Remarks:
Lord of Skelton and Danby in Cleveland, Yorkshire. After Robert Malet was disinherited and banished by the king, for adhering to Robert Curthose, the whole of the Skelton and Guisborough manors were bestowed on Robert de Brus, the son of the original settler at Skelton. Indeed, he seems to have been a great man, and the intimate friend of David, King of Scotland, who gave him the lordship of Annandale, and other large possessions therein. He founded the monastery of St. Augustine at Guisborough, at the advice of Pope Calixtus and Archbishop Thurstan; and when the King of Scotland invaded England, he, with his son Adam, joined the northern barons, and marched to Northallerton, where the Scots were encamped, and the English army already drawn up for battle, their standard a gigantic cross reared on a wagon, and Archbishop Thurstan and his clergy with crosses, banners, and relics of saints, urging them to defend the Church of Christ against that barbarous people. Being Òa very aged person, exceeding wealthy, likewise of grave deportment and singular elocution,Ó he essayed the part of the peacemaker, first haranguing the English, and then crossing over and making such an earnest appeal to the Scottish king that he was melted to tears. Indeed, he would have persuaded him, had not the king' s nephew, Òa person of extraordinary courage, and the chief instigator of this invasion,Ó come in, and Òin great fury, charging Robert de Brus with treachery, dissuaded the king from hearkening to him.Ó Whereupon, returning with Òsorrow to the English host, preparation was suddenly made for the battle,Ó which forthwith ensuing, the English obtained a glorious victory, known in history as the battle of the Standard.
The old man died three years afterwards, 1141, leaving, by his wife Agnes, daughter of Fulk de Paganell, two sons, Adam, to whom he bequeathed his great English estates at Skelton and elsewhere, and Robert, who became lord of Annandale, as his father's heir, and the founder of the great house of Bruce, in Scotland.
He had a grant of Skelton from Henry I in 1106, and exchanged other lands for Danby, in Cleveland. He renounced his allegiance to Scotland and resigned his Scottish lands to his younger son, Robert, before the battle of the Standard.,