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51 Age given as 77 at burial. Bosdet, Pierre (I4380)
 
52 Agnes Ferrers married William de Vesci.
 
Ferrers, Agnes (I3199)
 
53 Agnes of Burgundy (or Agnes de Macon), Duchess of Aquitaine (died 10 November 1068) was a daughter of Otto-William, Count of Burgundy and Ermentrude of Roucy. She was a member of the House of Ivrea.

Life

We do not know the date of the birth of Agnes but it is probably shortly before the year 1000. Agnes' father was the son of Adalbert of Italy.

First Marriage: Duchess of Aquitaine

In 1019, she married Duke William V of Aquitaine by whom she had three children: William VII, Duke of Aquitaine, William VIII, Duke of Aquitaine and Agnes, Holy Roman Empress. William died on January 31, 1030, leaving his widow and their three young children, plus the three surviving children from his first two marriages.

Second Marriage: Countess of Anjou

After her husband's death, Agnes lost her influence at the court of Poitiers since her sons were not heirs. In order for her to regain her position and ensure a future for her children, Agnes had to remarry. Thus she married Geoffrey II, Count of Anjou which was an attractive offer because his father was the powerful Fulk III, Count of Anjou.

In 1033, Geoffrey's troops invaded Poitou with the support of Agnes. William VI, Duke of Aquitaine the new Count of Poitou, was captured in March. He was released only in 1036 against a large ransom and he died in 1038 without children. The county then returned to his brother, Agnes' stepson Odo of Gascony, who was already Duke of Gascony. He went to war against Agnes, her husband and sons. Odo was killed at the battle at Mauzé.

Regency

The succeeding Count of Poitou was Agnes's son, Peter, who took the name of William VII Aigret. Being too young, his mother governed territories in his place from 1039 to 1044 and indeed it even seems the government itself, without her husband. When she transmitted the power to William, she married and took the opportunity to give his second son, Geoffrey Guy the duchy of Gascony, by marrying an heiress. Agnes then joined Geoffrey in Anjou and although she may not have actively participated in the government, certainly had some influence on him.

Agnes and Geoffrey stayed in Germany at the imperial court, so her daughter Agnes could marry Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor. They then bonded with the imperial couple, during a trip to Italy where they participated in the council of Sutri, filing and inducting two popes Pope Clement II, who was quick to crown the emperor and empress. After a pilgrimage to Monte Garaño, the couple went back to Poitou in 1047 where they founded the Abbey of Our Lady and Sacred. Between 1047 and 1049, Agnes founded the abbey of Saint Nicolas de Poitiers.

Separation from Geoffrey

Between 1049 and 1052, Agnes and Geoffrey separated. The reasons are varied: the most logical is the absence of children, however we must not forget that the council of Reims in 1049 condemned certain marriages as incestuous and judged them to part; in addition, Geoffrey went to war against the King of France who appreciated the little freedom from war that would take his vassal to Germany (it seems that Geoffrey had to swear allegiance to the emperor and to no longer depend on the King of France) and it is very possible that the King imposed on his vanquished vassal that he should divorce his wife. Indeed, Agnes also influenced her husband, but she came from Burgundy and had retained strong links with her homeland, so it may be that it was Agnes who wanted the divorce.

Later life

Still, Agnes returned to the court of Poitiers and her son William over whom she had much influence. A war soon broke out between Anjou and Poitou, which saw a victory for Geoffrey in 1053. This would have probably never happened if Agnes had not divorced Geoffrey. In 1058 William left for another war against his former stepfather Count of Anjou, probably because Geoffrey gave the dowry of Agnes to his new wife, Adelaide. William was on the verge of winning when he died of an illness in 1058.

He was succeeded by his brother, Geoffrey Guy, who took the dynastic name of William VIII. The young count had remained close to Geoffrey because he was the only father figure he knew and he reconciled with Anjou. But only during Geoffrey's lifetime, in fact, after Geoffrey's death, William did not hesitate to attack his heirs and assume control of Saintonge from 1062. Agnes, despite her retirement, was still very active and did not hesitate to travel throughout Poitou to participate in donations or simply see her son at the court of Poitiers. Agnes died on 10 November 1068. She is buried at St. Nicolas de Poitiers. 
of Burgundy, Agnes Duchess of Aquitaine (I5415)
 
54 Agnes of Germany (1072 - 24 September, 1143) was an Austrian margravine consort.

Family

She was the daughter of Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor and Bertha of Savoy. Her maternal grandparents were Otto, Count of Savoy and Adelaide of Susa.

Agnes married firstly, in 1089, Frederick I, Duke of Swabia. They had several children:

Heilica (1088-1110)
Bertha (1089-1120)
Frederick II of Swabia
Hildegard
Conrad III of Germany
Gisela
Henry (1096-1105)
Beatrix (1098-1130)
Kunigunde (1100-1120/1126), wife of Henry of Bavaria (1100-1139)
Richilde
Gertrude

Following Frederick's death in 1105, Agnes married Leopold III (born 1073; died 15 Nov. 1136), the Margrave of Austria (1095 till 1136). According to a legend, a veil lost by Agnes and found by Leopold years later while hunting instigated him to found the monastery of Klosterneuburg.

