BEATRICE DE STAFFORD, under age in 1358. She married (1st) MAURICE FITZ MAURICE, 2nd Earl of Desmond, son and heir of Maurice Fitz Thomas, 1st Earl of Desmond, by his 2nd wife, Margaret, daughter of Conor O'Brien. They had no issue. He died shortly before 5 June 1358. She married (2nd) by royal license dated 1 Jan. 1358/9 THOMAS DE ROOS (or ROS), Knt., 4th Lord Roos of Helmsley, of the castles and manors of Helmsley, Yorkshire and Chilham, Kent, Joint Warden of the West March of Scotland and of the East March, 3rd son of William de Roos, 2nd Lord Roos of Helmsley, by Margery, daughter of Bartholomew de Badlesmere, Knt., 1st Lord Badlesmere. He was born at Stoke Albany, Northamptonshire 13 Jan. 1336/7, and was heir in 1352 to his older brother, William de Roos, Knt., 3rd Lord Roos of Helmsley. They had four sons, John, Knt. 15th Lord Roos of Helmsley], William, Krnt., K.G. [6th Lord Roos of Helmsley], Thomas, and Robert, and two daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret. He took part in the King's expedition in Normandy in 1355, and in the campaigns of 1356 and 1359-60. He was summoned to Parliament from 24 August 1362 to 1383. In 1368 he was ordered to reside on his lands in Ireland with his armed forces to prevent the loss and destruction of the country. In 1369 and 1374 he served in France. SIR THOMAS DE ROOS, 4th Lord Roos of Helmsley, died testate (Linc. Episc. Reg., 282 Bokingham) at Uffington, Lincolnshire 8 June 1384, and was buried at Riveaulx. His widow, Beatrice, married (3rd) before 20 August 1385 (date of pardon for marrying without license) RICHARD DE BURLEY, Knt., K.G. (died at Vilialpando in Spain 23 May 1387), of Burgate (in Fordingbridge), Hampshire and Orwell, Cambridgesbire, son and heir of John de Burley, Knt., of Burley, Herefordshire, by Amice, daughter of Richard de Pembridge. They had no issue. She was a legatee in the 1385 will of her brother, Hugh de Stafford, K.G., 2nd Earl of Stafford. A gown was provided for her for King Henry IV's Coronation. She died testate 13 (or 14) April 1415 (her will dated 26 June 1414, requesting burial in Warter Priory).
THOMAS DE ROOS, lord of Hamelak.
Dated at Turnanihall, Sun. before Purif. of B.V.M. 1373. [fo. 282.]
To be buried in Ryvalx Abbey Church.
Five chaplains to chant in Helmeslay Church for five years for my soul and the souls of my ancestors, et pur ceux queux nous amons.
My two children William and Thomas.
Executors : John de Nevyli lord of Baby, Sir Robert de Tynton parson of Uffington, and Sir Wm. tie Benynghohn parson of Kyrkeby Misp'ton.
Proved 19 Aug. 1384.
