The Umfraville family were Anglo-Norman landowners, administrators and soldiers who were prominent from about 1120 to 1437 on the northern border of England, where they held the strategic lordships of Prudhoe and Redesdale in Northumberland.

The split loyalties between the Kings of Scotland and the Kings of England meant the family frequently found itself as unsettled as the border and this came to a head during the Wars of Scottish Independence where they fought for both Scotland and England at various points of the conflict (as did the de Brus family).

The first historical member of the family, he held the lordships of Prudhoe and Redesdale[3] for King Henry I in England and also acquired interests in Scotland.

[2] Succeeding his presumed father Gilbert I after 1175, he had been raised in Scotland, initially serving in the household of King William I.

At his death in 1182 his estates in Northumberland alone were valued at nearly £60 a year and other English lands in Yorkshire, Suffolk, and Rutland may have doubled that, making him a wealthy magnate.

By 1216 he joined the rebels fighting John and his lands were forfeit, though he later made peace with the government of King Henry III.

After she died, in 1243 he married Maud, widow of John Comyn and daughter of Malcolm, Earl of Angus, who was the mother of his only son, Gilbert III.

[2] Succeeding his father Gilbert II in 1245 while still an infant, he married Elizabeth, daughter of Alexander Comyn, Earl of Buchan and their second son was Robert III.