Sibyl de Ferrers

Notes:

Richardson's Royal Ancestry gives her as an unnamed daughter of William de Ferrers and Agnes de Chester, but an SGM post from him on 11 Aug 2018 (citation details below) establishes via a "charter dated c. 1230-41 of John de Vipont published in Prescott, Register of the Priory of Wetherhal (Cumberland and Westmorland Antiq. & Arch. Society Records 1) (1897): 328–330" that she was named Sibyl.

Family/Spouse: John de Vipont. John (son of Robert de Vipont and Idoine de Builly) was born in 1210 in of Appleby, Westmorland, England; died before 25 Jul 1241. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Robert de Vipont was born about 1234 in of Appleby, Westmorland, England; died before 7 Jun 1264.

Notes:

"Sheriff of Notts and Derby, for 7 weeks, February-March 1194. About that time, before the King's return to England, he supported the justiciar against John, Count of Mortain, and, with the Earl of Chester, besieged Nottingham Castle. Shortly afterwards he took part at Richard's second Coronation, 17 April, being one of the four Earls who bore the canopy. After the King's death, he was at the Council of Northampton, which declared for John as Richard's successor: he was present at the Coronation, 27 May 1199. On 7 June 1199, the King restored and confirmed to him the third penny of all the pleas pleaded per vicecomitem de Dereby, unde ipse Comes est, as amply as any of his predecessors had had the same, to hold, to him and his heirs for ever, and with his own hand girded him with the sword as an Earl. On the same day the King gave him Higham with the hundred and a half, and the park of that town, and Newbottle and Blisworth, as his right and inheritance which descended to him as right heir of the land which was of William Peverel, to hold, to him and his heirs for ever, by the service of a knlght's fee. And the Earl quit-claimed the residue of the land which was of William Peverel to the King, and paid 2,000 marks for his charter. He was present at the Coronation of Henry III, 28 October 1216. On 30 October the King granted him the castles of Peak and Bolsover, co. Derby, with the homages, and on 16 January 1216/7 the manor of Melbourne in that co., to hold till the King was 14 years of age. He assisted the Regent to raise the siege of Lincoln Castle, 20 May 1217, and with his brother-in-law, the Earl of Chester, commanded the royal forces which took and razed the castle of Montsorel. In June 1218 he went on Crusade. He was warned, 26 June 1222, to surrender the castles of Peak and Bolsover before Michaelmas. Sheriff of co. Lancaster and Keeper of the honour of Lancaster, 30 December 1223 to 2 January 1227/8. He accompanied the King in the expedition to Brittany and Poitou, April to October 1230. On 19 January 1230/1 he was given the custody of all the lands of the Normans in England which were of his fee. He was at the Council of London, February 1231/2. He was summoned for Military Service against the Scots 15 May 1244, by writ directed W. de Ferar' comiti Derebi." [Complete Peerage]

Died of the complications of gout.

William married Agnes of Chester in 1192. Agnes (daughter of Hugh of Chester and Bertrade de Montfort) died on 2 Nov 1247. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

According to CP XIV, she may actually have been called Alice. The Ancestry of Dorothea Poyntz calls her "Agnes (?Alice) de Blundeville".

Notes:

Earl of Derby.

"He was one of the adherents of the younger Henry on his rebellion in April 1173, and sacked and burnt Nottingham in May or June 1174. He made his submission to the King at Northampton, 31 July 1174, surrendering his castles of Tutbury and Duffield. The King took him, with other prisoners, to France in August following, and imprisoned them at Caen. [...] He died on Crusade, at the siege of Acre, in Palestine, in 1190, before 21 October. His wife survived him, and was, perhaps, living as late as 5 February 1227/8." [Complete Peerage]

His wife has long been given as Sybil, a daughter of William de Braose and Bertha of Hereford. But Complete Peerage XIV notes that the charter which was the sole evidence for this was a forgery.

William married (Unknown wife of William de Ferrers). (Unknown died after 5 Feb 1228. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: 1147, Merionethshire, Wales

Notes:

Earl of Chester. Also known as Hugh le Meschin; Hugh de Meschines; Hugh of Kevelioc; Hugh de Cyveiliog.

1908 DNB entry on Hugh of Kevelioc:

[By Thomas Frederick Tout.]

