Saturday, August 30, 2014

2a.1.2 Amabilis Fitz Henry m Lord Walter de Riddelisford their dtr Emmeline de Ridelsford or was she?

We followed the lives of our great grandparents from Stephen de Longspee and Emmeline de Riddlesford, but who was Emmeline de Burgh apart from being the 22nd great grandmother?

There are numerous answers to that question.  The trouble is that in those times it was the tradition to name a son after the father, and then the daughter after the mother. Trying to unravel the de Riddlesfords has been quite difficult.

Emmaline appears to be the daughter of Walter de Riddlesford and his wife Amabilis Fitz Henry the daughter Henry Fitz Henry, son of King Henry I

But why would she have the name Emmeline?  Like mother like daughter, I thought it was more likely that her mother was also named Emmaline.

 But so many researchers insisted that her monther was Amabilis.  But after trawling the internet for hours, I found some reference to a Emmeline de Burg being married to Walter de Riddelsford.  And  there are umpteen Walter de Riddlesfords as well!

So I have followed that path, and while Amabilis is the daughter of King Henry I's son, Emmeline has a vast family history and her royal links are through both King William and the Kings of France.

For starters all the different families were involved in the Salisbury area, all with different titles and the like. Some very important citizens of the day!  And all part of the Royal inner circle.

Emmeline was the daughter of Hugh De Burgh and Beatrix de Warrene

Hubert de Burgh, 1st Earl of Kent (c. 1160 – before 5 May 1243) was Justiciar of England and Ireland and one of the most influential men in England during the reigns of King John (1199-1216) and of his infant son and successor King Henry III .

De Burgh was the son of Walter de Burgh. He was the younger brother of William de Burgh (d. 1206).[1]
Dover Castle
He was a minor official in the household of Prince John, and became John's chamberlain around 1201 and continued to rise and fall in importance throughout his life.

He was also appointed Constable of Dover Castle, and also given charge of Falaise, in Normandy. He is cited as having been appointed a Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports by 1215, and although the co-joint position of this office to that of the constableship of Dover Castle was not fully established until after the Baron's War, a rather long period seems to have elapsed between the two appointments.





In 1204 de Burgh was given charge of the great castle of ChinonPoitou had fallen, de Burgh held the castle for an entire year before relinquishing it to the French.



In 1206, he bought the parish of Tunstall from Robert de Arsic.

De Burgh remained loyal to the king during the barons' rebellions at the end of John's reign. On 24 August 1217, at the start of the reign of the infant King Henry III (1216-1272), a French fleet arrived off the coast of Sandwich, bringing to the French King Louis, then ravaging England, soldiers, siege engines and fresh supplies. Hubert, set sail to intercept it, resulting in the Battle of Sandwich.

 De Burgh's fleet scattered the French and captured their flagship (The Great Ship of Bayonne), commanded by Eustace the Monk, who was promptly executed.
When the news reached Louis, he entered into fresh peace negotiations.

The Magna Carta mentions him as one of those who advised the king to sign the charter, and he was one of the twenty-five sureties of its execution. John named him Chief Justiciar in June 1215.

Regent to Henry III

When Henry III came of age in 1227 de Burgh was made lord of Montgomery Castle in the Welsh Marches and Earl of Kent. He remained one of the most influential people at court. On 27 April 1228 he was named Justiciar for life.

But in 1232 the plots of his enemies finally succeeded and he was removed from office and soon was in prison. He escaped from Devizes Castle and joined the rebellion of Richard Marshal, 3rd Earl of Pembroke in 1233.

In 1234, Edmund Rich, Archbishop of Canterbury effected a reconciliation. He officially resigned the Justiciarship about 28 May 1234, but had not exercised the power of the office after September 1232.

 The judgment was reversed by William Raleigh also known as William de Raley in 1234, which for a time, restored the earldom.

The marriage of Hubert de Burgh's daughter Margaret (or Megotta as she was also known) to Richard of Clare, the young Earl of Gloucester, brought de Burgh into some trouble in 1236, for the earl was as yet a minor and in the king's wardship, and the marriage had been celebrated without the royal license.

Hubert, however, protested that the match was not of his making, and promised to pay the king some money, so the matter passed by for the time. Eventually the marriage came to an end, via annulment. She then died in 1260. Her eldest son 'John de Burgo' then inherited the parish of Tunstall.

He was rather a busy man he married 4 times!

  1. Joan, daughter of William, Earl of Devon
  2. Beatrice de Warrenne, daughter of William de Warrenne.
  3. Isabella, daughter and heiress of William, 2nd Earl of Gloucester.
  4. Margaret, sister of Alexander II of Scotland.