Their children were:

Leopold IV
Henry II of Austria
Berta, who had issue
Agnes, "one of the most famous beauties of her time"
Ernst
Uta, wife of Liutpold von Plain
Otto of Freising, bishop and biographer
Conrad, Bishop of Passau, and Archbishop of Salzburg
Elizabeth
Judith, m. c. 1133 William V of Montferrat. Their children formed an important Crusading dynasty.
Gertrude

According to the Continuation of the Chronicles of Klosterneuburg, there may have been up to seven others (possibly from multiple births) stillborn or died in infancy.

In 1125, Agnes' brother, Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor, deceased childless, leaving Agnes and her children as heirs of the Salian dynasty's immense allodial estates, including Waiblingen.

In 1127, Agnes' eldest surviving son, Konrad III, was elected by opposition as rival king of Germany against Saxon party's Lothar III. When Lothar died in 1137, Konrad won the position. 
of Germany, Agnes (I5363)
 
55 Agnes of Loon (1150-1191), was a duchess consort of Bavaria, married to Otto I of Wittelsbach, Duke of Bavaria. She was regent of Bavaria during the minority of her son, Louis I, Duke of Bavaria, from 1183 to 1191. She was the daughter of Louis I, Count of Loon, and Agnes of Metz. Agnes was described as a forceful regent, who managed to secure the inheritance of her son.

Issue

Agnes and Otto had the following children:

Otto (1169-1181)
Sophia (1170-1238), married Landgrave Hermann I of Thuringia (1155-1217),
Heilika I (b. 1171), married in 1184 to Hallgrave Dietrich of Wasserburg
Agnes (1172-1200), married Count Henry of Plain (d. 1190)
Richardis (1173-1231), married in 1186 to Count Otto I of Guelders and Zutphen
Louis I (1173-1231), married in 1204 to Ludmilla of Bohemia
Heilika II (b. 1176), married Count Adelbert III of Dillingen (d. 1214)
Elisabeth (b. 1178), married Count Berthold II of Vohburg (d. 1209)
Mechtild (1180-1231), married in 1209 to Count Rapoto II of Ortenburg (1164-1231).
 
of Loon, Agnes (I5341)
 
56 Agnes of Poitou, Agnes of Aquitaine or Empress Agnes (c. 1025 - 14 December 1077) was Holy Roman Empress and regent of the Holy Roman Empire from 1056 to 1062.

Family

She was the daughter of William V, Duke of Aquitaine and Agnes of Burgundy. She was the sister of Duke William VI, Duke Eudes, Duke William VII, and Duke William VIII. Her maternal grandparents were Otto-William, Duke of Burgundy and Ermentrude of Rheims.

Marriage and children

Agnes married Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor in November 1043 at Ingelheim. She was his second wife after Gunhilda of Denmark, who had died in 1038. This marriage, helped to solidify the Holy Roman Empire's relationships with the west.

Their children were:

Adelaide II (1045, Goslar - 11 January 1096), abbess of Gandersheim from 1061 and Quedlinburg from 1063
Gisela (1047, Ravenna - 6 May 1053)
Matilda (October 1048 - 12 May 1060, Pöhlde), married 1059 Rudolf of Rheinfelden, duke of Swabia and antiking (1077)
Henry, his successor[1]
Conrad (1052, Regensburg - 10 April 1055), duke of Bavaria (from 1054)
Judith (1054, Goslar - 14 March 1092 or 1096), married firstly 1063 Solomon of Hungary and secondly 1089 Ladislaus I Herman, duke of Poland

Role as regent

After her husband's death in 1056, Agnes served as regent during on behalf of young son, Henry IV. Despite being related to kings of Italy and Burgundy, Agnes was not known as a quality leader. During her rule, she would give away three duchies, Bavaria, Swabia, and Carinthia, to relatives.

Agnes opposed church reform, and took the side of Italian dissidents who did as well. Pope Stephen IX, who was unable to take actual possession of Rome due to the Roman aristocracy's election of an antipope, Benedict X, sent Hildebrand of Sovana and Anselm of Lucca (respectively, the future Popes Gregory VII and Alexander II) to Germany to obtain recognition from Agnes. Though Stephen died before being able to return to Rome, Agnes' help was instrumental in letting Hildebrand depose the Antipope [4] and with Agnes' support replace him by the Bishop of Florence, Nicholas II.

In 1062, Henry was abducted by a group of men, including the Anno II, Archbishop of Cologne and the Otto of Nordheim, in a conspiracy to remove Agnes from the throne. Henry was brought to Cologne, and despite jumping overboard from a board to escape, he was recaptured again. Agnes resigned, as ransom, from the throne, and Anno took her place. After the dethroning, she moved to Rome and acted as a mediator and peacemaker between Henry IV and his enemies. She died in Rome on 14 December 1077 and is buried at St. Peter's Basilica. 
of Poitou, Agnes (I5414)
 
57 Agnes of Ponthieu (c. 1080 - aft. 1105) was the daughter of Count Guy I of Ponthieu. Enguerrand, the son of Count Guy, died at a youthful age. Guy then made his brother Hugh heir presumptive, but he also died before Guy (died 1100). Agnes became count Guy's heiress, and was married to Robert of Bellême. Their son William III of Ponthieu succeeded to the county of Ponthieu after the death of Agnes (between 1105 and 1111), and the imprisonment of his father in 1112. Ponthieu, Agnes of (I5009)
 
58 Aimery I de Rouchefoucould (died 1151), was the Viscount of Châtellerault and father of Aenor de Châtellerault. Through his daughter he was the grandfather of Eleanor of Aquitaine, who would become Duchess of Aquitaine (in her own right) as well as queen of both France and England. Eleanor was arguably the most celebrated woman in Medieval European history.