HUGH (D. 1181) called HUGH of CYVEILIOG, palatine Earl of Chester, was the son of Ranulf II, Earl of Chester, and of his wife Matilda, daughter of Earl Robert of Gloucester, the illegitimate son of Henry I. He is sometimes called Hugh of Cyveiliog, because, according to a late writer, he was born in that district of Wales (Powel, Hist. of Cambria, p. 295). His father died on 16 Dec. 1153, whereupon, being probably still under age, he succeeded to his possessions on both sides of the Channel. These included the hereditary viscounties of Avranches and Bayeux. Hugh was present at the council of Clarendon in January 1164 which drew up the assize of Clarendon (Stubbs, Select Charters, p. 138). In 1171 he was in Normandy (Eyton, Itinerary of Henry II, p. 158).

Hugh joined the great feudal revolt against Henry II in 1173. Aided by Ralph of Fougeres, he utilised his great influence on the north-eastern marches of Brittany to excite the Bretons to revolt. Henry II despatched an army of Brabant mercenaries against them. The rebels were defeated in a battle, and on 20 Aug. were shut up in the castle of Dol, which they had captured by fraud not long before. On 23 Aug. Henry II arrived to conduct the siege in person (Hoveden, ii. 51). Hugh and his comrades had no provisions (Jordan Fantosme in Howlett, Chron. of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I, iii. 221). They were therefore forced to surrender on 26 Aug. on a promise that their lives and limbs would be saved (W. Newburgh in Howlett, i. 176). Fourscore knights surrendered with them (Diceto, i. 378). Hugh was treated very leniently by Henry, and was confined at Falaise, whither the Earl and Countess of Leicester were also soon brought as prisoners. When Henry II returned to England, he took the two earls with him. They were conveyed from Barfleur to Southampton on 8 July 1174. Hugh was probably afterwards imprisoned at Devizes (Eyton, p. 180). On 8 Aug., however, he was taken back from Portsmouth to Barfleur, when Henry II went back to Normandy. He was now imprisoned at Caen, whence he was removed to Falaise. He was admitted to terms with Henry before the general peace, and witnessed the peace of Falaise on 11 Oct. (Fœdera, i. 31).

Hugh seems to have remained some time longer without complete restoration. At last, at the council of Northampton on 13 Jan. 1177, he received grant of the lands on both sides of the sea which he had held fifteen days before the war broke out (Benedictus, i. 135; Hoveden, ii. 118). In March he witnessed the Spanish award. In May, at the council at Windsor, Henry II restored him his castles, and required him to go to Ireland, along with William Fitzaldhelm and others, to prepare the way for the king's son John (Benedictus, i. 161). But no great grants of Irish land were conferred on him, and he took no prominent part, in the Irish campaigns. He died at Leek in Staffordshire on 30 June 1181 (ib. i. 277; Monasticon, iii. 218; Ormerod, Cheshire, i. 29). He was buried next his father on the south side of the chapter-house of St. Werburgh's, Chester, now the cathedral.

Hugh's liberality to the church was not so great as that of his predecessors. He granted some lands in Wirral to St. Werburgh's, and four charters of his, to Stanlaw, St. Mary's, Coventry, the nuns of Bullington and Greenfield, are printed by Ormerod (i. 27). He also confirmed his mother's grants to her foundation of Austin Canons at Calke, Derbyshire, and those of his father to his convent of the Benedictine nuns of St. Mary's, Chester (Monasticon, vi. 598, iv. 314). In 1171 he had confirmed the grants of Ranulf to the abbey of St. Stephen's in the diocese of Bayeux (Eyton, p. 158). More substantial were his grants of Bettesford Church to Trentham Priory, and of Combe in Gloucestershire to the abbey of Bordesley, Warwickshire (Monasticon, vi. 397, v. 407).

Hugh married before 1171 Bertrada, the daughter of Simon III, surnamed the Bald, count of Evreux and Montfort. He was therefore brother-in-law to Simon of Montfort., the conqueror of the Albigenses, and uncle of the Earl of Leicester. His only legitimate son, Ranulf III, succeeded him as Earl of Chester [see Blundevill, Randulf de]. He also left four daughters by his wife, who became, on their brother's death, co-heiresses of the Chester earldom. They were: (1) Maud, who married David, earl of Huntingdon, and became the mother of John the Scot, earl of Chester from 1232 to 1237, on whose death the line of Hugh of Avranches became extinct; (2) Mabel, who married William of Albini, earl of Arundel (d. 1221); (3) Agnes, the wife of William, earl Ferrers of Derby; and (4) Hawise, who married Robert de Quincy, son of Saer de Quincy, earl of Winchester. Hugh was also the father of several bastards, including Pagan, lord of Milton; Roger; Amice, who married Ralph Mainwaring, justice of Chester; and another daughter who married R. Bacon, the founder of Roucester (Ormerod, i. 28). A great controversy was carried on between Sir Peter Leycester and Sir Thomas Mainwaring, Amice's reputed descendant, as to whether that lady was legitimate or not. Fifteen pamphlets and small treatises on the subject, published between 1673 and 1679, were reprinted in the publications of the Chetham Society, vols. lxxiii. lxxix. and lxxx. Mainwaring was the champion of her legitimacy, which Leycester had denied in his 'Historical Antiquities.' Dugdale believed that Amice was the daughter of a former wife of Hugh, of whose existence, however, there is no record. A fine seal of Earl Hugh's is engraved in Ormerod's 'Cheshire,' i. 32.

