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All About History Books
The Chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker of Swinbroke. Baker was a secular clerk from Swinbroke, now Swinbrook, an Oxfordshire village two miles east of Burford. His Chronicle describes the events of the period 1303-1356: Gaveston, Bannockburn, Boroughbridge, the murder of King Edward II, the Scottish Wars, Sluys, Crécy, the Black Death, Winchelsea and Poitiers. To quote Herbert Bruce 'it possesses a vigorous and characteristic style, and its value for particular events between 1303 and 1356 has been recognised by its editor and by subsequent writers'. The book provides remarkable detail about the events it describes. Baker's text has been augmented with hundreds of notes, including extracts from other contemporary chronicles, such as the Annales Londonienses, Annales Paulini, Murimuth, Lanercost, Avesbury, Guisborough and Froissart to enrich the reader's understanding. The translation takes as its source the 'Chronicon Galfridi le Baker de Swynebroke' published in 1889, edited by Edward Maunde Thompson. Available at Amazon in eBook and Paperback.
Effigy of Robert Ros is in Monumental Effigies of Great Britain.
[Robert Ros] WAS descended from the noble family of Ros or Roos, of Hamlake. His father Everard died when he was thirteen years of age, and he had livery of his lands from the wardship of the Crown in the second year of the reign of Richard I. on payment of a hne of one thousand marks; which shows that his possessions must have been very large.
He was one of the Barons who leagued together to obtain the Great and the Forest Charter from John; and when that King had signed them at Runnemede, he was one of the chief persons who undertook to constrain him to observe thema He married Isabella, the daughter of William the Lion, King of Scotland, by whom he had two sons, William and Robert. He gave the first his castle of Helmesley [Map], with the patronage of the monasteries of Kirkham, Rievaulx [Map], and Warden, to the other his castle of Werke and a barony in Scotland, held by knight's service of his brother-in-law. Of both the above-mentioned castles he was the founder. He confirmed to the Templars his manor of Ribstone, with other possessions, assumed the habit of their order, died in 1231, and was buried in the Temple church [Map]. The effigy of Ros is cross-legged, and his hands raised in the act of prayer; the hood of his hauberk is thrown back to show his visage. His sword depends from a belt adorned with broad studs; his surcoat reaches to his heels, which are armed with the pryck spur, and rest on a lion. On his shield are three water bougets, which were the bearing of Ros, Argent, in a held Gules. This figure, like that of Robert de Vere, is of a period subsequent to that of the decease of the person whom it is said to represent.