Robert Fitzwalter - Later Life

Later Life

Later in the year 1218 Fitzwalter witnessed the undertaking that the Great Seal of England was to be affixed to no letters patent or charters until the king came of age. But the Fifth Crusade must have offered a convenient opportunity to him and others. In 1219 he sailed for the Holy Land along with Earl Saer of Winchester and Earl William d'Aubigny of Arundel. He departed from Genoa in August, shortly after the main force of the crusade left Brindisi, and arrived in Acre some time in September. Before he arrived the crusading host had been diverted to the siege of Damietta. There he seems to have arrived along with Saer de Quincy and other English crusaders, at the same time as the cardinal legate Pelagius in the autumn of 1219. Saer de Quincy died on 3 November. This date makes impossible the statement of Walter of Coventry that they only arrived after Damietta had been captured. The town fell into the crusaders' hands on 6 November. Fitzwalter, therefore, though he is not mentioned, must have taken part in the latter part of the siege.

The crusaders remained in Egypt until August 1221. But Fitzwalter had gone home sick, probably at some earlier period. He spent the rest of his life peaceably in England, thoroughly reconciled to the government of Henry III. He must have by this time become well advanced in years. On 11 February 1225 Fitzwalter was one of the witnesses of Henry III's third confirmation of the great charter. In June 1230 he was one of those assigned to hold the assize of arms in Essex and Hertfordshire. According to Matthew Paris, he died on 9 December 1235, and was buried before the high altar at Priory Church in Little Dunmow. Administration of his goods and chattels was granted to his executors on 16 December 1235. He was described by Paris as a "noble baron, illustrious by his birth, and renowned for his martial deeds".