Mary, wife of Ralph de Tony (d. 1295) revisited

[John P. Ravilious]

Thursday, 3 December, 2008


Hello All,

Recently I had raised the issue of the parentage of
Mary, wife of Ralph de Tony (d. 1295), and had suggested
that she was very possibly of the family of Ros of
Helmsley. One intriguing piece of evidence to the
contrary, on which the argument for a Brus parentage is
largely based, is the statement in the Complete Peerage
account that Mary's son Robert was born at ' Thornby [sic],
in Scotland ', presumed by many if not most to mean
Turnberry Castle, stronghold of the Bruce Earls of
Carrick [1].

I was fortunate in a recent fossick at the LOC to
gain access to the correct volume of Placita coram
Domino Rege which includes the 1297 testimony
concerning Robert de Tony's claim to be 'of age'. The
testimony of William de la Sale describes in detail
the fact that Robert de Tony was born on 4 April 1276,
"apud Thornby in Scocia" ['at Thornby in Scotland'],
and that his mother Mary brought Robert to Norfolk and
caused the priory of Westacre to record the facts of
Robert's birth in their records [2].

I discussed this with Andrew MacEwen, who stated
that this is good evidence, but that greater certainty
would be provided by seeing the original Latin
text. The text given in Placita coram Domino Rege
is extended, so that no abbreviations need be hurdled
by the present reader. Unfortunately, as Andrew
pointed out, a number of scribal marks (including
apostrophes) are sometimes overlooked by individuals in
the transcription process. It is possible that the
actual word in the text was "Thornb'y" or similar,
which would presumably have been an abbreviated form of
the 13th century version of 'Turnberry', but it is
also possible that the word in the original text was
simply 'Thornby' refering to a location other than
Turnberry in Ayrshire.

Short of being able to follow through and obtain
the actual document from 1297, I am inclined to agree
that Mary was probably a sister of Robert de Brus, Earl
of Carrick and of Richard de Brus (grantee of the lands
and marriage of Ralph de Tony, father of Robert). This
still leaves uncertain the reason for William de Ros
and his brother Robert apparently representing the
de Tony interest in the 1293 marriage contract. They
were 3rd cousins (via d'Aubigny of Belvoir) to Malise,
Earl of Strathearn, but I believe they were more
closely allied with de Tony. Finding the surname
and ancestry of Isabel, wife of William d'Aubigny of
Belvoir (d. 1242) and maternal grandmother of William
and Robert de Ros, will likely solve this riddle.

Cheers,

John


NOTES

[1] CP XII/I:773, sub _Tony_.

[2] Placita coram Domino Rege (1898), p. 242.



* John P. Ravilious