This detailed summary of the ownership of the Helmsley estate is mainly taken from “A History of the County of York North Riding: Volume 1 (1914) Parishes:Helmsley” with some queries in italics. The research is continuing, further comments or contibutions are welcome.
“Before the Conquest three thegns held three and a half carucates of land in Helmsley as two manors which, by 1086, had come into the hands of the crown.
Another manor of 8 carucates was held in the time of the Confessor by Ughtred…
this afterwards passed to the Count of Mortain who also had a manor of 5 carucates in Harome and a manor of 1 carucate in Pockley.
On the attainder of William, second Count of Mortain in 1106 all this land came into the hands of the Crown.
Before 1122 it was in the possession of Walter Espec.
It may previously have belonged to William Espec, St Hilda’s was founded by William “the noble”.
Walter Espec died about 1153, his son had died previously, (there is some debate about whether Walter had a son see discussion by Cannon Atkinson))
Odelina, his sister inherited the estates.
She was married to Peter de Ros, and had sons Everard and Robert.
In 1157-8 Robert rendered account of 1000 marks for the land of Walter Espec. (to whom & why?)
Robert had a son, Everard, who was a minor in 1166.
Everard left a son, Robert, called Furfan, who built Helmsley Castle and died in 1227.
Robert married Isabel, the illegitimate daughter of William the Lion of Scotland, and had a son, William, who died in 1258…
leaving son, Robert who obtained Belvoir Castle through marriage with the heiress of William Daubeny and became 1st Lord Roos of Hamlake. He died in 1285,…
was succeeded by his son William, whose son, William succeeded him in 1316 and died in 1342-3..
leaving a son William who died in the Holy Land in 1352,…
was succeeded by his brother Thomas who died on the way to Palestine in 1383.”
His son, John, set out on crusade and died in Cyprus in 1393. He left no children so…
was succeeded by his brother, William, who died in 1414,…
was succeeded first by his his eldest son, John…
then in 1421 by his second son Thomas who died in 1430,
leaving a son, Thomas, who took the Lancastrian side in the Wars of the Roses and was beheaded in 1464.
His mother, Eleanor, daughter of the Earl of Warwick, continued to hold the manor of Harome in dower and Majory, widow of his uncle John, retained Helmsley Castle and manor in dower…
until 1465, when the reversion of the estates was granted to his brother George, Duke of Clarence, in fee
Edmond, son & heir of the attained baron, was restored in 1485 and Sir Thomas Lovell, who had the governance of him and his estates as he “was not of suficcient disscrecion to guyde himself and his llyvelode”, held the castle and manor of Helmsley. Edmond died unmarried in 1508…
and was succeeded by Sir George Manners, son of his sister Eleanor, who died at the seige of Tournay in 1513…
leaving a son Thomas, created Earl of Rutland in 1525 and died in 1543,…
succeeded by his son Henry, who was imprisoned at Queen Mary’s accession but soon restored to her favour and died in 1563,…
succeeded by his son Edward, the 3rd Earl, designated Lord Chancellor in 1587 and died 3 days later,..
his brother John succeeded him and died in1587-8 (sic).
His son, Roger, married the daughter of Sir Philip Sidney, entertained James I at Belvoir Castle and died childless in 1612…
succeeded by his brother Francis whose claim in 1616 to the ancient barony of Roos was disallowed in favour of his cousin William Cecil who died in 1618…
and Francis became the heir general to the old barony. He died in 1632…
leaving an only daughter, Katherine Duchess of Buckingham and Lady Roos, so his brother George, the seventh Earl of Rutland succeeded him. George made a conveyance of the Helmsley estates in 1634….
but Helmsley decended with the Roos barony to Katherine’s son, George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, (assasinated in 1629) whose younger brother Francis Villiers, made a conveyance of this estate in 1648 and was slain on the royalist side in this year. check that George had a son George
George lost his estates through fighting on the king’s side.
The castle, manor, borough of Helmsley and avowson of the church, the manors of Rievaulx, Wombleton, Harome, Pockley, Beadlam Sproxton, Carlton, Cowhouse and the three Bilsdales, all described as the possession of Francis Villiers esq were, in 1650, granted to the Commonwealth commander-in-chief, Sir Thomas Fairfax, but George, Duke of Buckingham, recovered these estates by his marriage with Mary, only child of Sir Thomas Fairfax, seven years later. He was famous for his extravagance and profligacy and died without legitimate issue in 1687.
In 1695 the trustees of George, Duke of Buckingham, sold the manor to Sir Charles Duncombe. ”
Published: 22 2016 (Updated: 10 2023)
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