Banks/Dean Genealogy

Sir William de Warenne¹

M, #3001, b. circa 1166, d. 27 May 1240

Father*

Sir Hamelin Plantagenet^2,3,1,4 b. c 1130, d. 7 May 1202

Mother*

Isabel de Warene^2,3,1,4 b. c 1137, d. 12 Jul 1203

Sir William de Warenne|b. c 1166\nd. 27 May 1240|p101.htm#i3001|Sir Hamelin Plantagenet|b. c 1130\nd. 7 May 1202|p70.htm#i2077|Isabel de Warene|b. c 1137\nd. 12 Jul 1203|p101.htm#i3002|Geoffrey V. "the Fair" Plantagenet|b. 24 Nov 1113\nd. 7 Sep 1151|p55.htm#i1624|Anonyma (?)||p457.htm#i13698|Sir William de Warenne|b. 1118\nd. 31 Mar 1148|p101.htm#i3004|Ela Talvas|b. c 1120\nd. 4 Oct 1174|p101.htm#i3005|

Birth*

circa 1166

Surrey, England³

Marriage*

before 1207

Bride=Maud d' Aubeney⁵

Marriage*

before 13 October 1225

2nd=Maud Marshal^6,3,1,5

Death*

27 May 1240

London, England^6,3,1,5

Burial*

Before the High Altar, Lewes Priory, Sussex, England^3,7

Name Variation

Sir William de Warene^6,4

Name Variation

William Plantagenet de Warren³

Event-Misc

1197

Rouen, Normandy, France, He witnessed a charter for King Richard I⁵

Event-Misc

12 May 1202

He had seisin of his father's lands^5,8

Event-Misc

19 April 1205

King John granted him Grantham and Stamford, Lincolnshire to compensate him for the loss of his lands in Normandy^5,8

Event-Misc

30 November 1206

He was instructed to escort the King of the Scots to York^5,8

Event-Misc

20 August 1212

He was one of three given custody of the castles of Bambrough and Newcastle-on-Tyne⁸

Event-Misc

May 1213

Dover, He was a party to John's submission to the Pope⁸

Event-Misc

January 1214/15

He came to London with the Archbishop to discuss grievances⁸

Event-Misc

10 May 1215

He was surety for the King's promises to make concession to the barons⁸

Event-Misc

24 May 1215

We was with the barons in their seizure of London⁸

(King) Magna Carta

12 June 1215

Runningmede, Surrey, England, King=John Lackland^{9,5,10,11,12,13}

Event-Misc

16 May 1216

He was Warden of the Cinque Ports⁸

Event-Misc

1217

He was sheriff of Surrey⁸

Event-Misc

24 August 1217

He took part in the naval battle in which Eustace the Monk was defeated and slain^5,8

Event-Misc*

1220

Berwick, He was appointed to meet the King of Scotland⁵

Event-Misc

February 1222/23

He went on pilgrimage to St. James (Spain)⁸

Event-Misc

1227

He joined the Earl of Cornwall at Stamford in his revolt against the King, but by Christmas was with the King again.^5,8

Event-Misc

1230

He was appointed Justiciar of England⁸

Event-Misc

July 1230

He was warden of the ports and seacoast of Suffolk, Essex, and Norfolk⁸

Event-Misc

June 1234

He with another were granted the castles of Bramber and Knapp⁸

Event-Misc

20 January 1235/36

Westminster, He acted as Butler at the Coronation of Queen Eleanor of Provence, in place of his son-in-law, the Earl of Arundel^5,8

Event-Misc

1237

He joined the King's Council⁸

Event-Misc

1238

He dealt with a quarrel at Oxford between the scholars and the Romans who had accompanied the Papal Legate⁸

Title*

6th Earl of Surrey, Baron of Lewes, Warden of the Cinque Ports, Sheriff of Surrey, Justiciar of England, Custodian of bramber and Knapp Castles, King's Counsellor⁵

Arms*

checky or and azure^14,5

Family

Maud Marshal b. c 1192, d. 27 Mar 1248

Children

Isabel de Warenne⁵ d. b 23 Nov 1282
Sir John de Warenne+^6,3,15 b. c Aug 1231, d. 27 Sep 1304

Last Edited

5 Sep 2005

Citations

[S233] Frederick Lewis Weis, Magna Charta Sureties, 151-1.
[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 83-26.
[S218] Marlyn Lewis, Ancestry of Elizabeth of York.
[S284] Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry, Warenne 2.
[S284] Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry, Warenne 3.
[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 83-27.
[S301] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Robert Abell, p. 266.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 260.
[S284] Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry, Longespée 3.
[S338] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 8th ed., 56-27.
[S338] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 8th ed., 60-28.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 8.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 34.
[S318] Charles Evans, "Arms of Coys and Warren", p. 161.
[S233] Frederick Lewis Weis, Magna Charta Sureties, 151-2.

Isabel de Warene¹

F, #3002, b. circa 1137, d. 12 July 1203

Father*

Sir William de Warenne^2,3 b. 1118, d. 31 Mar 1148

Mother*

Ela Talvas^2,4,3 b. c 1120, d. 4 Oct 1174

Birth*

circa 1137

Surrey, England⁴

Marriage*

before 6 November 1153

Groom=Sir William of Blois^1,4

Marriage*

April 1164

Groom=Sir Hamelin Plantagenet^1,4,3

Death*

12 July 1203

Lewes, Sussex, England^4,3,5

Burial*

Chapter House, Lewes, Sussex, England³

DNB*

Warenne, Isabel de, suo jure countess of Surrey (d. 1203), magnate, was the daughter and only surviving heir of William (III) de Warenne, earl of Surrey (c.1119-1148), and Ela (d. 1174), daughter of Guillaume Talvas, count of Ponthieu. This position ensured her matches of considerable importance. In 1148, the year of her father's death, and at a critical moment in the civil war, she married William of Blois (d. 1159), the younger son of King Stephen, as part of the king's attempt to ensure control of the Warenne estates. About 1162–3, in what may have been a love match, William FitzEmpress, the brother of Henry II, sought her hand in marriage. However, Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, objected on grounds of consanguinity, earning the lasting enmity of the allegedly heart-broken William. Isabel's reaction is, unfortunately, not recorded. In April 1164, with a valuable trousseau worth £41. 10s. 8d., she married Hamelin of Anjou (d. 1202), the half-brother of Henry II, who by this marriage came to be known as Hamelin de Warenne. Isabel had one son, William (IV) de Warenne, who succeeded to the earldom and married Matilda, daughter of William Marshal (d. 1219) and widow of Hugh Bigod (d. 1225). Her three daughters with Hamelin all married twice: Ela married Robert of Naburn and William fitz William (d. 1219); Isabel married Robert de Lacy and Gilbert de l'Aigle, lord of Pevensey; Matilda married Henry, count of Eu (d. 1190/91) and Henry de Stuteville: by the former marriage Isabel became grandmother of the powerful Alice, countess of Eu (d. 1246).

As a countess and great heiress Isabel was involved in the secular and religious patronage of the Warenne estates. Of particular interest is her patronage during both marriages, and as a widow, of the chief English Cluniac house, Lewes Priory, Sussex, founded by her grandparents. She was present at Lambeth when a long-standing dispute between the great abbey of Cluny and her husband was resolved on 10 June 1201. She and Earl Hamelin also patronized St Mary's Abbey and West Dereham Abbey, Norfolk; St Katherine's Priory, Lincoln (c.1198–1202); and the chapel of St Philip and St James in their castle at Conisbrough (1180–89). In 1202–3, as a widow, she confirmed various grants to these houses, and was involved in pleas in her Yorkshire estates. Isabel died on 12 July 1203 and was buried alongside Earl Hamelin in the chapter house at Lewes, the traditional Warenne resting place. She was commemorated by the monks of Beauchief Abbey on 12 July.

Susan M. Johns
Sources

W. Farrer and others, eds., Early Yorkshire charters, 12 vols. (1914–65) · R. Howlett, ed., Chronicles of the reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I, 4, Rolls Series, 82 (1889) · Stephen of Rouen, ‘Draco Normannicus’, ed. R. Howlett, Chronicles of the reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I, 2, 589–781, Rolls Series, 82 (1885) · Pipe rolls, 10 Henry II · GEC, Peerage, new edn · Curia regis rolls preserved in the Public Record Office (1922–)
© Oxford University Press 2004–5
All rights reserved: see legal notice Oxford University Press

Susan M. Johns, ‘Warenne, Isabel de, suo jure countess of Surrey (d. 1203)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/28733, accessed 24 Sept 2005]

Isabel de Warenne (d. 1203): doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/28733⁶

Title*

De jure Countess of Surrey³

Family

Sir Hamelin Plantagenet b. c 1130, d. 7 May 1202

Children

Anonyma de Warenne+⁴
Maud de Warenne+^4,7,3 d. c 1212
Ella de Warenne^4,3 d. b 1240
Griffen Warren⁴
Isabel de Warenne³ d. b 30 Nov 1234
Sir William de Warenne+^1,4,8,3 b. c 1166, d. 27 May 1240

Last Edited

24 Sep 2005

Citations

[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 83-26.
[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 83-25.
[S284] Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry, Warenne 2.
[S218] Marlyn Lewis, Ancestry of Elizabeth of York.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 260.
[S376] Unknown editor, unknown short title.
[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 123-27.
[S233] Frederick Lewis Weis, Magna Charta Sureties, 151-1.

Sir William of Blois¹

M, #3003, b. circa 1137, d. 11 October 1159

Father*

Stephen of Blois² b. bt 1095 - 1096, d. 25 Oct 1154

Mother*

Maud of Boulogne² b. c 1105, d. 3 May 1152

Birth*

circa 1137

Marriage*

before 6 November 1153

1st=Isabel de Warene^1,2

Death*

11 October 1159

Toulouse, France²

Burial*

Montmorillion, Poitou, France³

Name Variation

William II (?)²

Name Variation

William FitzRoy³

Title*

Count of Boulogne and Mortain, 4th Earl of Surrey³

Last Edited

28 Jul 2004

Citations

[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 83-26.
[S218] Marlyn Lewis, Ancestry of Elizabeth of York.
[S284] Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry, Warenne 2.

Sir William de Warenne¹

M, #3004, b. 1118, d. 31 March 1148

Father*

Sir William de Warenne² b. 1071, d. 11 May 1138

Mother*

Isabel de Vermandois¹ b. 1081, d. 13 Feb 1131

Birth*

1118

^1,3

Birth

circa 1119

⁴

Marriage*

1st=Ela Talvas^1,3,5

Death*

31 March 1148

Leodicia, Anatolia, |in the rear guard of the King of France which was cut apart^1,3,6

DNB*

Warenne, William (III) de, third earl of Surrey [Earl Warenne] (c.1119-1148), magnate and crusader, was the eldest of the five children of William (II) de Warenne (d. 1138) and Isabel de Vermandois (d. 1147). His younger siblings included Ada, later countess of Huntingdon and Northumberland, and Reginald de Warenne. It was through his mother that he made the two most important family connections in his life: his eldest half-brother, Waleran, count of Meulan, the elder of the well-known Beaumont twins, and his distant cousin, Louis VII of France. Warenne married Ela, the daughter of Guillaume Talvas, count of Ponthieu, and Ela, daughter of Odo Borel, duke of Burgundy. She died on 4 October 1174. Their only child and Warenne's heir was a daughter, Isabel de Warenne (d. 1203), who married William, son of King Stephen, and after his death, Hamelin, half-brother of King Henry II.

Between 1130 and 1138 Warenne appeared with his brother Ralph as co-grantor or witness in several of their father's charters, but his first known independent action was one which presaged a life of military misfortune. He was among those ‘hot-headed youths’ (as Orderic Vitalis called them) who deserted King Stephen during his unsuccessful attempt to take Normandy in 1137. Probably in 1138 Warenne's father died, and he succeeded as earl of Surrey, though he consistently styled himself as Earl Warenne. In the summer of 1138 he or his father witnessed and possibly acted as guarantor for Roger, earl of Warwick, in an important charter in which Roger, husband of William (III)'s sister Gundreda, settled marriage arrangements between Roger's daughter and the chamberlain Geoffrey of Clinton. By the end of the year he had joined Waleran in Normandy and acted along with him as a witness to an agreement made in Rouen on 18 December. The brothers proceeded to their kinsman King Louis's court on an embassy from Stephen. By no later than 1139 Warenne had returned to England, probably with Waleran, most likely to attend his sister Ada's marriage to Henry, son of King David of Scotland. At that time he began his attendance at Stephen's court, where he became a regular witness to royal charters (at least a dozen between then and 1147) and began a career of unbroken, if not always distinguished, service to that troubled monarch.

The low point in Warenne's service to Stephen was at the battle of Lincoln on 2 February 1141, at which he and Waleran were among those who panicked and ran when they faced the first charge of Earl Robert of Gloucester's army, leaving the king to be captured. That it was panic rather than treachery that caused the flight could be seen by their support of Queen Matilda during Stephen's captivity and Warenne's appearance at the king's court after his release. Warenne redeemed himself on 14 September of that year and achieved the brightest moment of his military career when he led the Flemish mercenaries (usually under the command of William of Ypres) in taking Robert of Gloucester prisoner at Stockbridge. His activities in the following years included an appearance at Stephen's Christmas court, held at Canterbury, and an expedition against the town of St Albans, which he and three of the king's other captains were kept from burning by the payment of a rich bribe by Abbot Geoffrey of St Albans.

The next word of Warenne's military activity came in January 1144, during the king's last effort to win Normandy from Geoffrey of Anjou. When the city of Rouen surrendered to Geoffrey's forces, Stephen's men refused to give up the royal castle, and, led by Warenne's mercenaries, they held out for another three months before surrendering the castle of Neufchâtel-en-Bray. A double irony of this event is that Earl William was not identified specifically as having been present at this exercise in gallant futility, and that one of the leaders to whom his men surrendered was Count Waleran, that half-brother who had most guided his early career and who had been forced by then to take the Angevin side to defend his Norman holdings. If Warenne was indeed in Normandy at some time during the year, he left for England, where he was present on two occasions at the royal court during 1144 and 1145.

On 24 March, Palm Sunday of 1146, motivated perhaps by the example of his royal cousin and of Count Waleran, or by the rhetoric of an emotionally moving occasion, or by the desire to leave behind bad memories of the Anglo-Norman war, Warenne took the cross near Vézelay. After making some confirmatory grants to Lewes Priory and making his brother Reginald administrator of the honour of Warenne in his absence, he departed in June 1147, and met up with the French king, Louis, at Worms on the Rhine. He served in the king's personal guard, in which capacity he suffered loss of men and materials in an early encounter with the enemy. On 19 January 1148 he was among those in Louis's rearguard who were butchered in the defiles of Laodicea, and neither the wishful thinking of his brother Reginald nor the rumours of his survival that reached the northern chronicler John of Hexham would bring Warenne home again.

Although his short life meant that Warenne could not compete with his comital contemporaries in the field of religious benefactions, he did fulfil his obligations with donations to the family foundations of Lewes Priory and, to a lesser extent, Castle Acre Priory. He also made grants to the abbey of St Mary, York, and the templars at Saddlescombe, and he founded the priory of the Holy Sepulchre, Thetford, and possibly Thetford Hospital as well. He issued confirmations to Battle Abbey and Coxford and Nostell priories.

Victoria Chandler
Sources

W. Farrer and others, eds., Early Yorkshire charters, 12 vols. (1914–65), vol. 8 · GEC, Peerage · Ordericus Vitalis, Eccl. hist. · Henry, archdeacon of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, ed. D. E. Greenway, OMT (1996) · Reg. RAN, vol. 3 · D. Crouch, The Beaumont twins: the roots and branches of power in the twelfth century, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, 4th ser., 1 (1986) · Chronique de Robert de Torigni, ed. L. Delisle, 2 vols. (Rouen, 1872–3) · Odo of Deuil, De profectione Ludovici VII in orientem, ed. and trans. V. G. Berry (1948) · G. W. Watson, ‘William de Warenne, earl of Surrey’, The Genealogist, new ser., 11 (1894–5), 132 · John of Hexham, ‘Historia regum continuata’, Symeon of Durham, Opera, vol. 2 · D. Crouch, ‘Geoffrey de Clinton and Roger, earl of Warwick: new men and magnates in the reign of Henry I’, BIHR, 55 (1982), 113–24
Wealth at death

significant landholder in several counties
© Oxford University Press 2004–5
All rights reserved: see legal notice Oxford University Press

Victoria Chandler, ‘Warenne, William (III) de, third earl of Surrey (c.1119-1148)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/28738, accessed 24 Sept 2005]

William (III) de Warenne (c.1119-1148): doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/28738⁷

Name Variation

William de Warren³

Event-Misc*

June 1137

"He was among those who deserted King Stephen's army in Normandy, where it was said Stephen held William and other youths and did his best to pacify them, but did not dare make them fight."⁸

Event-Misc*

18 December 1138

Rouen, William de Warenne was with his half-brother, Waleran de Beaumont, Principal=Waleran de Beaumont⁸

(Stephen) Battle-Lincoln

2 February 1140/41

Principal=Stephen of Blois, Principal=Ranulph de Gernon⁹

Event-Misc

24 March 1145/46

He took the cross⁸

Event-Misc

June 1147

He set forth on Crusade⁸

Family

Ela Talvas b. c 1120, d. 4 Oct 1174

Children

Gundred de Warenne³ d. a 1167
Ella de Warenne+³
Isabel de Warene+^1,5 b. c 1137, d. 12 Jul 1203

Last Edited

24 Sep 2005

Citations

[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 83-25.
[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 83-24.
[S218] Marlyn Lewis, Ancestry of Elizabeth of York.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 259.
[S284] Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry, Warenne 2.
[S301] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Robert Abell, p. 266.
[S376] Unknown editor, unknown short title.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 260.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 28.

Ela Talvas¹

F, #3005, b. circa 1120, d. 4 October 1174

Father*

William III Talvas^2,3,4 b. c 1090, d. 30 Jun 1171

Mother*

Hélie of Burgundy^2,5 b. Nov 1080, d. 28 Feb 1141/42

Birth*

circa 1120

Marriage*

Groom=Sir William de Warenne^1,2,3

Marriage*

1149

2nd=Patrick d' Evereux^2,6

Death*

4 October 1174

Salisbury, Wiltshire, England^2,6

Death

10 October 1174

^7,8

Name Variation

Ela d' Alencon²

Family 1

Sir William de Warenne b. 1118, d. 31 Mar 1148

Children

Gundred de Warenne² d. a 1167
Ella de Warenne+²
Isabel de Warene+^1,2,3 b. c 1137, d. 12 Jul 1203

Family 2

Patrick d' Evereux b. b 1120, d. 27 Mar 1168

Child

William d' Evereux+² b. c 1150, d. 17 Apr 1196

Last Edited

27 May 2005

Citations

[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 83-25.
[S218] Marlyn Lewis, Ancestry of Elizabeth of York.
[S284] Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry, Warenne 2.
[S338] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 8th ed., 108-25.
[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 108-25.
[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 108-26.
[S338] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 8th ed., 108-26.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 79.