Hubert de Burgh died in 1243 in Banstead in Surrey, and was buried in the Church of the Friars Preachers (commonly called Black Friars) in Holborn, London

Not bad credentials for our great grandfather to have!

It was from his marriage to Beatrice de Warrenne that Emmeline was born.

Beatrice de Warrenne was the daughter of Reginald de Warrenne, the family certainly left their mark in history!

Her great grandfather was one of King William's Knights at Battle of Hastings!  I guess he had to do what he had to do, cause he married the King's daughter!



William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey, Seigneur de Varennes ( 1088), was a Norman nobleman who was created Earl of Surrey under William II 'Rufus'. He was one of the few who was documented to have been with William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. At the Domesday Survey he held extensive lands in thirteen counties including the Rape of Lewes in Sussex (now East Sussex).


William was a younger son of Ranulf I de Warenne and his 1st wife Beatrice (whose mother was probably a sister of duchess Gunnor, wife of duke Richard I).

William was from Varenne, Seine Maritime, cant. Bellencombre. At the beginning of Duke William’s reign, Ranulf II was not a major landholder and, as a second son, William de Warenne did not stand to inherit the family’s small estates. During the rebellions of 1052-1054, the young William de Warenne proved himself a loyal adherent to the Duke and played a significant part in the Battle of Mortemer for which he was rewarded with lands confiscated from his uncle, Roger of Mortemer, including the Castle of Mortimer and most of the surrounding lands.At about the same time he acquired lands at Bellencombre including the castle which became the center of William de Warenne’s holdings in Normandy

William was among the Norman barons summoned to a council by Duke William when the decision was made to oppose king Harold II's accession to the throne of England. He fought at the Battle of Hastings and was well rewarded with numerous holdings. The Domesday book records his lands stretched over thirteen counties and included the important Rape of Sussex, several manors in Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex, the significant manor of Conisbrough in Yorkshire and Castle Acre in Norfolk, which became his caput 

 He is one of the very few proven Companions of William the Conqueror known to have fought at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. He fought against rebels at the Isle of Ely in 1071 where he showed a special desire to hunt down Hereward the Wake who had killed his brother-in-law Frederick the year before. 

Hereward is supposed to have unhorsed him with an arrow shot.

Later career

Sometime between 1078 and 1082,William and his wife Gundred traveled to Rome visiting monasteries along the way. In Burgundy they were unable to go any further due to a war between Emperor 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. William restored buildings for an abbey.

 They sent to Hugh the abbot of Cluny for monks to come to England at their monastery. At first Hugh was reluctant but he finally sent several monks including Lazlo who was to be the first abbot. The house they founded was Lewes Priory dedicated to St. Pancras, the first Cluniac priory in England

William was loyal to William II, and it was probably in early 1088 that he was created Earl of Surrey. He was mortally wounded at the First Siege of Pevensey Castle and died 24 June 1088 at Lewes, Sussex, and was buried next to his wife Gundred at the Chapterhouse of Lewes Priory. At his death William's vast landholdings were estimated to be worth over an adjusted $143 Billion today. 

 I wonder where all the money went?

Family

He married first, before 1070, Gunred, the daughter of King William the Conqueror and Queen Mathilda.

With Gunred he had:
William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey (d. 1138) married Elisabeth (Isabelle) de Vermandois,

widow of Robert de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Leicester.  



  Now from this marriage both Robert and Elizabeth are our great grandparents, so she is a great grandmother twice!  She was the daughter of the King of France.

  • Edith de Warenne who married 1stly Gerard de Gournay, lord of Gournay-en-Bray, 2ndly and Drew de Monchy.
  • Reynold de Warenne, who inherited lands from his mother in Flanders and died c.1106-08
  • an unnamed daughter who married Ernise de Coulonces 

William married secondly a sister of Richard Gouet who survived him.They had no children.

His son William de Warenne and Elizabeth had several children"

Reginald Earl of Downham and Surrey
William de Warenne who was the 3rd Earl of Surrey
Lady Ada de Warrene who became the Queen of Scotland, as she married King Henry I

Their mother Lady Isabel (Elizabeth) de Vermandois was the daughter of Herbert IV Count of Vermandois.
and their father was Hugh I Count of Vermandois son of King Henry I of France.
Adelaide Countess of Vermandois

Hugh was one of the Knightly leaders of the first Crusades.
















