Joan of Chester

Notes:

Also called Joan de Lacy, Joan le Grammaire.

Family/Spouse: Peter de Brus. Peter (son of Adam II de Brus and Juetta de Arches) was born in of Skelton, Yorkshire, England; died in 1222. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Peter de Brus was born before 1201 in of Skelton, Yorkshire, England; died before 15 Nov 1240.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 1190, Tyre

Notes:

Constable of Chester. Died at the siege of Acre in the Third Crusade.

Also called John de Lacy; John fitz Eustace. Richardson calls him only "John."

John married Alice fitz Roger. Alice (daughter of Roger fitz Richard and Alice de Vere) died after 1190. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also called Alice de Vere.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 1163
• Alternate death: Bef 1178

Notes:

Constable of Cheshire. Complete Peerage and Wightman (citation details below) call him "Robert fitz Eustace"; Early Yorkshire Families and The Cartulary of St. Leonard's Hospital, York both call him "Richard fitz Eustace". Ormerod calls him Richard.

Robert married Aubrey de Lisours. Aubrey (daughter of Robert de Lisours and Aubrey de Lacy) died after 1194. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also called Albereda de Lisoriis.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 1178

Roger married Alice de Vere after 1144. Alice (daughter of Aubrey de Vere and Alice de Clare) was born before 1141; died after 1185. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also called Alice (or Adeliza) of Essex.

Notes:

Constable of Knaresborough and of Chester; Governor of Bamborough Castle; justice itinerant; commanded a division of the Scots army against Stephen at the Battle of the Standard, 1138; founded the abbeys of Alnwick, Northumberland, and of Old Malton and Watton in Yorkshire.

"[H]e took part in Henry II's first disastrous expedition into Wales, and was slain (July 1157) in the unequal fight when the king's army fell into an ambush at Basingwerk." [1885 DNB]

Eustace married Agnes fitz William. Agnes (daughter of William fitz Nigel) died after 1157. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also called Agnes Fitz Neel.

Robert married Aubrey de Lacy. Aubrey (daughter of Robert de Lacy and Maud) was born in of Pontefract, Yorkshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also called Albreda, etc.

Richard married Jane Bigod. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: of Great Addington, Northampton, England

Notes:

"Slain in a riot in London." [Complete Peerage]

Also known as Alberic; Albericus de Ver.

From the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:

"Vere, Aubrey (II) de (d. 1141), administrator, was the son and successor of Aubrey (I) de Vere and Beatrice, his wife. While the family was from Ver, south of Coutances in Normandy, there is no evidence that Aubrey senior or his descendants held lands either there or in Brittany, with which they retained ties. The elder Aubrey was most probably the younger son of a Norman lord who prospered in England after the conquest, becoming a royal chamberlain. Probably born in the early 1080s, Aubrey junior married Alice (d. 1163?), daughter of Gilbert de Clare, before 1107. He was to become one of the most prominent royal administrators of the later years of the reign of Henry I and the early years of Stephen. It is likely that Aubrey (II) began his administrative career as royal chamberlain, possibly inheriting that office from his father when the latter died c.1112. By 1121 he was sheriff of Essex, and, later in that decade, of London and Middlesex. The extent of the king's confidence in de Vere is evident in his appointment as joint sheriff, with Richard Basset, to the custody of eleven counties in 1129-30. This unprecedented situation was probably part of an effort to collect arrears and to adjust the shrieval farms. While the king had levied one fine of 550 marks and four war-horses against him for having allowed a prisoner to escape, and another of at least 100 marks for permission to resign the shrievalty of Essex and Hertfordshire, these fines had gone largely uncollected -- another sign of royal favour. In 1133 Henry I bestowed the hereditary office of master chamberlain of England on de Vere; the office was to remain in the de Vere family until 1703. Although his royal service was primarily confined to England, he was at least twice with Henry I in Normandy.

"When Aubrey de Vere's son William de Vere asserted that his father was 'justiciar of all England', and privy to important royal secrets, he seems to have meant that his father had travelled extensively as a justice, rather than that he had been chief justiciar of the realm. William of Malmesbury describes him as causidicus -- a pleader or advocate -- and skilled in the law. De Vere may have served as an itinerant justice under Henry I; he certainly did so in Stephen's reign. He had accepted Stephen's rule by Easter 1136, and when the king was summoned before an ecclesiastical council after his arrest of Roger of Salisbury and other bishops in 1139, he sent de Vere as his advocate. Aubrey de Vere was killed in a London riot on 15 May 1141, perhaps while supporting his son-in-law Geoffrey de Mandeville, first earl of Essex (d. 1144). [...]