Sir William de Warenne¹

M, #3006, b. 1071, d. 11 May 1138

Father*

William de Warenne^1,2 d. 24 Jun 1088

Mother*

Gundred (?)^1,3 b. c 1051, d. 27 May 1085

Sir William de Warenne|b. 1071\nd. 11 May 1138|p101.htm#i3006|William de Warenne|d. 24 Jun 1088|p101.htm#i3007|Gundred (?)|b. c 1051\nd. 27 May 1085|p101.htm#i3008|Rodulf de Warenne|b. c 998|p140.htm#i4181|Beatrix d. Crepon||p319.htm#i9568|Gerbod o. St. Omer||p150.htm#i4475|Maud of Flanders|b. 1032\nd. 3 Nov 1083|p59.htm#i1769|

Birth*

1071

Sussex, England³

Marriage*

1118

2nd=Isabel de Vermandois^1,3,4

Marriage*

2nd=Isabel de Beaumont⁵

Burial*

Chapter House, Lewes, at his father's feet^3,6

Death*

11 May 1138

^1,2

DNB*

Warenne, William (II) de, second earl of Surrey [Earl Warenne] (d. 1138), magnate, the eldest son of William (I) de Warenne (d. 1088) and Gundrada de Warenne (d. 1085), sister of Gerbod the Fleming, earl of Chester, succeeded to the newly created earldom of Surrey on his father's death on 24 June 1088. He usually styled himself ‘Willelmus comes de Warenna’ and less often ‘Willelmus de Warenna comes Sudreie’ (or ‘Surregie’, ‘Suthreie’, or ‘Sudreie’). He was a great-great-nephew of the Duchess Gunnor and thus a kinsman of the Norman kings. From his father he inherited one of the largest of all Domesday estates, with lands worth about £1165 a year spread across thirteen counties, concentrated in Sussex (the rape of Lewes), Norfolk (including Castle Acre), and Yorkshire (Conisbrough). He was a benefactor of the great Cluniac priory of St Pancras, Lewes, which his parents had founded about 1077, and also patronized the abbeys of St Evroult and St Amand and the priories of Castle Acre, Longueville, Wymondham, Pontefract, and Bellencombre. The Hyde chronicler reports that whereas William (II) de Warenne received his father's lands in England, his younger brother, Reginald, received the maternal lands in Flanders. The chronicler says nothing of the paternal lands in Upper Normandy, centring on the castles of Mortemer-sur-Eaulne and Bellencombre in the Pays de Caux, but they probably went to Reginald as well, and when Reginald died after 1106 passed to Earl William.

In 1118 or 1119 Earl William, probably in his later forties, married Isabel de Vermandois (d. 1147), granddaughter of Henri I of France and widow of the Beaumont magnate Robert, count of Meulan (d. 1118); the offspring of that marriage were the twins Waleran, count of Meulan, and Robert, earl of Leicester, and five or six other children. She and Earl William had five children, including William (III) de Warenne, earl of Surrey (c.1119-1148), and Reginald de Warenne (1121x6-1178/9). Through their daughter Ada, countess of Northumberland (c.1123-1178), Isabel and Earl William were the grandparents of Malcolm IV and William the Lion, kings of Scotland. Henry of Huntingdon reports that Isabel's first husband, Robert, count of Meulan, had suffered the humiliation of having his wife carried off by ‘a certain earl’. The circumstances and details of this scandalous event cannot be discerned, but it was not long after Count Robert's death in June 1118 that Isabel married Earl William.

Unlike his father William (I) de Warenne, a veteran of Hastings and a staunch royalist, Earl William was seldom at the court of William Rufus (he attested only one or possibly two of the king's surviving charters) and showed little respect for Henry I during his initial years. The trouble may have begun when, some time in the 1090s, Earl William tried unsuccessfully to win the hand of Matilda, the eldest daughter of King Malcolm and Queen Margaret of Scotland, who was later to marry Henry I. According to the late testimony of Master Wace, Earl William ridiculed the young Henry for his pedantic approach to the joyous aristocratic pastime of hunting, mocking him with the nickname ‘Stagfoot’ for having examined the sport so studiously that he could tell the number of tines in a stag's antlers simply by examining his footprint. At some point after his accession in 1100 Henry tried to win Earl William's support by offering him one of his bastard daughters in marriage, but Archbishop Anselm blocked the project on grounds of consanguinity. When Robert Curthose, duke of Normandy, invaded England on 20 July 1101, Earl William and many other barons joined the ducal side, but Henry bought off Duke Robert with an annuity of 3000 marks, and Earl William was left stranded. For the violation of his homage to the king, and perhaps as a punishment for acts of violence by his men in Norfolk, he was disseised of his English estates and forced into exile.

Earl William complained to Robert Curthose in Normandy of being deprived of his vast English estates, and recovered them when the duke crossed impulsively to England in 1103, interceded with Henry on the earl's behalf, and agreed to relinquish the annuity. Thenceforth Earl William gradually regained the king's confidence and became a trusted member of his familia. At the climactic battle of Tinchebrai in September 1106 he commanded a division of the victorious royal army, and from then until Henry's death in 1135 he is known to have been in the king's company on each of the royal sojourns in Normandy and England. He attended the royal council at Nottingham on 17 October 1109 and was a surety for the king in his treaty of Dover with Robert, count of Flanders, on 17 May 1110. In 1111 he served as a judge in the Norman ducal court. In 1119, on the eve of Henry's crucial battle against Louis VI at Brémule, with many Norman lords in rebellion, Earl William is said to have told the king, ‘There is nobody who can persuade me to treason … I and my kinsmen here and now place ourselves in mortal opposition to the king of France and are totally faithful to you.’ (Liber monasterii de Hyda, 316–7). With Earl William's force in the vanguard, Henry's army won a decisive victory.

Henry had taken steps to cement (or reward) Earl William's loyalty by adding to his holdings in England and Normandy. William received (c.1106–21) the great royal manor of Wakefield in Yorkshire, possibly relinquishing lands in Huntingdonshire, Bedfordshire, and Cambridgeshire in partial exchange for it. Henry also ceded to Earl William the castlery of St Saëns shortly after its lord, Elias de St Saëns, fled Normandy, c.1110, with Henry's nephew and adversary, William Clito. St Saëns, three miles up the River Varenne from Bellencombre, constituted a valuable addition to Earl William's estates in Upper Normandy and bound him even more closely to the royal cause. Should Clito ever regain Normandy from Henry I, Clito's friend and guardian Elias would surely recover St Saëns. (His family had recovered the castlery by 1150.)

Thus, after his initial false step, William de Warenne became the most ardent of royalists. He attested no fewer than sixty-nine of Henry's charters, and in the reign's one surviving pipe roll (1130) he is recorded as receiving the third highest geld exemption of any English magnate (£104 8s. 11d.)—reflecting both the extent of his landed wealth and the warmth of the king's favour. He was at Henry's deathbed at Lyons-la-Forêt in 1135 and was one of five comites who escorted his corpse to Rouen for embalming. Afterwards the Norman magnates appointed Earl William governor of Rouen and the Pays de Caux. He was back in England in the spring of 1136 at Stephen's Easter court at Westminster (22 March) and at Oxford shortly afterwards, where he attested Stephen's charter of liberties for the church. His last attestations of royal charters occurred on Stephen's expedition against Exeter in mid-1136, but there is good reason to believe that he was alive in 1137. He probably died on 11 May 1138, and was buried with his parents in Lewes Priory.

C. Warren Hollister
Sources

W. Farrer and others, eds., Early Yorkshire charters, 12 vols. (1914–65), vol. 8 · GEC, Peerage, new edn, vol. 12/1 · W. Farrer, Honors and knights' fees … from the eleventh to the fourteenth century, 3 (1925) · L. C. Loyd, ‘The origin of the family of Warenne’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 31 (1932–4), 97–113 · C. W. Hollister, Monarchy, magnates, and institutions in the Anglo-Norman world (1986) · J. O. Prestwich, ‘The military household of the Norman kings’, EngHR, 96 (1981), 1–35, esp. 14–15 · I. J. Sanders, English baronies: a study of their origin and descent, 1086–1327 (1960), 128–9 · William of Jumièges, Gesta Normannorum ducum, ed. J. Marx (Rouen and Paris, 1914) · S. Anselmi Cantuariensis archiepiscopi opera omnia, ed. F. S. Schmitt, 6 vols. (1938–61) · E. Edwards, ed., Liber monasterii de Hyda, Rolls Series, 45 (1866) · Ordericus Vitalis, Eccl. hist., 4.180–82, 222, 272 · J. le Patousel, The Norman empire (1976) · Reg. RAN, vols. 2–3 · Lewes cartulary, BL, Cotton MS, Vespasian F15 [reproduced in Sussex Record Society, ed. L. F. Salzman, 2.15], fol.105v
© Oxford University Press 2004–5
All rights reserved: see legal notice Oxford University Press

C. Warren Hollister, ‘Warenne, William (II) de, second earl of Surrey (d. 1138)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/28737, accessed 23 Sept 2005]

William (II) de Warenne (d. 1138): doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/28737⁷

Title

2nd Earl of Surrey⁶

Name Variation

William de Warrenne³

Event-Misc*

1090

William de Warenne fought in Normandy against Robert de Belleme, a supporter of Robert Curthose, Principal=Robert II de Bellême⁴

Event-Misc*

circa 1093

William de Warenne fought unsuccessfully to marry Maud, daughter of Malcolm III Canmore, Principal=Matilda of Scotland⁴

Event-Misc*

3 September 1101

Windsor, He was with Henry I⁴

Event-Misc

1103

He supported Robert Curthose, and had his English properties confiscated. Robert prevailed upon Henry to restore them⁴

(Henry) Battle-Tinchebray

28 September 1106

Tinchebray, Normandy, France, Principal=Henry I Beauclerc, Principal=Robert III Curthose^8,9

Event-Misc

1109

Nottingham, He attended a Great Council⁴

Event-Misc

1111

He served as a Judge in Normandy⁴

Event-Misc

1119

He commanded a division of the royal army at the battle of Bremule⁴

Event-Misc

1131

Northampton, He attended the Council⁴

(Witness) Death

1 December 1135

Angers, Maine-et-Loire, France, Principal=Henry I Beauclerc^10,3,11

Event-Misc

Easter 1136

Westminster, He was with King Stephen⁴

Family

Isabel de Vermandois b. 1081, d. 13 Feb 1131

Children

Gundred de Warenne+^3,4 d. c 1166
Sir William de Warenne+¹ b. 1118, d. 31 Mar 1148
Ada de Warenne+³ b. c 1120, d. 1178

Last Edited

23 Sep 2005

Citations

[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 83-24.
[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 50-24.
[S218] Marlyn Lewis, Ancestry of Elizabeth of York.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 259.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 18.
[S301] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Robert Abell, p. 266.
[S376] Unknown editor, unknown short title.
[S348] Wikipedia, online http://en.wikipedia.org/
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 164.
[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 1-23.
[S232] Don Charles Stone, Ancient and Medieval Descents, 11-2.

William de Warenne¹

M, #3007, d. 24 June 1088

Father*

Rodulf de Warenne^2,3 b. c 998

Mother*

Beatrix de Crepon²

Mother

Emma de St. Martin³

William de Warenne|d. 24 Jun 1088|p101.htm#i3007|Rodulf de Warenne|b. c 998|p140.htm#i4181|Beatrix de Crepon||p319.htm#i9568|||||||Anonymous de Crepon||p319.htm#i9567||||

Marriage*

Bride=Gundred (?)^1,4

Death*

24 June 1088

Lewes, Surrey, England, |as a result of a wound suffered at Pevensey^1,2,3

Burial*

Lewes, |beside his first wife³

DNB

Warenne, William (I) de, first earl of Surrey [Earl Warenne] (d. 1088), magnate, was among the inner circle of Norman lords of Duke William's generation whose campaigns over some forty years consolidated the duchy and conquered England.
Background and early career
William's father, Rodulf or Ralph de Warenne (d. in or after 1074), was a minor Norman magnate with lands near Rouen and in the Pays de Caux, and William's earlier ancestry has long been debated. In the twelfth century the Warennes were believed to be descended from a niece of Gunnor, the wife of Duke Richard (I) of Normandy (d. 996) and the person seen as the linchpin of the wider ducal kin. He was certainly related in some way to them, since Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury, later prohibited the proposed marriage of his son William (II) de Warenne to a bastard daughter of Henry I on the grounds of their blood relationship. The most likely interpretation of the fragmentary evidence is that either William (I)'s mother or his paternal grandmother was Duchess Gunnor's niece Beatrice. Probably in his father's time the family adopted a surname from the village of Varenne, on the river of that name inland from Dieppe.

William owed his eventual standing more to his own capabilities than to family connections or inherited wealth. By the mid 1050s, though still young, he was capable and experienced enough to be given joint command of a Norman army. His first recorded military action, during a period in which the Normans were constantly at war, was in the Mortemer campaign of 1054, as one of the leaders of the army which defeated the French. His reward was a swathe of lands which had belonged to his disgraced kinsman Roger (I) de Mortimer. Although some of the lands were soon restored to the Mortimers, William kept the important castles at Mortemer and Bellencombre. The latter, less than a day's ride from Varenne, became the capital of the Warenne estates in Normandy. At almost the same time he was further rewarded with lands confiscated in 1053 from William, count of Arques. The continuing confidence with which the duke regarded him kept William at the forefront of Norman affairs over the next two decades, and he was among those consulted when the expedition to England in 1066 was planned.
Service and rewards in England
William de Warenne is among the handful of Normans known for certain to have fought at Hastings, and in 1067 was one of four men left in charge in England when the king returned to Normandy. His role as a military commander continued to be important for another twenty years, suggesting a physical constitution as robust as the king's. In 1075 he and Richard de Clare were delegated to deal with the rebellion of Earl Ralph de Gael of East Anglia. The two first summoned the earl to attend the king's court to answer for an act of defiance, then mustered an army which defeated the rebels at Fawdon in south Cambridgeshire, mutilating their prisoners after the battle. Ralph retreated to Norwich, where Warenne and Clare began a siege which lasted three months but failed to prevent the earl's escape by boat. In the early 1080s William campaigned with the king's forces in Maine.

William de Warenne's rewards in England were very large, elevating him into the first rank of the magnates. By 1086 he was the fourth richest tenant-in-chief, surpassed only by the king's half-brothers and his long-standing comrade and kinsman Roger de Montgomery. Such riches were accumulated over the course of the reign. The earliest acquisitions were presumably in Sussex, where he held the rape of Lewes, one of the five territories into which the shire was divided. The town of Lewes, a flourishing port on a tidal estuary, was divided between William and the king. One or the other built a castle there which became the capital of the Warenne lands in England. The original castle may have lain south of the town, where William is known to have reconstructed the church of St Pancras, and where a large mound may represent the motte. If that was the first site, it was abandoned in the 1070s when Warenne founded a priory there around the existing church. He would then have built the present castle north of the town, remarkable for having two mottes, one at each end of the bailey.

The rape of Lewes as first created for William de Warenne may have stretched from the River Adur on the west to the River Ouse on the east, and indeed beyond the Ouse at its northern extremity. Before 1073, however, the rapes were reorganized. A new rape west of Lewes was created for William (I) de Briouze, to whom Warenne surrendered seventeen manors. On the east, twenty-eight manors in four hundreds beyond the Ouse were transferred to the count of Mortain's rape of Pevensey. In compensation for those losses Warenne received lands in East Anglia.

William's second acquisition may have been the large estate of Conisbrough in Yorkshire, an important manor which occupied the gap between the marshes at the head of the Humber estuary and the Pennine foothills, and commanded the fords where the main road north crossed the River Don. Conisbrough was an old royal manor which had belonged to Earl Harold, and it seems likely that it was transferred to Warenne during the campaign against the English rebels at York in 1068.

Far more important than Conisbrough, and overshadowing even the rape of Lewes in 1086, were William's lands in eastern England. In Norfolk, especially the west of the county, he was the largest landowner in a large and wealthy shire, and his manors there were complemented by others which spilled over the county boundary and through the western side of Suffolk and Essex as far as the Thames estuary and reached into south-east Cambridgeshire. The centre was at Castle Acre, where Warenne built not a castle but a large stone manor house (it was fortified only in the twelfth century). The estates in those four eastern shires were clearly acquired in stages. Some had belonged to Earl Harold and might have been handed over soon after 1066. Another group, before the conquest the possessions of a thegn called Toki, had fallen first to Warenne's Flemish brother-in-law Frederic, and after Frederic's death in 1070 came to William through his wife. He may not have controlled them directly until she died in 1085. Others seem to have been given to him in the aftermath of the 1075 rebellion, while the series of exchanges for parts of the original rape of Lewes may still have been going on in the 1080s.
Estates and their management
In 1086 the eastern shires accounted for half the value of Warenne's estate (more than half of that being in Norfolk), and Sussex two fifths. The other tenth, which included Conisbrough, was scattered about the country in little parcels: a single manor in Hampshire, another in Buckinghamshire, Kimbolton and its outliers in Huntingdonshire and Bedfordshire, a couple of estates on the Thames near Wallingford, two small manors in south Lincolnshire, some fishermen in Wisbech. The rationale for their dispersal is not easy to discern, and it may be wrong to look for any single all-inclusive purpose. Several besides Conisbrough had belonged to Earl Harold, including Kimbolton and the Lincolnshire manors; indeed outside Wessex only Warenne and Hugh d'Avranches, earl of Chester, were given Harold's property. At least one of the manors furthest from William's bases in Sussex and Norfolk had strategic importance: his Hampshire property was Fratton on Portsea Island, watching the entrance to Portsmouth harbour.

William's dispositions of his landed estate suggest that he was a good organizer greedy for further spoils. Almost everywhere except Sussex he pushed at the limits of what he had been given, testing what more he could either claim legitimately, or simply take without opposition. Some of his extra acquisitions were peaceful enough, like the large manor of Whitchurch in Shropshire, which his distant cousin Roger de Montgomery gave him. But others were not. In Norfolk especially he asserted his lordship over freemen who might or might not have been assigned to him, leading to the many counterclaims and disputes recorded in Domesday Book. He was active even in shires where he was far less powerful. In Essex he stole land from the bishop of Durham and the abbot of Ely, and in Sussex from the nuns of Wilton; in Yorkshire he was at loggerheads with several of his neighbours about what properties were sokelands of Conisbrough; in Bedfordshire he won over the English thegn Augi from the Norman lord to whom the king had assigned him, and when Augi died took control of land which ought perhaps have gone to Augi's lord's successor; in Huntingdonshire in 1086 he staked some sort of a claim to a manor held by Hugh de Bolbec.

Warenne was wealthy enough not to need to concentrate his resources in just one or two parts of the country, and the pattern of demesne estates which he created after granting others to his men had the deliberate effect of accentuating its dispersal and shifting the balance towards Sussex rather than Norfolk. Whereas the ratios of manorial values in 1086 over the honour as a whole, between eastern England, Sussex, and the rest, were 49:41:10, what William chose to retain in his own hands was balanced 33:48:20. In Sussex he kept only four manors, but far and away the four largest, whereas in Norfolk he was not so choosy. Elsewhere he retained under his direct control one manor in each of Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, the core of Kimbolton, and all of Conisbrough.

William's options may have been constrained by a lack of close lieutenants to whom he was willing to give a great deal of land and authority. Despite his gains in Normandy in the 1050s his lands there were not very extensive, and he did not succeed to any part of his paternal inheritance until at least the mid-1070s. His father was still alive in 1074 and there was an older brother, Rodulf or Ralph, who inherited probably the greater part of their father's estates. Some of William's tenants in England, including the ancestors of the families of Cailly, Chesney, Grandcourt, Pierrepont, Rosay, and Wancy, can be traced back to fiefs around his Norman capital of Bellencombre, but they were only a small minority of the fifty or more men to whom William gave lands. Some others were perhaps his Norman kinsmen: Tezelin and Lambert, for instance, had unusual forenames which are known to have been used in other branches of Beatrice's family. Only a handful of his leading men held in both the eastern counties and the rape of Lewes, and the wealth which William had at his disposal was widely distributed.

Warenne's vigour in running his estates is evident from improvements in their economic condition. It seems that he took an interest in running his manors not just efficiently but aggressively, and that he was good at choosing capable reeves and bailiffs. Conisbrough was well stocked with ploughteams and intensively cultivated by Yorkshire standards, and, almost uniquely in a county devastated by warfare, more than doubled in value between 1066 and 1086. Values on the four demesne manors in Sussex also went up sharply after William acquired them, and at Castle Acre he more than tripled the size of his sheep flock.
Foundation of Lewes Priory
Despite an evil reputation at Ely, where it was later believed, or at any rate hoped, that Warenne's departing soul had been claimed by demons, William was at least conventionally pious. The story of the foundation of Lewes Priory by William and his wife, Gundrada de Warenne (d. 1085), was preserved there only in much later traditions, but in essence it is believable. Probably at an early stage William consulted Archbishop Lanfranc of Canterbury. Later, William and Gundrada went on pilgrimage to Rome, but reached no further than the great Burgundian abbey of Cluny because of the war in Italy between the pope and the emperor. Their journey probably took place within the period 1081–3 rather than at the date of 1077 assigned to it elsewhere. At Cluny the couple were received into the fellowship of the monks and resolved to found an English priory following the rule of Cluny. After difficulties and one false start, it was accomplished under a prior and three monks sent from Cluny. The monastery was established around the existing church of St Pancras in the suburbs of Lewes, it was well endowed, and an ambitious building programme was put in train. Lewes was the first house of Cluniac monks in England and the precursor of several others, and the importance of the Warennes' role in their arrival needs to be stressed.