MARGARET DE AUDLEY, suojztre Lady Audley, daughter and heiress, born about 1322-4 (aged 18 or 20 in 1342). She married before 6 July 1336 (as his 2nd wife) RALPH DE STAFFORD, KG., 2nd Lord Stafford, Baron of Stafford, Staffordshire, Steward of the IKing's Household, Seneschal of Aquitaine, and, in right of his 2nd wife, of castle and manor of Newport, Monmouthshire, Chipping Ongar, Stapleford Tawney, and Hersham (in Havering), Essex, Dodington, Gloucestershire, Stratton Audley, Oxfordshire, Gratton, Staffordshire, son and heir of Edmund Stafford, Baron of Stafford, Staffordshire, by Margaret, daughter of Ralph Basset, Lord Basset, of Drayton, Staffordshire. He was born 24 Sept. 1301. They had three sons, Ralph, Hugh, K.G. [2nd Earl of Stafford], and Thomas (clerk), and four daughters, Elizabeth, Beatrice, Joan, and Katherine. He married (1st) before 9 Feb. 1327 Katherine de Hastang, daughter of John de Hastang, Knt., of Chebsey, Staffordshire, by his wife, Eve. Ralph and Katherine had two known daughters, Joan (wife of Nicholas de Belie, Knt.) [see SAVAGE 9] and Margaret (wife of John de Stafford, Knt.) [see HASTANG 10]. Kathenne was living 1327. Ralph was summoned to Parliament from 29 Nov. 1336 to 25 Nov. 1350, by writs directed Radulpho Baroni de Stafford. He was present at the Battle of Sluys in 1340. In 1342 he took part in the siege of Vannes in Brittany, where he was captured. In 1346 he fought in the King's Division at the Battle of Crecy. The same year he and his wife, Margaret, received a papal indult for plenary remission. In 1347, with the Earl of Oxford and Sir Walter de Mauny, he destroyed a French fleet bringing food to Calais. He was co-heir in 1347 to the Corbet family, by which he inherited the Castle, borough, and lordship of Caus, Shropshire. In 1348 he was a Founder Knight of the Order of the Garter. His wife, Margaret, died 7 Sept. 1349. In 1350 he was present at the naval Battle of Winchelsea. He was created Earl of Stafford 5 March 1350/1. SIR RALPH DE STAFFORD, 1st Earl of Stafford, died testate 31 August 1372, and was buried at Tonbridge, Kent with his 2nd wife, Margaret, at the feet of her parents.
Ancestral Roots line 9 reads: "31. MARGARET DE AUDLEY, age 18 yrs. bef. 16 Edward III (1343), only dau. and heir; d. 7 Sep. 1349; m. bef. 6 Jul. 1336, SIR RALPH DE STAFFORD, K.G. (55-32), d. Tunbridge Castle, 31 Aug. 1372, M.P. 1337-1349, Baron of Tunbridge, Steward of the Royal Household, 1337, Seneschal of Aquitaine, 1345, fought at Crecy, cr. Earl of Stafford, 5 Mar. 1350/1, K.G., 23 Apr. 1349, son of Edmund de Stafford and MARGARET BASSET (55-31). (CP V 736, XI 101, XII pt. 1 174-177; Banks I 408-411; DNB 53:458)"
William LONGESPEE Earl of Salisbury
Bastard child of King Henry II.
WILLIAM L0NGESPEE, natural son of Henry II Plantagenet, King of England, was born at Woodstock Manor, probably in 1176, died at Salisbury Castle, 7 March 1225/6, and was buried in Salisbury Cathedral. He married in 1198 ELA D'EVEREUX, Countess of Salisbury, who died at Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire, 24 Aug. 1261. King Richard I gave Ela, who was born about 1191, to his bastard brother with the Earldom of Salisbury. It has been suggested that his mother may have been Alix de Porhoët. The legend that his mother was the Fair Rosamond has been discussed in the Dictionary of National Biography. Burke's Peerage (1999) mentioned an obscure person named Hikenai orYkenai as possibly his mother, but states his mother may have been someone else altogether [2:2531].
He was with Richard I in Normandy in 1196-1198 and was present at the Coronation of King John on 27 May 1199. He served as Sheriff of Wiltshire from Midsummer 1199 to 1202, 1203-1207 and from 1213 until he died. In 1202 he went on a diplomatic mission to France; in 1203 he was keeper of the castle at Avranches, and in 1204 he and the Earl Marshal escorted Prince Llywelyn ab Iorwerth of Wales to King John at Worcester. In 1205 he was keeper of the castle and the honour of Eye; that year he led a small band of knights to Rochelle, these being the only men to go overseas of the great force assembled by King John in an attempt to recover his lands on the Continent.
