Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 58.djvu/30

Umfraville like the other Scottish earldoms (, Celtic Scotland, iii. 289–90). Malcolm's possessions and earldom passed to Matilda during the lifetime of her first husband, John Comyn, who was styled Earl of Angus. Comyn died in 1242, and in 1243 Matilda married the elder Umfraville, who died in April 1245.

Gilbert the younger was therefore born about 1244. The wardship of the young heir was entrusted by Henry III to Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester (, Hist. Major, iv. 415). Simon is said to have paid a thousand marks for it, and to have made no scruple in utilising its revenues for his own purposes (ib. v. 209–10). Umfraville's relation to the Earl of Leicester accounts for his taking the popular side during the barons' wars, but he did not come of age until towards their conclusion, and then his policy changed. Before Evesham he was fighting with John de Baliol's northern army against the barons. In a charter dated 1267 he is styled ‘Earl of Angus, and not before,’ adds Dugdale, ‘that I have seen’ (Baronage, i. 505). In writs, especially in summonses to the host, from 1277 onwards he is generally called Earl of Angus (Parl. Writs. i. 876–7), and he was summoned to the Shrewsbury parliament of 1283 by that title. The peaceful relations between England and Scotland before 1290 made it easy for Umfraville to enter into effective possession of the Angus dignity and estates, and he appears as actual possessor of Dundee, Forfar, and other chief places in Angus.

In March 1290 Angus was at the Scottish parliament of Brigham, which agreed to ratify the treaty of Salisbury for the marriage of the Maid of Norway with Edward, the king's son (Hist. Doc. Scotl. i. 129). In May 1291 he was at the council of magnates at Norham (Annales Regni Scotiæ in, p. 253), where, though he accepted Edward's arbitration and overlordship, he scrupled to surrender the Angus castles of Dundee and Forfar into the English king's hands. However, on 10 June Edward and the chief competitors pledged themselves to indemnify him for their surrender (Fœdera, i. 756), and on 13 June Umfraville did homage to Edward as king of Scots. He was soon made governor of the surrendered castles and of all Angus. Next year (1292) Angus was at Berwick, and accepted the sentence that made John Baliol king of Scots (Annales Regni Scotiæ, pp. 263, 358). In 1293 he witnessed Balliol's agreement with England as to his hereditary English lands (Rot. Parl. i. 115 b). In 1294 he was sent to Gascony against the French, and in 1295 and 1296 was summoned to parliament as simple ‘Gilbert of Umfraville.’ When John Balliol broke with Edward, Angus adhered to the English side. He attended Edward during his victorious tour through Scotland in the summer of 1296, being at Montrose on 10 July, and in August at Berwick, attending a great council (Hist. Doc. Scotl. ii. 62, 65). There, on 22 Aug., his son, Gilbert de Umfraville, laid violent hands upon the king's servant, Hugh de Lowther, and was saved from the king's wrath only by Angus and other magnates acting as his manucaptors, and by giving full satisfaction to the injured Hugh (ib. ii. 81).

On 26 Jan. 1297 Umfraville was for the first time since 1283 summoned to parliament as Earl of Angus, a title given to him, his son, and grandson in all subsequent writs. It has been disputed in later times whether these summonses involved the creation of a new English earldom of Angus. That opinion is maintained by F. Townsend, Windsor herald, in ‘Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica,’ vii. 383; but the preponderance of opinion is rather towards the doctrine that, though allowed by courtesy the title of earl, the Umfravilles were really summoned as barons (Lords' Reports on the Dignity of a Peer, 1st Rep. p. 432, 3rd Rep. pp. 113–14;, Historic Peerage, ed. Courthope, pp. 24–5; , Complete Peerage, i. 92–3, which quotes some remarks of Mr. J. H. Round to the same effect.

Angus continued to support Edward in Scotland. In 1297 he was ordered to go himself or send his son with at least three hundred infantry to the army of invasion (Hist. Doc. Scotl. ii. 180), and on 1 Nov. received the king's thanks for his services (ib. ii. 241). In 1298 he served personally through the Falkirk campaign, attending the Whitsuntide parliament at York, and receiving on 28 May letters of protection till Christmas (, Scotland in 1298, pp. 30, 31, 96). On 21 July he was one of the two earls who announced to Edward the position of the Scots army in Selkirk forest, and thus enabled the king to make the dispositions which insured his victory (, ii. 177). In April 1299 he received letters of protection before a new official visit to Scotland (Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1292–1301, p. 402); but in July he was ordered to join a commission that met at York to deliberate as to the garrisoning of the Scottish fortresses (Cal. Doc. Scotl. ii. 379). The statements of the fifteenth-century chronicler John Hardyng, that he took Wallace prisoner, defeated Bruce in battle, and was regent of Scotland north of the Forth (Chron. pp. 301, 303), are the fictions of an over-loyal servitor