William clearly regarded Lewes Priory as his spiritual home, and had both Gundrada and himself buried there. It was also a focus for the spiritual aspirations of his men, at least one of whom entered the priory as a monk and donated the manor which he had held as William's tenant. When he died, William was planning to establish a second priory at Castle Acre, a project brought to fruition by his son William (II).
Earldom, death, and family
In the turmoil which enveloped England after the death of William the Conqueror in September 1087, William de Warenne stood firm by William Rufus. His reward, some time between Christmas 1087 and the end of March 1088, was the titular earldom of Surrey and very probably three valuable Surrey manors, Reigate, Dorking, and Shere. Warenne fought for the king during the invasion of England by supporters of Robert Curthose and was wounded by an arrow during the siege of Pevensey Castle in spring 1088. He was carried to Lewes and died there of his wounds on 24 June.

William's first wife was the Flemish noblewoman Gundrada, whom he married c.1066. They had at least three children and she died in childbirth in 1085. He then married a sister, name unknown, of Richard Gouet, a landowner in the Perche region. Her attempt to make restitution for the damage which he had inflicted upon Ely Abbey by a gift of 100 shillings a few days after his death was refused by the monks. William's elder son, William (II), succeeded him in England and Normandy; his younger son Reynold inherited Gundrada's Flemish lands. A nephew, Roger, son of Erneis, was first a knight in the household of Earl Hugh of Chester and later a monk of St Evroult, where he told the historian Orderic Vitalis much about the family.

William's remains were reburied in a leaden chest at Lewes Priory during rebuilding there c.1145, from where they were disinterred during railway construction in 1845. In 1847 they were placed alongside Gundrada's remains in the parish church of St John, Southover, in Lewes, where they still rest.

C. P. Lewis
Sources

W. Farrer and others, eds., Early Yorkshire charters, 12 vols. (1914–65), vol. 8 · GEC, Peerage, new edn, 12/1.492–5 · L. C. Loyd, ‘The origin of the family of Warenne’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 31 (1932–4), 97–113 · K. S. B. Keats-Rohan, ‘Aspects of Robert of Torigny's genealogies revisited’, Nottingham Medieval Studies, 37 (1993), 21–7 · A. Farley, ed., Domesday Book, 2 vols. (1783) · J. F. A. Mason, William the first and the Sussex rapes (1966) · P. Dalton, Conquest, anarchy, and lordship: Yorkshire, 1066–1154, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, 4th ser., 27 (1994), 33–4, 64–5 · B. Golding, ‘The coming of the Cluniacs’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 3 (1980), 65–77, 208–12 · D. J. C. King, Castellarium Anglicanum: an index and bibliography of the castles in England, Wales, and the islands, 2 (1983), 306, 472 · C. P. Lewis, ‘The earldom of Surrey and the date of Domesday Book’, Historical Research, 63 (1990), 329–36 · L. C. Loyd, The origins of some Anglo-Norman families, ed. C. T. Clay and D. C. Douglas, Harleian Society, 103 (1951) · Ordericus Vitalis, Eccl. hist. · E. Edwards, ed., Liber monasterii de Hyda, Rolls Series, 45 (1866), 283–321 · B. Dickins, ‘Fagaduna in Orderic (AD 1075)’, Otium et negotium: studies in onomatology and library science presented to Olof von Feilitzen, ed. F. Sandgren (1973), 44–5
© Oxford University Press 2004–5
All rights reserved: see legal notice Oxford University Press

C. P. Lewis, ‘Warenne, William (I) de, first earl of Surrey (d. 1088)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/28736, accessed 24 Sept 2005]

William (I) de Warenne (d. 1088): doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/28736⁵

Event-Misc*

after 1054

He was given the castle of Moremer by Duke William, as Roger de Mortemer had forfeited it at the battle of Moremer in Feb 1054⁶

(William) Battle-Hastings

14 October 1066

Hastings, Sussex, England, Principal=William I of Normandy "the Conqueror", Principal=Harold II Godwinson^{7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14}

Event-Misc*

1075

Richard FitzGilbert and William de Warenne were regents of England, and crushed the rebellion of the Dukes of Hereford and Norfolk, Principal=Richard FitzGilbert¹⁵

Event-Misc

between 1078 and 1082

He founded Lewes Priory as a cell of Cluny⁶

Event-Misc

between 1083 and 1085

He fought for the King in Maine⁶

Family

Gundred (?) b. c 1051, d. 27 May 1085

Children

Edith de Warenne+^2,4
Sir William de Warenne+^1,16 b. 1071, d. 11 May 1138

Last Edited

24 Sep 2005

Citations

[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 83-24.
[S218] Marlyn Lewis, Ancestry of Elizabeth of York.
[S301] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Robert Abell, p. 266.
[S233] Frederick Lewis Weis, Magna Charta Sureties, 158-1.
[S376] Unknown editor, unknown short title.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 259.
[S338] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 8th ed., 50-23.
[S338] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 8th ed., 270-24.
[S342] Sir Bernard Burke, Extinct Peerages, p. 42.
[S285] Leo van de Pas, 30 Jun 2004.
[S342] Sir Bernard Burke, Extinct Peerages, p. 89.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 38.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 94.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 142.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 51, 259.
[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 50-24.

Gundred (?)¹

F, #3008, b. circa 1051, d. 27 May 1085

Father*

Gerbod of St. Omer^2,3

Mother*

Maud of Flanders² b. 1032, d. 3 Nov 1083

Gundred (?)|b. c 1051\nd. 27 May 1085|p101.htm#i3008|Gerbod of St. Omer||p150.htm#i4475|Maud of Flanders|b. 1032\nd. 3 Nov 1083|p59.htm#i1769|||||||Count Baldwin V. of Flanders|b. 1013\nd. 1 Sep 1067|p148.htm#i4438|Adèle of France|b. c 1003\nd. 8 Jan 1079|p148.htm#i4439|

Marriage*

1st=William de Warenne^1,3

Birth*

circa 1051

Normandy, France²

Death*

27 May 1085

Castle Acre, Norfolk, England, |in childbirth^2,3,4

Burial*

Chapter House, Lewes⁴

DNB

Warenne, Gundrada de (d. 1085), noblewoman, was the daughter of Gerbod, head of a noble Flemish family who was hereditary advocate of the important monastery of St Bertin. She had brothers called Gerbod and Frederic, and the family were players in the politics of the marcher counties between Flanders and Normandy. In 1067, for example, Frederic, alongside the count of Flanders, witnessed a charter of Count Guy of Ponthieu in favour of the abbey of St Riquier in the Somme valley. They may also have been involved in England before 1066, when, intriguingly a Frederic and a Gundrada between them held four manors fairly close to one another in Sussex and Kent. The names Frederic and Gundrada were certainly not English. Since Sussex was where Gundrada's husband was later given his most important lands in England, their presence before the conquest is plausibly explained as the result of Anglo-Flemish ties predating 1066.

Gundrada married the Norman baron William (I) de Warenne (d. 1088), whose lands lay towards Flanders; their eldest son was William (II) de Warenne; a second son was old enough to command troops in 1090, so the marriage probably lay within a few years either side of 1066. Warenne, already an important figure in Normandy, was a major beneficiary of the conquest and both his brothers-in-law also joined the expedition to England.

Frederic seems to have been rewarded with the lands of a rich Englishman called Toki in Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire, worth over £100 a year, but was killed in 1070 during the rebellion of Hereward the Wake in the Fens. His estates were assigned to Gundrada and her husband, and the fact that they were still known in 1086 as ‘Frederic's fief’ suggests that Gundrada retained control of them during her lifetime. One small manor among them belonged in 1086 to the abbey of St Riquier, perhaps Gundrada's gift in memory of her brother.

The other brother, Gerbod, was appointed by King William to a difficult military command in Chester, and may even have been given the title of earl. Probably in late 1070 he gave up his position in England and returned to Flanders to safeguard his interests there, rendered uncertain by the civil war which broke out on the death of the count. Reports of his fate in Flanders are contradictory. Fifty years after the event, one opinion was that he was killed, another that he fell into the hands of his enemies and was imprisoned. More attractive than either is the possibility that he was the Gerbod who accidentally killed his lord, young Count Arnulf, at the battle of Kassel in February 1071, travelled in penance to Rome, and ended as a monk of Cluny. A family connection with Cluny would provide a clear context for Gundrada and William de Warenne's later visit to the monastery and their foundation of a Cluniac priory at Lewes, probably in the early 1080s. The priory's valuable endowments in Norfolk came from what had been Frederic's lands. Gerbod's property in Flanders evidently passed to Gundrada, and her interest in the abbey of St Bertin was inherited by her younger son Reynold de Warenne.

Gundrada died in childbirth at Castle Acre on 27 May 1085 and was buried in the chapter house of Lewes Priory. On the consecration of new monastic buildings c.1145, her bones were placed in a leaden chest under a magnificent tombstone of black Tournai marble, richly carved in the Romanesque style, with foliage and lions' heads, by a sculptor who later worked for Henry de Blois, bishop of Winchester and himself trained at Cluny. The tombstone was moved after the dissolution of Lewes Priory to Ifield church in Sussex, and in 1774 to the parish church of St John, Southover, in Lewes, where it still survives. Two leaden chests containing the remains of Gundrada and William were rediscovered in 1845 and placed in Southover church in 1847.

C. P. Lewis
Sources

W. Farrer and others, eds., Early Yorkshire charters, 12 vols. (1914–65), vol. 8 · GEC, Peerage, new edn, 12/1.494 · G. Zarnecki, J. Holt, and T. Holland, eds., English romanesque art, 1066–1200 (1984), 181–2 [exhibition catalogue, Hayward Gallery, London, 5 April–8 July 1984] · C. P. Lewis, ‘The formation of the honor of Chester, 1066–1100’, Journal of the Chester Archaeological Society, 71 (1991), 37–68, esp. 38–9 [G. Barraclough issue, The earldom of Chester and its charters, ed. A. T. Thacker] · E. Warlop, The Flemish nobility before 1300, 4 vols. (1975–6), 2/2.1024 · B. Golding, ‘The coming of the Cluniacs’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 3 (1980), 65–77, 208–12 · A. Farley, ed., Domesday Book, 2 vols. (1783) · Ordericus Vitalis, Eccl. hist. · E. A. Freeman, ‘The parentage of Gundrada, wife of William of Warren’, EngHR, 3 (1888), 680–701
© Oxford University Press 2004–5
All rights reserved: see legal notice Oxford University Press

C. P. Lewis, ‘Warenne, Gundrada de (d. 1085)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/11736, accessed 24 Sept 2005]

Gundrada de Warenne (d. 1085): doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/11736⁵

DNB*

Warenne, Gundrada de (d. 1085), noblewoman, was the daughter of Gerbod, head of a noble Flemish family who was hereditary advocate of the important monastery of St Bertin. She had brothers called Gerbod and Frederic, and the family were players in the politics of the marcher counties between Flanders and Normandy. In 1067, for example, Frederic, alongside the count of Flanders, witnessed a charter of Count Guy of Ponthieu in favour of the abbey of St Riquier in the Somme valley. They may also have been involved in England before 1066, when, intriguingly a Frederic and a Gundrada between them held four manors fairly close to one another in Sussex and Kent. The names Frederic and Gundrada were certainly not English. Since Sussex was where Gundrada's husband was later given his most important lands in England, their presence before the conquest is plausibly explained as the result of Anglo-Flemish ties predating 1066.

Gundrada married the Norman baron William (I) de Warenne (d. 1088), whose lands lay towards Flanders; their eldest son was William (II) de Warenne; a second son was old enough to command troops in 1090, so the marriage probably lay within a few years either side of 1066. Warenne, already an important figure in Normandy, was a major beneficiary of the conquest and both his brothers-in-law also joined the expedition to England.

Frederic seems to have been rewarded with the lands of a rich Englishman called Toki in Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire, worth over £100 a year, but was killed in 1070 during the rebellion of Hereward the Wake in the Fens. His estates were assigned to Gundrada and her husband, and the fact that they were still known in 1086 as ‘Frederic's fief’ suggests that Gundrada retained control of them during her lifetime. One small manor among them belonged in 1086 to the abbey of St Riquier, perhaps Gundrada's gift in memory of her brother.

The other brother, Gerbod, was appointed by King William to a difficult military command in Chester, and may even have been given the title of earl. Probably in late 1070 he gave up his position in England and returned to Flanders to safeguard his interests there, rendered uncertain by the civil war which broke out on the death of the count. Reports of his fate in Flanders are contradictory. Fifty years after the event, one opinion was that he was killed, another that he fell into the hands of his enemies and was imprisoned. More attractive than either is the possibility that he was the Gerbod who accidentally killed his lord, young Count Arnulf, at the battle of Kassel in February 1071, travelled in penance to Rome, and ended as a monk of Cluny. A family connection with Cluny would provide a clear context for Gundrada and William de Warenne's later visit to the monastery and their foundation of a Cluniac priory at Lewes, probably in the early 1080s. The priory's valuable endowments in Norfolk came from what had been Frederic's lands. Gerbod's property in Flanders evidently passed to Gundrada, and her interest in the abbey of St Bertin was inherited by her younger son Reynold de Warenne.

Gundrada died in childbirth at Castle Acre on 27 May 1085 and was buried in the chapter house of Lewes Priory. On the consecration of new monastic buildings c.1145, her bones were placed in a leaden chest under a magnificent tombstone of black Tournai marble, richly carved in the Romanesque style, with foliage and lions' heads, by a sculptor who later worked for Henry de Blois, bishop of Winchester and himself trained at Cluny. The tombstone was moved after the dissolution of Lewes Priory to Ifield church in Sussex, and in 1774 to the parish church of St John, Southover, in Lewes, where it still survives. Two leaden chests containing the remains of Gundrada and William were rediscovered in 1845 and placed in Southover church in 1847.

C. P. Lewis
Sources

W. Farrer and others, eds., Early Yorkshire charters, 12 vols. (1914–65), vol. 8 · GEC, Peerage, new edn, 12/1.494 · G. Zarnecki, J. Holt, and T. Holland, eds., English romanesque art, 1066–1200 (1984), 181–2 [exhibition catalogue, Hayward Gallery, London, 5 April–8 July 1984] · C. P. Lewis, ‘The formation of the honor of Chester, 1066–1100’, Journal of the Chester Archaeological Society, 71 (1991), 37–68, esp. 38–9 [G. Barraclough issue, The earldom of Chester and its charters, ed. A. T. Thacker] · E. Warlop, The Flemish nobility before 1300, 4 vols. (1975–6), 2/2.1024 · B. Golding, ‘The coming of the Cluniacs’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 3 (1980), 65–77, 208–12 · A. Farley, ed., Domesday Book, 2 vols. (1783) · Ordericus Vitalis, Eccl. hist. · E. A. Freeman, ‘The parentage of Gundrada, wife of William of Warren’, EngHR, 3 (1888), 680–701
© Oxford University Press 2004–5
All rights reserved: see legal notice Oxford University Press

C. P. Lewis, ‘Warenne, Gundrada de (d. 1085)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/11736, accessed 23 Sept 2005]

Gundrada de Warenne (d. 1085): doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/11736

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Site credits⁵

Name Variation

Gundred of England Warren²

Family

William de Warenne d. 24 Jun 1088

Children

Edith de Warenne+^2,3
Sir William de Warenne+^1,2 b. 1071, d. 11 May 1138

Last Edited

24 Sep 2005

Citations

[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 83-24.
[S218] Marlyn Lewis, Ancestry of Elizabeth of York.
[S233] Frederick Lewis Weis, Magna Charta Sureties, 158-1.
[S301] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Robert Abell, p. 266.
[S376] Unknown editor, unknown short title.

Sir John FitzAlan¹

M, #3009, b. May 1223, d. before 10 November 1267

Father*

John FitzAlan^2,3,4,5 b. c 1164, d. Mar 1240

Mother*

Isabel d' Aubigny^2,3,4,5 b. c 1203

Sir John FitzAlan|b. May 1223\nd. b 10 Nov 1267|p101.htm#i3009|John FitzAlan|b. c 1164\nd. Mar 1240|p101.htm#i3013|Isabel d' Aubigny|b. c 1203|p101.htm#i3012|William FitzAlan|d. c 1210|p140.htm#i4186|(?) FitzHenry||p140.htm#i4187|Sir William d' Aubigny|b. c 1165\nd. 1 Feb 1220/21|p59.htm#i1756|Mabel of Chester|b. c 1172|p59.htm#i1757|

Charts

Ann Marbury Pedigree

Birth*

May 1223

Arundel, Essex, England³

Marriage*

before 1245

1st=Maud le Boteler^3,6,7

Death*

before 10 November 1267

^1,3,4

DNB*

Fitzalan, John (II) (1223-1267), baron, was the son of John (I) Fitzalan (d. 1240) and his first wife, Isabel, the sister and coheir of Hugh d'Aubigny, earl of Arundel, who died in 1243 with no direct male heirs. John (II) Fitzalan married Maud (or Matilda), the daughter of Theobald le Botiller and his second wife, Rohese de Verdon. After his father's death in 1240 the Shropshire lordships of Oswestry and Clun were in the custody of John (III) Lestrange, sheriff of Shropshire and member of a family long friendly with the Fitzalans, until John (II) Fitzalan came of age in 1244. After the death of Hugh d'Aubigny in 1243 a quarter of Hugh's possessions, including the castle and manor of Arundel, were awarded to Fitzalan in the right of his mother. After he offered a relief of £1000 in May 1244 he took possession of Arundel and the family lands in Shropshire, including the castles at Clun, Oswestry, and Shrawardine.

The Fitzalans had been important marcher barons since the mid-twelfth century and John (II) Fitzalan was a significant figure in both national politics and those of the Welsh marches. Henry III granted him permission in July 1253 to pledge his lands for 500 marks to cover costs of accompanying the king in Gascony. In 1255 and 1256 Fulk (IV) Fitzwarine, lord of Whittington (just north of Oswestry), complained of attacks by Fitzalan's men. In August 1258 his men from Clun attacked Bishops Castle (Lydbury North), a large Shropshire manor belonging to the bishops of Hereford. His military power was so important that in August 1257 he was appointed captain for the custody of the march north of Montgomery, and in March 1258 was ordered to lead his men to Chester to participate in an expedition against Llywelyn ap Gruffudd. In 1259 he was one of eight royal negotiators sent to Montgomery Ford to settle breaches of the truce with Llywelyn. The latter complained in 1262 about raids on Bromfield by Fitzalan, Roger (III) de Mortimer, and John Lestrange.

The marcher barons were a major focus of opposition to Henry III and Fitzalan adhered to this party from late 1258. By June 1263 he and his son John (III) were both active supporters of Simon de Montfort and in that month a group including Fitzalan, Roger Clifford, Humphrey (V) de Bohun, and Hamo L'Estrange attacked and captured the Poitevin royalist bishop of Hereford, Peter d'Aigueblanche. On 12 July Fitzalan seized Bishops Castle, which the family refused to surrender for over six years. By late autumn the Lord Edward had won Fitzalan over to the royal side; on 24 December he was appointed as one of five keepers of the peace for Shropshire and Staffordshire, figures whose task it was to wrest administrative control of these counties from the baronially controlled sheriff. In January 1264 he was the eighth baron who swore to adhere to the agreement under which the king of France would arbitrate between Henry III and his barons. After being besieged with Earl Warenne in Rochester Castle, Fitzalan fought in the royal army and was captured at the battle of Lewes on 14 May. In April 1265 Montfort's government suspected his loyalty and ordered him to surrender either his son or Arundel Castle. After Montfort's defeat Fitzalan was appointed on 18 April 1266 as keeper and defender of Sussex to help the sheriff arrest disturbers of the peace. In January 1267 he was ordered to investigate and quell treasonous plots in Sussex. He died in November 1267, having ordered his body to be buried in Haughmond Abbey, Shropshire; his second wife outlived him. He was succeeded by his son John (III) Fitzalan (1245–1272/3), who married Isabel de Mortimer and was succeeded in turn by his son Richard (I) Fitzalan.

