Gilbert de Clare

Notes:

Earl of Hertford. Earl of Gloucester.

Along with his father, he was among the 25 Magna Carta sureties, as such excommunicated by Innocent III on 16 Dec 1215, despite the fact that he was by then among the group negotiating with the king for peace.

Fought on the side of Louis of France at the Battle of Lincoln, 19-20 May 1217; taken prisoner by his future father-in-law William Marshal and subsequently released, his lands restored. In later life, led various armies against the Welsh.

Gilbert married Isabel Marshal on 9 Oct 1217. Isabel (daughter of William Marshal and Isabel de Clare) was born on 9 Oct 1200 in Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales; died on 17 Jan 1240 in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, England; was buried in Beaulieu Abbey, Hampshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Amice de Clare was born on 27 May 1220; died before 21 Jan 1284.
2. Richard de Clare was born on 4 Aug 1222 in of Clare, Suffolk, England; died in Jul 1262 in Ashenfield, Waltham, Kent, England; was buried in Tewkesbury Abbey, Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, England.
3. Isabel de Clare was born on 2 Nov 1226; died after 10 Jul 1264.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1155
• Alternate death: Nov 1217
• Alternate death: 28 Nov 1217

Notes:

Earl of Hertford and of Gloucester. Also styled Earl of Clare.

Along with his son Gilbert, he was one of the 25 Magna Carta sureties.

Richard married Amice of Gloucester about 1180. Amice (daughter of William fitz Robert and Hawise of Leicester) died on 1 Jan 1225. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also called Amice fitz William.

According to RA, she was not "recognized" before her death as "Countess of Gloucester," despite CP's assertion to this effect. All contemporary charters and other documents involving her refer to her as countess of Clare, i.e., Hertford.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Aft 1115, of Clare, Herefordshire, England

Notes:

Also called Roger Fitz Richard. 2nd Earl of Hertford, but generally styled Earl of Clare.

Roger married Maud de St. Hilary. Maud (daughter of James de St. Hilary du Harcourt and Aveline) was born in of Field Dalling, Norfolk, England; died on 24 Dec 1193; was buried in Priory of Great Carbrooke, Norfolk, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 1195

Notes:

Also called Maud de St. Hilaire du Harcouet.

Notes:

Earl of Gloucester. Governor of Wareham Castle, 1144.

"After Henry II's accession in 1154 William's status with his royal cousin began to change. The honour of Eudo Dapifer, which Henry had earlier promised to the earl's son, was given to another. Gloucester understandably yielded place of honour at court to members of the royal family like the king's brother William, and even to Robert, earl of Leicester, who was chief justiciar; but William was also regularly outranked by his uncle, Reginald, earl of Cornwall, who held no central administrative office. In the 1150s there is evidence of a certain ambivalence in Henry's government about Gloucester's right to be exempted from geld and other remittances. The earl's infrequent court appearances indicate that he was becoming a political outsider. Even though he was ultimately favoured by the bountiful royal fiscal patronage accorded to members of his class, served as a royal justice, and was promised that he would enjoy all the estates his father had held, William was to die with his career, earldom, and house in ruins." [Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]

William married Hawise of Leicester about 1150. Hawise (daughter of Robert of Meulan and Amice de Gael) died on 24 Apr 1197. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also called Hawise de Beaumont.

Notes:

Also called Richard de Clare; Richard of Ceredigion.

"Surprised and slain by the Welsh." [Royal Ancestry]

Richard married Alice of Chester. Alice (daughter of Ranulf le Meschin and Lucy of Bolingbroke) died after 1148. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also called Adeliza la Meschin. "[Richard fitz Gilbert's] wife was rescued from the Welsh by Miles of Gloucester." [Complete Peerage]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Bef 1154

Notes:

Also called James de St. James. Holder of both English and Breton lands.

James married Aveline. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Earl of Gloucester. Also called Robert de Caen; Robert fitz Roy; Rufus; Robert "The Counsel".

