(Unknown daughter of William de Warenne)

Family/Spouse: John, King of England. John (son of Henry II, King of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen Consort of France; Queen Consort of England) was born about 27 Dec 1166 in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England; died on 19 Oct 1216 in Newark Castle, Newark, Nottinghamshire, England; was buried in Worcester Cathedral, Worcestershire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Richard fitz Roy died before 24 Jun 1246.

Other Events:

• Alternate birth: 1118

Notes:

Earl of Surrey.

"Slain when the rear guard of the French king's army was cut to pieces in Laodicea." [Royal Ancestry]

Peter Stewart, on soc.genealogy.medieval, 5 Sep 2019:

In CP vol xii part 1, p. 497 William [III de Warenne] is stated to have died on 19 January 1147/8 "when the rearguard of the French King's army was cut to pieces in the defiles of Laodicea". This was the battle at Cadmos mountain, when Louis VII had to fight his way to safety after being separated from his guard including William, Gaucher II of Châtillon & Montjay and Evrard III of Breteuil, who were killed.

However, the battle took place ca 7 January, certainly before 19th which was the date given without citing any authority by George Watson in The Genealogist (1895), referenced in CP as "G. W. Watson in Genealogist, N.S., vol. xi, p. 132, and authorities there cited". Odo of Deuil, who was present, said that the battle took place on the day after the king's army set off from Laodicea, and they had stayed there only a few days after arriving on 3 or 4 January.

Jonathan Phillips in his chronology in The Crusades, 1095–1204, second edition (2014), p xvii, placed the battle definitely on 7 January, but other historians have estimated 6 or 8 of the same month.

William married Ela of Ponthieu. Ela (daughter of Guillaume III Talvas and Helie of Burgundy) was born in in of Alencon, Orne, Basse-Normandie, France; died on 4 Oct 1174. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events:

• Alternate death: 10 Dec 1174
• Alternate death: 1178

Notes:

Also called Ala; Ela Talvas; Adela Talvas; Ela d'Alencon.

Notes:

Earl of Surrey; usually styled Earl of Warenne. Advisor to King John at Runnymede.

William married Isabel de Vermandois after 5 Jun 1118. Isabel (daughter of Hugues le Grand and Adèle de Vermandois) died before Jun 1147. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events:

• 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 eleven root people in this database with demonstrable descent from any monarch, only two would be eligible for membership in such a group.

Notes:

Count of Ponthieu and Alençon.

Guillaume married Helie of Burgundy about 1115. Helie (daughter of Odo I and Sibylla of Burgundy) was born about 1080 in Dijon, Côte-d'Or, Burgundy, France; died on 28 Feb 1141 in Perseigne Abbey, Neufchâtel-en-Saosnois, Pays-de-la-Loire, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events:

• Alternate death: 28 Feb 1142

Notes:

Also called Alice, Alix of Burgundy; Ela of Burgundy.

Other Events:

• Alternate death: 1089

Notes:

1st Earl of Surrey. One of the Conqueror's fifteen proven companions. Died from wounds sustained at the siege of Pevensey.

William married Gundred of Flanders before 1070. Gundred was born in in Flanders; died on 27 May 1085 in Castle Acre, Norfolk, England; was buried in Lewes Priory, Sussex, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Countess of Surrey. Also called Gundreda de Gand; Gundrada.

"Possibly da. of Gerbod, hereditary advocate of the abbey of St. Bertin at St. Omer." [Complete Peerage]

"[She] was called 'daughter of the Conqueror,' although no evidence was advanced." [Walter Lee Sheppard, Jr., "Royal Bye-Blows: The Illegitimate Children of the English Kings from William I to Edward III", The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 119:94, 1965]

From Wikipedia:

Gundred or Gundreda (Latin: Gundrada) (died 27 May 1085) was the Flemish-born wife of an early Norman baron, William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey. She and her husband established Lewes Priory in Sussex.