Although Rishanger called John (II) Fitzalan earl of Arundel in 1264 and some modern scholars have occasionally followed this style, he did not apparently use this title. In 1258 he was called lord of Arundel and in 1266 John Fitzalan de Arundel.

Frederick Suppe
Sources

I. J. Sanders, English baronies: a study of their origin and descent, 1086–1327 (1960) · D. C. Roberts, ‘Some aspects of the history of the lordship of Oswestry to 1300 AD’, MA diss., U. Wales, 1934 · R. W. Eyton, Antiquities of Shropshire, 12 vols. (1854–60) · F. Suppe, Military institutions on the Welsh marches: Shropshire, 1066–1300 (1994) · J. E. Lloyd, A history of Wales from the earliest times to the Edwardian conquest, 2 vols. (1911) · J. Meisel, Barons of the Welsh frontier … 1066–1272 (1980) · T. F. Tout, ‘Wales and the March during the Barons’ War’, Collected papers of Thomas Frederick Tout, ed. F. M. Powicke, 2 (1934), 47–100 · R. F. Treharne, The baronial plan of reform, 1258–1263, [new edn] (1971) · GEC, Peerage · CIPM, vol. 1 · R. F. Treharne and I. J. Sanders, eds., Documents of the baronial movement of reform and rebellion, 1258–1267 (1973) · Willelmi Rishanger … chronica et annales, ed. H. T. Riley, pt 2 of Chronica monasterii S. Albani, Rolls Series, 28 (1865) · DNB
Wealth at death

wealthy
© Oxford University Press 2004–5
All rights reserved: see legal notice Oxford University Press

Frederick Suppe, ‘Fitzalan, John (II) (1223-1267)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/9531, accessed 24 Sept 2005]

John (II) Fitzalan (1223-1267): doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/9531⁸

Arms*

Gu. A lion rampant or (Glover).⁵

Event-Misc

27 November 1243

He was awarded the Castle and Honour of Arundel by right of his mother⁹

Event-Misc*

11 June 1259

Commissioner re truce with Llewellyn ap Griffin⁵

Event-Misc

24 December 1263

He was made a Keeper of Salop and Staff.⁵

(Henry) Battle-Lewes

14 May 1264

The Battle of Lewes, Lewes, Sussex, England, when King Henry and Prince Edward were captured by Simon of Montfort, Earl of Leicester. Simon ruled England in Henry's name until his defeat at Evesham, Principal=Henry III Plantagenet King of England, Principal=Simon VI de Montfort^{10,11,12,13,14,15}

Event-Misc

18 September 1264

He and others are to besiege Pevensey Castle and capture the King's enemies.⁵

Event-Misc*

26 April 1265

Mandate to Simon de Montfort, s. of E. of Leicester, to take security from Jn. Fitz Alan, who is under suspicion, viz. either his son as hostage or Arundel Castle. Mandate to John to deliever one or the other to Simon., Principal=Simon VI de Montfort⁵

Event-Misc

18 April 1266

He is made keeper of of Suss., he is to stay there and arrest disturbers⁵

Will*

October 1267

^1,7

Feudal*

10 November 1267

at the time of his Inq., 5 Kt. Fees in Suss., and lands at Oswestry, etc., and Salop.¹⁶

Family

Maud le Boteler b. c 1225, d. 27 Nov 1283

Children

Joan FitzAlan+¹⁷
Sir John FitzAlan+^1,3,7 b. 14 Sep 1246, d. 18 Mar 1271/72

Last Edited

24 Sep 2005

Citations

[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 149-28.
[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 149-27.
[S218] Marlyn Lewis, Ancestry of Elizabeth of York.
[S233] Frederick Lewis Weis, Magna Charta Sureties, 134-3.
[S325] Rev. C. Moor, Knights of Edward I, v. 2, p. 29.
[S338] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 8th ed., 71-29.
[S301] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Robert Abell, p. 110.
[S376] Unknown editor, unknown short title.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 86.
[S284] Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry, Plantagenet 4.
[S325] Rev. C. Moor, Knights of Edward I, v. 5, p. 10.
[S284] Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry, Fitz Alan 7.
[S342] Sir Bernard Burke, Extinct Peerages, p. 21.
[S301] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Robert Abell, p. 218.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 34.
[S325] Rev. C. Moor, Knights of Edward I, v. 2, p. 30.
[S284] Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry, Cornwall 5.

Maud le Boteler¹

F, #3010, b. circa 1225, d. 27 November 1283

Father*

Theobald Butler^2,3 b. 1200, d. 19 Jul 1230

Mother*

Rohese de Verdun^1,3 b. c 1200, d. b 22 Feb 1246

Charts

Ann Marbury Pedigree

Birth*

circa 1225

of Lincoln, Lincolnshire, England³

Marriage

before 1245

Groom=Sir John FitzAlan^3,4,5

Marriage*

circa 28 August 1283

Livery to Ric. de Amundevill and w. Matilda, wid. of Jn. Fitz Alan, a Kt. Fee at Jaye, Salop, which Walter de Jay, dec., held of said John, and wh. was assigned to Matilda in dower of John's Kt. Fees., Groom=Richard de Amundevill^6,7

Death*

27 November 1283

^1,3

Event-Misc*

5 July 1281

She holds in dower part of Arundel Forest⁶

Family

Sir John FitzAlan b. May 1223, d. b 10 Nov 1267

Children

Joan FitzAlan+⁸
Sir John FitzAlan+^1,2,3 b. 14 Sep 1246, d. 18 Mar 1271/72

Last Edited

29 May 2005

Citations

[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 149-28.
[S233] Frederick Lewis Weis, Magna Charta Sureties, 134-3.
[S218] Marlyn Lewis, Ancestry of Elizabeth of York.
[S338] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 8th ed., 71-29.
[S301] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Robert Abell, p. 110.
[S325] Rev. C. Moor, Knights of Edward I, v. 2, p. 30.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 86.
[S284] Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry, Cornwall 5.

Nicholas de Verdun¹

M, #3011, b. circa 1174, d. April 1232

Father*

Bertram de Verdon^2,3 d. 1192

Mother*

Roesia (?)² d. 1215

Nicholas de Verdun|b. c 1174\nd. Apr 1232|p101.htm#i3011|Bertram de Verdon|d. 1192|p141.htm#i4216|Roesia (?)|d. 1215|p141.htm#i4217|Norman de Verdun|b. c 1050\nd. a 1133|p353.htm#i10581|Lasceline de Clinton|b. c 1118|p141.htm#i4219|||||||

Birth*

circa 1174

Marriage*

Principal=Joan de Lacy²

Marriage*

Principal=Clemencia (?)⁴

Death*

April 1232

(Witness) Biography

Dugdale felt that this family was related to the Verdons. They had similar arms (fretty) and Henry had received an inheritance from Nicholas de Verdon. Henry was a favorite of Ranulph, Earl of Chester, one of the most powerful barons in England, and received from him Newhall in Cheshire, as well as manors in Staffordshire. From King John, in reward for his support in the baronial insurrections, he received royal grant of the lordship of Storton in Warwickshire. He executed the office of sheriff of Salop and Staffordshire for Ranulf of Chester and later was named to those offices in his own right in 10 Hen III. He also received grants in Ireland from Hugh de Lacy, Earl of Ulster.

When Richard Marshall rebelled and made an incursion into Wales, Henry III seized Henry de Audley along with other marcher barons.

Later, Henry was made governor of Shrewsbury, the castles of Chester and Beeston, and Newcastle-under-Lyme., Principal=Henry de Audley⁵

Arms*

Sealed: early 13th cent.: Fretty, with pellets in the spaces (Birch).⁶

Name Variation

Nicholas de Verdon²

Residence*

Alton, Staffordshire, England¹

Family

Joan de Lacy b. c 1178

Child

Rohese de Verdun+^1,2,7 b. c 1200, d. b 22 Feb 1246

Last Edited

24 Apr 2005

Citations

[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 149-28.
[S218] Marlyn Lewis, Ancestry of Elizabeth of York.
[S301] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Robert Abell, p. 255.
[S338] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 8th ed., 71-28.
[S342] Sir Bernard Burke, Extinct Peerages, p. 15.
[S325] Rev. C. Moor, Knights of Edward I, v. 5, p. 104.
[S287] G. E. C[okayne], CP, II - 448.

Isabel d' Aubigny¹

F, #3012, b. circa 1203

Father*

Sir William d' Aubigny b. c 1165, d. 1 Feb 1220/21; daughter and coheir^2,3,4,5,6

Mother*

Mabel of Chester^2,3 b. c 1172

Marriage*

Principal=John FitzAlan^1,3,4

Birth*

circa 1203

Name Variation

Isabel de Albini³

Family

John FitzAlan b. c 1164, d. Mar 1240

Child

Sir John FitzAlan+^1,3,7,6 b. May 1223, d. b 10 Nov 1267

Last Edited

29 May 2005

Citations

[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 149-27.
[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 149-26.
[S218] Marlyn Lewis, Ancestry of Elizabeth of York.
[S233] Frederick Lewis Weis, Magna Charta Sureties, 134-2.
[S325] Rev. C. Moor, Knights of Edward I, p. 6.
[S325] Rev. C. Moor, Knights of Edward I, v. 2, p. 29.
[S233] Frederick Lewis Weis, Magna Charta Sureties, 134-3.

John FitzAlan¹

M, #3013, b. circa 1164, d. March 1240

Father*

William FitzAlan^2,3 d. c 1210

Mother*

(?) FitzHenry²

Father

William FitzAlan⁴ b. 1105, d. 1160

John FitzAlan|b. c 1164\nd. Mar 1240|p101.htm#i3013|William FitzAlan|d. c 1210|p140.htm#i4186|(?) FitzHenry||p140.htm#i4187|William FitzAlan|b. 1105\nd. 1160|p140.htm#i4183|Isabel de Say||p140.htm#i4184|Henry I. Curtmantel|b. 5 Mar 1132/33\nd. 6 Jul 1189|p55.htm#i1622|Rosamond Clifford|d. 1177|p135.htm#i4030|

Marriage*

Principal=Isabel d' Aubigny^1,2,5

Birth*

circa 1164

of Arundel, Essex, England²

Death*

March 1240

^2,5,3

Title*

Lord of Clun and Oswestry, Salop.³

Family

Isabel d' Aubigny b. c 1203

Child

Sir John FitzAlan+^1,2,6,7 b. May 1223, d. b 10 Nov 1267

Last Edited

24 Sep 2005

Citations

[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 149-27.
[S218] Marlyn Lewis, Ancestry of Elizabeth of York.
[S301] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Robert Abell, p. 110.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 86.
[S233] Frederick Lewis Weis, Magna Charta Sureties, 134-2.
[S233] Frederick Lewis Weis, Magna Charta Sureties, 134-3.
[S325] Rev. C. Moor, Knights of Edward I, v. 2, p. 29.

Richard de Clare "Strongbow"¹

M, #3014, b. circa 1130, d. circa 20 April 1176

Father*

Gilbert de Clare^1,2 b. 1100, d. 6 Jan 1147/48

Mother*

Isabel de Beaumont^3,2 b. c 1100

Birth*

circa 1130

Tunbridge, Kent, England^1,2

Marriage*

circa 26 August 1171

Waterford, Leinster, Ireland, Principal=Aoife MacDairmait^1,2,4

Death

5 April 1176

Dublin, Ireland²

Death*

circa 20 April 1176

Dublin, Ireland^1,4

Burial*

Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, Ireland⁴

HTML*

Catherine Armstrong's essay on Strongbow
Clare Line

DNB*

Clare, Richard fitz Gilbert de [called Strongbow], second earl of Pembroke [earl of Striguil] (c.1130-1176), warrior, was the son of Gilbert fitz Gilbert (d. 6 Jan? 1148), whom King Stephen created earl of Pembroke in 1138 and to whom the sobriquet Strongbow was also attributed, and Isabella (also known as Elizabeth), daughter of Robert de Beaumont, count of Meulan and earl of Leicester (d. 1118). He witnessed his father's charters for Lewes and Southwark priories, which suggests that he had come of age before the latter's death in 1148; he was probably therefore born about 1130.
Early career and inheritance
Strongbow succeeded his father in the earldom of Pembroke, the lordship of Striguil (with its caput at Chepstow) which, in addition to lands in south Wales comprised sixty-five and a half knights' fees located in nine counties of England, and the lordships of Orbec and Bienfaite in Normandy. On 7 November 1153 as ‘comes de Pembroc’ he witnessed the treaty between King Stephen and Henry, duke of Normandy. This was the last occasion in a royal document in which he was accorded this title. In January 1156 he was a witness without comital title to a charter of Henry II creating Aubrey de Vere earl of Oxford. There is no evidence for his exercise of lordship in Pembroke. He is not found again in the company of the king until late 1167 or early 1168 when he was sent by Henry to accompany his daughter Matilda on her marriage journey to Germany. Why Henry withheld his comital title is uncertain: that adherence to King Stephen may have been the reason is suggested by his loss, after the Angevin party had gained control of Normandy, of the lordships of Orbec and Bienfaite, which by 1153 was in the hands of his cousin, Robert de Montfort of Montfort-sur-Risle, son of Hugues de Montfort and Adelina, sister of his mother. From 1164 when Walter Giffard died, Strongbow's claim via Rohesia, daughter of Walter, and wife of Richard son of Count Gilbert (d. c.1090), to a portion of the Giffard estate, also was withheld him by the king.
Invitation to Ireland
During the winter of 1166–7 when Diarmait Mac Murchada, exiled king of Leinster, was actively recruiting troops for military service in Ireland, he was the guest of the Bristol merchant, Robert fitz Harding, and it may have been the latter who suggested to Mac Murchada that he should approach Strongbow, since there is circumstantial evidence that he had financial dealings with Robert fitz Harding to whom he may have mortgaged some lands; Nicholas, Robert's son, subsequently held the manor and advowson of Tickenham, Somerset, which was attached to the honour of Striguil. Gerald of Wales described Strongbow on the eve of intervention in Ireland as having ‘succeeded to a name rather than possessions’ (Expugnatio, 54–5). William of Newburgh gave a similar assessment of his circumstances: the reason why he was anxious to go to Ireland was that he had wasted most of his inheritance and wanted to get away from his creditors. That he was in debt to Aaron the Jew of Lincoln may be inferred from pipe roll entries. According to Gerald and the Anglo-Norman poem the so-called Song of Dermot and the Earl (a title coined by its modern editor, G. H. Orpen), Strongbow sought permission from Henry II to go to Ireland. Gerald states that Henry gave it, although more in jest than in earnest. Gervase of Canterbury agrees with Gerald that Strongbow secured the king's permission, but adds that none the less his relations with Henry remained strained. Gervase dates Henry's displeasure to three years before the king's expedition to Ireland in October 1171, which would indicate a date about 1168—that is about the time when Henry sent Strongbow to Germany with Matilda. Strongbow may have requested permission to go to Ireland and Henry may have delayed his departure deliberately by dispatching him on the mission to Germany. Henry may thereafter have given permission, albeit reluctantly. According to William of Newburgh, as Strongbow was about to sail for Ireland, messengers acting on behalf of Henry arrived to forbid his departure, threatening him with sequestration of his estates. That his lands in Wales and England were taken into the king's hand is evidenced in pipe roll entries relating to his castle of Striguil and his demesne manor of Weston, Hertfordshire. His landing in Ireland was not his first initiative in relation to Ireland. His uncle, Hervey de Montmorency, who had accompanied Robert fitz Stephen to Ireland in May 1169, went as an explorator on his behalf, according to Gerald of Wales, while Raymond le Gros, who landed about May 1170, is described as a member of Strongbow's household, sent by him in advance, who was joined within days of his landing by Hervey.
Early campaigns in Ireland
Strongbow himself, following additional entreaties from Diarmait Mac Murchada who, according to Gerald, sent messengers pleading for his intervention in implementation of his earlier promise, sailed for Ireland from Milford Haven, having recruited troops on the way in south Wales, and landed near Waterford on 23 August 1170 with 200 knights and about 1000 others. He was joined on 25 August by Raymond who assisted in the capture and garrisoning of Waterford city, and by Diarmait Mac Murchada, accompanied by Robert fitz Stephen and Maurice Fitzgerald (d. 1176). The alliance between Mac Murchada and Strongbow was sealed by the marriage between Diarmait's daughter Aífe (Eva) and Strongbow, which, according to Gerald and the Song, had been first suggested by Mac Murchada at Bristol, along with succession to the kingdom of Leinster after his death, Strongbow qualifying his acceptance on that occasion by stating that he would have to seek King Henry's permission. As a tenant-in-chief Strongbow required the king's consent to marry outside his dominions. The prospect of the marriage may have been the predominant reason for Henry's displeasure about 1168, while Strongbow, still a ‘bacheler’ (The Song of Dermot and the Earl, l. 346) had reason to be aggrieved that the king had not thus far provided him with a wife suited to his status as a tenant-in-chief. Having placed a garrison in Waterford, Strongbow set out with Mac Murchada for Dublin where he arrived on 21 September. The city was taken following action by Raymond and Miles de Cogan, who, independently of Strongbow and Diarmait, entered the city by assault and put Asculf Mac Torcaill, king of Dublin, to flight. Strongbow remained at Dublin until 1 October during which time he raided with Diarmait Mac Murchada into Meath against Tigernán Ua Ruairc, king of Bréifne. Having placed Miles de Cogan in charge of a garrison in Dublin, he then returned to Waterford for the winter. Gerald states that when news of events in Ireland reached Henry II he closed the ports to Ireland and ordered all persons from his dominions who had gone there without permission to return before Easter (28 March) 1171 or face seizure of their estates. The closing of the ports is corroborated by William of Newburgh and pipe roll entries, which furnish evidence of fines paid by individuals who went to Ireland without the king's permission. William of Newburgh relates further that Henry obliged Strongbow ‘now nearly a king’ (William of Newburgh, Historia rerum Anglicarum, ed. R. Howlett, Rolls Series, 1884, 167–8) to make peace with him. Gerald describes Strongbow sending Raymond le Gros to negotiate on his behalf with Henry, and proposing that Strongbow would hold his Irish acquisitions from the king; Raymond was still awaiting a reply from a procrastinating king at the time when news of the murder of Thomas Becket (29 December 1170) reached the court. Raymond apparently had to return to Ireland without a favourable response from Henry. When Mac Murchada died about May 1171, having regained the kingship of Leinster and with overseas troops in control of the Hiberno-Norse towns of Dublin and Waterford, Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair, king of Connacht, and claimant to the high-kingship, besieged the city of Dublin for a period of two months. Supplies were running short and Strongbow elected to negotiate with Ruaidrí, sending Lorcán Ua Tuathail (Laurentius), archbishop of Dublin, and Maurice de Prendergast as envoys and offering to hold Leinster under Ruaidrí. Ruaidrí, however, was prepared to concede to Strongbow only the coastal ports of Waterford, Dublin, and Wexford; failing acceptance of these terms, he would storm the city on the following day. Strongbow then determined on a sudden sortie with three contingents, led by Miles de Cogan, Raymond le Gros and himself, which attacked and routed Ruaidrí's decamped army, thereby lifting the siege. Leaving Dublin under the charge of Miles, he then set out to relieve the Wexford garrison, where Robert fitz Stephen had been captured. On the way he routed an army of Leinstermen in the pass of Gowran, killing Diarmait Ua Riain, king of Uí Dróna. The Song relates three episodes at this time which are omitted by Gerald: that Strongbow summoned Domnall Ua Briain, king of Thomond, who was his brother-in-law (he was married to Órlaith, daughter of Diarmait Mac Murchada), to join forces with him against Domnall Mac Gilla Pátraic, king of Osraige; that Mac Gilla Pátraic, realizing the odds against him, agreed to parley personally with Strongbow on condition that he was given a safe conduct on the word of Maurice de Prendergast; that Strongbow went to Ferns where he remained for eight days during which time he had beheaded Murchad Ua Brain, king of Dubthar, for his treachery to Mac Murchada; and that he negotiated a peace with Muirchertach, nephew of Diarmait Mac Murchada, acknowledging him as king of Uí Chennselaig, while to Mac Murchada's son, Domnall Cáemanach, ‘he entrusted the pleas of Leinster’ (De Leynistere le pleias ballout; The Song of Dermot and the Earl, l. 2187) .
Henry II's expedition to Ireland
As Strongbow's troops were making their way to the relief of the Wexford garrison, messengers met them with the news that the town had been burnt. They changed direction to Waterford, where they found Hervey de Montmorency who had just returned from the court of Henry II. Robert de Torigni describes messengers from Strongbow arriving at the court of Argentan in July 1171 and offering to surrender Dublin, Waterford, and the lands that he had acquired causa uxoris to Henry. The king, however, persisted in retaining Strongbow's lands in England and Normandy, and was prepared to concede only ‘ut esset comes stabuli vel senescallus totius Hiberniae’ (‘that he was constable and seneschal of all Ireland’; Chronica Roberti de Torigneio in Chronicles, ed. Howlett, 4.252) . Strongbow was persuaded both by Hervey's personal entreaty and by letters brought by him from the king, that it would be politic to go in person to Henry. Leaving Gilbert de Boisrohard in charge of Waterford, he travelled to meet Henry at Newnham, Gloucestershire. The king had by now made extensive preparations for an expedition to Ireland. After lengthy argument and mediation by Hervey, Strongbow agreed to surrender the city of Dublin and its adjoining territory, the coastal towns, and all fortified strongholds, and to hold the remainder of the land he had acquired in Ireland under grant from Henry. Henry crossed to Ireland and landed at Waterford on 18 October. There Strongbow surrendered the city to him, the king immediately appointing Robert fitz Bernard as custodian; he subsequently also relinquished Dublin, and did homage for a grant of Leinster in fee. While Henry spent the greater part of his sojourn in Dublin, Strongbow resided at Kildare. Among the concessions that Strongbow appears to have wrung from the king, if not at Newnham, certainly before Henry II's departure from Ireland, was recognition of his comital status: he was styled ‘comes Ricardus’ for the first time in a royal document since Henry's accession when he witnessed the king's charter, issued shortly before his departure, to Hugh de Lacy at Wexford in 1172. Lacy was appointed custodian of Dublin, while Wexford was entrusted to William fitz Aldelin. That Henry still had reservations about Strongbow is clear from Gerald's remark that while the king was waiting for favourable weather to sail from Ireland he deliberately sought to attract men to his service, his purpose being to strengthen his party and weaken that of Strongbow.
Anglo-Norman campaigns and consolidation in Ireland, 1172–1176
From 1172 contemporary sources refer to Strongbow as earl of Striguil, though he is once styled earl of Leinster in the Song (The Song of Dermot and the Earl, l. 1745). During 1172–3 he appears to have made Kildare his headquarters, whence he mounted raids into Uí Failge. Robert de Quincy, who in 1172 married a presumably illegitimate daughter of Strongbow receiving Dubthar as a marriage portion together with the constableship of Leinster, may have been responsible for holding south Leinster, probably from Ferns. In 1173 Quincy was killed while fighting alongside Strongbow in Uí Failge, caught in an attack on the rearguard by Diarmait Ua Diummusaig, king of Uí Failge. Following the outbreak of rebellion against Henry about 15 April 1173, the king summoned Strongbow to fight in Normandy, where he defended Gisors for the king and was present at the siege of Verneuil on 9 August. He returned to Ireland in the autumn of 1173, the king having conceded to him the custodia Hibernici regni (Expugnatio, 120–21) including Dublin and Waterford. Strongbow himself described his position as ‘vices domini regis Anglie in Hibernia agens’ in charters issued on behalf of Henry II (Gilbert, Crede mihi, 46–7; Chartae, privilegia et immunitates, 1) . The king also quitclaimed to him the town of Wexford which he had previously retained as royal demesne, and Wicklow Castle. Raymond le Gros, who had left Ireland with Henry in 1172, returned with Strongbow in the role of coadjutor according to Gerald, though this almost certainly exaggerates Raymond's importance. Strongbow's absence had occasioned a revolt in Leinster, where an Anglo-Norman garrison in Kilkenny was expelled. In south Wales too the Welsh had taken advantage with a great raid on Netherwent on 16 August which reached as far as the very walls of his castle at Chepstow. In 1174 he took an army into Munster against Domnall Ua Briain, king of Thomond, who inflicted a severe defeat on him, forcing a retreat to Waterford. This reversal is attributed by Gerald to the incompetence of Hervey de Montmorency who had been acting as constable of Strongbow's army in the absence of Raymond le Gros. Raymond had sought to marry Quincy's widow and to replace him as constable and, having been refused by Strongbow, had returned to Wales. He was now recalled and offered the marriage of Strongbow's sister, Basilia, together with land grants in Fotharta, and Uí Dróna and the coastal site of Glascarrig. Gerald depicts Strongbow as hemmed in and inactive in Waterford until the timely arrival of Raymond with additional troops which also prevented Wexford from falling into Irish hands. Meanwhile, Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair raided into Meath, destroying the castles of Trim and Duleek, and reaching up to the very border of the Hiberno-Norse kingdom of Dublin. Although Gerald depicts Raymond restoring Anglo-Norman control in Meath, the Song credits it to Strongbow. Supposedly at Raymond's suggestion, Strongbow's elder, presumably illegitimate, daughter, Alina, was now married to William, eldest son of Maurice Fitzgerald, while Hervey de Montmorency married Nest, daughter of Maurice Fitzgerald who was granted the middle cantred of Uí Fáeláin and custody of the castle of Wicklow. A valuable account of Strongbow's subinfeudation of Leinster, which was probably effected during 1173–4, is contained in the Song, according to which also Strongbow now held hostages from the chief Irish of Leinster. About the time of negotiation of the treaty of Windsor (6 October 1175), Strongbow was with the king at Marlborough where he witnessed a number of charters. Meanwhile in Ireland Raymond le Gros was leading an Anglo-Norman force to capture Limerick city, an expedition that according to the Song had been planned by Strongbow. Hervey de Montmorency complained to the king that Raymond was acting against the king's interests and aspired to seize control, not only of Limerick, but of the whole of Ireland. Henry responded by sending four messengers to Ireland early in 1176, two of whom were to escort Raymond to him, while the other two were to remain with Strongbow. As Raymond was about to depart with the royal envoys news came that Domnall Ua Briain had besieged the Anglo-Norman garrison of Limerick. Strongbow, according to Gerald, prepared to go to the assistance of the garrison, but his men asserted they would only fight under the leadership of Raymond. Strongbow agreed with the envoys that Raymond should return to Limerick. The Anglo-Norman garrison was relieved on 6 April, but news then broke of the death of Strongbow.
Death and legacy
According to Ralph de Diceto, Strongbow died on 5 April 1176, according to Gerald about 1 June, but his commemoration was kept on 20 April by Holy Trinity, Dublin, where he was buried, the funeral rite being performed by Lorcán Ua Tuathail, archbishop of Dublin; this date is also supported by his obituary preserved at Tintern Abbey, Monmouthshire. He was also remembered at the commemoration for those buried in Holy Trinity, Dublin, which was kept on the Sunday following 1 August. The tomb there which traditionally has been associated with him is certainly not contemporary. The two main sources for his career in Ireland differ in emphasis: Gerald's portrayal is qualified by elevation of his relatives at Strongbow's expense, while the Song is much more positive in its attitude. Original charters issued by him for two feoffees in Ireland, Adam of Hereford and William de Angulo, survive in the Ormond deeds. Strongbow founded a nunnery at Usk and issued charters in favour of Tintern, Biddlesden, St Neots, Parndon, and Goldcliff, as well as Foucarmont and Cormeilles in Normandy. In Ireland he made grants to Holy Trinity, Dublin, and St Mary's Abbey, Dublin, and to the knights hospitaller, and confirmed the foundation of Dunbrody by his uncle, Hervey de Montmorency. He was survived by a son, Gilbert, who was recorded on the Rotuli de dominabus et pueris et puellis as twelve years old in 1185, and a daughter, Isabella [see Clare, Isabel de]. His widow, Aífe, variously styled countess of Striguil and ‘comitissa de Hybernia’, occurs in royal records between 1176 and 1189. Gilbert died while still a minor some time after 1185 and before July 1189, when Isabella married William (I) Marshal, who succeeded in right of his wife to the lordships of Striguil and Leinster and who in 1199 recovered the comital title and earldom of Pembroke.