Fought at Brémulé, 20 Apr 1119, where Henry I defeated Louis VI. Present at the death of Henry I in Dec 1135. Commander-in-chief for the Empress Maud from 1139 on. From Complete Peerage: "In 1140 he burnt Nottingham, and in Feb. 1141 he and his son-in-law, Ranulph, Earl of Chester, relieved Lincoln and took Stephen prisoner, sending him to Bristol. He accompanied Maud in her progress to Winchester and London, and when the citizens drove her out fled with her to Oxford. He took part in the fighting at Winchester and helped Maud escape from the city, but was captured 14 Sep. (1141) at Stockbridge and taken prisoner to Rochester. Shortly afterwards he was exchanged, without concessions on either side, for Stephen, who was set at liberty on 1 Nov., and Robert then joined Maud at Bristol, and with her proceeded to Oxford. In June 1142 Maud sent him over to her husband, Geoffrey of Anjou, to urge him to invade England. It would appear that on this occasion Robert entered into a treaty of alliance with Miles of Gloucester, Earl of Hereford. Geoffrey declined to help until he had conquered Normandy, whereupon Robert joined him in his campaign. On hearing that Maud was besieged in Oxford, Robert hurried back to help her, taking with him her son, afterwards Henry II. He captured Wareham and other places, and on Maud's escape from Oxford he and Henry met her at Wallingford, and they went to Bristol, which was Robert's chief residence till 1146. In 1143 Robert defeated Stephen at Wilton, and in 1144 blockaded Malmesbury, Stephen refusing battle; but Maud's party was now so much reduced that Stephen was able to take Faringdon, which Robert had fortified. In the spring of 1147 Robert took Henry, Maud's son, back to Wareham and sent him over to Anjou; and in the same year, he founded Margam Abbey." Shortly thereafter he died of a sudden fever, in the priory of St. James in Bristol, which he had earlier founded; his death effectively ended Maud's military campaign. The Dictionary of National Biography (1909) said that "his sister's cause almost invariably prospered when she allowed him to direct her counsels, and declined as soon as she neglected his advice."

He was highly literate, a patron of scholars and chroniclers such as Geoffrey of Monmouth and William of Malmesbury, the latter of whom wrote the Historia Novella at his request. An enemy, Baldwin Fitz Gilbert, called him someone who "threatens much but does little, lionlike in his speech, but like a hare in his heart, great in eloquence but insignificant through laziness", which is pretty much the same insult lobbed by all of history's meatheads at people who are, like Robert, both well-spoken and ruthless at war. When Ralph Peters calls the slayer of Osama bin Laden, warlord of Libya and Afghanistan, commander of a secret empire of unimaginable violence, a "pussy", it's the voice of Baldwin Fitz Gilbert we hear. No matter how many cities you burn, if you also talk like an intellectual, some people will feel that you've let the meathead side down.

Robert married Mabel fitz Robert before 1122. Mabel (daughter of Robert fitz Hamon and Sibyl de Montgomery) died on 29 Sep 1157. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also called Mabel Fitz Hamon.

Notes:

Earl of Leicester. Also called, but only by later historians and genealogists, Robert de Beaumont.

Twin brother of Waleran, Count of Muelan, 1st Earl of Worcester. After their father's death, the two brothers were raised together in the royal household. Much detail on his career here.

Justiciar of England, 1155-1168.

Robert married Amice de Gael after Nov 1120. Amice (daughter of Ralph II de Gael) died in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also called Amice de Montfort.

She died as a nun in Nuneaton Priory. Complete Peerage says she died after 1168. Royal Ancestry says she died on a 31 August, year uncertain.

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.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Jan 1129
• Alternate death: 17 Jan 1129
• Alternate death: 27 Jan 1129

Notes:

Also called Randle; Ranulf de Briquessart; de Bricasard; Ranulf du Bessin; Ranulf of Chester.

Earl of Chester. Vicomte of Bayeux. Commander of the royal forces in Normandy, 1124.

