defence was the Cippenham 'agreement' and Ferrers's failure to meet its terms. Ferrers argued that the 'agreement' was made under duress, but it was held that chancellor Chishall's presence at the signing gave it full legal validity. Ferrers's case was dismissed and, although in 1275, he was able to recover his manor at Chartley (but not the castle), it marked the end of the great position of what had been one of England's most powerful families. His final years were spent in the company of his family. His first wife, Mary, had died sometime between 1266 and 1269, and the marriage had been childless. He married (2nd) 26 June 1269 Eleanor, daughter of Humphrey de Bohun, Knt., of Kimbolton, Huntingdonshire, and Eleanor de Braose, and granddaughter of Humphrey de Bohun, 2nd Earl of Hereford. Until 1275, when he recovered Chartley, the family appeared to have lived on his mother's dower lands in Northamptonshire. The couple had two children: John born at Cardiff, Wales 20 June 1271 (who later became 1st Baron Ferrers of Chartley), and Eleanor, wife of Robert Fitz Walter, Knt., 1st Lord Fitz Walter. Sir Robert de Ferrers, sometime Earl of Derby, died shortly before 27 April 1279, and was buried at St Thomas's Priory at Stafford, in Staffordshire. In Michaelmas term 1279 his widow, Eleanor, sued Edmund the king's brother for dower in a third of Tutbury, Scropton, Rolleston, Marchington, Calyngewode, Uttoxeter, Adgeresley, and Newborough, Staffordshire, and Duffield, Spondon, Chatesdene, and nine other vills named in Derbyshire, as well as other prominent landowners including Henry de Grenley (see Grindlay family); Edmund appeared in court and stated he held nothing in Spondon or Chatesdene, and as regards the rest Eleanor had no claim to dower in them, because neither at the time Robert had married her nor any time afterwards had he been seised of them. About 1280, Eleanor petitioned the king for the restoration of the manor of Chartley, Staffordshire, stating it was part of the inheritance of her son, John de Ferrers, who is underage and in the king's keeping. In 1284 she sued Thomas de Bray in a plea regarding custody of the land and heir of William le Botiller. In 1286 a commission was appointed by the king to investigate the persons who hunted and carried away deer and felled and carried away trees in the park of Eleanor late the wife of Robert