In 1206 he escorted King William the Lion of Scotland to meet King John at York in November. He was given direction of the monks and clergy of the diocese of Ely when King John anticipated the Papal Interdict in 1208. In 1209 he headed an Embassy to Germany on behalf of the King's nephew, Otto. In Dec. he was appointed Keeper of the March of Wales, and in 1210 he attended John on his expedition to Ireland. From May 1212 to March 1215/6 he was Sheriff of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire, and when invasion from France was threatened he was Keeper of Dover Castle. In Aug. 1212 he was supervisor of the keeper of the Archbishopric of Canterbury. He was one of the four Earls at Dover, in May 1213, who swore that John would observe the terms laid down by the Pope to satisfy the bishops; he also witnessed John's declaration of homage to the Papal see. At the time he was also organizing an expedition to help the Count of Flanders against France, and in 1214 he led the forces which recovered almost all of Flanders for the Count. However, on 27 July he and the Counts of Flanders and Boulogne were captured at the battle of Bouvines. His release was negotiated in exchange for Robert, son of Count Robert of Dreux, and he was in England in May 1215, when he was one of three earls to examine the royal castles and he was a messenger from the king to the city of London. He joined the king at Runnymead in June, and later in the year, with Falkes de Breaute, he led a punitive expedition against the eastern counties.
He remained loyal to King John but surrendered Salisbury Castle to Prince Louis when he entered Winchester in June 1216, regaining his allegiance to the king in March 1216/7. He served as Sheriff of Somerset and Devonshire briefly in 1217, and at Whitsuntide marched with the Earl Marshal to the relief of Lincoln. He was with Hubert de Burgh for the victory over the French fleet at Thanet, and was among the guarantors of the truce with France in March 12 19/20. In 1220 he and the Countess laid the fourth and fifth stones at the founding of the new cathedral at New Sarum. He was with King Henry III in the successful expedition against Prince Llywelyn ab Iorwerth of Wales in Oct. 1223, and in 1224 he was keeper of the castles of Bridgnoith and Shrewsbury. At that time he was also Sheriff of Shropshire and Staffordshire. In 1225 he went with the young Earl of Cornwall as supervisory commander of a successful expedition to Cascony.
While his widow was required to surrender Salisbuiy Castle on 23 March 1225/6 she was granted the county of Wiltshire at the king's pleasure. In 1229 she founded Lacock Abbey; taking the veil there in 1238, she was Abbess from 1240 to 1257, and was buried there.
Hamelin PLANTAGENET 5th Earl of Surrey
Hamelin - seems to have spent more time at his Yorkshire castle than any of the previous earls; he held the earldom for close on forty years, from 1163 until his death in 1202. It was this period that saw the construction of the great stone keep of the castle and its development as a place suitable for royalty - King John, nephew of Hamelin, did actually stay here in 1201. The cylindrical keep probably dates from around 1180, Hamelin seems to have ordered its construction to his own design, there being no other example of this type of keep anywhere in the country.
Isabel de WARENNE Countess of Surrey
ISABEL DE WARENNE, daughter of the Earl of Surrey, in her own right Countess of Surrey, died possibly 12 July 1203, and was buried in the Chapter House at Lewes. She married first William of Blois, son of King Stephen of England. She married second, probably in April 1164, HAMELIN PLANTAGENET, who became Earl of Surrey and died 7 May 1202. He was buried in the Chapter House at Lewes.
Marriage Notes for Robert I "The Magnificent" Duke of Normandy and Harlette de FALAISE-4505
MARRIAGE: Not Married
Guillaume I "Le Conquberant" de NORMANDIE
Dickens, Charles
Chapter VIII. England Under William The First, The Norman Conqueror.
Upon the ground where the brave Harold fell, William the Norman afterwards founded an abbey, which, under the name of Battle Abbey, was a rich and splendid place through many a troubled year, though now it is a gray ruin overgrown with ivy. But the first work he had to do was to conquer the English thoroughly; and that, as you know by this time, was hard work for any man.
He ravaged several counties; he burned and plundered many towns; he laid waste scores upon scores of miles of pleasant country; he destroyed innumerable lives. At length Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, with other representatives of the clergy and the people, went to his camp, and submitted to him. Edgar, the insignificant son of Edmund Ironside, was proclaimed king by others, but nothing came of it. He fled to Scotland afterwards, where his sister, who was young and beautiful, married the Scottish king. Edgar himself was not important enough for anybody to care much about him.
