Talk:William FitzAlan, Lord of Oswestry

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Merged page[edit]

I started this page in order to merge two existing pages on William. I took the liberty of changing the name to the the most common variant, which brings it in line with the earls of Arundel, who were his most illustrious descendants. It also makes little sense to double the l here while leaving his father as Alan fitz Flaad. I also eliminated the bibliography, as all the works named in it also appear in the references.

I'm sure there will still be dissenters, but I hope the fresh start at least creates a useful starting point for future elaboration, eliminating the very great overlap and the few but notable disagreements between the two original pages. Sjwells53 (talk) 16:55, 9 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well done. Clear and thorough.

Is it suitable to mention him in literature, like Ellis Peters series, particularly One Corpse Too Many? The incident of the siege and the hangings at Shrewsbury Castle is what started the author on that story. He is a background character in twp other stories in the series, with his agents sent into Shrewsbury for various missions. The vacancy let the author introduce a lively fictional sheriff. Did other authors mention him? Prairieplant (talk) 05:47, 10 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Tags[edit]

Why does this now have baronet tags? Surely he wasn't one. I'll delete unless a plausible explanation is added. Sjwells53 (talk) 10:34, 12 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Do you mean the Peer and Baronetage category? His title is lord of Oswestry; is that not the nobility, the peerage? He is not specified as a baron. --Prairieplant (talk) 14:33, 13 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

No, he's tagged as a subject for a baronetage working group. Baronetage has a number of usages, but he pre-dates all of them, so far as I can see. He was a baron in the loose 12th century sense. There was no House of Lords, so he couldn't be a member of it, nor a noble excluded from it, the original sense of baronet. He doesn't fit the later sense of holding a sort of hereditary knighthood either. Sjwells53 (talk) 15:59, 13 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The second section of the article is titled Baron and rebel. Someone thinks he was a baron, and he married well, eventually giving rise to the Earls of Arundel. If the working group wants to look at a person in the 12th century, are they not allowed to do so? I ask this question, not knowing how one specific article comes to the attention of a working group.

When does the term Baron come into the use familiar to you? In the Ellis Peters series of Cadfael novels, set during the Anarchy, the powerful men are often called barons, which bit of historical lore I thought might be trustworthy. Is it? --Prairieplant (talk) 20:23, 14 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The working group concerned isn't about barons, but baronets. Sjwells53 (talk) 21:38, 14 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]