William of Newburgh recounts that as a result of his acquisitions in Ireland, Strongbow, who had had little fortune previously, became celebrated for his wealth and great prosperity in England and Wales. His intervention in Ireland had returned him to the royal court, increased his landed resources, secured him a wife commensurate with his status, restored to him a comital title, and afforded the means by which his son-in-law, William Marshal, was to recover not only the earldom of Pembroke, but also a portion of the Giffard inheritance. From Henry II's perspective Strongbow's involvement in Ireland had generated the prospect that a disaffected tenant-in-chief, who deemed himself to have been deprived of the lordship of Pembroke and of comital status, might avail of his strategically located territorial acquisitions in Ireland to attempt to foment a revolt in Pembroke or seize it by force. A significant number of Strongbow's Cambro-Norman tenants in Leinster were drawn from Pembrokeshire. If Strongbow had not managed to gain de jure recognition as their lord in Pembroke from Henry II between 1154 and 1170, he had become de facto their lord in Ireland upon whom they had to rely for the security of their Irish holdings. Were Strongbow to stage a revolt in Pembroke, therefore, it was possible that he might be able to raise a significant measure of local support. Henry II then had reason to fear not just Strongbow's uncontrolled activities within Ireland, but even more importantly perhaps the potential which Strongbow's acquisition of the lordship of Leinster afforded for destabilization within the Angevin dominions. This undoubtedly was a key consideration in Henry's decision to intervene personally in Ireland in 1171 and in his negotiating an accommodation with Strongbow.

M. T. Flanagan
Sources

Giraldus Cambrensis, Expugnatio Hibernica / The conquest of Ireland, ed. and trans. A. B. Scott and F. X. Martin (1978), 28–9, 32–3, 54–5, 56–7, 64–7, 70–71, 72–3, 78–89, 94–5, 102–3, 120–21, 134–9, 142–3, 160–61, 163–7, 228–31 · G. H. Orpen, ed. and trans., The song of Dermot and the earl (1892), 2.326–64, 1400–04, 1501–41, 1565–9, 1585–1613, 1630, 1646, 1720–27, 1734–2255, 2593, 2613–22, 2633–4, 2695–6, 2741–50, 2770–850, 2864–945, 2994–3035, 3062–127, 3320–65 · Reg. RAN, 3.272 · GEC, Peerage, new edn, 10.352–8, appx H, 100–04 · Pipe rolls, 16–23 Henry II; 3–10 Richard I; 1–3 John · L. Landon, ed., The cartae antiquae: rolls 1–10, printed from the original in the custody of the master of the rolls, PRSoc., 55, new ser., 17 (1939), no. 184 · J. T. Gilbert, ed., Crede mihi (1897), 46–7, 64–5 · Chartae, privilegia et immunitates, Irish Record Commission (1889) · R. Howlett, ed., Chronicles of the reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I, 1, Rolls Series, 82 (1884), 167–9 · Radulfi de Diceto … opera historica, ed. W. Stubbs, 1: 1148–79, Rolls Series, 68 (1876), 330, 375, 407 · R. Howlett, ed., Chronicles of the reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I, 4, Rolls Series, 82 (1889), 4.252, 270 · The historical works of Gervase of Canterbury, ed. W. Stubbs, 2 vols., Rolls Series, 73 (1879–80), 1.234; 2.79 · W. Stokes, ed., ‘The annals of Tigernach [8 pts]’, Revue Celtique, 16 (1895), 374–419; 17 (1896), 6–33, 119–263, 337–420; 18 (1897), 9–59, 150–97, 267–303, 374–91; pubd sep. (1993) · T. Jones, ed. and trans., Brut y tywysogyon, or, The chronicle of the princes: Peniarth MS 20 (1952), 70 · T. Jones, ed. and trans., Brut y tywysogyon, or, The chronicle of the princes: Red Book of Hergest (1955), 162–3 · J. Hunt, Irish medieval figure sculpture, 1200–1600, 2 vols. (1974), vol. 1, nos. 28, 32 · Sir Christopher Hatton's Book of seals, ed. L. C. Loyd and D. M. Stenton, Northamptonshire RS, 15 (1950), no. 40 · R. Ransford, ed., The early charters of the Augustinian canons of Waltham Abbey, Essex, 1062–1230 (1989), 21, 24, 28, 235, 236, 240 · W. Stubbs, ed., Gesta regis Henrici secundi Benedicti abbatis: the chronicle of the reigns of Henry II and Richard I, AD 1169–1192, 2 vols., Rolls Series, 49 (1867), vol. 1, pp. 51, 125, 161; vol. 2, p. 73 · Chronica magistri Rogeri de Hovedene, ed. W. Stubbs, 4 vols., Rolls Series, 51 (1868–71), vol. 1, pp. 267–9; vol. 2, pp. 100, 150; vol. 3, p. 7 · A. R. Wagner, ‘A seal of Strongbow in the Huntington Library’, Antiquaries Journal, 21 (1941), 128–32 · Itineraries [of] William Worcestre, ed. J. H. Harvey, OMT (1969), 54–5 · J. T. Gilbert, ed., Chartularies of St Mary's Abbey, Dublin: with the register of its house at Dunbrody and annals of Ireland, 2 vols., Rolls Series, 80 (1884), vol. 1, pp. 83–4, 258; vol. 2, pp. 153–4 · T. Wakeman, ‘On the town, castle and priory of Usk’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 10 (1855), 257–65, esp. 261–2 · E. Curtis, ed., Calendar of Ormond deeds, 6 vols., IMC (1932–43), vols. 1–2 · J. C. Crosthwaite, ed., The book of obits and martyrology of the cathedral church … Dublin, Irish Archaeological Society, 4 (1844), 21, 57 · G. H. Orpen, Ireland under the Normans, 4 vols. (1911–20), vol. 1, pp. 285–6 · M. T. Flanagan, Irish society, Anglo-Norman settlers, Angevin kingship: interactions in Ireland in the late twelfth century (1989)
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M. T. Flanagan, ‘Clare, Richard fitz Gilbert de , second earl of Pembroke (c.1130-1176)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/5447, accessed 23 Sept 2005]

Richard fitz Gilbert de Clare (c.1130-1176): doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/5447⁵

Event-Misc*

1168

They made a compact that Strongbow would marry Dairmait's daughter, be his successor, help him win back his kingdom and drive the Danes out of Leinster., Principal=Dairmait MacMurchada⁶

Event-Misc*

23 August 1170

He sailed from Milford Haven to Waterford, captured it, and then marched on to capture Dublin, the chief Danish stronghold in Ireland⁶

Event-Misc

1173

Rouen, Normandy, France, Henry II granted Strongbow Ireland in fee⁶

Event-Misc

1174

He invaded Munster but was forced back into Leinster by the Irish⁶

Title*

Earl of Pembroke¹

Title

Earl of Striguil¹

Title

Justiciar of Ireland¹

Family 1

Children

Basilie de Clare+; a bastard⁶
Aline de Clare; a bastard⁶

Family 2

Aoife MacDairmait b. c 1140

Children

Isabel de Clare+^1,2,7 b. 1173, d. 1220
Gilbert de Clare⁶ b. 1173, d. a 1185

Last Edited

23 Sep 2005

Citations

[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 66-26.
[S218] Marlyn Lewis, Ancestry of Elizabeth of York.
[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 66-25.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 53.
[S376] Unknown editor, unknown short title.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 54.
[S284] Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry, Cornwall 4.

Aoife MacDairmait¹

F, #3015, b. circa 1140

Father*

Dairmait MacMurchada^1,2 d. 1 Jan 1171

Mother*

Mor O'Toole^2,3 d. 1164

Aoife MacDairmait|b. c 1140|p101.htm#i3015|Dairmait MacMurchada|d. 1 Jan 1171|p101.htm#i3016|Mor O'Toole|d. 1164|p334.htm#i10006|Donoch MacMorough|d. 1115|p116.htm#i3459|Darfargila O'Brien MacMorough/|d. 1080|p116.htm#i3460|Muirchertach O'Toole||p334.htm#i10008|Cacht O'Moore||p334.htm#i10007|

Birth*

circa 1140

Leinster, Ireland²

Marriage*

circa 26 August 1171

Waterford, Leinster, Ireland, Principal=Richard de Clare "Strongbow"^1,2,4

Name Variation

Eve¹

Living*

1186

Family

Richard de Clare "Strongbow" b. c 1130, d. c 20 Apr 1176

Children

Isabel de Clare+^1,2 b. 1173, d. 1220
Gilbert de Clare⁵ b. 1173, d. a 1185

Last Edited

21 May 2005

Citations

[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 66-26.
[S218] Marlyn Lewis, Ancestry of Elizabeth of York.
[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 175-6.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 53.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 54.

Dairmait MacMurchada¹

M, #3016, d. 1 January 1171

Father*

Donoch MacMorough^2,3 d. 1115

Mother*

Darfargila O'Brien MacMorough/² d. 1080

Dairmait MacMurchada|d. 1 Jan 1171|p101.htm#i3016|Donoch MacMorough|d. 1115|p116.htm#i3459|Darfargila O'Brien MacMorough/|d. 1080|p116.htm#i3460|Murchad (?)|d. 8 Dec 1070|p144.htm#i4298|Sadb MacBricc||p229.htm#i6853|Morough O'Brien||p144.htm#i4299|Iuchdelb (?)||p140.htm#i4198|

Of*

Leinster, Ireland²

Marriage*

Principal=Mor O'Toole^2,4

Marriage*

Principal=Dearvorgala O'Moore²

Death*

1 January 1171

Ferns, Wexford, Ireland^4,2

HTML*

Dairmait

DNB*

Mac Murchada, Diarmait [Dermot MacMurrough; called Diarmait na nGall] (c.1110-1171), king of Leinster, was the son of Donnchad Mac Murchada, king of Uí Chennselaig and of Leinster, who was slain in battle in Dublin in 1115, and of Órlaith, who was the daughter of Gille Michil Mac Bráenáin of Uí Máel Rubae and Uchdelb, daughter of Cernachán Ua Gairbith, king of Uí Felmeda. During a long career Mac Murchada sought to extend his authority throughout Leinster and beyond, in the process becoming a notable patron of the reformed religious orders as well as extending his influence in more traditional and brutal ways. To posterity he is best known for his appeal in 1166 to Henry II of England for help in the recovery of his kingdom, from which he had been exiled by his enemies; the act has earned him the dubious distinction of being regarded as the instigator of English involvement in Ireland.
Early years
Mac Murchada was born about 1110, on the evidence of an entry in the king-list in the Book of Leinster. That source attributes to him a forty-six year reign as king of Uí Chennselaig and Leinster, implying that he came to power in 1125–6, following the death of his brother Énna, who died as king of Leinster in 1126; however, the less partisan, though later, Book of Ballymote king-list assigns him a forty-year reign, and this corresponds better with the annalistic evidence, where Diarmait first occurs as king of Leinster in 1132. It is not certain whether he should be identified with ‘the son of Mac Murchada’ who, following the death of Énna, was deposed by Toirdelbach Mór Ua Conchobair (d. 1156), king of Connacht and claimant to the high-kingship, who temporarily intruded his own son, Conchobar, as king of Leinster. But Mac Murchada would appear to have had a dynastic rival for the kingship of Úi Chennselaig in Máelsechlainn mac Diarmata meic Murchada, who was slain in 1133 by north Leinster dynasts led by Augaire Ua Tuathail; the latter was himself killed fighting alongside Diarmait in the following year.
The provincial kingship of Leinster
A distinction may be drawn between Mac Murchada's patrimonial kingdom of Uí Chennselaig in south Leinster, which was centred on Ferns, Wexford, and with which his lineage was associated from the early historic period, and the provincial or over-kingship of Leinster which his great-grandfather, Diarmait mac Máel na mBó, succeeded in taking by force in 1052. The over-kingship was much less securely held, particularly in the north Leinster region, and in Osraige on the Munster–Leinster border, and was reliant on the exercise of military force, or the latent threat of it. Mac Murchada's first recorded exploit, which may be equated with his crech ríg, or ‘royal prey’ (that is, his first military expedition whereby he inaugurated his kingship), was his attack in 1132 on the important north Leinster church of Kildare and its abbess, Mór. She had been installed there in 1127 by Ua Conchobair, king of Uí Failgi, at the expense of a daughter of Cerball Mac Fáeláin, king of Uí Fáeláin. Another of Cerball's daughters, Sadb, married Mac Murchada, possibly about 1132. The attack on Kildare may therefore be deemed both to have launched Mac Murchada's bid for the provincial kingship, and also to have avenged the insult to his sister-in-law and the Meic Fáeláin, whose support in north Leinster would have been critical to him in establishing his position as king of Leinster.