On Christmas Day, William was crowned in Westminster Abbey, under the title of William the First; but he is best known as William the Conqueror. It was a strange coronation. One of the bishops who performed the ceremony asked the Normans, in French, if they would have Duke William for their king. They answered, Yes. Another of the bishops put the same question to the Saxons, in English. They, too, answered Yes, with a loud shout. The noise, being heard by a guard of Norman horse-soldiers outside, was mistaken for resistance on the part of the English. The guard instantly set fire to the neighboring houses, and a tumult ensued, in the midst of which the king, being left alone in the abbey with a few priests (and they all being in a terrible fright together), was hurriedly crowned. When the crown was placed upon his head, he swore to govern the English as well as the best of their own monarchs. I daresay you think, as I do, that, if we except the Great Alfred, he might pretty easily have done that.
Numbers of the English nobles had been killed in the last disastrous battle. Their estates, and the estates of all the nobles who had fought against him there, King William seized upon, and gave to his own Norman knights and nobles. Many great English families of the present time acquired their English lands in this way, and are very proud of it.
But what is got by force must be maintained by force. These nobles were obliged to build castles all over England, to defend their new property; and, do what he would, the king could neither soothe nor quell the nation as he wished. He gradually introduced the Norman language and the Norman customs; yet, for a long time, the great body of the English remained sullen and revengeful. On his going over to Normandy, to visit his subjects there, the oppressions of his half-brother Odo, whom he left in charge of his English kingdom, drove the people mad. The men of Kent even invited over, to take possession of Dover, their old enemy, Count Eustace of Boulogne, who had led the fray when the Dover man was slain at his own fireside. The men of Pereford, aided by the Welsh, and commanded by a chief named Edric the Wild, drove the Normans out of their country. Some of those who had been dispossessed of their lands banded together in the North of England, some in Scotland, some in the thick woods and marshes; and whensoever they could fall upon the Normans, or upon the English who had submitted to the Normans, they fought, despoiled, and murdered, like the desperate outlaws that they were. Conspiracies were set on foot for a general massacre of the Normans, like the old massacre of the Danes. In short, the English were in a murderous mood all through the kingdom.
King William, fearing he might lose his conquest, came back and tried to pacify the London people by soft words. He then set forth to repress the country people by stern deeds. Among the towns which he besieged, and where he killed and maimed the inhabitants without any distinction, sparing none, young or old, armed or unarmed, were Oxford, Warwick, Leicester, Nottingham, Derby, Lincoln, York. In all these places, and in many others, fire and sword worked their utmost horrors, and made the land dreadful to behold. The streams and rivers were discolored with blood; the sky was blackened with smoke; the fields were wastes of ashes; the waysides were heaped up with dead. Such are the fatal results of conquest and ambition! Although William was a harsh and angry man, I do not suppose that he deliberately meant to work this shocking ruin, when he invaded England. But what he had got by the strong hand, he could only keep by the strong hand; and in so doing he made England a great grave.
Two sons of Harold, by name Edmund and Godwin, came over from Ireland with some ships against the Normans, but were defeated. This was scarcely done, when the outlaws in the woods so harassed York, that the governor sent to the king for help. The king despatched a general and a large force to occupy the town of Durham. The bishop of that place met the general outside the town, and warned him not to enter, as he would be in danger there. The general cared nothing for the warning, and went in with all his men. That night, on every hill within sight of Durham, signal-fires were seen to blaze. When the morning dawned, the English, who had assembled in great strength, forced the gates, rushed into the town, and slew the Normans every one. The English afterwards besought the Danes to come and help them. The Danes came with two hundred and forty ships. The outlawed nobles joined them; they captured York, and drove the Normans out of that city. Then William bribed the Danes to go away, and took such vengeance on the English, that all the former fire and sword, smoke and ashes, death and ruin, were nothing compared with it. In melancholy songs and doleful stories, it was still sung and told by cottage-fires, on winter evenings a hundred years afterwards, how, in those dreadful days of the Normans, there was not, from the River Humber to the River Tyne, one inhabited village left, nor one cultivated field, - how there was nothing but a dismal ruin, where the human creatures and the beasts lay dead together.