[Benedictus Abbas and Roger de Hoveden (both ed. Stubbs in Rolls Ser.); Howlett's Chronicles of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I (Rolls Ser.); Eyton's Itinerary of Hen. II; Ormerod's Cheshire, i. 26-32; Dugdale's Baronage, i. 40-1; Dugdale's Monasticon, ed. Ellis, Caley, and Bandinel; Doyle's Official Baronage, i. 364; Beamont's introduction to the Amicia Tracts, Chetham Soc.]

[DNB, Editor, Sidney Lee, Macmillan Co., London & Smith, Elder & Co., NY, 1908, vol. x, pp. 164-5]

Hugh married Bertrade de Montfort in 1169. Bertrade (daughter of Simon de Montfort and Maud) was born about 1155; died after 31 Mar 1227. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1156

Notes:

Also called Bertrade of Evreux. CP notes that at her wedding she was given away by King Henry II "because she was his own cousin." In fact she and the king were second cousins once removed, Simon de Montfort and Agnes d'Evreaux being his great-great grandparents and her great-grandparents.

Notes:

Earl of Derby.

Robert married Margaret Peverel. Margaret (daughter of William Peverel and Oddona) was born in of Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1100
• Alternate birth: Abt 1105, Guernon Castle, Normandy, France
• Alternate death: 17 Dec 1153, Gresley, Derbyshire, England

Notes:

Also called Ranulf of Chester. Earl of Chester. Vicomte d'Avranches.

Of his death, Complete Peerage says "being supposed to have been poisoned by his wife and William Peverell, of Nottingham", but the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, while noting the claims that he died of poison, says nothing about his wife being involved.

"Most contemporary verdicts upon Ranulf were unfavourable. Although Orderic Vitalis acknowledged his resourcefulness and daring, the Gesta Stephani criticized ‘the cunning devices of his accustomed bad faith’ (Gesta Stephani, 192–3), and Henry of Huntingdon, through a speech supposedly by the royalist spokesman at the battle of Lincoln, called him ‘a man of reckless daring, ready for conspiracy...panting for the impossible’, prone to defeat or, at best, to Pyrrhic victories (Historia Anglorum, 734–5). Clearly, his strategy during the civil war was to take every opportunity to enhance his territorial position, especially in the north midlands, and such commitments as he made, either to the king or to the Angevins, were calculated to that end. Other magnates followed similar policies, but Ranulf (II) was exceptionally ruthless in pursuit of his ambitions, and accordingly he was hated by many and trusted by none." [Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]

Ranulph married Matilda of Gloucester before 1135. Matilda (daughter of Robert of Gloucester and Mabel fitz Robert) died on 29 Jul 1189. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also called Maud fitz Robert; Maud de Caen.

"Matilda may have played a central role in the capture of Lincoln Castle in December 1140, a key turning point in the conflict that set in train the series of events that led eventually to the capture of Stephen. While their husbands were besieging Lincoln Castle, Matilda and her sister-in-law Hawise, countess of Lincoln, made a friendly social visit to the wife of the castellan. Under the pretext of providing an escort for his wife's safe return to his armed camp, Earl Ranulf penetrated and captured the castle. On the subsequent approach of the king's army towards Lincoln, it is unclear whether Matilda held the castle while Ranulf attempted to rally support or whether she was captured. None the less Ranulf escaped from the castle leaving his wife and sons to face the besieging royalists. Robert, earl of Gloucester, went to the aid of Ranulf since he was worried about the safety of his daughter and grandchildren. In the subsequent battle of Lincoln on 2 February 1141 King Stephen was captured." [Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]

It's worth noting that, at least as of 12 Mar 2017, the ODNB's entry on this Matilda begins with an extremely confused opening sentence that appears to be claiming that she was a daughter of Robert, illegitimate son of Henry I, by his wife Sibyl de Montgomery. In fact Sibyl was Robert's mother-in-law.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Between 1180 and 1181

Notes:

Count of Evreux.

Simon married Maud. Maud died before 1168. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]