Ralph Fitzwilliam (c. 1256 – 11 February 1317), or Ralph, son of William de Grimthorpe, Lord of Greystoke, was a feudal baron with extensive landholdings in the North of England, representative of a manorial lordship seated where Grimthorpe Hill rises to commanding views a mile to the north of Pocklington in the Yorkshire Wolds. He gave sustained military service and leadership through the Scottish and Welsh campaigns of Edward I and was summoned to parliament from 1295 to 1315. His marriage in c. 1282 brought him other manors including Morpeth in Northumberland and its appurtenances. In 1297 he was enfeoffed as tenant-in-chief (feudal lord) of the entire barony of Greystoke, seated at Greystoke in Cumberland but with Yorkshire estates, through his matrilineal Greystok descent. He entered upon these in his own right in 1306. Having served in the retinue of Aymer de Valence, during the first decade of Edward II's reign he remained dependable as a military leader and royal lieutenant in the defence administration of the northern counties and Scottish marches. His descendants adopted the Greystoke name, and their inheritance continued in the male line until the end of the 15th century. Family background Ralph Fitzwilliam was born probably in 1256, for he is described as being 40 years old and more in 24 Edward I. He was the son of William FitzRalph, lord of Grimthorpe, Great Givendale, in the soke of Pocklington, in the Yorkshire Wolds. William his father was the son of an elder Ralph Fitz William. Their paternal ancestry is traced to one Ulf, possibly that notable son of Thorald who built the church of Aldbrough in Holderness. By a marriage in a subsequent generation they appear to have descended from Emma the daughter of Waldef, Lord of Neasham, and (before 1157) founding patron of the Priory of St Mary at Neasham, a small nunnery in the parish of Hurworth-on-Tees, near Darlington, County Durham. Opinions have differed as to whether Joan de Greystok, daughter of Thomas de Greystok of Greystoke in Cumberland, was the mother or the grandmother of Ralph Fitzwilliam. In either case, that descent bore heavily upon his fortunes. William Dugdale, in his Baronage (following an earlier source), calls Ralph "the Son of William Fitz-Ralph, (Lord of Grimethorpe, in Com. Ebor.) Son of Ioane, Aunt to him the said Iohn" [i.e. Greystok], a formula which leaves room for confusion. The Fine rolls for 1268–1269