The outlaws had, at this time, what they called a Camp of Refuge, in the midst of the fens of Cambridgeshire. Protected by those marshy grounds, which were difficult of approach, they lay among the reeds and rushes, and were hidden by the mists that rose up from the watery earth. Now there also was at that time, over the sea in Flanders, an Englishman named Hereward, whose father had died in his absence, and whose property had been given to a Norman. When he heard of this wrong that had been done him (from such of the exiled English as chanced to wander into that country), he longed for revenge; and joining the outlaws in their camp of refuge, became their commander. He was so good a soldier, that the Normans supposed him to be aided by enchantment. William, even after he had made a road three miles in length across the Cambridgeshire marshes, on purpose to attack this supposed enchanter, thought it necessary to engage an old lady who pretended to be a sorceress, to come and do a little enchantment in the royal cause. For this purpose she was pushed on before the troops in a wooden tower; but Hereward very soon disposed of this unfortunate sorceress, by burning her, tower and all.
The monks of the convent of Ely, near at hand, however, who were fond of good living, and who found it very uncomfortable to have the country blockaded, and their supplies of meat and drink cut off, showed the king a secret way of surprising the camp. So Hereward was soon defeated. Whether he afterwards died quietly, or whether he was killed after killing sixteen of the men who attacked him (as some old rhymes relate that he did), I cannot say. His defeat put an end to the Camp of Refuge; and, very soon afterwards, the king, victorious both in Scotland and in England, quelled the last rebellious English noble. He then surrounded himself with Norman lords, enriched by the property of English nobles; had a great survey made of all the land in England, which was entered as the property of its new owners, on a roll called Doomsday Book; obliged the people to put out their fires and candles at a certain hour every night, on the ringing of a bell which was called The Curfew; introduced the Norman dresses and manners; made the Normans masters everywhere, and the English servants; turned out the English bishops, and put Normans in their places; and showed himself to be the Conqueror indeed.
But, even with his own Normans, he had a restless life. They were always hungering and thirsting for the riches of the English; and the more he gave, the more they wanted. His priests were as greedy as his soldiers. We know of only one Norman who plainly told his master the king, that he had come with him to England to do his duty as a faithful servant, and that property taken by force from other men had no charms for him. His name was Guilbert. We should not forget his name; for it is good to remember and to honor honest men.
Besides all these troubles, William the Conqueror was troubled by quarrels among his sons. He had three living. Robert, called Curthose, because of his short legs; William, called Rufus, or the Red, from the color of his hair; and Henry, fond of learning, and called, in the Norman language, Beauclerc, or Fine-Scholar. When Robert grew up, he asked of his father the government of Normandy, which he had nominally possessed, as a child, under his mother Matilda. The king refusing to grant it, Robert became jealous and discontented; and happening one day, while in this temper, to be ridiculed by his brothers, who threw water on him from a balcony as he was walking before the door, he drew his sword, rushed up stairs, and was only prevented by the king himself from putting them to death. That same night, he hotly departed with some followers from his father's court, and endeavored to take the Castle of Rouen by surprise. Failing in this, he shut himself up in another castle in Normandy, which the king besieged, and where Robert one day unhorsed and nearly killed him without knowing who he was. His submission when he discovered his father, and the intercession of the queen and others, reconciled them, but not soundly; for Robert soon strayed abroad, and went from court to court with his complaints. He was a gay, careless, thoughtless fellow, spending all he got on musicians and dancers; but his mother loved him, and often, against the king's command, supplied him with money through a messenger named Samson. At length the incensed king swore he would tear out Samson's eyes; and Samson, thinking that his only hope of safety was in becoming a monk, became one, went on such errands no more, and kept his eyes in his head.
All this time, from the turbulent day of his strange coronation, the Conqueror had been struggling, you see, at any cost of cruelty and bloodshed, to maintain what he had seized. All his reign he struggled still, with the same object ever before him. He was a stern, bold man, and he succeeded in it.
He loved money, and was particular in his eating; but he had only leisure to indulge one other passion, and that was his love of hunting. He carried it to such a height, that he ordered whole villages and towns to be swept away to make forests for the deer. Not satisfied with sixty-eight royal forests, he laid waste an immense district to form another in Hampshire, called the New Forest. The many thousands of miserable peasants who saw their little houses pulled down, and themselves and children turned into the open country without a shelter, detested him for his merciless addition to their many sufferings; and when in the twenty-first year of his reign (which proved to be the last), he went over to Rouen, England was as full of hatred against him as if every leaf on every tree in all his royal forests had been a curse upon his head. In the New Forest, his son Richard (for he had four sons) had been gored to death by a stag; and the people said that this so cruelly made forest would yet be fatal to others of the Conqueror's race.
