On the death of Guy II., last duke of the house of la Roche, in 1308, the duchy passed to his cousin, Walter of Brienne.
He received his education first at La Roche, in the Arve valley, then at the college of Annecy, founded by Eustace Chappius, ambassador in England of Charles V., in 1549.
The earliest mention 'of American petroleum occurs in Sir Walter Raleigh's account of the Trinidad pitch-lake in 1595; whilst thirty-seven years later, the account of a visit of a Franciscan, Joseph de la Roche d'Allion, to the oil springs of New York was published in Sagard's Histoire du Canada.
After the Latin conquest of Constantinople in 1204, Otho de la Roche was granted the lordship of Athens by Bonif ace of Montferrat, king of Thessa lonica, with the title of Megaskyr (µ&ryas Ki pcos = great lord).
The Memoirs of Literature, the first English review consisting entirely of original matter, published in London from 1710 to 1714, had for editor Michel de la Roche, a French Protestant refugee, who also edited at Amsterdam the Bibliotheque angloise (1717-1719), and subsequently Memoires litte'raires de la Grande Bretagne (1720-1724).