Gundred was almost certainly born in Flanders, and was a sister of Gerbod the Fleming, 1st Earl of Chester. She is explicitly so called by Orderic Vitalis, as well as the chronicle of Hyde Abbey. She was also sister of Frederick of Oosterzele-Scheldewindeke, who was killed c. 1070 by Hereward the Wake. Legends based in part on late Lewes priory cartulary suggested Gundred was a daughter of William the Conqueror by his spouse Matilda of Flanders, but this is not accepted by most modern historians. The early-19th-century writer Thomas Stapleton had argued she was a daughter of Matilda, born prior to her marriage to Duke William. This sparked a debate consisting of a series of published papers culminating with those of Edmond Chester Waters and Edward Augustus Freeman who argued the theories could not be supported. Regardless, some genealogical and historical sources continue to make the assertion that she was the Conqueror's daughter.

Gundred married before 1070 William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey (d. 20 June 1088), who rebuilt Lewes Castle, making it his chief residence. Sometime between 1078 and 1082, Gundrada and her husband set out for Rome visiting monasteries along the way. In Burgundy they were unable to go any further due to a war between Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII. They visited Cluny Abbey and were impressed with the monks and their dedication. William and Gundred decided to found a Cluniac priory on their own lands in England. They sent to Hugh the abbot of Cluny for monks to come to England at their monastery. Hugh was reluctant yet eventually sent several monks including Lazlo who became the first abbot. The house they founded was Lewes Priory, dedicated to St. Pancras. Gundred died in childbirth 27 May 1085 at Castle Acre, Norfolk, one of her husband's estates, and was buried at the Chapter house of Lewes Priory. He was later buried beside her.

Other Events:

• 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:

• 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:

• Baptised: St. Martin, Sées, Orne, Normandy, France
• Baptised: 1056, Sées, Orne, Normandy, France
• Baptised: 1057, Sées, Orne, Normandy, France
• Alternate birth: 1057, Sées, Orne, Normandy, France
• Alternate death: Aft 1130
• Alternate death: Bef 8 May 1131

Notes:

Earl of Shrewsbury. Count of Ponthieu. Exiled and attainted 1102. Described by the ODNB as "a brilliant military architect but sadistically cruel."

"Robert de Bellême, seigneur de Bellême (or Belèsme), seigneur de Montgomery, viscount of the Hiémois, 3rd Earl of Shrewsbury and Count of Ponthieu, was an Anglo-Norman nobleman, and one of the most prominent figures in the competition for the succession to England and Normandy between the sons of William the Conqueror. He was a member of the powerful House of Bellême. Robert became notorious for his alleged cruelty. The chronicler Orderic Vitalis calls him 'Grasping and cruel, an implacable persecutor of the Church of God and the poor... unequalled for his iniquity in the whole Christian era.' The stories of his brutality may have inspired the legend of Robert the Devil." [Wikipedia]

"The chroniclers have given Robert de Bellême an appalling reputation, though his actions as a man of violence and an oppressor of the church were probably little worse than those of his contemporaries. He was faced with an enormous task in trying to hold together his family's extensive lands, which lay in very unstable regions, and it proved to be impossible without the support of an effective ruler. Although Bellême was a capable soldier and an efficient administrator, it was his misfortune that he lacked political judgement, as his support of Robert Curthose and failure to establish satisfactory relations with Henry I indicate." [Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]

Robert married Agnes de Ponthieu before 9 Sep 1087. Agnes (daughter of Guy I) died after 1100. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events:

• Alternate death: Between 1105 and 1106

Notes:

Countess of Ponthieu.

"Agnes, who was sole heir to her father's comté, was treated cruelly by her husband, who kept her shut up for a long time in his castle at Bellême. She escaped by the help of a faithful chamberlain, took refuge with Adela Countess of Blois and retired to Ponthieu; whence she never returned to her husband." [Complete Peerage]

Notes:

Also called Eudes Borel "the Red". Duke of Burgundy.

Odo married Sibylla of Burgundy in 1080. Sibylla (daughter of William I "The Great" of Burgundy and Stephanie) was born in 1065; died in 1101. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events:

• Alternate death: Aft 1103

Notes:

Also called Matilda.