Family

Aimery was born to Boson II de Châtellerault and his wife, Aleanor de Thouars. His paternal grandparents were Hugues I de Châtellerault and his wife, Gerberge. His maternal grandparents were Aimery IV, Viscount of Thouars and Aremgarde de Mauléon.

Through his granddaughter, Eleanor, Aimery was an ancestor of various nobles and monarchs including: Richard I of England, Marie, Countess of Champagne, John of England, Geoffrey, Duke of Brittany, Joan, Queen of Sicily, Eleanor, Queen of Castile, Matilda, Duchess of Saxony and Henry the Young King.

Life

Marriage

Aimery was married to Amauberge, called la Dangereuse, the daughter of Barthelemy de L'Isle Bouchard and his wife Gerberge de Blaison. Their marriage produced at least three children:

Hugh, his father's heir to the viscounti
Raoul became the lord of Fay-la-Vineuse through his marriage to Elisabeth de Faye
Aenor(c. 1103 - March 1130) married William X, Duke of Aquitaine, mother to Duchess Eleanor and Petronilla and the short lived William Aigret.

Eleanor of Aquitaine was known to have been quite fond of her maternal uncles, Hugh and Raoul, and granted them during her two tenures as queen of France and then of England.

The Affair

In 1115, after seven years of marriage, Amauberge was literally "abducted" from her bedchamber by William IX, Duke of Aquitaine. She was taken to a tower in his castle in Potiers called Maubergeonne. As a result, Amauberge or Dangereuse was nicknamed La Maubergeonne. Abductions like these were quite common among nobles during the Middle Ages. However, in this particular case she seems to have been a willing contributor to the affair.

The Duke of Aquitaine, known to history as being the first troubadour was quite popular with the women of his time and was known to have had many affairs. However, the Viscountess would become his mistress for the rest of his life. There is no record of complaint by Aimery. This is believed to be because the Viscount feared the wrath of his powerful and volatile overlord. It would be the Duke's wife, Philippa of Toulouse who took action against the "abduction" and affair. Her actions would lead to both William and Dangereuse being excommunicated by the Pope. William used his wealth and power to eventually reconcile with the Pope and was accepted back into the Church.

In 1121 Aimery and Dangereuse's daughter would marry William IX's son and heir, who would become Duke William X of Aquitaine. It is believed that this union came about at Dangereuse's urging. Historians don't see another reason for the union of such a powerful man to the daughter of a minor vassal. Not only that, but Aenor was the daughter of the woman the future duke hated for her role in the treatment of his mother. Despite the cause, the marriage led to the birth of Eleanor of Aquitaine and made Aimery an ancestor of some of Europe's most famous nobles and rulers. 
Aimery I Viscount of Châtellerault (I5671)
 
59 Akarius Fitz Bardolph, Lord of Ravensworth, was the son of Bardolph an 11th century nobleman living in Richmondshire, the area encompassing the Ure, Tees and Swale valleys in northern England. He was a sub-feudatory of Alan, Earl of Richmond.[1] Akarius gave land at Fors in Wharfedale for the founding of a monastery in 1145. He died in 1161 and in 1165 his son, Harveus fitz Akarius, consented to the abbey being relocated to its permanent site.[2] The abbey was relocated to the valley of the River Ure (alternatively Jore, Yore) and was renamed the Abbey of Yore vale, which became Jervaulx Abbey. Akarius had a second son named Walter. FitzBardolf of Ravensworth, Akaris (I5216)
 
60 Alan Fitz Roland (c. 1175 - 1234) was the last of the MacFergus dynasty of quasi-independent Lords of Galloway. He was also hereditary Constable of Scotland.

Family

He was the son of Roland, or Lochlann, Lord of Galloway and Helen de Morville. His date of birth is uncertain, but he was considered an adult in 1196.

In right of his mother he inherited the de Morville Lordship of Lauderdale. as well as others in that vicinity: West of Blainslie, in Lauderdale, but in the Lordship of Melrose, are the lands of Threepwood, which were granted by Alan, Constable of Scotland, to the monks of Melrose between 1177 and 1204.

Campaigns

In 1212 Alan responded to a summons from King John I of England by sending 1,000 troops to join the war against the Welsh. In this year he also sent one of his daughters to England as a hostage. She died in 1213 in the custody of her maternal uncle. Alan is listed as one of the 16 men who counseled King John regarding the Magna Carta.

Alan, like his forebears, maintained a carefully ambiguous relationship with both the English and Scottish states, acting as a vassal when it suited his purpose and as an independent monarch when he could get away with it. His considerable sea power allowed him to supply fleets and armies to aid the English King John in campaigns both in France and Ireland.

In 1225, Alan lent military aid to Ragnvald Godredsson, King of the Isles against Ragnvald's half-brother, Olaf. Sometime later, Alan's illegitimate son, Thomas, was married to Ragnvald's daughter. The marriage gave Alan a stake in the kingship, and it appears that Thomas was intended to succeed to the Kingship of the Isles. However, the marriage appears to have angered the Manx people, and Ragnvald was deposed from the kinship and replaced by Olaf in 1226. Ragnvald may well have gone into exile at Alan's court. In 1228, Alan and his brother, Thomas, and Ragnvald, attacked and devastated the Isle of Man, while Olaf was absent in the Hebrides.

Alan died in 1234 and is buried at Dundrennan Abbey in Galloway.

