Thomas de Ros, 10th Baron de Ros

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Thomas de Ros, 10th Baron de Ros (September 9, 1427 – May 17, 1464) was a follower of the House of Lancaster during the Wars of the Roses.

[edit] Family

He was the eldest son of Thomas de Ros, 9th Baron de Ros and Eleanor Beauchamp. His mother was daughter of Richard de Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick and his first wife Elizabeth Berkeley. Eleanor was an older half-sister of Henry de Beauchamp, 1st Duke of Warwick and Anne Neville, Countess of Warwick.

Thomas himself was an older maternal half-brother to Henry Beaufort, 3rd Duke of Somerset and Edmund Beaufort, 4th Duke of Somerset.

[edit] Career

As a loyal supporter of King Henry VI of England, de Ros was attainted in Parliament on November 4, 1461. He was later beheaded at Newcastle for treason, and the Ros lands were confiscated. Belvoir Castle was given to Lord Hastings.

In February 1461, he had been one of the knights made at the second Battle of St Albans by Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales. Thomas had inherited the barony of de Ros when he was barely four years old. His great uncle, Sir Robert Ros, knight, was deputed to perform the office of chamberlain to Archbishop Stafford, on the day of his installation at Canterbury; this office belonged to the Lord Ros, from his tenure of the manor of Hethfield, in Kent. The fee for this service was the furniture of the room, and the basin and towel. The manor, and tenure on which it was held, came to the Ros family, from the marriage of an ancestor with Margaret Badlesmere.

Thomas Lord Ros was only eighteen years of age when put by the king into full possession of his father's estates. Having been faithful to Henry VI throughout his reign, he was rewarded with certain commercial privileges, consisting, chiefly, in an entire remission of the customary duties on exported wool. In 1456, he had permission to go on a pilgrimage, and in 1460, the king settled on him, as in part, a recompense for the expenses and losses incurred in his service, an annuity of £40, arising out of certain manors forfeited by the Earl of Salisbury. In the same year, being with king at York when news arrived of the Lancastrian defeat at the Battle of Towton, he accompanied Henry to Berwick.