De VERDUN (de Verdon), Roesia (Rohese, Rose) (d. 1247), was the daughter and only surviving heir of Nicholas de Verdun, son and heir of Bertram de Verdun (qv). Already widowed at least twice, she came into her inheritance in October 1231 when she made a fine of 700 marks with the king to have her considerable estates in Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, Buckinghamshire, and Ireland, and for freedom to remarry (or not) as she pleased. In 1233 a further order was sent to the justiciar of Ireland to give her seisin of her Irish lands. Around 1235 she achieved a settlement in the long-standing family dispute with Hugh de Lacy (qv), earl of Ulster; de Lacy relinquished his claims to Louth on condition that those tenants that he had enfeoffed there were allowed continued possession. Though it is improbable that she ever visited Ireland, she took an active interest in the defence of her Irish lands, and initiated and completed the construction of Roche castle in Co. Louth, for which she received congratulations from Henry III (1236). Roesia was granted a lease on the king's manor of Louth in October 1241, and the following year she received respite from the king's general mandate to settle all waste lands in Ireland.
Around 1225 Roesia had married, as his second wife, Theobald Butler (qv), who died in Poitou on Henry III's campaign of 1230. They had one son, John (qv), who took the de Verdun name and inherited his mother's estates in Britain and Ireland following her death on 10 August 1247. Roesia was buried at the abbey of Grace Dieu in Leicestershire, which she previously founded (1242) for Austin canonesses.