Although he had attained his majority at the death of his father, he did not get full possession of the earldom until four years later, when he was girt with the Sword of Knighthood; this took place at Gloucester where the King was spending Whitsuntide.
He inherited his uncle's (Henry D'Oili) Oxfordshire estate and owned the Manor of Bewdley, Worcester and rendered service for it, of a fully equipped archer for twenty days, as often as there was war against the Welsh.
In 1241, he paid one hundred and eighty marks scutage in order that he might be excused attendance on Henry III of England in the expedition to Gascony.
At the coronation of Eleanor of Provence, the Queen Consort of Henry III, on 26 June 1236 he bore the third Sword of State, claiming that it was his hereditary right to do so.
Amongst Ela's benefactions were grants to the monks at Reading, Berkshire, the Canons of Osney, Oxfordshire, St Sepulchre's, Warwick, the grey friars in London, and the Nuns of Godstow, Oxford.