Umfraville

Umfraville Family
Profile
Region	Lowlands, Northumberland
Chief
Robert de Umfraville
The Lord of Redesdale, Earl of Angus, Feudal Baron of Prudhoe
Seat	Harbottle Castle, Prudhoe Castle
Historic seat	Northumberland

The Umfraville family were Anglo-Norman landowners, administrators and soldiers who were prominent from about 1120 to 1437 on the northern border of England, where they held the strategic lordships of Prudhoe and Redesdale in Northumberland. They held, for the English Crown, Tynedale to the Cumbrian Border up to the border with Scotland.

It was in Scotland where the Umfravilles reached the pinnacle of their power. As a prominent border landowning family, it is likely that they were invited, along with dozens of other Anglo-Norman knights, administrators, and warlords to settle in Scotland by David I of Scotland as part of his policy of modernising Scotland by introducing feudalism, now known as the Davidian Revolution by historians. The Umfravilles, who were granted lands in Stirlingshire, were by the third generation established as members of Court and for three generations became Mormaer of Angus through marriage into the Scots-Gaelic aristocracy.

The split loyalties between the Kings of Scotland and the Kings of England meant the family frequently found itself as unsettled as the border and this came to a head during the Wars of Scottish Independence where they fought for both Scotland and England at various points of the conflict (as did the de Brus family).