"Ranulph le Meschin, styled also, 'de Briquessart,' Vicomte de Bayeux in Normandy, s. and h. of Ranulph, Vicomte de Bayeux, by Margaret, sister of Hugh (d'Avranches), Earl of Chester abovenamed, being thus 1st cousin and h. to the last Earl (whom he suc. as Vicomte d'Avranches, &c., in Normandy), obtained, after the Earl's death in 1120, the grant of the county palatine of Chester, becoming thereby Earl of Chester. He appears thereupon to have surrendered the Lordship of the great district of Cumberland, which he had acquired, shortly before, from Henry I. In 1124 he was Commander of the Royal forces in Normandy. He m. Lucy, widow of Roger Fitz-Gerold (by whom she was mother of William de Roumare, afterwards Earl of Lincoln). He d. 17 or 27 Jan. 1129, and was bur. at St. Werburg's, Chester. The Countess Lucy confirmed, as his widow, the grant of the Manor of Spalding to the monks of that place." [Complete Peerage III:166, incorporating corrections from volume XIV.]

Ranulf married Lucy of Bolingbroke about 1098. Lucy was born in of Spalding, Lincolnshire, England; died about 1138. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

"Lucy of Bolingbroke (died circa 1138) was an Anglo-Norman heiress in central England and, later in life, countess of Chester. Probably related to the old English earls of Mercia, she came to possess extensive lands in Lincolnshire which she passed on to her husbands and sons. She was a notable religious patron, founding or co-founding two small religious houses and endowing several with lands and churches. [...] Lucy, as widowed countess, founded the convent of Stixwould in 1135, becoming, in the words of one historian, 'one of the few aristocratic women of the late eleventh and twelfth centuries to achieve the role of independent lay founder.'" [Wikipedia]

Much controversy has ensued over her parentage. Appendix J to volume 7 of the Complete Peerage sums up the state of play in 1929: "The parentage of the Countess Lucy is one of the unsolved puzzles of genealogy. The only direct statements about it are in the Peterborough Chronicle and the pseudo-Ingulf’s Chronicle of Crowland, which agree in saying that she was daughter of Aelfgar, Earl of Mercia, and niece or grandniece of Thorold, sometime Sheriff of co. Lincoln. All that is certainly known is that she was niece of Robert Malet of Eye and of Alan of Lincoln, and that Thorold the Sheriff was a kinsman." The essay goes on to state that a good but not conclusive case can be made for her parents being Thorold the sheriff and an unnamed daughter of Robert Malet.

The ODNB calls Lucy merely "heir of the honour of Bolingbroke". In 1995 Katharine Keats-Rohan made a case for the Thorold hypothesis, but Rosie Bevan argued on SGM that "the main sticking point [...] is that although Lucy is mentioned a few times as Thorold's heir she is not named as his daughter." Bevan went on to propose that the incomplete evidence could as easily be used to argue that Lucy's parents were William Malet (son of Robert) and a daughter of earl Alfgar III.

The one point on which everyone appears to agree is that one of Lucy's parents has to have been a Malet, because in 1153 the future Henry II promised the honour of Eye to Ranulph, earl of Chester, to be held as "Robert Malet the uncle of his mother [i.e., Lucy] held it."

Notes:

Also called Hasculf, Harscoit. Seigneur de St.James et St. Hilaire du Harscouet.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Between May and Sep 1068, Selby, Yorkshire, England
• Alternate birth: Between Feb and May 1069, Selby, Yorkshire, England
• Alternate birth: 1068-1069
• Alternate birth: 1068-1069

Notes:

Called "Beauclerc" by later historians, but not during his lifetime.

Died after eating lampreys, which had been forbidden to him by his physician. Body buried at Reading Abbey, England. Entrails buried at Port-du-Salut Abbey, France. The Middle Ages: weird.