He was engaged in a dispute with the king of France about some territory. While he stayed at Rouen, negotiating with that king, he kept his bed and took medicines; being advised by his physicians to do so, on account of having grown to an unwieldy size. Word being brought to him that the king of France made light of this, and joked about it, he swore in a great rage that he should rue his jests. He assembled his army, marched into the disputed territory, burnt - his old way! - the vines, the crops and fruit, and set the town of Nantes on fire. But in an evil hour; for, as he rode over the hot ruins, his horse, setting his hoofs upon some burning embers, started, threw him forward against the pommel of the saddle, and gave him a mortal hurt. For six weeks he lay dying in a monastery near Rouen, and then made his will, giving England to William, Normandy to Robert, and five thousand pounds to Henry. And now his violent deeds lay heavy on his mind. He ordered money to be given to many English churches and monasteries, and - which was much better repentance - released his prisoners of state, some of whom had been confined in his dungeons twenty years
It was a September morning, and the sun was rising, when the king was awakened from slumber by the sound of a church-bell. "What bell is that?" he faintly asked. They told him it was the bell of the chapel of Saint Mary. "I commend my soul," said he, "to Mary!" and died.
Think of his name, The Conqueror, and then consider how he lay in death! The moment he was dead, his physicians, priests, and nobles, not knowing what contest for the throne might now take place, or what might happen in it, hastened away, each man for himself and his own property; the mercenary servants of the court began to rob and plunder; the body of the king, in the indecent strife, was rolled from the bed, and lay alone for hours upon the ground. O Conqueror! of whom so many great names are proud now, of whom so many great names thought nothing then, it were better to have conquered one true heart than England!
By and by the priests came creeping in with prayers and candles; and a good knight, named Herluin, undertook (which no one else would do) to convey the body to Caen, in Normandy, in order that it might be buried in St. Stephen's Church there, which the Conqueror had founded. But fire, of which he had made such bad use in his life, seemed to follow him of itself in death. A great conflagration broke out in the town when the body was placed in the church; and those present running out to extinguish the flames, it was once again left alone.
It was not even buried in peace. It was about to be let down in its royal robes into a tomb near the high altar, in presence of a great concourse of people, when a loud voice in the crowd cried out, "This ground is mine! Upon it stood my father's house. This king despoiled me of both ground and house to build this church. In the great name of God, I here forbid this body to be covered with the earth that is my right!" The priests and bishops present, knowing the speaker's right, and knowing that the king had often denied him justice, paid him down sixty shillings for the grave. Even then the corpse was not at rest. The tomb was too small, and they tried to force it in. It broke, a dreadful smell arose, the people hurried out into the air, and for the third time it was left alone.
Where were the Conqueror's three sons, that they were not at their father's burial? Robert was lounging among minstrels, dancers, and gamesters in France or Germany. Henry was carrying his five thousand pounds safely away in a convenient chest he had got made. William the Red was hurrying to England to lay his hands upon the royal treasure and the crown.
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Matilda Countess of Flanders Queen of ENGLAND
Daughter of Baldwin V. descended from Alfred The Great and Charlemagne.
William Ii "Rufus" King of ENGLAND
WILLIAM II (KNOWN AS WILLIAM RUFUS) (r. 1087-1100)
Strong, outspoken and ruddy (hence his nickname 'Rufus'), William II (reigned 1087-1100) extended his father's policies, taking royal power to the far north of England. Ruthless in his relations with his brother Robert, William extended his grip on the duchy of Normandy under an agreement between the brothers in 1091. (Robert went on crusade in 1096.) William's relations with the Church were not easy; he took over Archbishop Lanfranc's revenues after the latter's death in 1089, kept other bishoprics vacant to make use of their revenues, and had numerous arguments with Lanfranc's popular successor, Anselm. William died on 2 August 1100, after being shot by an arrow whilst hunting in the New Forest.