William FitzAlan was a Norman nobleman who lived in

Oswestry Oswestry ( ; ) is a market town, civil parish and historic railway town in Shropshire, England, close to the England–Wales border, Welsh border. It is at the junction of the A5 road (Great Britain), A5, A483 road, A483 and A495 road, A495 ro ...

and

Clun Clun is a town in south west Shropshire, England, and the Shropshire Hills AONB, Shropshire Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The 2011 United Kingdom census, census recorded 680 people living in the town.Combined populations for the t ...

near

Shrewsbury Shrewsbury ( , ) is a market town and civil parish in Shropshire (district), Shropshire, England. It is sited on the River Severn, northwest of Wolverhampton, west of Telford, southeast of Wrexham and north of Hereford. At the 2021 United ...

, along the medieval

Welsh Marches The Welsh Marches () is an imprecisely defined area along the border between England and Wales in the United Kingdom. The precise meaning of the term has varied at different periods. The English term Welsh March (in Medieval Latin ''Marchia W ...

. William was the son of William FitzAlan, controlling the castles of

and

and later became the

High Sheriff of Shropshire This is a list of sheriffs and high sheriffs of Shropshire The high sheriff, sheriff is the oldest secular office under the Crown. Formerly the high sheriff was the principal law enforcement officer in the county but over the centuries most of t ...

. Many people today will often confuse William with his father, as their death dates are similar by 5 years. Because of this, it is important to know that this William was married to Mary Erington, the daughter of Thomas. William's father William (d. 1210) married the daughter of Hugh de Lacy, whose name is never mentioned in any documents. When William came to inherit his lands in 1210, King John demanded a fee of 10,000 marks; unable to pay, William was unable to inherit. He only outlived his father by a few years, dying around Easter 1215. The estates were eventually reclaimed by his younger brother John Fitzalan.Eyton, p.45.

Bibliography

* Burke, John. (1831) ''A General and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerages of England, Ireland, and Scotland.'' London: Colburn and Bentley. * Eyton, William. (1862) "The Castles of Shropshire and its Border." in ''Collectanea Archæologica: communications made to the British Archaeological Association'' Vol. 1. London: Longman. * Mackenzie, James D. (1896) ''The Castles of England: Their Story and Structure, Vol II.'' New York: Macmillan. * Antiquities of Shropshire, vol. 3, By Robert W. Eyton (1856). p. 11 * Antiquities of Shropshire, vol. 5, By Robert W. Eyton (1857). p. 86 Antiquities of Shropshire, vol. 7, By Robert W. Eyton (1858). * p. 242 Antiquities of Shropshire, vol. 10, By Robert W. Eyton (1860). p. 126 * Complete Peerage XII (2) p. 168 fn. g

References

{{reflist, 3 Anglo-Normans 12th-century births High sheriffs of Shropshire 1215 deaths