Director of finance

On 7 July (yes I know it's the 6 today, but nothing happened on the 6, so bollocks to the 6) 1298, Edward I was at Redpath on the Scottish border. No doubt that man William Wallace was uppermost in his thoughts, but a king always had other demands on his time. On that day he appointed Robert Clifford to the custody of Nottingham Castle, previously in the keeping of Robert Tibetot or Tiptoft, now deceased.

Edward may have regretted Tibetot's unavoidable absence from the Falkirk campaign. He was a useful soldier who almost single-handedly paid for the king's war in West Wales in 1282 out of his own pocket. Less usefully, he later aggravated a personal feud with Rhys ap Maredudd, lord of Ystrad Tywi, which resulted in Rhys's downfall and the end of the ancient House of Dinefwr. Edward himself did his best to prevent the feud, so the final conquest of Cantref Mawr was more or less the consequence of a private disagreement between two aristocrats.

In 1294 Tibetot was packed off to Gascony, where he did sterling work as 'director of finance' and killed lots of Frenchmen. He also sealed a useful marriage alliance for his son with the daughter of a rich nobleman of Bayonne. He died shortly after his return to Wales in 1297.