He entered royal service and was initially employed in Normandy as a paymaster of troops and director of military works, including those on Rouen Castle.

[6] Like other men of rank at the time, he was no doubt a good man of business, and had many money transactions with the Crown, accounting in 1197 for the term of the Honour of Tickhill in the West Riding.

He further gave him the castles of Bowes and Richmond, Yorkshire, and sold to him for a hundred marks the custody of the heirs, land, and widow of Hugh Gernegan, remitting to him a debt of the same amount.

[10] In that year he was also Bailiff of Caen and the Rumois, and the King by a writ addressed to John Marshal ordered that he should have the Lordship of Vieuxpont beforetime held by Robert, his uncle, then deceased.

The king gave him many marks of his favour; he was with John at Carrickfergus and Dublin in 1210, and, along with his brother Ivo, is reckoned among his evil counsellors in the list given by Roger of Wendover under 1211.

[13] In 1213 he received livery of all the lands of his late father-in-law, John de Builli or Buisli (died 1212), Lord of the Honour of Tickhill, and gave the King four palfreys that he might have a fair at his Lordship of Bawtry in the West Riding during four days in Whitsun week.

[15] In compliance with a summons from William Marshal (died 1219), as regent for Henry III, he joined the Earl of Chester at the siege of Mountsorrel Castle in April 1217, and on 20 May took part in the Battle of Lincoln.

He was one of the witnesses to the reissue of the Great Charter on 11 February 1225, was collector of the fifteenth in Westmoreland and the bishopric of Carlisle, and had the custody of the castles of Nottingham, Bolsover, and the Peak.

[21] He gave lands at Rockley in Wiltshire to the Templars,[22] and, by a charter dated 24 April 1210, Reagill and Milbourne Grange in Westmoreland to the Præmonstratensian abbey of Hepp or Shap in that county.