Henry married (Unknown mistress or mistresses of Henry I). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Made (by Henry I) hereditary Governor of Caen, circa 1105. Called by the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (in the article on his father-in-law) "of south Wales." Called "Earl of Gloucester" by later chroniclers, but he was never styled that in his lifetime. Refounded Tewkesbury Abbey in 1092.

Robert married Sibyl de Montgomery between 1087 and 1090. Sibyl (daughter of Roger de Montgomery and Mabel de Bellême) died after 1107. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1049

Notes:

Also known as Robert de Beaumont. Count of Meulan. Created Earl of Leicester.

* One of the only fifteen "Proven Companions" of William the Conqueror at Hastings.

* Inherited the title Count of Meulan when his mother died in 1081; paid homage for it to Philip I of France and sat as a French peer in the parliament at Poissy.

* A member of the royal hunting party in the New Forest, 2 Aug 1100, during which William II was accidentally killed by an arrow. Pledged allegiance to Henry I, who created him Earl of Leicester in 1107.

* Excommunicated by Paschal II during the Investiture Controversy. Excommunication later revoked by Anselm, exiled archbishop of Canterbury; revocation later ratified by Paschal.

* Lived to be the last surviving Norman nobleman who was at Hastings.

Robert married Isabel de Vermandois in 1096. Isabel (daughter of Hugues le Grand and Adèle de Vermandois) died before Jun 1147. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Bef Jul 1147

Notes:

Countess of Leicester. Also called Elizabeth de Vermandois.

Royal Ancestry says she was living c. 1138 and that she died "13 (or 17) February, sometime before June 1147, when her son, William de Warenne, 3rd Earl of Surrey, left on crusade." Several sources say she died in the priory of Lewes, Sussex.

Via her two husbands and thirteen children, descent from her is so common among modern people with traceable medieval ancestry that Douglas Richardson once jokingly asserted the existence of an exclusive lineage organization called the Society of Non-Descendants of Isabel de Vermandois. Of the 19 root people in this database with demonstrable descent from any monarch, only three would be eligible for membership in such a group.

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.

Notes:

Sometimes also called Ranulph le Meschin, but that seems to have originally been applied to his son, as "meschin" means "younger" or "junior." Vicomte de Bessin; Count of Bayeux.

"The Bessin is an area in Normandy, France, corresponding to the territory of the Bajocasses tribe of Gaul who also gave their name to the city of Bayeux, central town of the Bessin. [...] The Bessin corresponds to the former diocese of Bayeux, which was incorporated into the Calvados département following the French Revolution." [Wikipedia]

Ranulph married Margaret d'Avranches. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

The ODNB calls her "Matilda, daughter of Richard, vicomte of the Avranchin."

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: 1027

Notes:

Duke of Normandy 1028-1087; King of England 1066-1087.

William married Matilda of Flanders, Queen Consort of England about 1050. Matilda (daughter of Baldwin V and St. Adele of France) was born in 1032; died on 2 Nov 1083; was buried in Abbey of Sainte-Trinitie, Caen, Calvados, Normandy, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 3 Nov 1083

Notes:

She was about four feet tall, probably accounting for the short stature reported of some of her children, notably including Robert "Curthose" and probably including William Rufus as well.

Notes:

Earl of Shrewsbury. Also styled, variously, as Earl of Arundel, of Chichester, of Sussex, and of Shropshire. Regent in Normandy during the Conquest. A loyal servant to the dukes of Normandy, he became an important administrator in post-Conquest England and Wales, and (following the disgrace of bishop Odo) the richest of William's tenants-in-chief. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography points out that "Alone of all the Conqueror's vassals, Roger de Montgomery gave his name to a British county, appropriately in Wales." He died as a monk.

Roger married Mabel de Bellême about 1050. Mabel (daughter of William I Talvas and Hildeburg) died in Dec 1077 in Bures-sur-Dives, Normandy, France; was buried in Troarn, Calvados, Normandy, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 2 Dec 1079

Notes:

Also called Mabel Talvas; Dame de Alencon, de Seez, and Belleme; Countess of Shrewsbury and Lady of Arundel.