Marriages

Alan was married three times. His first wife was Helen daughter of Roger de Lacy, Constable of Chester. His second marriage, which took place in 1209, was to Margaret (d. before 1228), eldest daughter of David, Earl of Huntingdon (d. 1219). His third marriage was to Rose (d. after 1237), daughter of Hugh de Lacy, Earl of Ulster (d. 1242). Alan had numerous children from his first two marriages, although only daughters reached adulthood. His eldest daughter from his first marriage, Helen, married Roger de Quincy (d. 1264). One daughter from his second marriage, Christina (or Christiana) (d. 1246), married William de Forz (d. 1260). Another daughter from his second marriage, Dervorguilla (d. 1290), married John de Balliol (d. 1314). Alan also had bastard son, Thomas, who survived into adulthood.

With Alan's death his holdings were divided between his three daughters and their husbands. A popular attempt was made within Galloway to establish his illegitimate son, Thomas, as ruler, but this failed, and Galloway's period as an independent political entity came to an end.
 
de Galloway, Alan Lord of Galloway (I1930)
 
61 Albert III, Comte de Namur was the son of Albert II, Comte de Namur and Regulinde de Basse-Lorraine. He married Ida von Sachsen circa 1067.
 
Albert Comte de Namur III (I3273)
 
62 Alberto Azzo II (997 or July 10, 1009, Modena - August 20, 1097, Modena), Margrave of Milan, and Liguria, Count of Gavello and Padua, Rovigo, Lunigiana, Monselice, and Montagnana, aka, Albertezzo II, was a powerful nobleman in the Holy Roman Empire. He is considered the founder of Casa d'Este (House of Este), having been the first family to be master of Este, a town of Padua.

Alberto Azzo II was the only son of Albert Azzo I, Margrave of Milan. He inherited his father's offices around 1020, and continuously increased his properties in northern Italy. In 1069-1070, he tried to acquire Maine for his son Hugh, because his wife, Garsende, was a co-heiress of the previous counts of Maine. Hugh was declared count, but he could not prevail against Robert the duke of Normandy, who had been betrothed to the last heiress. In the Investiture Controversy between Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor, and Pope Gregory VII, Azzo attempted to mediate, but later he joined the side of the Pope. Around 1073 he made a castle at Este his residence, from which the House of Este, the dynasty to which he belongs, takes its name. Before his building project, Este was little more than a village.

His son Welf IV d'Este (from his first marriage) moved to Germany, first to Carinthia and then to Bavaria, giving rise to one of the most important families in European history, the Guelphs. This in turn ultimately led to the ascension to the English throne in 1714 with George I of England. Another son Fulk I of Milan (from his second marriage), who was the first person documented to use the title of "Marquis d'Este."

Family

Azzo II married Kunigunde (also called Chuniza), the daughter of Welf II, Count of Altdorf, in 1036. They had one known child:

Welf (died November 6, 1101, Paphos) Duke of Bavaria from 1070 to 1077 and from 1096 to his death. First member of the Welf branch of the House of Este.

His second marriage was to Garsende, daughter of Herbert I, Count of Maine, around 1050. They had the following known sons:

Fulco I, Margrave of Milan (died 1128), ancestor of the Italian branch of the House of Este
Hugh V, Count of Maine (died 1131), had no issue

Some sources say he also married Vitalia Orseolo, daughter of Peter Orseolo. They had daughter Itta.

He had an extra-marital affaire with Matilda, sister of William, Bishop of Padua, with whom he had a daughter named Adelasia, who married Guglielmo Adelardi. 
Albert Azzo II Margrave of Milan (I5475)
 
63 Aldhun of Durham (c. 959 - 1018), also known as Ealdhun, was the last Bishop of Lindisfarne and the first Bishop of Durham. He was of "noble descent."

Since the late 9th century the see of Lindisfarne was based in Chester-le-Street because of constant attacks from invading Danes. However in 994 King Æthelred II of England had paid a Danegeld (protection money) to King Sweyn I of Denmark and King Olaf I of Norway in return for peace. The pay-off worked and there followed a period of freedom from Viking raids. This encouraged Aldhun to return the remains of Cuthbert of Lindisfarne to their original resting place at Lindisfarne, and to reinstate the diocese there.

En route to their destination however Aldhun claimed to have received a vision from Cuthbert saying that the saint's remains should be laid to rest at Durham. The monks detoured then to Durham, and the title Bishop of Lindisfarne was transferred to Bishop of Durham. The removal of the see from Chester-le-Street to Durham took place in 995. Symeon of Durham is the main source for the moving of the see, and he states that Uchtred the Bold helped the monks clear the site of the new cathedral, which was consecrated in 998.

Aldhun was a bishop for 24 years, which puts his death in 1018 or 1019. He was said to have died of heartbreak because of the defeat of the Northumbrians by the Scots at the battle of Carham.

Aldhun's daughter Ecgfrida married first Uchtred the Bold who was Earl of Northumbria from 1006 to 1016. After he repudiated her, she married a northern thegn Kilvert. The marriage probably took place close to the time when Uchtred helped her father move the see to Durham. Their son Ealdred was the grandfather of Waltheof, Earl of Northumbria.
 