Reginald de Warenne, who inherited his father's property in upper Normandy, including the castles of Bellencombre and Mortemer. He married Adeline, daughter of William, lord of Wormgay in Norfolk, by whom he had a son William (founder of the priory of Wormegay), whose daughter and sole heir Beatrice married first Dodo, lord Bardolf, and secondly Hubert de Burgh; Reginald was one of the persecutors of Archbishop Thomas in 1170.

Reginald de Warenne (sometimes Rainald de Warenne; between 1121 and 1126 – 1179) was a medieval Anglo-Norman nobleman and royal official in late 12th century England. The third son of an earl, Reginald began his career as an administrator of his brother's estates but married an heiress to a barony.

When his father-in-law died he became Baron of Wormegay in Norfolk. By the reign of King Henry II of England, Reginald was a royal justice and played a minor role in the Becket controversy in 1170. He died in 1179 and left as his heir a son as well as daughters.

Reginald de Warenne was the third son of William de Warenne, the second Earl of Surrey, who died in 1138. Reginald's mother was Isabel de Vermandois.Reginald was likely born between 1121 and 1126.

Reginald's brothers were William de Warenne, the third Earl of Surrey, and Ralph de Warenne. Reginald's two sisters were Gundrada de Warenne who married first Roger, Earl of Warwick and William of Lancaster, and Ada de Warenne who married Henry, Earl of Huntingdon.

Ada's husband was the only son of King David I of Scotland, and she was the mother of two kings of Scotland – Malcolm IV and William I. From their mother's first marriage to Robert de Beaumont, Reginald and his siblings were half-siblings of the twins Robert de Beaumont the Earl of Leicester and Waleran de Beaumont, the Count of Meulan and Earl of Worcester.

There was another Reginald de Warenne alive during Reginald's lifetime – this may have been an illegitimate half-brother.

Early career

Reginald first appears in the historical record around 1138 when he was a witness on some of his father's charters. Reginald was one of the main administrators of his elder brother's estates up until 1147. Reginald also had his own lands that he was granted from his brother's honour in Norfolk and Sussex.

While his brother was on crusade, Reginald granted the right to form a merchant guild to the inhabitants of the town of Lewes, as long as his brother agreed after his return from crusade.

William, the third earl, died in early 1148 while on crusade and the earldom and estates passed to William's daughter Isabel, whom King Stephen of England married to the king's second son, William.

Reginald continued to serve the new earl and also began to serve the king, witnessing a number of royal charters. Reginald eventually became the main advisor to the new earl.

Reginald was granted the castles of Bellencombre and Mortemer in the charter of Westminster in 1153 which settled the rights that William, the surviving son of King Stephen, received for not contesting the crown of England going to Henry of Anjou after Stephen's death,and was also a witness to the charter. Reginald continued to serve as a royal official, witnessing a number of the new king's charters.

Royal service

In 1157 Reginald was one of the justices present when King Henry II decided a case between Hilary of Chichester, the Bishop of Chichester and Walter de Luci, the Abbot of Battle Abbey.

 In 1164 he was present at the Council of Clarendon, which was part of the long struggle between King Henry II and the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, over the control of the English church.

Reginald also accompanied the king's daughter Matilda to Germany for her marriage to Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony.

Reginald was one of the four main justices involved with the general eyre in 1168 through 1170, along with Richard of Ilchester, Guy the Dean of Waltham Holy Cross, and William Basset.

In 1168, Henry II summoned Reginald as a Serjeant-at-law, one of the first identifiable members of that order in the historical record.Besides these administrative and judicial roles, Reginald was a baron of the exchequer in 1169 and held the office of Sheriff of Sussex from 1170 to 1176

In 1170, Reginald was involved with attempts to keep Thomas Becket, who had been in exile, from returning to England. Working with Reginald were Roger de Pont L'Évêque – the Archbishop of York, Gilbert Foliot – the Bishop of London, Josceline de Bohon – the Bishop of Salisbury, Gervase de Cornhill – the Sheriff of Kent, and Ranulf de Broc. At that time, Reginald was a royal justiciar.

Reginald was part of the party that met Becket at Sandwich on 1 December 1070 when the archbishop returned to England. Reginald's group, led by Gervase of Cornhill, complained that the archbishop was sowing dissension in the land by his excommunication of the three ecclesiastics, but Becket managed to calm the officials by stating he would consider the matter and reply to them the next day.

The next day the group was accompanied by some clergy sent by the ecclesiastics who had been excommunicated by Becket. Nothing further was accomplished by this meeting except further offers from Becket to consider other options.

Reginald was involved in a further attempt at resolving the differences between the king and Becket later in December 1170, which again came to nothing.

In 1173 Reginald worked for the king, along with Richard fitz Nigel and Nicholas de Sigillo, when all three men assessed a land tax on parts of the royal demesne. These three men assessed the tax in the counties of Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Oxfordshire, Kent and Sussex.