From the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:

Earl Roger's first wife, Mabel de Bellême, has been depicted unforgettably for posterity by Orderic Vitalis, though that historian never saw her. He describes her as 'a forceful and worldly woman, cunning, garrulous, and extremely cruel', 'a perfidious woman', and 'a cruel woman, who had shed the blood of many and had forcibly disinherited many lords'; and he recounts several stories to her discredit related to him by colleagues at St Evroult. Whatever allowances can be made for Mabel there must have been something particularly aggressive and brutal about her for four of her vassals to ride at night into her castle at Bures [-sur-Dives] and cut off her head as she lay in bed after a bath. Her murderer Hugh Bunel was among those whom she had disinherited and was never caught. The date of the murder must be December 1077, not 1082 as long accepted from a marginal note in the editio princeps of Orderic. There is evidence that Mabel, like a very few other baronial wives, was a tenant-in-chief in England, but no evidence that she ever visited that land or the Montgomery estates there.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 29 Nov 1094

Notes:

Slew Roger de Tosny during the civil wars in the early part of Duke William's reign. Not at Hastings, but he is said to have furnished ships for the crossing. Remained in Normandy as the principal adviser of the Duchess Maud. Died as a monk.

Roger married Adeline de Meulan. Adeline (daughter of Waleran III and Oda) died on 8 Apr 1081; was buried in Abbey of Bec, Eure, Normandy, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Was Adeline/Adelinde (wife of Roger de Beaumont who died 1094) a daughter of Oda, wife of Waleran? Peter Stewart's answer on 9 Dec 2016:

This is not known as a certainty from direct evidence, but seems most likely.

Oda had five children by the time her husband Waleran of Meulan tried to have their marriage annulled, and she had died by the time he occurs with a second wife in 1033.

Adela (or Adelina) was evidently the eldest daughter of Waleran, as her son Robert (born ca 1046) inherited Meulan. She was described a sister of Hugo, Waleran's heir, who was named as his son in the 1033 charter before the second wife. As far as we know Waleran had only two sons by his second wife.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 18 Oct 1102, Tarsus, Cilicia

Notes:

Count of Crépy. Count of Vermandois and Valois. Duke of France.

Also called Hugh "Magnus".

The place where he died, in what is now south-central Turkey, is the same Tarsus as in "Saul of Tarsus," before he turned into St. Paul.

Post to SGM by Nathaniel Lane Taylor, 22 Jan 2004, about the battle in which Hugues died:

[I]t was I who first first posted the death date & circumstances on Hugh of Vermandois when I started this whole messy thread. But the 1101 date is clearly correct, because Hugh died of wounds after the battle in which a Crusader force was annihilated at Heraklea (Asia Minor) in late September of 1101. There is no mistaking the year, in the chronology of the first Crusade's aftermath. Runciman (2:28-29) does not provide a precise date for that battle, but it was one of three major failures of Western forces the Summer and Fall of 1101. See generally his History of the Crusades, vol. 2, chapter 2, "The Crusades of 1101." On the battle at Heraklea, he says:

"Early in September they [see below] entered Heraclea, which they found deserted as Konya had been. Just beyond the town flowed the river, one of the few Anatolian streams to flow abundantly throughout the summer. The Christian warriors, half-mad from thirst, broke their ranks to rush to the welcoming water. But the Turkish army lay concealed in the thickets on the river banks. As the crusaders surged on in disorder, the Turks sprang out on them and surrounded them. There was no time to reform ranks. Panic spread through the Christian army. Horsemen and infantry were mixed in a dreadful stampede; and as they stumbled in their attempt to flee they were slaughtered by the enemy. The duke of Aquitaine, followed by one of his grooms, cut his way out and rode into the mountains. After many days of wandering through the passes he found his way to Tarsus. Hugh of Vermandois was badly wounded in the battle; but some of his men rescued him and he too reached Tarsus. But he was a dying man. His death took place on 18 October and they buried him there in the Cathedral of St Paul. He never fulfilled his vow to go to Jerusalem. Welf of Bavaria only escaped by throwing away all his armor. After several weeks he arrived with two or three attendants at Antioch. Archbishop Thiemo [of Salzburg] was taken prisoner and martyred for his faith. The fate of the Margravine of Austria is unknown. Later legends said that she ended her days a captive in a far-off harem, where she gave birth to the Moslem hero Zengi. More probably she was thrown from her litter in the panic and trampled to death."