"His family was to prove one of the longest lasting in the history of the English aristocracy. His eldest son was made earl of Oxford in the year of Aubrey (II)'s death, and although its descent was several times transmitted through collaterals, and twice interrupted by forfeitures, the title nevertheless passed to no fewer than nineteen successive descendants, until the twentieth earl, also Aubrey de Vere, died without a male heir in 1703."

Aubrey married Alice de Clare before 1106. Alice (daughter of Gilbert fitz Richard de Clare and Alice de Clermont) died in 1163 in St. Osyth Priory, Essex, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

"Adeliza the wife of Aubrey de Vere is attested by a fairly unimpeachable source, her own son William in notes added to his life of St Osyth. According to him she lived for 22 years as a widow at St Osyth's priory in Essex, so she evidently died ca 1163." [Peter Stewart, citation details below]

Notes:

Domesday tenant-in-chief in Saxlingham, Norfolk. Traditionally called "Monoculus", one-eyed, but that seems to have actually been a characteristic of his son Eustace, not John.

Notes:

Constable of Chester. Also called William fitz Neel.

Notes:

"Domesday tenant of Sprotborough and other West Riding manors under Roger de Busli." [Complete Peerage V:519.]

Robert married Maud. Maud died after 1154. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1050
• Alternate death: 10 Sep 1107, Earsham, Norfolk, England
• Alternate death: 15 Sep 1107, Earsham, Norfolk, England
• Alternate death: Bef Aug 1221

Notes:

Earl of Norfolk.

"Roger Bigod was one of the tight-knit group of second-rank Norman nobles who did well out of the conquest of England. Prominent in the Calvados region before 1064 as an under-tenant of Odo of Bayeux, he rose in ducal and royal service to become, by 1086, one of the leading barons in East Anglia, holding wide estates to which he added Belvoir by marriage and Framlingham by grant of Henry I. His territorial fortune was based on his service in the royal household, where he was a close adviser and agent for the first three Norman kings, and the propitious circumstances of post-Conquest politics. Much of his honour in East Anglia was carved out of lands previously belonging to the dispossessed Archbishop Stigand, his brother Aethelmar of Elham, and the disgraced Earl Ralph of Norfolk and Suffolk. Under Rufus -- if not before -- Roger was one of the king's stewards. Usually in attendance on the king, he regularly witnessed writs but was also sent out to the provinces as a justice or commissioner. Apart from a flirtation with the cause of Robert Curthose in 1088, he remained conspicuously loyal to Rufus and Henry I, for whom he continued to act as steward and to witness charters. The adherence of such men was vital to the Norman kings. Through them central business could be conducted and localities controlled. Small wonder they were well rewarded. Roger established a dynasty which dominated East Anglia from the 1140s, as earls of Norfolk, until 1306. Roger's byname and the subsequent family name was derived from a word (bigot) meaning double-headed instrument such as a pickaxe: a tribute, perhaps to Roger's effectiveness as a royal servant; certainly an apt image of one who worked hard both for his masters and for himself." [Christopher Tyerman, Who's Who in Early Medieval England, 1996]

Roger married Adeliza de Tosny. Adeliza (daughter of Robert de Tosny and Adelaise) died after 1136. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Aft 1130

Notes:

"Keats-Rohan [...] suggests that Roger had only one wife. She also refers to a charter of of the time of Henry I (therefore 1100 or later) of Roger and Adelisa for Rochester Priory, attested by their children William, Humphrey, Gunnor and Matilda; on the hypothesis of the Complete Peerage, this would imply that the first wife survived at least until 1100, despite the suggested birth date of around 1095 for Hugh, seen as a son of the second marriage." [Chris Phillips, Some Corrections and Additions to The Complete Peerage]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Bef 1040, of Ver, Manche, Normandy, France
• Alternate death: Abt 1112
• Alternate death: Bef 1113

Notes:

Tenant of the bishop of Coutances in Normandy, 1086. Sheriff of Berkshire after 1106.