The expansion of Mac Murchada's sphere of influence is shown by his fighting a battle in 1134 in alliance with the Hiberno-Norse of Dublin against Conchobar Ua Briain, king of Thomond, the Osraige, and the Hiberno-Norse of Waterford. In 1137 he mustered a fleet of 200 ships drawn from Dublin and Wexford and, this time in alliance with Conchobar Ua Briain, besieged Waterford and carried off the hostages of Donnchad Mac Carthaig, king of Desmond, of Déisi, and of Waterford. Conchobar then submitted to Mac Murchada, in the hope that the latter might secure for him the kingship of Desmond. In 1141 seventeen north Leinster dynasts were killed or blinded by Mac Murchada, an event unprecedented not only for the numbers involved, but also for the fact that it was not the consequence of a military campaign, but appears to have been a deliberate rounding up of political opponents. In 1149 he plundered the church site of Duleek, Meath, signalling his interest in expanding into the east Mide area, into which Tigernán Ua Ruairc, king of Bréifne, was also moving. In 1151 he fought alongside Toirdelbach Ua Conchobair at the battle of Móin Mór, Tipperary, at which Toirdelbach Ua Briain, king of Thomond, suffered a crushing defeat.

In 1152 Mac Murchada abducted Tigernán Ua Ruairc's wife, Derbforgaill, from Mide. She was the daughter of Murchad Ua Máelsechlainn, king of Mide, and according to the seventeenth-century translation of the annals of Clonmacnoise, her brother Máelsechlainn had induced her to solicit Mac Murchada's intervention. The Connacht-oriented annals of Tigernach place the abduction in the context of a joint raid with Toirdelbach Ua Conchobair of Connacht, against Tigernán Ua Ruairc, during which Ua Ruairc suffered a defeat and was temporarily deposed. The annals of the four masters record the participation of Muirchertach Mac Lochlainn, king of Cenél nEógain and claimant to the high-kingship, and state that on the same occasion Mide was divided between Murchad Ua Máelsechlainn and his son, Máelsechlainn, who was granted the eastern portion. It is not impossible that Máelsechlainn had offered the kingship of east Mide to Mac Murchada, along with his sister Derbforgaill, as a means of preventing Ua Ruairc's further encroachment upon that area.

Probably shortly after Derbforgaill's return to Mide in 1153, Mac Murchada married Mór, daughter of Muirchertach Ua Tuathail, king of Uí Muiredaig. He may also be presumed to have supported the promotion of her half-brother, Lorcán Ua Tuathail, to the abbacy of Glendalough, even though the latter's hagiographical life reports that he had been mistreated as a boy while held hostage by Mac Murchada. In 1156 Mac Murchada acknowledged the high-kingship of Muirchertach Mac Lochlainn, who confirmed him in the kingship of Leinster and in 1162 he was present at the Synod of Clane, presided over by Gilla Meic Liac, archbishop of Armagh, where the primacy of Armagh was affirmed, and where Lorcán Ua Tuathail most probably was elected to succeed the dying Gréine as archbishop of Dublin. In the same year the annals of Ulster claim that Mac Murchada obtained ‘great power over the Dubliners such as was not obtained for a long time’ (Hennessy and MacCarthy, 2.142–3). He had been assisted by Muirchertach Mac Lochlainn, who led a large army to besiege Dublin in 1162. It must have been with Mac Murchada's consent that the Dublin fleet campaigned for six months in 1165 on the Welsh coast in the service of Henry II.
Expulsion and return
In 1166 the assassination of his ally, the high-king Muirchertach Mac Lochlainn, occasioned a concerted attack on Mac Murchada by his enemies. Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair, king of Connacht, launched a bid for the high-kingship and succeeded in removing the city of Dublin from Diarmait's control, prompting a revolt by the men of Leinster against the latter's authority. Ua Conchobair led an army into Uí Chennselaig, in advance of which Mac Murchada himself burnt Ferns; a second army, led by Tigernán Ua Ruairc, demolished Diarmait's stone house at Ferns and burnt its longphort. Acting as high-king, Ua Conchobair then divided Uí Chennselaig between Diarmait's brother, Murchad (who gave seventeen hostages to Ruaidrí) and Donnchad Mac Gillapátraic, king of Osraige. The Book of Leinster gives 1 August as the date of Mac Murchada's expulsion overseas; he sailed for Bristol and from there travelled on to Aquitaine to secure a personal interview with Henry II, king of England, to seek military aid to help him to recover his kingdom. The request was not unreasonable, considering Henry had hired the Dublin fleet in 1165. Having duly received permission to recruit troops within Henry's dominions, Mac Murchada returned to Bristol, where he was maintained by Robert fitz Harding at the king's expense; it may have been fitz Harding who introduced him to Richard fitz Gilbert de Clare, earl of Pembroke and lord of Striguil, known as Strongbow, whom he sought to recruit. By way of inducement, either then, or later in 1170, Mac Murchada offered Strongbow marriage to his daughter, Aífe, and succession to the kingdom of Leinster after his death. Mac Murchada then moved on to south Wales, where he was entertained by Rhys ap Gruffudd, ruler of Deheubarth, and David fitz Gerald, bishop of St David's. There he recruited Robert fitz Stephen and Maurice Fitzgerald (d. 1176), to whom he offered, according to Gerald of Wales, the town of Wexford and two adjoining cantreds.

In autumn 1167 Mac Murchada returned to Leinster with Cambro-Norman mercenaries and re-established himself without difficulty at Ferns, where he was welcomed by the clergy. Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair responded by marching to Uí Chennselaig and exacting both hostages and 100 ounces of gold, the latter as compensation for the abduction of Ua Ruairc's wife in 1152. In the following year Mac Murchada's son, Énna, was blinded by Donnchad Mac Gillapátraic of Osraige, a deed which underlines the threat which Diarmait's recovery of Uí Chennselaig posed to Donnchad. Then in May 1169 Robert fitz Stephen and Hervey de Montmorency landed at Bannow, where Mac Murchada's forces joined them. Together they moved towards Wexford, whose citizens proffered hostages and submitted to Mac Murchada's authority. They then proceeded to campaign in Osraige. Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair responded by again hosting to Uí Chennselaig and exacting additional hostages. About May 1170 Raymond le Gros Fitzgerald, a member of Strongbow's familia, arrived, following which the men of Waterford suffered a defeat. On 23 August Strongbow himself landed, the city of Waterford was captured on 25 August, and his marriage to Aífe was almost immediately celebrated there. The combined forces of Strongbow and Mac Murchada then marched to Dublin where the city was taken, according to the so-called Song of Dermot and the Earl, on 21 September.
Challenge for the high-kingship and death
Now in a strong enough position to challenge Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair for the high-kingship, Mac Murchada extended his military activities into Mide, where he plundered the church sites of Clonard, Kells, Dulane, and Slane. Ua Conchobair retaliated by executing the hostages whom he held from Mac Murchada; these included the latter's son, Conchobar, his grandson, the son of Domnall Cáemánach, and the son of his foster brother, Murchad Ua Cáellaide, and their deaths show clearly how serious was the challenge which Mac Murchada now posed to Ua Conchobair's high-kingship. However, Mac Murchada died at Ferns about 1 May 1171. By then he had secured hostages from Mide and Airgialla, and had concluded an alliance with Domnall Mór Ua Briain, king of Thomond, to whom he gave his daughter Órlaith in marriage. She was the child of Sadb, who was also the mother of Donnchad, slain by the Osraige at an unknown date. The mother of his son Conchobar, slain in 1170, and of his daughter Aífe, was Mór. The identity of the mother or mothers of his sons Domnall Cáemánach and Énna, and of his daughter Derbforgaill, who married Domnall Mac Gillamocholmóc, king of Uí Dunchada, is unknown. It is probable that only his relationship with Mór was recognized as a canonically valid marriage by churchmen.
Ecclesiastical patronage
Diarmait Mac Murchada was a notable patron of the church reform movement, skilfully combining support for reform with his own political ambitions. His foundation of a Cistercian abbey at Baltinglass, Wicklow, in 1148 (the confirmation of Henry II's son John as lord of Ireland in 1185 refers to Mac Murchada's charter), elicited a letter of confraternity from Bernard of Clairvaux, possibly at the prompting of Archbishop Malachy of Armagh. Baltinglass Abbey served to neutralize a strategic pass connecting north and south Leinster. With the co-operation of Dungal Ua Cáellaide, bishop of Leighlin (who almost certainly owed his episcopal office to Mac Murchada's patronage), he endowed a Benedictine, subsequently Cistercian, abbey at Killenny, for which an original charter, issued by him about 1162–5, is extant, the earliest of an Irish king. Killenny was strategically located near the pass of Gowran, an important route between Osraige and south Leinster.

With the support of Joseph Ua hAéda, bishop of Ferns (who was almost certainly his nominee for the diocese), Mac Murchada introduced an Augustinian community of Arrouaisian filiation at the seventh-century church site of Ferns, which he endowed with the tithes and first fruits of his demesne throughout Uí Chennselaig and to which he granted his capellania (chapel), probably located in his residence at Ferns (which no later than 1166 was built of stone). Although Mac Murchada granted free abbatial election to the community, he reserved to himself and his heirs a right of assent. In the city of Dublin he endowed Holy Trinity Cathedral, the priory of All Hallows (in collaboration with Aéd Ua Cáellaide, bishop of Clogher and head of the Arrouaisian filiation in Ireland), and the Arrouaisian nunnery of St Mary de Hogges, together with its two dependencies at Aghade, Carlow, and Kilculliheen, Waterford. He may also have been responsible for the finely carved Romanesque doorway at Killeshin, Carlow, which shares stylistic features with Baltinglass.
Impact and reputation
The assertion by Gerald of Wales that Diarmait Mac Murchada ‘brought to prominence men of humble rank’ (Giraldus Cambrensis, 40–41) may be substantiated by the rise in the fortunes of his maternal kindred, the Uí Bráenáin, and his foster-kindred, the Uí Cáellaide. He also appears to have settled north Leinster dynasts Ua Briain on assarted land in Dubthír, and Ua Lorcáin in Fothairt in Chairn within Uí Chennselaig. The Leinster ecclesiastic, Aéd Mac Crimthainn, who secured the abbacy of Terryglass in Tipperary in the wake of the battle of Móin Mór in 1151, and whose involvement in the compilation of the Book of Leinster reveals his skills as a propagandist, belonged to the Uí Chremthannáin, who were promoted at the expense of their collaterals, the Uí Mórda of Loígsi. Mac Murchada's personal household included a chancellor (also styled notarius and who probably had custody of his seal), a chaplain, a seneschal, and an interpreter. The latter provided information about him to the author of the so-called Song of Dermot and the Earl, who provides a much more positive portrayal, presenting him as ‘the noble king, who was of so much worth’ (Orpen, 13), than does Gerald of Wales in his Expugnatio Hibernica, where Mac Murchada is portrayed as an oppressive ruler given to outbursts of savagery. The sobriquet Diarmait na nGall, ‘Diarmait of the Foreigners’, although subsequently interpreted as originating from Mac Murchada's recruitment of overseas mercenaries, and used by nationalists as a term of obloquy for his treachery in involving the English in Ireland, more likely derived from his dominance over the Hiberno-Norse of Dublin and Wexford. While contemporary death notices in the Book of Leinster (‘Diarmait … died after the victory of extreme unction and penance’; Book of Leinster, 1.184) and the annals of Inisfallen record his death neutrally, subsequent accounts are noticeably, and increasingly, hostile, reflecting the historiographical evolution of ever more negative assessments of his career.

M. T. Flanagan
Sources

W. Stokes, ed., ‘The annals of Tigernach [8 pts]’, Revue Celtique, 16 (1895), 374–419; 17 (1896), 6–33, 119–263, 337–420; 18 (1897), 9–59, 150–97, 267–303, 374–91; pubd sep. (1993) · AFM · D. Murphy, ed., The annals of Clonmacnoise, trans. C. Mageoghagan (1896); facs. edn (1993), 192–3, 196, 199–200, 202, 205–8 · Ann. Ulster · W. M. Hennessy and B. MacCarthy, eds., Annals of Ulster, otherwise, annals of Senat, 4 vols. (1887–1901) · W. M. Hennessy, ed. and trans., The annals of Loch Cé: a chronicle of Irish affairs from AD 1014 to AD 1590, 2 vols., Rolls Series, 54 (1871) · W. M. Hennessy, ed. and trans., Chronicum Scotorum: a chronicle of Irish affairs, Rolls Series, 46 (1866), 332–5 · Sancti Bernardi opera, ed. J. Leclercq and others, 8 (Rome, 1977), 513–14 · C. M. Butler and J. H. Bernard, eds., ‘The charters of the Cistercian abbey of Duiske in the county of Kilkenny’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 35C (1918–20), 1–188, esp. 5–7 · R. Butler, ed., Registrum prioratus omnium sanctorum (1845), 50–51 · Dugdale, Monasticon, new edn, 6/2.1141–2 · K. W. Nicholls, ‘The charter of John, lord of Ireland, in favour of the Cistercian abbey of Baltinglass’, Peritia, 4 (1985), 187–206, esp. 191 · C. McNeill, ed., Calendar of Archbishop Alen's register, c.1172–1534 (1950), 293 · G. H. Orpen, ed. and trans., The song of Dermot and the earl (1892) · Giraldus Cambrensis, Expugnatio Hibernica / The conquest of Ireland, ed. and trans. A. B. Scott and F. X. Martin (1978) · M. C. Dobbs, ed. and trans., ‘The Ban-shenchus [pt 2]’, Revue Celtique, 48 (1931), 163–234, esp. 191, 198, 231 · R. I. Best and others, eds., The Book of Leinster, formerly Lebar na Núachongbála, 6 vols. (1954–83), vol. 1, pp. xvii, 184, 186 · R. Atkinson, ed., The book of Ballymote: a collection of pieces (prose and verse) in the Irish language, facs. edn (1887), 55, col. d, ll. 18–26 · M. A. O'Brien, ed., Corpus genealogiarum Hiberniae (Dublin, 1962), 13 · D. Ó Corráin, ‘The education of Diarmait Mac Murchada’, Ériu, 28 (1977), 71–81 · B. Ó Cuiv, ‘Diarmaid na nGall’, Éigse, 16 (1975–6), 136–44 · S. Mac Airt, ed. and trans., The annals of Inisfallen (1951)
© Oxford University Press 2004–5
All rights reserved: see legal notice Oxford University Press

M. T. Flanagan, ‘Mac Murchada, Diarmait (c.1110-1171)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/17697, accessed 23 Sept 2005]

Diarmait Mac Murchada (c.1110-1171): doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/17697⁵

Biography*

"He grew up as a foster child in Ossory, next to Leinster, the younger brother of the King of Leinster, and was elected king of Ui Cinnsealaigh at age 16, succeeding as king of Leinster when his brother died. However, Turlough O'Connor, the high king of Ireland, did not accept him and encouraged Tiernan O'Rourke, a neighboring chieftain, to war on him. O'Rourke killed the cows of Leinster, destroying the major source of food for the people. Dairmait was able to regain the throne of Leinster in 1133 and in 1152 joined Turlough O'Connor in attacking the lands of Tiernan O'Rourke, taking Tiernan's wife Dervorgilla with him.

An enraged Tiernan and a combination of Irish chiefs forced Dairmait to sail for England in 1166; he then went to the continent to seek help from King Henry II of England, who gave him permission to recruit soldiers. He invaded Sorth Wales, and got financing from Bristol merchant and money lender Robert FitzHarding, who also introduced him to Richard de Clare, "Strongbow", who agreed to help him drive the Danes out of Leinster in return for his daughter's hand in marriage and the right to inherit his title.

Dairmait crossed to Ireland in May 1169 to reestablish himself. Richard de Clare sailed from Milford Haven, landing near Waterford on 23 Aug 1170, capturing that place and then marching on Dublin, the chief Danish stronghold, which also fell. Dairmait returned and marched against Rory O'Connor (Turlough's son). However, Rory killed his Leinster hostages, including Dairmait's son and nephew and delivered the bodies in a sack, and within a short time the dispirited Dairmait died."⁶

Title*

King of Leinster⁷

Name Variation

MacMurrough¹

Name Variation

Dermod na Gall MacMorough²

Event-Misc*

1166

He was defeated by a coalition of Irish chiefs. He then went to Henry II of England to recruit, got financing from Robert FitzHarding, Bristol merchant who also introduced him to Strongbow⁸

(Witness) Event-Misc

1167

Dermot MacMurrough, dispossessed King of Leinster, granted to Maurice and half-brother Robert FitzStephen Wexford, if they would help him regain his kingdom, Principal=Maurice FitzGerald, Principal=Robert FitzStephen⁹

Event-Misc*

1168

They made a compact that Strongbow would marry Dairmait's daughter, be his successor, help him win back his kingdom and drive the Danes out of Leinster., Principal=Richard de Clare "Strongbow"⁸

(Witness) Event-Misc

1169

Robert and Maurice landed in Wexford with two shiploads of armed forced and helped Dermot recover Dublin. Maurice colonized Youghal with citizens of Bristol and made it into a medieval town. King Henry limited his reward., Principal=Maurice FitzGerald, Principal=Robert FitzStephen⁹

Event-Misc

May 1169

Dairmait crossed to Ireland to reestablish himself.⁸

Note*

Obituary:

Diarmaid Mac Murchadha, King of Leinster, by whom a trembling sod was made of all Ireland, —after having brought over the Saxons, after having done extensive injuries to the Irish, after plundering and burning many churches, as Ceanannus, Cluain-Iraird, &c.,—died before the end of a year after this plundering, of an insufferable and unknown disease; for he became putrid while living, through the miracle of God, Colum-Cille, and Finnen, and the other saints of Ireland, whose churches he had profaned and burned some time before; and he died at Fearnamor, without making a will, without penance, without the body of Christ, without unction, as his evil deeds deserved.¹⁰

Family 1

Dearvorgala O'Moore d. 1193

Child

Orlacan MacMorough+²

Family 2

Mor O'Toole d. 1164

Child

Aoife MacDairmait+^1,2 b. c 1140

Last Edited

23 Sep 2005

Citations

[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 66-26.
[S218] Marlyn Lewis, Ancestry of Elizabeth of York.
[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 175-5.
[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 175-6.
[S376] Unknown editor, unknown short title.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 123.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 53.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 54.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 89.
[S359] Unknown, Annals of the Four Masters, 1171.4, p. 1183.

Gilbert de Clare¹

M, #3017, b. 1100, d. 6 January 1147/48

Father*

Gilbert FitzRichard de Clare^1,2 b. b 1066, d. bt 1114 - 1117

Mother*

Adeliza de Clermont^3,2 b. c 1074

Marriage*

1st=Isabel de Beaumont^3,2,4

Birth*

1100

Tunbridge, Kent, England^2,5

Death*

6 January 1147/48

Burial

Tinturn Abbey⁵

Name Variation

Gilbert FitzGilbert de Clare⁵

Arms*

Sealed (time of King Stephen): Chevronelly. (Considered the earliest know represenation of arms on an English shield).⁶

Event-Misc*

after 1131

He inherited the estates of his uncle Roger in Bienfaite and Orbec, Normandy⁵

Event-Misc

15 April 1136

He had livery of his father's lands, including Tonbridge Castle⁷

Title*

1138

He was named Earl of Pembroke by King Stephen after Stephen received his support. However, the Earl changed sides often.^8,7

Event-Misc

March 1137/38

He succeeded his uncle Walter as lord of nether Gwent with the castle at Striguil⁷

Event-Misc

1144

He either captured or built Carmarthen Castle⁷

Family

Isabel de Beaumont b. c 1100

Children

Basilea de Clare⁷
Richard de Clare "Strongbow"+^1,2 b. c 1130, d. c 20 Apr 1176

Last Edited

20 May 2005

Citations

[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 66-26.
[S218] Marlyn Lewis, Ancestry of Elizabeth of York.
[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 66-25.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 18.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 52.
[S325] Rev. C. Moor, Knights of Edward I, p. 207.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 53.
[S338] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 8th ed., 66-25.

