William de Lancaster I

His position survived the return of English rule under King Henry II, and his most important lordship, which had previously come together under Ivo de Taillebois, would evolve into what was eventually known as the barony of Kendal.

This was William de Lancaster, son of Gilbert by Godith his wife, described in the Inquest of service made in 1212 as "Willelmus filius Gilberti primus", that is, the first to be enfeoffed of that fee.

The latter two are sometimes apparently being interpreted as indicating possession for some time of at least part of what would become the Wapentake of Ewcross in the West Riding of Yorkshire.

The Mowbray connexion with Kentdale had come to an end upon the accession of Henry II, who placed Hugh de Morevill in possession of Westmarieland in return, possibly, for past services and in pursuance of the policy of planting his favourites in regions of great strategic importance.

Such proposals are based on his transaction with his cousin Gospatrick son of Orme, whereby castle service at Egremont was due to William for Workington.

(This is also the reason for the frequent assertion that William held the entire wapentake of Ewcross, even though it seems that the family of Roger de Mowbray kept hold of at least Burton in Kendal.

The 12th-century annalist Peter of Blois related that Ivo's "only daughter, who had been nobly espoused, died before her father; for that evil shoots should not fix deep roots in the world, the accursed lineage of that wicked man perished by the axe of the Almighty, which cut off all his issue."

[13] In a 1212 Curia Regis Roll entry, William's granddaughter Helewise de Lancaster and her husband refer to "Ketel filius Eutret" as her "antecessor", a term that could mean literal ancestor, or simply a predecessor more generally.

A grant to St Leonard's York by William refers to Ketel, the son of "Elred", as his avunculus (maternal uncle).

Noting that avunculus was sometimes used imprecisely for a paternal uncle, Frederick Ragg proposed that Gilbert was the brother of Ketel, and hence son rather than grandson of Eldred[15] However, George Washington and George Andrews Moriarty instead viewed Ketel as maternal uncle to William, brother to Gilbert's wife Godith.

Moriarty suggested that Christina, Ketel's wife, may have been a relative of Ivo de Taillebois such as the unnamed daughter mentioned by Peter of Blois.

For example, Katherine Keats-Rohan accepted Godith as Ketel's sister, but proposed their mother to be Beatrix, through a marriage to Eldred of which no contemporary record has been found.

He died without male heirs, heavily indebted, apparently due to payments demanded after he was captured at Rochester during the First Barons' War.