Forz [Fortibus], William de, count of Aumale', print and online 2004, revised online 2005, available online via some libraries
• Cokayne, George Edward. The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom, new edition, Vol. I, St Catherine Press, 1910, p. 355, AUMALE 5
• Turner, Ralph V. William De Forz, Count of Aumale: An Early Thirteenth-Century English Baron, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 115, No. 3 (Jun. 17, 1971), pp. 221-249, JSTOR (free registration required
• Cawley, Charles. "Medieval Lands": a prosopography of medieval European noble and royal families © by Charles Cawley, hosted by Foundation for Medieval Genealogy (FMG). See also WikiTree's source page for MedLands: entry for William de Forz d. 1241
• Wikipedia: William de Forz, 3rd Earl of Albermarle

Acknowledgements

Magna Carta Project

As a surety baron, William de Forz is managed by the Magna Carta Project, even though he is one of the eight barons with no traced ongoing line of descendants. ~ Noland-165 00:45, 27 January 2018 (EST)

This biography was reviewed and revised for the Magna Carta Project by Michael Cayley in April 2020.