Gilbert FitzRichard de Clare¹

M, #3018, b. before 1066, d. between 1114 and 1117

Father*

Richard FitzGilbert^2,3,4 b. 1035, d. c 1090

Mother*

Roese Gifford^2,3 d. a 1113

Gilbert FitzRichard de Clare|b. b 1066\nd. bt 1114 - 1117|p101.htm#i3018|Richard FitzGilbert|b. 1035\nd. c 1090|p85.htm#i2539|Roese Gifford|d. a 1113|p85.htm#i2540|Gilbert of Brionne|d. 1040|p85.htm#i2541|Gunnora Briune||p116.htm#i3474|Walter Giffard "the Elder"|b. s 1010\nd. b 1084|p116.htm#i3475|Ermentrude Flaitel||p116.htm#i3476|

Marriage*

1st=Adeliza de Clermont^5,2,4

Birth*

before 1066

^2,6,4

Death*

between 1114 and 1117

^1,4

Death

1117

Name Variation

Gilbert de Tonebruge⁷

Event-Misc*

1090

founder of the Priory of Clare³

Title*

between 1107 and 1111

lord of Cardigan³

Family

Adeliza de Clermont b. c 1074

Children

Margaret de Clare²
Rohesa de Clare+^2,8
Walter de Clare⁹
Hervey de Clare⁹
Richard FitzGilbert de Clare+^2,6,10 b. c 1090, d. 15 Apr 1136
Gilbert de Clare+^1,2 b. 1100, d. 6 Jan 1147/48
Baldwin FitzGilbert de Clare+^2,9 b. c 1104
Adeliza de Clare+^2,11 b. c 1118, d. c 1163

Last Edited

18 May 2005

Citations

[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 66-26.
[S218] Marlyn Lewis, Ancestry of Elizabeth of York.
[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 246B-24.
[S233] Frederick Lewis Weis, Magna Charta Sureties, 153-1.
[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 66-25.
[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 246B-25.
[S342] Sir Bernard Burke, Extinct Peerages, p. 120.
[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 177A-7.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 52.
[S233] Frederick Lewis Weis, Magna Charta Sureties, 153-2.
[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 246-24.

Adeliza de Clermont¹

F, #3019, b. circa 1074

Father*

Hugh de Clermont² b. 1030, d. 1101

Mother*

Marguerite de Rouci^2,3 b. c 1035

Adeliza de Clermont|b. c 1074|p101.htm#i3019|Hugh de Clermont|b. 1030\nd. 1101|p116.htm#i3472|Marguerite de Rouci|b. c 1035|p116.htm#i3473|Renaud I. d. Clermont|d. 1087|p116.htm#i3477|Ermengardis d. Clermont||p298.htm#i8927|Count Hildouin de Rameru|d. 1063|p94.htm#i2814|Alix de Roucy|d. 1062|p86.htm#i2579|

Marriage*

Bride=Gilbert FitzRichard de Clare^1,2,4

Birth*

circa 1074

of Northamptonshire, England²

Name Variation

Adelaide de Claremont⁵

Family

Gilbert FitzRichard de Clare b. b 1066, d. bt 1114 - 1117

Children

Margaret de Clare²
Rohesa de Clare+^2,6
Walter de Clare⁷
Hervey de Clare⁷
Richard FitzGilbert de Clare+^2,8,9 b. c 1090, d. 15 Apr 1136
Gilbert de Clare+^1,2 b. 1100, d. 6 Jan 1147/48
Baldwin FitzGilbert de Clare+² b. c 1104
Adeliza de Clare+^2,5 b. c 1118, d. c 1163

Last Edited

18 May 2005

Citations

[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 66-25.
[S218] Marlyn Lewis, Ancestry of Elizabeth of York.
[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 246-23.
[S233] Frederick Lewis Weis, Magna Charta Sureties, 153-1.
[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 246-24.
[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 177A-7.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 52.
[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 246B-24.
[S233] Frederick Lewis Weis, Magna Charta Sureties, 153-2.

Isabel de Beaumont¹

F, #3020, b. circa 1100

Father*

Robert de Beaumont^2,3 b. 1049, d. 5 Jun 1118

Mother*

Isabel de Vermandois^2,3 b. 1081, d. 13 Feb 1131

Mistress*

Principal=Henry I Beauclerc⁴

Marriage*

Groom=Gilbert de Clare^1,3,4

Birth*

circa 1100

Marriage*

2nd=Sir William de Warenne⁴

Name Variation

Elizabeth¹

Living*

1172

⁵

Family 1

Henry I Beauclerc b. 1068, d. 1 Dec 1135

Child

Isabel FitzRoy⁵

Family 2

Gilbert de Clare b. 1100, d. 6 Jan 1147/48

Children

Basilea de Clare⁶
Richard de Clare "Strongbow"+^1,3 b. c 1130, d. c 20 Apr 1176

Last Edited

20 May 2005

Citations

[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 66-25.
[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 66-24.
[S218] Marlyn Lewis, Ancestry of Elizabeth of York.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 18.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 52.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 53.

Gladys Dhu ferch Llywelyn ab Iorwerth^1,2

F, #3021, b. circa 1194, d. 1251

Father*

Llewelyn ap Iorwerth "the Great"^1,3 b. 1173, d. 11 Apr 1240

Mother*

Joan of Wales⁴ b. b 1200, d. 30 Mar 1236

Gladys Dhu ferch Llywelyn ab Iorwerth|b. c 1194\nd. 1251|p101.htm#i3021|Llewelyn ap Iorwerth "the Great"|b. 1173\nd. 11 Apr 1240|p99.htm#i2961|Joan of Wales|b. b 1200\nd. 30 Mar 1236|p99.htm#i2962|Iorwerth D. ap Owain Gwynedd|d. c 1174|p103.htm#i3082|Marared ferch Madog|b. c 1134|p103.htm#i3083|John Lackland|b. 27 Dec 1166\nd. 19 Oct 1216|p54.htm#i1620|Clementia (?)||p150.htm#i4476|

Birth*

circa 1194

Wales³

Marriage*

1215

2nd=Reginald de Braose^3,5

Marriage*

before 26 October 1230

Groom=Sir Ralph de Mortimer^1,3,5,2

Death*

1251

Windsor, Berkshire, England^1,3,5,6

Name Variation

Gwladus Ddu⁷

Name Variation

Gladys the Black Mortimer³

Event-Misc*

1229

Gwladus accompanied her brother, David ap Llywelyn, to London, Principal=Dafydd ap Llywelyn⁵

Family

Sir Ralph de Mortimer b. c 1190, d. 6 Aug 1246

Children

Sir Hugh de Mortimer⁸ d. bt 7 Jul 1271 - 8 Mar 1272
Peter de Mortimer⁵
John de Mortimer⁵
Joan de Mortimer⁵
Sir Roger de Mortimer+^1,3 b. 1231, d. 27 Oct 1282

Last Edited

17 Apr 2005

Citations

[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 27-28.
[S301] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Robert Abell, p. 178.
[S218] Marlyn Lewis, Ancestry of Elizabeth of York.
[S284] Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry, Wales 4.
[S284] Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry, Mortimer 5.
[S301] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Robert Abell, p. 179.
[S206] Douglas Richardson, Gwladus Ddu in "Gwladus Ddu," listserve message 15 Dec 2002.
[S325] Rev. C. Moor, Knights of Edward I, v. 3, p. 209.

Sir Ralph de Mortimer^1,2

M, #3022, b. circa 1190, d. 6 August 1246

Father*

Roger de Mortimer^3,4 b. c 1158, d. b 19 Aug 1214

Mother*

Isabel de Ferrières^3,4 b. c 1166, d. b 20 Apr 1252

Sir Ralph de Mortimer|b. c 1190\nd. 6 Aug 1246|p101.htm#i3022|Roger de Mortimer|b. c 1158\nd. b 19 Aug 1214|p101.htm#i3024|Isabel de Ferrières|b. c 1166\nd. b 20 Apr 1252|p101.htm#i3025|Hugh de Mortimer|b. c 1125\nd. 26 Feb 1180/81|p101.htm#i3028|Maud la Meschine|b. c 1120|p101.htm#i3027|Walkelin de Ferrières|b. a 1136|p101.htm#i3026|Alice de Leche||p141.htm#i4226|

Birth*

circa 1190

of Wigmore, Hereford, England⁴

Marriage*

before 26 October 1230

2nd=Gladys Dhu ferch Llywelyn ab Iorwerth^1,4,2,5

Death*

6 August 1246

Wigmore, Herefordshire, England^1,4,2,5

Burial*

Wigmore, Herefordshire, England^6,4,2

Title*

Baron of Wigmore, Constable of Clun Castle²

Event-Misc

1216

He was used in diplomacy by King John⁷

Event-Misc*

1227

Ralph was heir to his older brother, Hugh, Principal=Hugh de Mortimer²

Event-Misc

September 1227

Lambeth, He witnessed articles drawn up between King henry III and King Louis IX, the Saint, of France⁷

Event-Misc

23 November 1227

He gave £100 as relief for the lands of his brother Hugh, and the King took his homage⁷

Event-Misc

8 July 1229

Because of his faithful service he was pardoned of all but £500 of the debts of his father and brother, the remained being payable at £20 p.a.⁷

Note*

After his marriage, Ralph's father-in-law, Llywelyn, granted him the castles of Knighton and Norton, Shropshire. These castles came as maritagium with Joan, from her father, King John. This establishes Gladys as Joan's likely daughter., Principal=Llewelyn ap Iorwerth "the Great"²

Event-Misc

June 1233

He exchanged hostages with the king⁷

Event-Misc*

1240

King Henry III granted Ralph seisin of the disputed cantref o Maelienydd, by agreement with David ap Llywelyn, Principal=Dafydd ap Llywelyn²

Event-Misc

August 1241

Maredudd ap Hywel and other Welsh lords made peace with the king, whether or not they were at war with Ralph de Mortimer⁷

Event-Misc*

1242

He fought in Gascony²

Family

Gladys Dhu ferch Llywelyn ab Iorwerth b. c 1194, d. 1251

Children

Sir Hugh de Mortimer⁸ d. bt 7 Jul 1271 - 8 Mar 1272
Peter de Mortimer²
John de Mortimer²
Joan de Mortimer²
Sir Roger de Mortimer+^1,4 b. 1231, d. 27 Oct 1282

Last Edited

26 Jun 2005

Citations

[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 27-28.
[S284] Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry, Mortimer 5.
[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 132C-28.
[S218] Marlyn Lewis, Ancestry of Elizabeth of York.
[S301] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Robert Abell, p. 178.
[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 132C-29.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 169.
[S325] Rev. C. Moor, Knights of Edward I, v. 3, p. 209.

Tangwystl Goch (?)¹

F, #3023, b. circa 1168

Father*

Llywarch Goch ap Iorwerth ap Cynan^2,1

Mother*

Tangwystl ferch Llywarch² b. c 1143

Tangwystl Goch (?)|b. c 1168|p101.htm#i3023|Llywarch Goch ap Iorwerth ap Cynan||p112.htm#i3348|Tangwystl ferch Llywarch|b. c 1143|p159.htm#i4755|||||||Llywarch o. C. (?)|b. c 1107|p159.htm#i4758|Rymel f. G. (?)||p159.htm#i4757|

Birth*

circa 1168

of Rhos, Wales²

Mistress*

Principal=Llewelyn ap Iorwerth "the Great"^3,2,4

Name Variation

Tangwystl (?)³

Name Variation

Tangwystl of Rhos (?)²

Family

Llewelyn ap Iorwerth "the Great" b. 1173, d. 11 Apr 1240

Child

Gruffydd ap Llywelyn+² b. c 1205, d. 1 Mar 1244

Last Edited

11 Jun 2005

Citations

[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 125.
[S218] Marlyn Lewis, Ancestry of Elizabeth of York.
[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 27-28.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 129.

Roger de Mortimer¹

M, #3024, b. circa 1158, d. before 19 August 1214

Father*

Hugh de Mortimer^2,3 b. c 1125, d. 26 Feb 1180/81

Mother*

Maud la Meschine^2,3 b. c 1120

Roger de Mortimer|b. c 1158\nd. b 19 Aug 1214|p101.htm#i3024|Hugh de Mortimer|b. c 1125\nd. 26 Feb 1180/81|p101.htm#i3028|Maud la Meschine|b. c 1120|p101.htm#i3027|Hugh de Mortimer|b. c 1089\nd. bt 1148 - 1150|p101.htm#i3029||||William le Meschin of Skipton-in-Craven|b. c 1102\nd. a 1139|p101.htm#i3030|Cecily de Rumilly|d. bt 1151 - 1155|p102.htm#i3031|

Marriage*

Principal=Millicent de Ferrers⁴

Marriage*

1st=Isabel de Ferrières^1,3,5

Birth*

circa 1158

Death*

before 19 August 1214

^1,5

Burial*

Wigmore, Hereford, England^3,5

Title*

Lord of Wigmore⁵

Event-Misc*

1191

He was charged with conspiring with the West against King Richard I, and had to surrender his castles and was in exile for 3 years.⁶

Event-Misc

1194

He witnessed a charter of Richard I⁶

Event-Misc

1195

He drove the sons of Cadwallon out of Maelienydd and restored Cwmaron Castle⁶

Event-Misc

1196

Lord Rhys, Prince of South Wales, defeated Mortimer and Hugh de Say and inflicted much slaughter near Radnor⁶

Event-Misc

1201

He refused to serve King John in France, but his fine was remitted⁶

Event-Misc

1 April 1202

Monfort-sur-Risle, He witnessed a charter of King John⁶

Event-Misc

1204

He forfeited his Norman lands to adhere to King John⁶

Event-Misc

1205

He landed at Dieppe, was captured by John de Rouvray, and was forced to pay ransom of 1000 marks.⁶

Event-Misc

May 1213

He was one of the sponsors of John's good faith in the reconciliation with Archbishop Stephen of Langton⁶

Family

Isabel de Ferrières b. c 1166, d. b 20 Apr 1252

Children

Hugh de Mortimer⁷ d. 10 Nov 1227
Philip de Mortimer⁶
Sir Ralph de Mortimer+^1,3 b. c 1190, d. 6 Aug 1246
Joane de Mortimer³ b. c 1190, d. 1268

Last Edited

25 Jun 2005

Citations

[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 132C-28.
[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 132C-27.
[S218] Marlyn Lewis, Ancestry of Elizabeth of York.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 83.
[S301] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Robert Abell, p. 178.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 168.
[S284] Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry, Mortimer 5.

Isabel de Ferrières¹

F, #3025, b. circa 1166, d. before 20 April 1252

Father*

Walkelin de Ferrières^1,2 b. a 1136

Mother*

Alice de Leche²

Isabel de Ferrières|b. c 1166\nd. b 20 Apr 1252|p101.htm#i3025|Walkelin de Ferrières|b. a 1136|p101.htm#i3026|Alice de Leche||p141.htm#i4226|Henri d. Ferriers|b. c 1110\nd. a 1136|p141.htm#i4227|Berthe Ferriers||p141.htm#i4228|Alan d. Leche||p141.htm#i4229||||

Marriage*

Groom=Roger de Mortimer^1,2,3

Birth*

circa 1166

Marriage*

1st=Piers FitzHerbert^2,3

Death*

before 20 April 1252

^1,2

Death

before 29 April 1252

Burial*

Hospital of St. John of Lochlade, Gloucestershire, England^2,4

Name Variation

Isabel de Ferrers^2,5

Family

Roger de Mortimer b. c 1158, d. b 19 Aug 1214

Children

Hugh de Mortimer⁵ d. 10 Nov 1227
Philip de Mortimer⁶
Sir Ralph de Mortimer+^1,2 b. c 1190, d. 6 Aug 1246
Joane de Mortimer² b. c 1190, d. 1268

Last Edited

25 Jun 2005

Citations

[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 132C-28.
[S218] Marlyn Lewis, Ancestry of Elizabeth of York.
[S301] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Robert Abell, p. 178.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 167.
[S284] Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry, Mortimer 5.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 168.

Walkelin de Ferrières¹

M, #3026, b. after 1136

Father*

Henri de Ferriers² b. c 1110, d. a 1136

Mother*

Berthe Ferriers²

Walkelin de Ferrières|b. a 1136|p101.htm#i3026|Henri de Ferriers|b. c 1110\nd. a 1136|p141.htm#i4227|Berthe Ferriers||p141.htm#i4228|William Ferrers|b. c 1078|p141.htm#i4230||||||||||

Birth*

after 1136

of Oakham, Rutland, England²

Marriage*

Principal=Alice de Leche²

Title*

Seigneur of Ferrières-Saint-Halaire¹

Title

Lord of Oakham, Rutland¹

Name Variation

Walkyn de Ferrers²

Name Variation

Ferrers³

Family 1

Children

Hugh de Ferrières⁴ d. 1204
Henry de Ferrières⁵

Family 2

Alice de Leche

Child

Isabel de Ferrières+^1,2 b. c 1166, d. b 20 Apr 1252

Last Edited

28 May 2005

Citations

[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 132C-28.
[S218] Marlyn Lewis, Ancestry of Elizabeth of York.
[S284] Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry, Mortimer 5.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 83.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 82.

Maud la Meschine¹

F, #3027, b. circa 1120

Father*

William le Meschin of Skipton-in-Craven^2,3 b. c 1102, d. a 1139

Mother*

Cecily de Rumilly^2,3 d. bt 1151 - 1155

Maud la Meschine|b. c 1120|p101.htm#i3027|William le Meschin of Skipton-in-Craven|b. c 1102\nd. a 1139|p101.htm#i3030|Cecily de Rumilly|d. bt 1151 - 1155|p102.htm#i3031|Ranulph I. le Meschin de Briquessart|b. c 1070\nd. 17 Jan 1128/29 or 27 Jan 1128/29|p102.htm#i3036|Lucy (?)|b. c 1068\nd. 1141|p59.htm#i1764|Robert de Rumilly|d. c 1096|p102.htm#i3032|Muriel Rumilly||p134.htm#i4016|

Birth*

circa 1120

of Gernon Castle, Normandy, France³

Marriage*

before 1139

Groom=Phillip de Belmeis^3,4,5

Marriage*

circa 1138/39

2nd=Hugh de Mortimer^1,3,6,7

Name Variation

Matilda¹

Name Variation

Maud Meschines³

Living*

1189

⁷

Family 1

Phillip de Belmeis b. c 1110, d. b 1154

Children

Philip de Belmeis⁵ d. b 1159
Ranulph de Belmeis⁵ d. c 1167
Adeline de Belmeis+^3,4 b. c 1136, d. a 1190

Family 2

Hugh de Mortimer b. c 1125, d. 26 Feb 1180/81

Children

Hugh de Mortimer⁷ d. 26 Feb 1185
Roger de Mortimer+^1,3 b. c 1158, d. b 19 Aug 1214

Last Edited

25 Jun 2005

Citations

[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 132C-27.
[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 132B-26.
[S218] Marlyn Lewis, Ancestry of Elizabeth of York.
[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 39-27.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 23.
[S301] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Robert Abell, p. 178.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 167.