Aldhun (I1799)
 
64 Aleina Adelina of Holland (ca. 990 - ca. 1045) was a daughter of Arnulf, Count of Holland and Lutgardis of Luxemburg. She first married to Baldwin II, Count of Boulogne (with whom she had Eustace I of Boulogne) and then to Enguerrand I of Ponthieu.
Aleina Adelina of Holland (ca. 990 - ca. 1045) was a daughter of Arnulf, Count of Holland and Lutgardis of Luxemburg. She first married to Baldwin II, Count of Boulogne (with whom she had Eustace I of Boulogne) and then to Enguerrand I of Ponthieu.
 
of Holland, Adelina (I5014)
 
65 Alexander 'the Fierce', King of Scotland was born in 1078. He was the son of Malcolm III 'Caennmor', King of Scotland and Saint Margaret 'the Exile'. He married Sybilla de Normandie, daughter of Henry I 'Beauclerc', King of England and Sybilla Corbet, circa 1107. He died on 23 April 1124 at Stirling Castle, Stirling, Stirlingshire, Scotland. He was buried at Dunfermline Abbey, Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland.

He succeeded to the title of King Alexander I of Scotland on 8 January 1107. He succeeded his brother Edgar, only to that part of the kingdom north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde. He was succeeded by his brother David, until then the Earl of Huntingdon. He has an extensive biographical entry in the Dictionary of National Dictionary.

Dictionary of National Dictionary

Alexander I, king of Scotland 1078?-1124, was the fourth son of Malcolm Canmore and Margaret, grandniece of Edward the Confessor, and was perhaps named after Pope Alexander II. Being too young to share in his father's campaigns, he received a careful training from his mother. After the death in 1093 of Malcolm and Margaret, Alexander, together with his brothers Edgar and David, and his sisters Matilda, afterwards wife of Henry I, and Mary, afterwards wife of Eustace, count of Boulogne, was protected by Edgar Atheling, his mother's brother, from the troubles caused in Scotland by the claim of Donald Bane, his paternal uncle, to the crown by the Celtic custom of tanistry. Through distrust of Rufus, Edgar is said to have concealed his nephews and nieces in different parts of England, and Alexander remained in that country during the reign of Donald Bane and the brief restoration of Duncan, son of Malcolm, and his Norse wife Ingebiorg. He probably returned, however, when, in 1097, his brother Edgar was placed on the throne by Edgar Atheling with the aid of Rufus. Nothing is recorded of him during the ten years (1097-1107) of his brother's peaceful reign, except that he was at Durham in 1104, when the corpse of St. Cuthbert, whose protection had been invoked when Edgar resumed the kingdom, was exhibited by the monks as a rebuke to the incredulous. On his brother's death Alexander succeeded to the old kingdom of Scotland north of the Forth and Clyde, but its newer conquests, under the name of Cumbria, which seem in this instance to have included not merely Strathclyde but a considerable part of the eastern borderland and portions of Lothian, were, by a deathbed gift of Edgar, erected into an earldom or principality in favour of David, who bore the title of Comes, and was almost an independent sovereign. Alexander opposed the division of the kingdom, but the Norman barons supported David, as they reminded him at the battle of the Standard (1138), and it had to be acquiesced in. Possibly the motive of the gift was to interpose a barrier between Scotland and England. More probably the grant of independence was intended to satisfy the inhabitants of the southern districts of modern Scotland, between whom and the northern Celtic population there was no goodwill. About the time of his accession Alexander married Sibylla, a natural daughter of Henry I, and the union of the two countries, thus cemented by a double bond of affinity, secured uninterrupted peace between them during the whole of Alexander's reign. A letter of Anselm records the fact that the archbishop's prayers were asked by Alexander for his brother's soul. Anselm, in return, counselled the king to preserve the religious habits he had acquired in youth and to protect the monks who had been sent to Scotland at Edgar's request. To the see of St. Andrews, rendered vacant by the death of Fothad, the last Celtic bishop, Alexander appointed Turgot, prior of Durham, the confessor, and perhaps the biographer, of his mother; but the consecration was delayed till 1109 through a dispute between Anselm and Thomas, archbishop of York, and then the latter prelate performed the ceremony with a salvo of the authority of Canterbury-a compromise obtained by Henry I. This appointment, made with the object of furthering reforms in the Celtic church which Queen Margaret had begun, and of introducing diocesan episcopacy on the Roman and English model, did not fulfil its promise. Probably Turgot may have shown an inclination to subject the Scottish church to York, as his successor Eadmer did to Canterbury. After several years of dispute with Alexander, Turgot's health failed, and he returned to Durham, where he died in 1115.

The separation of Cumbria threw the centre of the Scottish kingdom further north, and while Alexander retained Edinburgh and Dunfermline, the chief residences of his parents, we find him more frequenly at Invergowrie, Perth, Scone, and Stirling. The exact date of the war with some northern clans, which probably gave him the name of The Fierce, cannot be fixed, but as he founded a church at Scone in commemoration of his victory in 1114 or 1115, it was probably shortly before that he was suddenly attacked at Invergowrie by the men of Moray and Mearns. He escaped, and collecting an army pursued and defeated them in their own country, either on the Spey or the Moray Firth. This was a continuation of the opposition of the pure Celts of the north to the introduction of English customs through the union of Saxon and Scottish blood in the persons of Margaret and her children.

