Wikipedia:Peer review/William de Ros, 6th Baron de Ros/archive1

William de Ros, 6th Baron de Ros

Here's an interesting character, who was, arguably, a Lancastrian before there was a House of Lancaster. Took an active part in the 1399 revolution, but seems generally to have worked hard and been a bit of a goody two shoes...I hope the article is more interesting than I've made him sound! All comments and suggestions welcome. Thank you all! ——SerialNumber54129 08:48, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Comments from KJP1

Herewith batch 1. Not my period, so it'll mainly be prose/comprehension rather than critiquing the comprehensiveness, source coverage etc.

Lead

• "Henry Bolingbroke, Earl of Derby, and exiled him" - Wikipedia tells me he was Duke of Hereford from 1397 and I wonder if he should have the senior title? Whichever, the sentence should certainly conclude with a .

Indeed, his senior title was Duke of Lancaster, so I've added that and linked; also fully stopped the sentence.

• "Richard's support deserted him," - "supporters"?

Mmmm...In this context, it means support generally (towns, boroughs, the church etc.) rather than individuals?

• "as well as wardships and their marriages" - not clear to me. The right to arrange the marriages of his wards?

Absolutely. Rephrased.

• "near-penury" - is this hyphenated?

No longer.

• "the tumultuous regional conflicts and feuds that plagued the period" - this reads a little oddly to me. "that were common/rife at the time/in this era"?

Thanks, used.

• "Partly because of de Ros' restraint in not seeking severe penalties, de Ros has been described by one twentieth-century historian as being a particularly wise and forbearing figure of the period." - to avoid the double "de Ros", I'd replace the second with "he". And "of the period" also doesn't quite work. "for his times"?

Agree both.

• "played only a minor role in government in his last years" - "year", given that he died only a year after Henry?

Done.

Background

• "in the Lincolnshire and southern Yorkshire region" - one region or two?

Changed to the broader "were an important family in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire" (see below).

Inheritance and marriage

• "he received livery of them in January 1384" - I appreciate you give the link but I think a footnote would help the non-specialist reader. Same applies to "received seisin of his estates" in the next para. and "Oyer and Terminer arrays" in the final para. of this section.

Added footnoted explanations of those three terms.

• "based around Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, and eastern Yorkshire" - this was southern Yorkshire in the para. above.

Indeed! So I got rid of "southern"; the estates were primarily in the East Riding, so the latter is correct, and southern...is not.

• "Through his wife then, de Ros had a useful connection to the Crown" - this would seem to contradict the statement on his marriage in the lead, "this may have soured Richard's opinion of the young de Ros".

Suggest "...de Ros had what may have appeared to have been a useful connection".

• "suggested that de Ros' may not have been doing as well " and "and so de Ros' having married" - no apostrophes, unless the second is "and so (his) marriage..."

De-apostrophised.

• "until the accession of Arundel's political compadre" - odd term, in the context. "ally"?

Done.

Regime change

• I found the opening a tad confusing. John of Gaunt appears in the first sentence, but his connection to the story's not explained till the second. Then, I know from the lead that Bolingbroke's been exiled but that isn't explained here. I think it needs a little expansion.

I've reworded this substantially, and added a little more detail on the chronology; I avoided doing that originally so as not to distract from de Ros himself, but your suggestion is good. Done.

• "De Ros motives" - here we need the apostrophe discarded above.

Ha!

• "de Ros need not have had a personal grievance against Richard. He could well have felt generally aggrieved by Richard's poor treatment of Gaunt and Bolingbroke, and de Ros' lack of promotion under Richard" - not getting this. Surely his lack of promotion would have been a personal grievance?

Indeed. I'm not sure the "need not, etc" was particularly helpful, so I've removed it and I don't think it reads the worse for it.

• "two of Gaunt's knight bannerets" - way above my paygrade, but I'd hazard "knights banneret"?
• "an uplift in de Ros's fortunes" - up to this point, you've used the de Ros' style.

Standardised.

• "who later died in prison by unknown causes" - "from"?

Agre, and added where.

Batch 2

Local administration

• accompannied him on his inavsion up to the October 1399 parliament: they included two earls, three barns" (note 4) - typos x 3.

Typos sorted.

• "He also condemned am unnamed crown minister" - "an".

Done.

• "Henry despatched de Roos and the Chancellor, Henry Beaufort, to the commons" - one of a couple of instances where you use de Roos, rather than your preferred de Ros and you need to decide whether Commons is capitalised or not.

Both standardised.

• "de Ros was appointed Lord Treasurer.This, says Ross," - needs a space to start the new sentence.

Spaced...

• "probably because of connection to Grey" - "probably because of his connection to Grey"?

Added.

Royal favour

• "and Master Forester of the same honour" - not sure the linking of "honour" explains the meaning in this context. I'm assuming it's something like, Constable and Master Forester of the "estate" of Pickering Castle?

Indeed, and it rather complicates things; so, just "...the lucrative positions of Master Forester and Constable of Pickering Castle"

• "De Ros also paid £2,000 for the right to sell Audley's heir's marriage" - see "wardships and their marriages" above. Is he selling the marriage, or the right to arrange the marriage? How do you sell a marriage?
• "—from which de Ros was to accrue this amount had been severely overvalued, as the amount he was charged for the young Audley's wedding was quickly halved.[58][note 6]" - aside from the missing hyphen, I'm not getting this, or the note. I'm just not at all clear what is being discussed here.
• "councillor" / "counsellor" - what's it to be?