Runciman cites Albert of Aachen, 8.34-40 (pp. 579-82 in the edition he cites); and Ekkehard, 24-26 (pp. 30-32), among other material on the legend of the the Margravine of Austria, etc.

It is PNH's contention that this Hugh le Grand is the exact bellybutton of the Middle Ages. His father was a king of France; his mother was one of the daughters of Yaroslav the Wise, Grand Prince of Kiev; and his daughter Isabel married, as her first husband, one of the Conqueror's proven companions at Hastings. Another daughter, Agnes, married a marcher lord of northern Italy. Through his mother he was also descended from three canonized Kievan saints and two kings of Sweden. He married the last member of the Carolingian dynasty. He died on Crusade. He was called Hugues le Grand. Case closed.

Hugues married Adèle de Vermandois about 1080. Adèle (daughter of Herbert IV and Adela of Vexin) died in 1120; was buried on 28 Sep 1120 in Vermandois, Aisne, Picardy, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Between 1120 and 1124

Notes:

Countess of Vermandois. Last member of the Carolingian dynasty.

According to Royal Ancestry, she died "28 September, between 1120 and 1124."

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Bef Jul 1099, Palestine

Notes:

Earl of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridge. Seigneur of Montford de Gael in Brittany.

"There have been various theories regarding the parentage of Ralph de Gael. Taylor surmised that his father 'Ralf vetus comes' might be the same person a 'Ralf Stalra,' and supposed that he was an Englishman who no doubt married a Breton heiress (Master Wace, pp. 225-6) Andresen merely refers to Taylor (Roman de Rou, vol. ii. p. 705). Freeman accepted Taylor's view, and the identity of Ralph the old Earl, with Ralph the Staller as definitely established (Norman Conquest, vol. iii, pp. 751-4). Planché denied the identity of Ralph the old Earl with Ralph the Staller and argued that Ralph de Gael was the son of Ralph, Earl of Hereford, son of Dreu, Count of the French Vexin, by Godgifu, sister of the whole blood of the Confessor, and subsequently wife of Eustace, Count of Bologne (Conqueror and his Companions, vol. ii, pp. 5-13). Planché's theory was accepted with cauthion by Watson (Complete Peerage, 1st ed., vol vi, pp. 36-7). Round followed Taylor and Freeman, with some reluctance, owing to the difficulty of an Englishman born before the Conquest being named Ralph (V.C.H. Norfolk, vol. ii, p. 11)." [Complete Peerage IX: 571, note (h).]

From the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:

Ralph [called Ralph de Gael, Ralph Guader], earl (d. 1097x9), magnate, was the elder son of Ralph the Staller, earl of East Anglia (d. 1068x70), and his unnamed Breton wife. He seems to have been in Brittany in the reign of Edward the Confessor and to have come to England only after the conquest; Wace, indeed, represents him as leading a contingent of Bretons at the battle of Hastings. By 1069 he had succeeded his father as earl in East Anglia; he defended Norwich in that year against the Danish fleet sent to aid the English rebellion in the north. His English holdings were very extensive, for he received the lands of the English magnate Eadgifu the Fair as well as those of his father. His honour extended into Essex and Cambridgeshire as well as Lincolnshire, Norfolk, and Suffolk. Only in Cambridgeshire is he called Ralph Waders, Guader, or de Wather--that is, Ralph de Gael (Domesday Book, 1.196v; Chronicon abbatiae Rameseiensis, 174 - 5). Many Bretons accompanied him to take up land in England and it was probably he, rather than his father, who established the 'French borough' at Norwich (Domesday Book, 2.118).

