William Windsor, Baron Windsor

Sir William de Windsor, Baron Windsor ( – 1384) was an English administrator who served as King's Lieutenant in Ireland.

Origins William was the son of Sir Alexander de Windsor of Grayrigg, Westmorland, and of Elizabeth (died August 1349), his wife. No connection has been proved between this family and that of the Windsors of Stanwell. He was of full age in 1349, and served in the French wars of Edward III.

Ireland Before 1369, Windsor had held a command in Ireland under Lionel of Antwerp, and claimed lands in Kinsale, Inchiquin, and Youghal. In that year he was appointed the King's Lieutenant in Ireland, and had a grant of a thousand marks a year. He at once set to work to reduce the Dublin border clans, but in 1370 had to leave them in order to attempt the rescue of the Earl of Desmond, who had been taken prisoner by the O'Briens.

To secure even partial order Windsor had been compelled to adopt measures of doubtful legality; at a parliament of 1369, failing to induce its members to promise new customs to the King, he extorted from the prelates, who met separately, a grant for three years, and afterwards had enrolment made in the chancery records that they were given in perpetuity to the Crown. The colonists appealed to Edward III, and, in answer to their petition, the King, on 10 September 1371, forbade Windsor, who had returned to England in March, to levy the sums for which he had exacted grants, ordered the enrolment to be erased, and on 20 October formally rebuked him for his extortions, which he bade him make good.

The mayor of Drogheda, arrested by Windsor's command, was released, and on 20 March 1373, an inquisition was held at Drogheda into Windsor's extortions in Meath and Uriel. Alice Perrers, who afterwards became Windsor's wife, had in 1369, when he first became Viceroy, received from him the amount destined for the expenses of his expedition and the payment of his men.

On Windsor's withdrawal from Ireland, anarchy broke out. Accordingly, on 20 September 1373 Edward reappointed him to the Viceroyalty. He was commanded to levy the grants formerly promised at Baldoyle and Kilkenny, and to cooperate with Sir Nicholas Dagworth.

In 1374, on the refusal of a parliament at Kilkenny to make a grant at Dagworth's request, Windsor issued writs bidding clergy and laity to elect representatives, finance them, and send them to England to consult Edward on an aid to be taken from Ireland. Meanwhile Newcastle, on the frontier of Wicklow, was taken by the Irish. The government sent help by sea to the garrison in the castle of Wicklow, but the council, meeting at Naas, forbade Windsor to move further south because it left the north in peril. Windsor could carry on the war only by levying forced subsidies of money and provisions.