Death and legacy

Reginald married Alice, the daughter and heiress of William de Wormegay, Baron of Wormegay in Norfolk. William de Wormegay died in 1166 and Reginald was fined a bit over 466 pounds by the king for the right to inherit his father-in-law's lands.

 With his father-in-law's death he became Lord of Wormegay, or Baron Wormegay.This lordship was assessed at 14 and a quarter knight's fees and was located mostly in Norfolk and Suffolk. The centre of the honour was at Lynn, Norfolk.

Sometime between Michaelmas 1178 and the start of 1179, Reginald retired from public life and became a monk at Lewes Priory, which had been founded by his family.

Reginald died in 1179, and his heir was his son William de Warenne. Besides his son, Reginald also had several daughters. One was Gundrada who married three times – first to Peter de Valognes, son of Roger de Valognes, second to William de Courcy, son of William de Courcy and Avice de Rumilly the daughter of William Meschin, and third to Geoffrey Hose, the son of Henry Hose.

Another daughter was Alice who married Peter, constable of Mealton. A possible third daughter was Muriel, who was a nun at Carrow Abbey. Another possible daughter was Ela, who married Duncan the Earl of Fife.

At his death, Reginald still owed a large portion of the fine he'd been assessed for the inheritance of his father-in-law's estates.[1]

Image result for lewes priory
Lewes Prory
The historian Edmund King has called Reginald "the fixer in that formidable family". Reginald gave lands and gifts to a number of monasteries. Among these were the Warenne family foundations of Lewes and Castle Acre Priory, with further gifts to Carrow, Clerkenwell Priory, and Binham Priory.




De Riddlesfords



Walter died in 1226 and was succeeded by his son (another) Walter de Ridelsford (born 1204 in SalisburyWiltshire, England).  This Walter married Annora de Vitrie (1206) whose ancestors crossed with those of Stephen Longspee's



 Old Walter's granddaughter, Emmeline, married Hugh de Lacy, 1st Earl of Ulster (as his second wife) and, then, Stephen Longespee, grandson of Henry II of England

Walter de Ridleford, Lord of Bray, co. Dublin, , whose only daughter and heir, Emelina, was m. 1st, to Hugh de Laci, the younger Earl of Ulster, who d. in 1243; and  secondly, to Stephen de Longue Espée, who d. lord justice of Ireland, in 1260, whose daughter., Emelina, was m. to Gerald, Lord Offaley


Walter was again the son of another Walter, and this is a little about his lands in Ireland he received them from Earl Strongbow of Pembroke.


(Also the builder of a mott and baillie castle now known as Kilkea Castle)

Then Walter's son and heir, another Walter de Riddlesford, sought to have his inheritance confirmed. Now John refused to confirm the de Riddlesford inheritance. His reason was explicit: ' because the king suspects Walter's charter'. Indeed, as the 1200s progressed, it was to become royal policy to extend the landed interests of the crown. 

Thus, royal agents were encouraged to be utterly unscrupulous in their querying of title, placing the de Riddlesfords and others in an invidious position. The situation in the district now known as Powerscourt yields an insight to the complexities of the tenurial position. Here the crown, the de Riddlesfords and the archbishop of Dublin all asserted title to lands there. 

To the east of the de Riddlesford lands there, the possessions of the royal manor of Obrun had been gradually expanded into the district. Indeed, the crown may established the administrative centre of the royal manor within sight of the de Riddlesford possessions - accounting for the unusual situation there of two large contemporary mottes located within 900m of each other.

This most probably is the remaining physical evidence in the landscape of the competing interests of the crown and the de Riddlesfords.
In spite of crown intentions, the de Riddlesfords continued to develop their lands. In 1213 Walter de Riddlesford II was granted a licence for a weekly market at Bray, leading him probably to endow Bray with borough status.

 Indeed, the 1260 extent of the arable land held by the de Riddlesfords valued them at 10d. per acre. For all the crown pressure, the extinguishment of the de Riddlesford title to these lands was to be due to the failure of the de Riddlesfords to continue in the male line. Consequently, the de Riddlesford inheritance fell to be divided among a number of heiresses. 

At a time when the Irish of Leinster were becoming increasingly dangerous, Christina de Mariscis (one of the co-heiresses of the de Riddlesfords) in 1281 surrendered her estates in Connacht, Kildare and Dublin (incorporating Wicklow) to the Crown in exchange for lands in England. Thus, the crown (after almost a century of wrangling) had possession of the manor of Bray and its outlying lands.


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