Robert Fitzwalter[c] (died 9 December 1235)[a] was one of the leaders of the baronial opposition against King John, and one of the twenty-five sureties of Magna Carta.

[4] Fitzwalter continued, however, to take the lead in the baronial agitation against the king, and upon the outbreak of hostilities in 1215 was elected "Marshal of the Army of God and Holy Church".

He was one of the twenty-five barons appointed to enforce the promises of Magna Carta, and his aggressive attitude was one of the causes which contributed to the revival of civil war later in 1215.

[7] His paternal grandfather was Richard fitz Gilbert's son Robert Fitz Richard, steward of Henry I, to whom the king had granted the lordship of Dunmow and of the honour or soke of Baynard's Castle in the southwest angle of the City of London, to which the hereditary office of castellain and chief banneret of the City of London was annexed, both of which had become forfeited to the crown by William Baynard.

The house of Fitzwalter's possession of the soke of Baynard's Castle, which grew into an ordinary ward, brought it into intimate relations with the Londoners.

A possible early record of him is a mention of a knight named "Robert Fitzwalter" at a tournament in Henry the Young King's retinue in 1180 at Lagny-sur-Marne.

This Sir Walter Fitzwalter (also known as Fitz Robert) of Dunmow Castle (c. 1222–1258), married to Ida Longespée,[d] must have been either a younger son or a grandson.

[7] His lands were mainly situated in the north, so that his interests now became close to those of a faction called the "Aquilonares", whom he would later lead in the struggle against King John.

He withdrew this suit for a time, and in August 1202 King John made Fitzwalter warden of Hertford Castle by royal letters patent, releasing him from his family's debts to Jewish moneylenders as well.

[14] After Easter King Philip II Augustus of France took the field, and despite being well fortified and supplied, the governors of Vaudreuil surrendered at the first summons.

[13][7] The misgovernment of John provoked Fitzwalter's profound resentment, and in 1212 he entered into intrigues with Eustace de Vesci and the Welsh prince Llewelyn ab Iorwerth against the king.

His suspicions that his barons were plotting to capture him were aroused by private intelligence, and he turned back to London with his foreign mercenaries, disbanding his regular forces.

[16] On 13 May 1213 John promised peace and security to him as part of the conditions of his reconciliation with Rome, and on 27 May issued letters patent informing him that he might safely come to England.

John also granted a hundred marks to his steward as compensation, and directed a general inquest into his losses like those made in the case of the clerks who had suffered by the interdict.

In August 1213, he was at St Paul's Cathedral in London when Archbishop Langton read a charter signed by Henry I and announced that services could be conducted ahead of the lifting of the interdict on England.

Fitzwalter and the Earl of Essex specially busied themselves with repairing the walls of London, using for the purpose the stones taken from the demolished houses of the Jews.

[4][19][20] In its final draft Magna Carta contained a clause prohibiting sentences of exile, except as the result of a lawful trial, which refers more particularly to Fitzwalter's case.

But the pope's annulling the charter had paralysed the clerical supporters of the popular side, and the thoroughgoing policy of the twenty-five under Fitzwalter's guidance had alienated of the more moderate men.

John's troops soon approached, and strove, by burning Rochester bridge and occupying the left bank of the way, to cut off Fitzwalter from his London confederates.

But Fitzwalter succeeded keeping his position, though before long he was forced on 11 October to retreat to London, allow the royalists to occupy the town besiege the castle.

[19] Fitzwalter went over to France with the Earl of Winchester and offered the throne to Louis, the son of King Philip, putting into his hands twenty-four hostages and assuring him of the support of their party.

Louis landed in May, and as John made great progress in the east, Fitzwalter busied himself in compelling Essex and Suffolk, his own counties, to accept the foreign king.

[19] He was sent from London on 30 April 1217 at the head of a strong French force to raise the siege of Mountsorrel in Leicestershire, now closely pressed by the Earl of Chester.

[19] Later in the year 1218 Fitzwalter witnessed the undertaking that the Great Seal of England was to be affixed to no letters patent or charters until the king came of age.

He departed from Genoa in August, shortly after the main force of the crusade left Brindisi, and arrived in Acre some time in September.

A picturesque tale, first found in the manuscript chronicle of Dunmow, tells how Fitzwalter had a very beautiful daughter named Matilda, who indignantly rejected the immoral advances of King John.

At last, as the maiden proved obdurate, John caused her to be poisoned, so that the bitterest sense of personal wrong drove Fitzwalter to take up the part of a constitutional leader.

So generally was the story believed that an alabaster figure on a grey altar-tomb in Priory Church, Little Dunmow is still sometimes pointed out as the effigy of the unfortunate Matilda.

Such are the 1601 plays by Henry Chettle and Anthony Munday called The Downfall of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon, afterwards called Robin Hood, with his Love to Chaste Matilda, the Lord Fitzwater's daughter, afterwards his faire Maid Marian, and The Death of Robin Hood with the lamentable Tragedy of Chaste Matilda, his faire Maid Marian, poisoned at Dunmowe by King John.

Michael Drayton also published in 1594 a poetical account, called Matilda, the faire and chaste Daughter of the Lord Robert Fitzwalter, as well as two letters in verse, purporting to be written between her and King John.