Canons regular of St. Augustine were brought by Alexander to his new foundation at Scone from St. Oswald's, near Pontefract, and the names of Gregory, bishop of Moray, and Cormac, bishop of Dunkeld, in a charter granting the right to hold a court to the prior and canons of Scone show that Alexander had laid the basis for the diocesan episcopate which David was to complete. The same foundation-charter proves by the names of Beth, Mallus, Madach, Rothri, Gartnach, and Dufagan, who are each designated comes, the transition from the Celtic mormaers to the earls-a step in the direction of normanising and feudalising the civil government, similar to that which had been taken with regard to the ecclesiastical government, by introducing diocesan bishoprics, with chapters of regulars, in place of the monastic Celtic establishments, chiefly Culdee. It is in this reign that we have the first recorded evidence of the existence of the offices of chancellor and constable, which were held respectively by Hubert, abbot of Kelso, and in David's reign bishop of Glasgow; and by William, a brother of Queen Sibylla; the office of sheriff (vice-comes) is also met with for the first time in Scotland within David's earldom, although not in Scotland proper. The origin of parishes is also marked by the foundation of Ednam in Roxburghshire by Thor the Long, who built the church on waste lands given him by king Edgar. To the same period are attributed the earliest known Scottish coins.

In the year of the foundation of Scone, 1115, Alexander applied to Ralph, Anselm's successor, for a qualified person to fill the vacant see of St. Andrews, and from the fortunate circumstance of Eadmer, the friend and biographer of Anselm, having been selected, a fuller account has been preserved of this than of any other incident in the reign. With boldness of assertion Alexander informed the archbishop that in ancient times the bishop of St. Andrews had been consecrated by the pope or the archbishop of Canterbury, and this had only been broken by Lanfranc, who had yielded to the claim of York. Notwithstanding the opposition of Pope Calixtus II, who supported the pretensions of York, Ralph sent Eadmer, with the consent of Henry I, in 1120, that he might learn whether the king's request was consistent with the honour of God and of the see of Canterbury, advising that he should return as quickly as possible for consecration. Eadmer was accordingly elected, but the day after his election he found that Alexander would not consent to subject the church of St. Andrew to that of Canterbury, and possession of the lands of the see being given to a monk who had administered it during the vacancy, Eadmer was preparing to return when he was with difficulty persuaded to accept the ring of investiture from the king and to take the staff, the symbol of the pastoral office, from the altar as if from the hand of God. This compromise, like so many others between church and state in the great controversy as to investiture, broke down, and Eadmer, having surrendered the ring to Alexander and the staff to the altar, retired to Canterbury, as Alexander informed Archbishop Ralph, because he would not comply with the customs of the country, but, as he himself represented it, because he would not yield to the temporal power. Eadmer, two years afterwards, distracted by contradictory advisers-the pope directing him to go to York for consecration, the Archbishop of Canterbury to remain at Canterbury till Alexander yielded, one of his friends suggesting that he should go to Rome, and another that it was his duty to return to St. Andrews, as he had been duly elected bishop-seems to have yielded to the last advice and offered to submit, but Alexander, distrusting his submission, did not accept the offer. On Eadmer's death, in January 1124, Robert, the prior of Scone, was chosen bishop of St. Andrews, but before the difficulty as to his consecration could be settled Alexander himself died. The importance of this dispute to Scottish, as distinct from ecclesiastical history, is that it was a forerunner of the graver contests with regard to the independence of Scotland in the following centuries which were only decided by the ultimate issue of the war of independence and the long-deferred grant of the pall to St. Andrews in the reign of James III. Throughout Alexander showed himself, notwithstanding his English education and connections, and his evident desire to benefit his church by the superior learning of the English ecclesiastics, a determined vindicator of the national independence of Scotland. His wife Sibylla deceased before him in 1121, and he founded on an island in Loch Tay a church to her memory, as a cell of Scone. His gifts to Dunfermline, where he was buried, the erection of the chapel royal at Stirling and a monastery on Inchcolm in gratitude for an escape from shipwreck, and the restoration of the lands called the Boar's Chase (Cursus Apri), formerly granted by a Pictish king, Hungus, to the church of St. Andrew's, prove him to have been almost as great a benefactor of the church as his brother David. In connection with the last of these benefactions the regiser of St. Andrews and the poet Wyntoun describe a ceremony which, as illustrating the customs of the age and Alexander's liberality, may be given in the latter's words:-

Before the lordys all the kyngGert them to the awtare bryngSys cumly sted off ArabySadelyd and brydelyd costlykly.
Wyth hys armwys of TurkyThat princys than oysid ginerallyAnd chesyd maist for thare delyteWith scheld and speir of silver quhyt.
With the regale and all the laveThat to the Kirk that time he gave.

The gift of the Arab steed and Turkish arms suggests the question whether Alexander may not have gone with his uncle Edgar and Robert of Normandy on the first crusade, but there is no record that he did. His character is thus described by the Scottish historian, Fordun: A lettered and godly man, very humble and amiable towards the clerics and regulars, but terrible beyond measure to the rest of his subjects; a man of large heart, exerting himself in all things beyond his strength. He was most zealous in building churches, in searching for relics of saints, in providing and arranging priestly vestments and sacred books; most open-handed, even beyond his means, to all newcomers, and so devoted to the poor that he seemed to delight in nothing so much as in supporting them. He died on 27 April 1124, leaving no children, and was succeeded by his brother David.

Sources:

Liber de Scone, Bannatyne Club
Eadmer, Historia Novorum
National MSS. of Scotland
Fordun's Scotichronicon
Wyntoun's Chronycle
William of Malmesbury
Simeon of Durham.

Modern authorities

Robertson, Scotland under her early Kings
W. F. Skene, Celtic Scotland
Freeman, Norman Conquest and Reign of William Rufus.

