Mabel fitz Robert

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Aft 1205

Notes:

Also called Mabira of Gloucester.

Family/Spouse: Jordan de Chambernun. Jordan (son of Jordan de Chambernun) was born in of Cambernon, Manche, Normandy, France; died after 1171. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Jordan de Chambernun died before 3 Jun 1217; was buried in Christchurch Priory, Dorset, England.

Notes:

Castellan of Gloucester.

Robert married Hawise de Revières. Hawise (daughter of Baldwin de Revières and Adelise) died after 1211. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also called Hawise de Redvers.

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:

Also called Baldwin de Redvers. Earl of Devon. "He was one of the first to rebel against King Stephen, and was the only first rank magnate never to accept the new king. He seized Exeter, and was a pirate out of Carisbrooke, but he was driven out of England to Anjou, where he joined the Empress Matilda. She made him Earl of Devon after she established herself in England, probably in early 1141." [Wikipedia]

Founded Quarr Abbey on the Isle of Wight, and the priory of St. James at Exeter.

Baldwin married Adelise. Adelise was buried in Quarr Abbey, Isle of Wight, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography gives this Adelise a death date of 1146, and says that "between 1151 and 1155 Baldwin married as his second wife, Lucy, the widow of Gilbert de Clare, earl of Hertford." But Complete Peerage IV:312, footnote (c), says "The pedigree of the Earls of Devon in the Cartulary of Twynham makes the certainly erroneous statement that Earl Baldwin was father of Earl Richard, of William de Vernon [shown here as William de Revières], of Henry, and of Hawise de Reviers, 'ex Lucia Comitissa uxore sua.'" In other words, the ODNB biographer is clearly assuming that the Twynham cartulary pedigree is correct, and has derived a death date of 1146 for Adelise based on the known birth years of children that the pedigree mistakenly assigns to a nonexistent marriage of Baldwin to Lucy de Clare.

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]

Notes:

Or Redvers, Rivers, or Latinized to de Ripariis ("from the river-banks").

A major supporter of Henry I against Curthose, for which he was rewarded with estates enough to make him one of the richest magnates in England.

Long considered the first Earl of Devon, but no contemporary source confirms this; his son Baldwin is now held to have been the first of that title.

Richard married Adelise Peverel. Adelise (daughter of William "The Elder" Peverel and Adeline) was born about 1080; died after 27 May 1156. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

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.

Notes:

"[H]ad extensive holdings, afterwards known as the honor of Peverel, consisting of 100 lordships in co. Nottingham and Northants, fourteen in co. Derby, and some twenty others; founded Lenton Priory and St. James's Abbey near Nottingham." [The Wallop Family, citation details below.]

William married Adeline. Adeline died after 1129. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 1035
• Alternate death: 22 Jul 1035

Notes:

"The Devil." Duke of Normandy.

Robert married Herleve. Herleve was born about 1003; died about 1050; was buried in Grestain Abbey, Fatouville-Grestain, Normandy, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Aft 1051

Notes:

Also called Arlette. Also called Herleve "de Falaise", this predicated on the belief that she was the daughter of a tanner or forester named Fulbert from the town of Falaise.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Bef 1012
• Alternate birth: 1012

Notes:

Count/Marquess of Flanders 1035-1067; Regent of France 1060-1067.

Also known as Baudouin de Flandre, Baldwin "De l'Isle"; Baldwin of Lille; Balduinus Insulanus; Balduinus Pius.

Baldwin married St. Adele of France in 1028 in Paris, France. Adele (daughter of Robert II, King of France and Constance of Provence, Queen Consort of France) was born between 1010 and 1015; died on 8 Jan 1079; was buried in Abbey of Messines, Ypres, Flanders. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1003
• Alternate birth: Abt 1009, Ypres, Flanders
• Alternate death: Abt 1063

Notes:

Also called Adela; Aelis; Alais; Adelaide; Adelheid; Alix; Adela the Holy; Adela of Messines. Countess of Auxerre; Countess of Cotentin.

Roger married Emma. Emma died after 1067. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Between 1055 and 1060
• Alternate death: 1070

William married Hildeburg. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

There seems little doubt that Ranulf Peverel existed; what's at issue is whether he was father to any of the other real and alleged Peverels of the late eleventh century. It seems at least plausible that he was father to William Peverel "the Elder" (d. 1114), and that Robert Peverel (father of Ascelina, wife of Geoffrey de Walterville) was William the Elder's brother -- or possibly half-brother, sharing with him a father but not a mother. A somewhat messy collection of snippets from the literature is here.