"Aubrey de Vere I was almost certainly a Norman who derived his name from Ver in the Cotentin and probably had connexions with the adjoining duchy of Brittany. He was born probably before 1040. The Conqueror granted him, with other lands, the great estates of an English thegn named Wulfwine in Essex, Suffolk, and Cambridge. In 1084 he attested a royal charter for Lessay as Aubrey the Chamberlain. In 1086 he held in chief 14 estates in Essex, with 2 houses and 3 acres in Colchester, 9 estates Suffolk, 7 in Cambs, and 2 in Hunts. He also held Kensington in Middlesex and two properties in Northants of the Bishop of Coutances, land in Hunts of the Abbey of Ramseyand land in two places in Essex of Count Alan of Brittany. The head of his barony was at (Castle) Hedingham in Essex, where he had planted a vineyard. It is usually assumed that he is identical with, and not the father of, the Aubrey de Vere who attested a writ at Westminster (September 1102 to Easter 1103 and a charter for Abingdon (1101-06). Not later than 1106 he was acting as sheriff of Berkshire, being styled simply Aubrey. Within the next few years he was acting as a justice in Northants, being styled Aubrey the Chamberlain, and as sheriff of Berkshire, being styled Aubrey de Berkshire. At the dying request of his eldest son, not later than 1106, he gave Abingdon Abbey his church of Kensington with its appurtenances and 2 hides and 1 yardland; but as he resided mostly in Essex, he founded a priory at Earls Colne as a cell of Abingdon. He seems to have held 1 1/2 knights' fees of the Abbey of St. Edmund. He married Beatrice, whose parentage is unknown. He died before 1113 (almost certainly in 1112), at Colne Priory, and was buried with his wife in the church there." [Complete Peerage X:194-5]

"The first Aubrey de Vere was a Domesday tenant of the powerful Breton tenant-in-chief Count Alan Rufus, and was among a handful of Alan's Bretons who were also tenant-in-chief of their own fees. Aubrey's family probably came from Vair in Ancenis, in the Nantais; he occurs among a group of men from the Nantais in a charter given by Conan II c. 1050. He is usually assumed to have originated at Ver because he held land in 1086 of the Bishop of Coutances. [...] There is a real possibility that other de Ver families in England could have originated in the Cotentin, but the mass of evidence indicating Aubrey's Breton origins is overwhelming." [K. S. B. Keats-Rohan, Domesday People]

Aubrey married Beatrice. Beatrice was buried in Earl's Colne Priory, Halstead, Great Bromley, Essex, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

"She very probably was from a Cotentin family." [K. S. B. Keats-Rohan, Domesday People]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Bef 1066
• Alternate death: 1114

Notes:

Also called Gilbert de Clare; Gilbert de Tonbridge. Earl of Clare.

"The Welsh annals note his death in 1117." [Royal Ancestry]

Gilbert married Alice de Clermont. Alice (daughter of Hugues and Marguerite de Montdidier) was born in of Clermont, Oise, Picardie, France; died after 1136. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also called Adelaide de Clermont; Adeliza de Clermont-in-Beauvaisis.

Notes:

Also called Richard de Vains.

Notes:

Constable of Chester.

Notes:

The Ilbert de Lacy to whom William I gave the town of Brokenbridge, now called Pontefract.

Ilbert married Hawise. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 1088

Notes:

Also called Robert de Toesni; Robert de Toeni; Robert de Todeni.

The location of Belvoir Priory was originally in Lincolnshire, but is now in Leicestershire. "Belvoir" is pronounced "beaver."

Robert married Adelaise. Adelaise died before 1093; was buried in Belvoir Priory, Belvoir, Leicestershire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Bef 1035
• Alternate birth: 1035
• Alternate death: May 1089
• Alternate death: Abt 1090

Notes:

Also called Richard "de Bienfaite", Richard de Clare, and Richard de Tonbridge. Joint chief justiciar of England in William's absence; in this role he suppressed the revolt of 1075.

Richard married Rohese Giffard. Rohese (daughter of Walter Giffard and Agnes Flaitel) died after 1113. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Or Rohais; Rohaidi; Roaxdis.

Ancestral Roots 8 has her as a daughter of the Walter Giffard who d. 1102; this poses some chronological difficulty. Complete Peerage, Domesday People, and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography all agree that she was a sister, not a daughter, of that Walter Giffard.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Between 1101 and 1103
• Alternate death: 1102

Notes:

Also called Hugh de Clermont-en-Beauvaisis.

Count of Clermont, Breuil-le-Vert, Creil, Gournay, Luzarches, and Mouchy-Saint-Elou.

Hugues married Marguerite de Montdidier about 1080. Marguerite (daughter of Hildouin IV de Montdidier and Adele de Roucy) was born about 1050 in of Montdidier, Somme, Picardy, France; died before 1101. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also called Marguerite de Roucy.