In Stubbs and Haddan's edition of the Concilia, ii. part i., the most important original documents of Alexander's reign are printed, pp. 169-209.

Contributor: Æ. M. [Aeneas James George Mackay]

Published: 1885
 
Alexander 'the Fierce' King of Scotland (I155)
 
66 Alexander II (Mediaeval Gaelic: Alaxandair mac Uilliam; Modern Gaelic: Alasdair mac Uilleim) (24 August 1198 - 6 July 1249) was King of Scots from 1214 to his death.

Early life

He was born at Haddington, East Lothian, the only son of the Scottish king William the Lion and Ermengarde of Beaumont. He spent time in England (John of England knighted him at Clerkenwell Priory in 1213) before succeeding to the kingdom on the death of his father on 4 December 1214, being crowned at Scone on 6 December the same year.

King of Scotland

In 1215, the year after his accession, the clans Meic Uilleim and MacHeths, inveterate enemies of the Scottish crown, broke into revolt; but loyalist forces speedily quelled the insurrection.

In the same year Alexander joined the English barons in their struggle against John of England, and led an army into the Kingdom of England in support of their cause. This action led to the sacking of Berwick as John's forces ravaged the north.

The Scottish forces reached the south coast of England at the port of Dover where in September 1216, Alexander paid homage to the pretender Prince Louis of France for his lands in England, chosen by the barons to replace King John. But John having died, the Pope and the English aristocracy changed their allegiance to his nine-year-old son, Henry, forcing the French and the Scottish armies to return home. Shortly after taking London, the Scottish army returned to Scotland.

Peace between Henry III, the French prince and Alexander followed on 12 September 1217 with the treaty of Kingston. Diplomacy further strengthened the reconciliation by the marriage of Alexander to Henry's sister Joan of England on 18 June or 25 June 1221.

The next year marked the subjection of the hitherto semi-independent district of Argyll. Royal forces crushed a revolt in Galloway in 1235 without difficulty; nor did an invasion attempted soon afterwards by its exiled leaders meet with success. Soon afterwards a claim for homage from Henry of England drew forth from Alexander a counter-claim to the northern English counties. The two kingdoms, however, settled this dispute by a compromise in 1237. This was the Treaty of York which defined the boundary between the two kingdoms as running between the Solway Firth (in the west) and the mouth of the River Tweed (in the east).

Joan died in March, 1238 in Essex, and in the following year, 1239, Alexander remarried. His second wife was Marie de Coucy. The marriage took place on 15 May 1239, and produced one son, the future Alexander III, born in 1241.

A threat of invasion by Henry in 1243 for a time interrupted the friendly relations between the two countries; but the prompt action of Alexander in anticipating his attack, and the disinclination of the English barons for war, compelled him to make peace next year at Newcastle. Alexander now turned his attention to securing the Western Isles, which still owed a nominal allegiance to Norway. He successively attempted negotiations and purchase, but without success.

The English chronicler Matthew Paris in his Chronica Majora described Alexander as red-haired:

"[King John] taunted King Alexander, and because he was red-headed, sent word to him,
saying, 'so shall we hunt the red fox-cub from his lairs."

Death

Alexander attempted to persuade Ewen, the son of Duncan, Lord of Argyll, to sever his allegiance to Haakon IV of Norway. When Ewen rejected these attempts, Alexander sailed forth to compel him, but on the way he suffered a fever at the Isle of Kerrera in the Inner Hebrides. He died there in 1249 and was buried at Melrose Abbey, Roxburghshire. His only legitimate child and son, by his second wife, Alexander III succeeded him as King of Scots. He had a bastard daughter, Marjorie, who married Sir Alan Durward, Justiciar of Scotia (he died 1275), and had issue.

Wives

1. Joan of England, (22 July 1210 - 4 March 1238), was the eldest legitimate daughter and third child of John of England and Isabella of Angoulême. She and Alexander II married on 21 June 1221, at York Minster. Alexander was 23. Joan was 11. They had no children. Joan died in Essex in 1238, and was buried at Tarant Crawford Abbey in Dorset.

2. Marie de Coucy, who became mother of Alexander III of Scotland
 
of Scotland, Alexander II (I1735)
 
67 Alfred sailed to Boston, USA on the SS Cephalonia arriving 30 May 1890 having left Liverpool on the 22nd, 8 days earlier.

This was a Cunard ship built by Laird Brothers at Birkenhead. Her details were - length 430.6ft x beam 46.5ft, one funnel, three masts, iron construction, single screw and a speed of 14 knots, weighing in at 5,517 tons gross. There was passenger accommodation for 200-1st and 1,500-3rd class. Launched on 20th May 1882, she sailed from Liverpool on 23rd Aug.1882 on her maiden voyage to Queenstown (Cobh) and Boston. She started her last voyage on this service on 12th Sep.1899 and then made two voyages as a Boer War transport. In 1900 she was sold to the Chinese Eastern Railway and renamed HAILOR, she was sunk as a blockship at Port Arthur in 1904.[North Atlantic Seaway by N.R.P.Bonsor, vol.1,p.153]
 
Bosdet, Alfred Helleur (I53)
 
68 Alice of Namur was the wife of Baldwin IV, Count of Hainault. Her son was the heir of Namur when her brother Henry IV of Luxembourg died childless in 1196. Her parents were Godfrey I of Namur and Ermesinda the daughter of Conrad I of Luxembourg.