Hugh de Mortimer¹

M, #3028, b. circa 1125, d. 26 February 1180/81

Father*

Hugh de Mortimer^1,2,3 b. c 1089, d. bt 1148 - 1150

Hugh de Mortimer|b. c 1125\nd. 26 Feb 1180/81|p101.htm#i3028|Hugh de Mortimer|b. c 1089\nd. bt 1148 - 1150|p101.htm#i3029||||Ralph de Mortimer|b. c 1054\nd. c 1104|p122.htm#i3648|Mabel (?)|b. c 1066|p353.htm#i10561|||||||

Birth*

circa 1125

Marriage*

circa 1138/39

2nd=Maud la Meschine^1,2,3,4

Death*

26 February 1180/81

^1,4

Death

1188

Cleobury, Hereford, England²

Burial*

Wigmore, Hereford, England²

DNB*

Mortimer, Hugh (II) de (d. 1181?), magnate, was the second son of Hugh (I) de Mortimer (d. c.1148x50) and an unknown wife, and not, as the foundation narratives of Wigmore Abbey have it, of the Domesday tenant-in-chief Ralph (I) de Mortimer (fl. c.1080-1104), who was the younger Hugh's grandfather. The two Hughs are not always easily distinguishable in the sources, but it seems clear that the elder Hugh was involved in local Herefordshire feuds arising from the contest between Stephen and Matilda. That he was on the whole a supporter of Stephen may be deduced from that king's exception of Mortimer's lands in Herefordshire from the grant of that shire to Robert, earl of Leicester, probably made in 1144. He was also involved, and with some success, in episodes in the long struggle between the marcher lords and the Welsh for the cantrefs of Maelienydd and Elfael in Powys. The clearest accounts of his activities there are to be found in the Peniarth MS 20 and Red Book of Hergest versions of the Welsh Brut. In 1144 Hugh fitz Ranulf—identifiable with Hugh (I) de Mortimer—repaired the castle of Cymaron in Maelienydd, and a second time subjugated that cantref; meanwhile Colunway (Colwyn) Castle in Elfael was rebuilt a second time, and Elfael was a second time subjected to the ‘French’, probably the men of Philip de Briouze. Hugh (I) thus inaugurated another period of Mortimer possession of Maelienydd. Further entries in the Brut reveal the attendant brutalities: in 1145 Hugh (I) de Mortimer seized and imprisoned Rhys ap Hywel of Brycheiniog, and in 1148 had Rhys blinded; in 1146 he killed Meurig ap Madog ab Idnerth, another of the princes of the Welsh middle march. However, although Meurig's death is also attributed to Hugh (I) de Mortimer by Brenhinedd y Saesson, according to other sources he was killed by the treachery of his own men.

The elder Hugh de Mortimer probably died in the period 1148–50. Information in the Wigmore chronicle has allowed a depiction of this Hugh as ‘a swashbuckling, choleric man given over to pleasures and amusements, an evil-tempered and wilful lord, a quarrelsome neighbour, and a lusty warrior’ (Davies, 83). Details in the romance of Fouke le Fitz Waryn, concerning the long feud between Hugh and Josce de Dinan of Ludlow, bear out this summary. Hugh was succeeded by his elder son, Roger, who was dead by 1153. It was therefore Hugh (II) de Mortimer who faced the emergency of 1154. (The descent given here is approved by L. C. Loyd and consistent with the description of the first Ralf as abbavus of the second (Dugdale, Monasticon, 6.349).)

Early in 1153 the new lord had secured from Duke Henry, the future Henry II, an exception of his fee from the shire of Stafford when the latter was granted to Ranulf (II), earl of Chester, by the so-called ‘treaty of Devizes’ (Reg. RAN, 3.180). Yet despite this special treatment, Hugh (II) de Mortimer was within two years a rebel in arms against the new king, and a major opponent of Henry II's attempt to restore royal authority. The first Ralph de Mortimer, according to an early fourteenth-century statement, had been seneschal of the Montgomery earls of Shropshire, and in that capacity keeper of their castle at Bridgnorth (in fact built by the third and last earl). This stronghold fell into royal hands on the forfeiture of the Montgomery family in 1102; Ralph's descendant Hugh (II) de Mortimer took advantage of the anarchy of Stephen's reign to resume its custody, and refused to surrender the castle when so bidden by Henry II. In or before 1148, moreover, Hugh (II) de Mortimer had also secured custody of a castle belonging to the bishop of Hereford. As well as the king's castle of Bridgnorth, Mortimer also held his own castles of Cleobury (Cleobury Mortimer) and Wigmore against the new king.

Hugh (II) de Mortimer's rising was one of several against the new king at this time, largely prompted by Henry's demand for the return of alienated royal lands and castles. But resistance was unco-ordinated: there was no co-operation, for instance, between Mortimer and his neighbour Earl Roger of Hereford. It was at Easter 1155, according to the Battle Abbey chronicle, that Mortimer, ‘estimating the king to be a mere boy and indignant at his activity’ (Searle, 159–61), fortified Bridgnorth and refused to submit to royal orders. The king promptly placed Bridgnorth, Cleobury, and Wigmore under siege, surrounding Bridgnorth Castle with a rampart and ditch, so that Mortimer could not leave it. With no choice but to surrender, therefore, on 7 July he made his peace with the king, at an impressive assembly of lay and ecclesiastical magnates. He was treated lightly, for whereas the earldom of Hereford was allowed to lapse when Earl Roger died, also in 1155, Hugh de Mortimer soon recovered Bridgnorth and Wigmore (Cleobury had been destroyed), and retained the privileged status of a tenant-in-chief. The fact that King Henry was himself frequently active in Wales may subsequently have had a constraining effect on Mortimer's activities there. In any event, after 1155 he seems to have turned his attention to the affairs of Wigmore, and especially of its abbey.

The overall trustworthiness of the foundation narrative of Wigmore Abbey is uncertain, but some of its statements about members of the Mortimer family are demonstrably correct, and it can be accepted that the origin, endowment, and construction of the abbey originated in the deathbed wish of the first Ralph, and that action thereon was taken by Ralph's son Hugh (I), who (reasonably enough in view of his youth) was put in the care of Oliver de Merlimond. Merlimond later appears as steward, probably to Hugh the elder, and first took action on Ralph's dying wish by establishing a house of Augustinian canons, affiliated to St Victor in Paris, at Shobdon. According to the Anglo-Norman chronicle of Wigmore, Hugh de Mortimer promised to give Chelmarsh to Shobdon, but having fallen out with Merlimond, fell out with the canons as well, and not only failed to give them Chelmarsh, but deprived them of Shobdon vill too.

The value of the chronicle at this point is somewhat diminished by its failure to distinguish clearly between the two Hughs. It is consequently uncertain whether it was the father or the son who transferred the canons to Aymestrey, a few miles north-west of Leominster. But it was probably the younger Hugh who, afraid that his enemies might exploit a monastery at Aymestrey to his own disadvantage, by using it as a fortress, persuaded the canons to move again, to Wigmore. There he established them at a nearby place called ‘Bethun’, where they erected small wooden buildings with his help. Nevertheless they were to move again twice more, first back to Shobdon, and finally to a site just north of Wigmore. The foundation ceremony there took place in 1172. Mortimer laid the first stone of the church, and pledged to pay 10 marks towards the cost of the building, but later completed it at his own expense. He gave the canons the manor of Caynham in Shropshire, together with its church, and a number of other churches, chapels, lands, and rents in Herefordshire and Shropshire. In 1179 he had the church dedicated by Bishop Robert Foliot of Hereford, and not only confirmed all his previous gifts, but also gave a chalice and cup for the reserved sacrament, both of gold, and two silver-gilt candlesticks.

Hugh (II) de Mortimer died at Cleobury in 1180–81; the foundation narrative errs in placing his death in 1185, but may be correct in attributing the event to 26 February, since his anniversary was later commemorated in Lent. He had bequeathed his body to Wigmore Abbey, and it was taken there for burial. In his earlier days he had been described by Robert de Torigni as a man of extreme arrogance and presumption, while William of Newburgh regarded him as notable for pride and wrath. But to the canons of Wigmore he had died ‘at a ripe old age and full of good works’ (Dickinson and Ricketts, 437). With his wife, Matilda, widow of Philip de Belmeis and daughter of William le Meschin of Egremont, he is said to have had four sons, Hugh, Roger, Ralph, and William. Hugh, the eldest, predeceased his father, who was therefore succeeded as lord of Wigmore by Roger (II) de Mortimer (d. 1214).

To the Wigmore chronicler Roger (II) de Mortimer was ‘as befitted his years, gay, full of youth and inconstant of heart, and especially somewhat headstrong’ (Dickinson and Ricketts, 439). He had served Henry II faithfully during the rebellion of the king's sons in 1173–4, but at the time of his father's death he was in King Henry's prison, because in 1179 his men had killed Cadwallon ap Madog, the ruler of Maelienydd, when the latter was returning from court with a royal safe conduct. He may not have been released until 1182. Roger's conflicts with the Welsh would persist throughout his life, as he struggled to establish his rule over the middle march of Wales. In 1195 he brought Maelienydd under his control, rebuilding the castle at Cymaron. A grant to the abbey of Cwm-hir in Powys in 1199, commemorating ‘our men who died in the conquest of Maelienydd’ (Davies, 85), points to casualties as well as achievement (in 1196 his forces were among those heavily defeated at Radnor by the Lord Rhys of Deheubarth), but in 1202 he could be described as supreme in central Wales.

Roger de Mortimer also became involved in English affairs. In 1191 he was accused by William de Longchamp, the justiciar, of having entered into an unexplained conspiracy with the Welsh against the king, and was forced to abjure the realm, though his exile was much shorter than the three years reported by Richard of Devizes. It is possible that he had become a supporter of Count John, Richard I's brother. But if this was so, he soon transferred his allegiance back to the king, for it was with royal support that he attacked Maelienydd in 1195. However, he later served in Normandy under John as king, and in 1205 was captured when trying to occupy Dieppe, subsequently paying a ransom of 1000 marks. Roger de Mortimer remained loyal to John for the rest of his life. With his wife, Isabella de Ferrers, he had at least two sons and one daughter. Being overcome by ill health, he transferred his lands to his son, and by 19 August 1214 he was dead. He was buried at Wigmore Abbey. He had at first been on bad terms with the canons, and tried to revoke grants made to them by his father, until the solemnity with which they commemorated Hugh's anniversary reconciled him to them.

Roger's eldest son and heir, Hugh (III) de Mortimer (d. 1227), followed his father in remaining loyal to John, whose burial in Worcester Cathedral he attended in October 1216. Equally loyal to the young Henry III, in February 1222 he took part in the siege of Bytham Castle, held against the government by the rebellious count of Aumale, and in 1225 he witnessed the reissue of Magna Carta. But he was principally occupied on the Welsh march, where about 1215 his father's conquests in Maelienydd had been reversed by Llywelyn ab Iorwerth; when Hugh (III) died, on 10 November 1227, Maelienydd was still in Welsh hands, and he had also been unable to establish his right to two manors, which he had nominally acquired by exchange, but which were in fact under Llywelyn's control. Hugh (III) was buried at Wigmore Abbey. There were no children of his marriage to Annora de Briouze, and he was succeeded by his younger brother, Ralph (II) de Mortimer (d. 1246). Ralph, too, was continually engaged on the Welsh marches. At first he stood on the defensive, unable to make much impression on Llywelyn's power. No doubt it was for this reason that in 1230 he married Gwladus Ddu (d. 1251), daughter of Llywelyn and widow of Reginald de Briouze. It was only after the death of his father-in-law in 1240 that Mortimer was able to take the military initiative again, with attacks upon the Welsh. In the summer of 1241 there was war in Maelienydd, and this time the Mortimers prevailed, ending Welsh control of the lordship of Gwrtheyrnion. Ralph (II) died on 6 August 1246 and was buried at Wigmore Abbey, where he was remembered as ‘a warlike and energetic man’ (Dugdale, Monasticon, 6, pt 1, 350). His heir was Roger (III) de Mortimer (1231-1282), the son of his marriage to Gwladus. It is a measure of Ralph's ultimate success in extending and consolidating the Mortimer lordship, that Roger should have paid 2000 marks to have his family's lands until his coming of age.

J. F. A. Mason
Sources

T. Jones, ed. and trans., Brut y tywysogyon, or, The chronicle of the princes: Peniarth MS 20 (1952) · T. Jones, ed. and trans., Brut y tywysogyon, or, The chronicle of the princes: Red Book of Hergest (1955) · T. Jones, ed. and trans., Brenhinedd y Saesson, or, The kings of the Saxons (1971) [another version of Brut y tywysogyon] · J. Williams ab Ithel, ed., Annales Cambriae, Rolls Series, 20 (1860) · Dugdale, Monasticon, new edn, 6/1.344–50 · GEC, Peerage, new edn, 9.266–76 · R. W. Eyton, Antiquities of Shropshire, 12 vols. (1854–60), 4.194–205 · R. R. Davies, Conquest, coexistence and change: Wales, 1063–1415, History of Wales, 2 (1987); repr. as The age of conquest: Wales, 1063–1415 (1991) · Reg. RAN, vol. 3 · E. Searle, ed., The chronicle of Battle Abbey, OMT (1980) · R. Howlett, ed., Chronicles of the reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I, 1, Rolls Series, 82 (1884) · Chronicon Richardi Divisensis / The Chronicle of Richard of Devizes, ed. J. T. Appleby (1963) · R. Howlett, ed., Chronicles of the reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I, 4, Rolls Series, 82 (1889) · J. C. Dickinson and P. T. Ricketts, eds., ‘The Anglo-Norman chronicle of Wigmore Abbey’, Transactions of the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club, 39 (1967–9), 413–46 · Letters and charters of Gilbert Foliot, ed. A. Morey and others (1967) · J. B. Smith, ‘The middle march in the thirteenth century’, BBCS, 24 (1970–72), 77–93 · C. Hopkinson, ‘The Mortimers of Wigmore, 1086–1214’, TWNFC, 46 (1989), 177–93 · Chancery records · E. J. Hathaway, ed., Fouke le Fitz Waryn, Anglo-Norman Text Society, 26–8 (1975–6) · J. J. Crump, ‘The Mortimer family and the making of the march’, Thirteenth century England, ed. M. Prestwich, R. H. Britnell, and R. Frame, 6 (1997), 117–26 · Archaeological survey of Wigmore sites [forthcoming] · G. Zarnecki, ‘The priory church of Shobdon and its founder’, Studies in medieval art and architecture presented to Peter Lasko, ed. D. Buckton and T. A. Heslop (1994), 211–20 · private information (2004) [B. Wright]
© Oxford University Press 2004
All rights reserved: see legal notice Oxford University Press

J. F. A. Mason, ‘Mortimer, Hugh (II) de (d. 1181?)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [accessed 24 Sept 2005: http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/66475]⁵

Title*

Lord of Wigmore³

Name Variation

Hugh de Mortimer²

Event-Misc

7 July 1155

He refused to surrender Bridgnorth Castle to King Henry, who stormed and took it⁴

Family

Maud la Meschine b. c 1120

Children

Hugh de Mortimer⁴ d. 26 Feb 1185
Roger de Mortimer+^1,2 b. c 1158, d. b 19 Aug 1214

Last Edited

24 Sep 2005

Citations

[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 132C-27.
[S218] Marlyn Lewis, Ancestry of Elizabeth of York.
[S301] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Robert Abell, p. 178.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 167.
[S376] Unknown editor, unknown short title.

Hugh de Mortimer¹

M, #3029, b. circa 1089, d. between 1148 and 1150

Father*

Ralph de Mortimer^2,3 b. c 1054, d. c 1104

Mother*

Mabel (?)² b. c 1066

Hugh de Mortimer|b. c 1089\nd. bt 1148 - 1150|p101.htm#i3029|Ralph de Mortimer|b. c 1054\nd. c 1104|p122.htm#i3648|Mabel (?)|b. c 1066|p353.htm#i10561|Roger de Mortimer|b. c 1028\nd. b 1086|p122.htm#i3650|Hawise de Montdidier|b. c 1032\nd. a 1086|p122.htm#i3651|||||||

Birth*

circa 1089

Death*

between 1148 and 1150

^1,2

Note*

He supported King Stephen against Empress Matilda⁴

Event-Misc*

1144

"He initiated the reconquest of the Welsh Marches following the revolt of the Welsh after the death of Henry I. He reoccupied the cantrefs of Maelienydd and Elfael, and repaired the castles of Cwmaron and Colwen."⁴

Event-Misc

1145

He captured and imprisoned Price Rhys ap Hywel, and slew Maredudd ap Madog ab Idnerth⁴

Event-Misc

1148

He blinded Rhys ap Hywel⁴

HTML*

History of the Mortimer family

Family

Children

Roger de Mortimer⁴ d. b 1153
Hugh de Mortimer+^1,2,3 b. c 1125, d. 26 Feb 1180/81

Last Edited

25 Jun 2005

Citations

[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 132C-27.
[S218] Marlyn Lewis, Ancestry of Elizabeth of York.
[S301] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Robert Abell, p. 178.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 167.

William le Meschin of Skipton-in-Craven¹

M, #3030, b. circa 1102, d. after 1139

Father*

Ranulph III le Meschin de Briquessart² b. c 1070, d. 17 Jan 1128/29 or 27 Jan 1128/29

Mother*

Lucy (?)² b. c 1068, d. 1141

William le Meschin of Skipton-in-Craven|b. c 1102\nd. a 1139|p101.htm#i3030|Ranulph III le Meschin de Briquessart|b. c 1070\nd. 17 Jan 1128/29 or 27 Jan 1128/29|p102.htm#i3036|Lucy (?)|b. c 1068\nd. 1141|p59.htm#i1764|Vicomte Ranulph I. of Bayeux|b. b 1046\nd. 1129|p102.htm#i3033|Margaret d' Avranches|b. c 1054|p102.htm#i3034|||||||

Marriage*

Principal=Cecily de Rumilly^3,2

Birth*

circa 1102

Death*

after 1139

Feudal*

1189/90

land in Coupland, Principal=Reynold de Lucy⁴

Family

Cecily de Rumilly d. bt 1151 - 1155

Children

Last Edited

23 Nov 2004

Citations

[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 132B-26.
[S218] Marlyn Lewis, Ancestry of Elizabeth of York.
[S168] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots.
[S347] Carl Boyer 3rd, Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, p. 133.
[S338] Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, 8th ed., 40-24.

Person Page - 101

Sir William de Warenne1

Family

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Isabel de Warene1

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Sir William of Blois1

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Sir William de Warenne1

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Ela Talvas1

Family 1

Family 2

Citations

Sir William de Warenne1

Family

Citations

William de Warenne1

Family

Citations

Gundred (?)1

Family

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Sir John FitzAlan1

Family

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Maud le Boteler1

Family

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Nicholas de Verdun1

Family

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Isabel d' Aubigny1

Family

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John FitzAlan1

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Richard de Clare "Strongbow"1

Family 1

Family 2

Citations

Aoife MacDairmait1

Family

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Dairmait MacMurchada1

Family 1

Family 2

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Gilbert de Clare1

Family

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Gilbert FitzRichard de Clare1

Family

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Adeliza de Clermont1

Family

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Isabel de Beaumont1

Family 1

Family 2

Citations

Gladys Dhu ferch Llywelyn ab Iorwerth1,2

Family

Citations

Sir Ralph de Mortimer1,2

Family

Citations

Tangwystl Goch (?)1

Family

Citations

Roger de Mortimer1

Family

Citations

Isabel de Ferrières1

Family

Citations

Sir William de Warenne¹

Isabel de Warene¹

Sir William of Blois¹

Sir William de Warenne¹

Ela Talvas¹

Sir William de Warenne¹

William de Warenne¹

Gundred (?)¹

Sir John FitzAlan¹

Maud le Boteler¹

Nicholas de Verdun¹

Isabel d' Aubigny¹

John FitzAlan¹

Richard de Clare "Strongbow"¹

Aoife MacDairmait¹

Dairmait MacMurchada¹

Gilbert de Clare¹

Gilbert FitzRichard de Clare¹

Adeliza de Clermont¹

Isabel de Beaumont¹

Gladys Dhu ferch Llywelyn ab Iorwerth^1,2

Sir Ralph de Mortimer^1,2

Tangwystl Goch (?)¹

Roger de Mortimer¹

Isabel de Ferrières¹

Walkelin de Ferrières¹

Maud la Meschine¹

Hugh de Mortimer¹

Hugh de Mortimer¹

William le Meschin of Skipton-in-Craven¹