No-one knows! In The King’s Two Bodies, Kantorowicz, on Henry VI’s council, described consilium as meaning both counsel and council, and therefore as being better off "left untranslated". The discussion was not particularly relevant to his study, but it illustrates the potential confusion of the nomenclature, which contemporaries used interchangeably.

• "guilty of Lollardy" - heresy? Though you'd need to change/drop its use in the next sentence.

"...the Lollard heresy"? To keep the link.

• "had a personal antipathy for the sect" (note 7) - "against"?

Done.

Dispute with Robert Tirwhit

(I changed the header to reflect that it's not all about Tirwhit)

• "who ordered a Loveday arranged" - again, you've given the link but it's so obscure I think a fuller explanation in the text, or at least a footnote, is required.

Fn added.

Later years and death

• "Said two of the King's recent biographers" - odd construction. "A. L. Brown and Henry Summerson, two of the King's recent biographers, note that, ..."

Nicked. Thanks!

• "with the proviso that where ever he didn't die should not lose out on a handsome request each" - perhaps, "with the proviso that those locations at which he didn't die should nevertheless receive bequests"?

Ditto.

• "He was, after all, a wealthy man" - is "after all" necessary?

No, gone.

• "His heir, John, had been born in 1397, so was still legally a minor when his father died." - not great on comma placements but pretty sure these aren't quite right.

H'mm; I'm afraid I couldn't quite see this?

• "Although still a minor" - you've told us this in the line above.

Removed.

• "William de Ros' second son Thomas was only fourteen on John's death, but fought for Thomas, Earl of Salisbury at the Siege of Orléans" - chronology seems out of kilter here. Both Thomas and John fought at Orleans.

Indeed—it was the battles that were wrong; Orleans was seven years after Baugé!

Family and bequests

• "His second son Robert" - but Thomas has been called his second son in the para. above?

Well spotted. Adjusted.

• "Margaret was likewise not forgotten" - I'm assuming this is Margaret his wife, not Margaret his daughter?

Clarified!

• "His poor, his servants, and his tenants all received £100 each between them" - is that £100 each poor, servant and tenant, or shared. Or is it £100 to the poor, £100 to the servants and £100 to the tenants, split each time? Just as an observation - the BoE calculator gives the value of £100 in 1314 as £100,000 today. That really is a colossal bequest. How many poor, servants and tenants did he have that he could give that much to each? As I've said, this isn't my period but that sounds implausible.

It's a £100 for each group and then divided up. Well; it does note "immense" sums. I don't use the BoE thing, it seems to think that inflation acted the same in 1400 as it does today. I guess it's probably OK for anything this side of the South Sea Bubble. Having said that—implausible? Remember that these people were the Dukes of Westminster of their day, to varying degrees. A skilled labourer could earn 1 or 2/- a day; so what about de Ros, who was probably on £1K p.a.? (The 1436 tax was well-known to have been flawed—no-one apart from the lower ranks was assessed at their full wealth. plus ça change...)

Bibliography

• ISBNs - a mix of styles, 10 and 13-digit, hyphenated and not.

All hyphenated, all 3-1-5-3-1

• G. L. Harriss - does he have a double "s"? And "Clarendon Press".

Yes, tis G. L. Harriss. Done!

• P. R. O. (1910). Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1413–1418 (1st ed.). London: H. M. S. O. - is this how we do Public Record Office and HMSO?

I admit I don't know; assuming I'm wrong, I've removed the spaces?

• Payling, S. J. (1987). "Law and Arbitration in Nottinghamshire, 1399–1461". In Rosenthal J. T.Richmond C. - semi-colon after Rosenthal J. T.?

Yes, the source code needed reformatting. Done.

Well, I'm now much better informed on the noble lord's doings. Hope these, very general, comments are of some use. Look forward to seeing it at FAC. KJP1 (talk) 22:47, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks very much KJP1, greatly appreciated! I've made a start on your suggestions and am about halfway through. I'll give you a buzz when I'm done if that's OK? Have a good weekend, ——SerialNumber54129 20:31, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Sure - whenever suits, I don't need to check them, it's not prep! You have a good weekend too. KJP1 (talk) 21:58, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Heh  :) Thanks very much. Not so much to "check" them, but there's a few points you might like to respond to. Or not, as the case may be!

Thanks again for the detailed commentary KJP1—yes, hopefully FAC is the end-result; how long should I wait, do you think? (In case this receives little more traction). ——SerialNumber54129 18:04, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Indeed! Sorry, didn't mean to be short there. I shall certainly give it a further once-over. Re. the 100K bequests, £100 to each group then subdivided, makes much more sense. The Duke of Westminster of his day he may have been, but I rather doubt the present DoW would dole out 100K per servant as a bequest! That's not the way you become the richest peer in England. As to when to push to FAC, I think whenever you feel it's ready. It is tricky if it doesn't generate that much by way of response, but it might be it generates plenty of interest at FAC. I've experienced that myself, I don't know why it should be. KJP1 (talk) 18:14, 25 November 2018 (UTC)