Gilbert de Lacy 4th Baron de Lacy

  General Notes:

1066-1084

Walter de Lacy, 1st Baron de Lacy, born c 1042 in France at Lacie, now called Lassy, died 2nd April 1084 [27th March 1085?]; married Ermeline c.1066, by whom he had five children, Roger, Hugh, Walter [became Abbott of Gloucester, died 1140], Ermeline and Emma [Emme, Emmaline]. In 1069 he was sent into Wales with William Fitz Osbern, Earl of Hereford, against the people of Brecknock led by their Prince of Wales, whom they defeated. Walter de Lacy fell from a ladder at St Peter's Church in Hereford [which he founded] while inspecting the nearly finished work, and died on the spot. He was buried in the Chapter House of the Cathedral at Gloucester.

1084-1095

Roger de Lacy, 2nd Baron de Lacy was banished from England in 1095 for rebelling with Robert de Mowbray, Earl of Northumberland against William II [William Rufus], and died in 1106. All his lands, including some 96 lordships, were given to his brother Hugh, who founded Llanthony Priory.

1095-1121

Hugh de Lacy, 3rd Baron de Lacy, born c.1073, married Adeline but died 1121 [?1115] without issue, and his two sisters, Emma and Ermeline became the heiresses. Ermeline had no children, and so the inheritance passed to Hugh's nephew Gilbert, the son of his sister Emma, [born c.1082 in Lacy, Herefordshire.] She had married c.1095 Hugh de Talbot [born c1078, died 1129]. Their son Gilbert chose to take the de Lacy surname and inherited the Baronetcy and properties Baronetcy and properties when Hugh died.

Gilbert de Lacy thus became the 4^th Baron de Lacy. He was born c1104 [1110?] in Ewyas Harold, Herefordshire, and died in 1163. He married Agnes [no surname or parentage known] in about 1132 and was succeeded by his son Hugh de Lacy. According to some sources it was Gilbert who recovered the family's lands [including Ewyas Lacy] from the Crown [Henry II] after Roger de Lacy's banishment.

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography describes an alternative view of this period and the succession, in that this Gilbert de Lacy may have been the son of the Roger de Lacy disinherited and banished in 1069, who had succeeded his father on the family's Norman estates of Lassy and Campeaux by 1133. He is said to have returned to England during the civil war between King Stephen and the Empress Maud and, profiting from the anarchy prevailing in the southern Marches, recovered most of his father's lands which had been given to Pain fitz John, Joce de Dinan and Miles of Gloucester after 1096. It is also said in this account that in 1158 or 1159 Gilbert de Lacy resigned his lands to his eldest son Robert [who was succeeded by his younger brother Hugh in 1162] and joined the Knights Templar, travelling first to France and then to Jerusalem which he reached in 1161 or 1162. He became preceptor of the Templars in 'the county of Tripoli', and in 1163 he is said to have been among the leaders of a Crusader army resisting Nur-ad-Din. The year of his death is not known in this account

  Noted events in his life were:

• Address: Ewyas Lacy, Longtown, Herefordshire.

Gilbert married Agnes.