In 1075 Ralph married Emma, daughter of William fitz Osbern, and it was at their marriage-feast at Exning, Suffolk--the 'bride-ale that was many men's bale' (ASC, s.a. 1075, text D)--that Ralph and his brother-in-law, Roger de Breteuil, earl of Hereford, planned a rebellion against King William. Earl Waltheof was also involved, and the plotters sought help from both Brittany and Denmark. Their motives are obscure, but it is probable that their powers were more circumscribed than those of their fathers had been: Ralph's authority seems to have been confined to East Anglia (and perhaps to Norfolk), whereas the earldom of East Anglia had once embraced the whole of the east midlands; Roger likewise held only the earldom of Hereford, whereas his father had authority over the whole of western Wessex; and Waltheof's power was confined to the lands north of the Tees, whereas his father, Earl Siward, had held all Northumbria.

It is clear that the earls had little support in England. The D version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says that 'they plotted to drive their royal lord out of his kingdom' (ASC, s.a. 1075), highly pejorative language smacking of treason. Archbishop Lanfranc, too, did not hesitate to brand Ralph 'traitor' and describe his army of 'Breton dung' as 'oathbreakers', though he took a milder line with Earl Roger and (according to John of Worcester) with Waltheof. Waltheof, in fact, took no part in the revolt, but revealed all to the king and threw himself on William's mercy; and the Danes proved a broken reed, for their fleet (commanded by Cnut the Holy) arrived only when everything was over. Roger and Ralph attempted to raise their earldoms, but Roger was prevented from crossing the Severn by a force commanded by Wulfstan, bishop of Worcester, and other western magnates. In East Anglia both the castle garrisons and the local levies opposed Ralph and he was brought to bay at his manor of Fawdon by Geoffrey, bishop of Coutances, and other loyal magnates. His army was scattered and Ralph fled to Norwich, whence he escaped by ship. Emma held the castle against the king's men and eventually arranged safe conduct for herself and her men, joining her husband in Brittany. The prisoners taken after Fawdon were not so fortunate; at the Christmas court of 1075 those who were not exiled were blinded and mutilated. Roger de Breteuil was imprisoned for life and Waltheof was beheaded for treason in the following year.

Ralph was deprived of his office and of all his English lands, as was his brother Hardouin and his vassal Walter of Dol. His Breton lands of Montfort and Gael were beyond King William's reach and in 1076 Ralph joined a Breton revolt aimed against both Duke Hoel and William himself. He seized the castle of Dol and held it against William, who was forced to break off the siege by the approach of a relieving force commanded by King Philippe I of France and Foulques le Réchin, count of Anjou (d. 1109); it was the first serious reverse which William had suffered for many years. Ralph continued to prosper in Brittany. In 1095 the first crusade was preached and Ralph and Emma were among those who answered the call, in the following of Robert Curthose, duke of Normandy. Ralph fought at the siege of Nicaea and the battle of Dorylaeum in the summer of 1097, but died before the fall of Jerusalem in July 1099. Emma, too, died on crusade, as did one of their sons, Alan. Ralph's lands passed to his remaining sons, first to William de Gael (d. 1119) and then to Ralph. In 1103 William de Breteuil, the elder brother of Roger and Emma, died and William de Gael claimed the honour of Breteuil in right of his mother; but both he, and later his brother Ralph, had to fight both the illegitimate son of William de Breteuil and the barons of the honour. Eventually Breteuil passed to Robert, earl of Leicester (d. 1168), to whom Henry I gave, probably in 1121, the younger Ralph's daughter Amice in marriage.

Ralph married Emma de Breteuil in 1075 in Exning, Cambridgeshire, England. Emma (daughter of William fitz Osbern and Adeliza de Tosny) died after 1096 in Palestine. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]