Her children with Baldwin IV of Hainaut were:

Yolande (1131-1202), wife of Hugh IV Count of St Pol
Baldwin (1134-1147)
Agnes (1142-1168)
Geoffrey, Count of Ostervant (1147-1163)
William, married Mahaut de Lalaing
Lauretta (1150-1181), wife of Bouchard IV Count of Montmorency
Baldwin V, Count of Hainaut (1150-1195), later Count of Flanders by marriage to Margaret I of Flanders
 
of Namur, Alice (I5260)
 
69 Alice or Adeliza, Adelaide or Aelis (c. 1002 - 1038) was the daughter of Duke Richard II of Normandy (972-1026) and Judith of Brittany (c. 982-1017).

Family

She married Renaud I of Burgundy and had the following children:

William I of Burgundy (1020-1087)
Gui de Brionne or Guy of Burgundy (c. 1025-1069), educated at the court of Normandy, who would succeed the Duchy of Normandy against his cousin William of Normandy (later William the Conqueror), but had to leave his county of Brionne and Vernon in Normandy, after being at the head of the coalition of the barons of Normandy, which was defeated at the Battle of Val-ès-Dunes in 1047. It is known that Guy de Brionne found refuge with his uncle Geoffrey II of Anjou. He later attempted to usurp the county of Burgundy to his brother William.
Hugh (c. 1037 - c. 1086), Viscount of Lons-le-Saunier, sire Montmorot, Navilly and Scey married to Aldeberge Scey. They had a son Montmorot Thibert, founder of the house Montmorot (alias Montmoret).
Falcon or Fouques of Burgundy (in fate unknown).

Adelaide of Normandy (or Adeliza) (c. 1030 - bef. 1090) was the sister of William the Conqueror and Countess of Aumale in her own right.

Life

She was the daughter of Robert the Magnificent, Duke of Normandy and born c.1030 Elisabeth Van Houts, in her article Les femmes dans l’histoire du duché de Normandie (or Women in the history of ducal Normandy) mentions Countess Adelaide as one of those notable Norman women who were known to have exerted a stong influence on their chldren especially with regard to passing on their own family history.

Adelaide's first marriage to Enguerrand II, Count of Ponthieu potentially gave then Duke William a powerful ally in upper Normandy. But at the Council of Reims in 1049, when the marriage of Duke William with Matilda of Flanders was prohibited based on consanguinity, so were those of Eustace II, Count of Boulogne and Enguerrand of Ponthieu, who was already married to Adelaide. Adelaide's marriage was apparently annulled c.1049/50 and another marriage was arranged for her, this time to Lambert II, Count of Lens, younger son of Eustace I, Count of Boulogne forming a new marital alliance between Normandy and Boulogne. Lambert was killed in 1054 at Lille, aiding Baldwin V, Count of Flanders against Emperor Henry III. Now widowed, Adelaide resided at Aumale, probably part of her dower from her first husband, Engurerand, or part of a settlement after the capture of Guy of Ponthieu, her brother-in-law.[b][5] As a dowager Adelaide began a semi-religious retirement and became involved with the church at Auchy presenting them with a number of gifts. In 1060 she was called upon again to form another marital alliance, this time to a younger man Odo, Count of Champagne. Odo seems to have been somewhat of a disappointment as he appears on only one of the Conqueror's charters and received no land in England; his wife being a tenant-in-chief in her own right.

In 1082 King William and Queen Matilda gave to the abbey of the Holy Trinity in Caen the town of Le Homme in the Cotentin with a provision to the Countess of Albamarla (Aumale), his sister, for a life tenancy. In 1086, as Comitissa de Albatnarla, as she was listed in the Domesday Book, was shown as having numerous holdings in both Suffolk and Essex, one of the very few Norman noblewomen to have held lands in England at Domesday as a tenant-in-chief. She was also given the lordship of Holderness which was held after her death by her 3rd husband, Odo, the by then disinherited Count of Champagne; the lordship then passed to their son, Stephen. Adelaide died before 1090.

Family

Adelaide married three times; first to Enguerrand II, Count of Ponthieu (died 1053) by whom she had issue:

Adelaide II, Countess of Aumale, m. William de Bréteuil, Lord of Bréteuil, son of William FitzOsbern, 1st Earl of Hereford.

She married secondly Lambert II, Count of Lens (died 1054), they had a daughter:

Judith of Lens, m. Waltheof Earl of Huntingdon and Northumbria.

Adelaide married thirdly in 1060 Odo II, Count of Champagne (d. aft. 1096), by whom she had a son:

Stephen, Count of Aumale.
 
of Normandy, Alice (I2091)
 
70 Almodis de la Marche (c. 1020 - 16 October 1071) was the daughter of Bernard I, Count of Marche and wife Amélie. She married Hugh V of Lusignan around 1038 and they had two sons and one daughter:

Hugh VI of Lusignan (c. 1039-1101)
Jordan de Lusignan
Mélisende de Lusignan (b. bef. 1055), married before 1074 to Simon I "l'Archevêque", Vidame de Parthenay

Almodis and Hugh of Lusignan divorced due to consanguinity, and Hugh arranged for her to marry Count Pons of Toulouse in 1040. Together they produced several children, including:

William IV of Toulouse
Raymond IV of Toulouse
Hugh, Abbot of Saint-Gilles
Almodis of Toulouse, married Count Pierre of Melgueil

She was still Pons' wife in April 1053, but shortly thereafter Almodis was abducted by Ramon Berenguer I, Count of Barcelona. He kidnapped her from Narbonne with the aid of a fleet sent north by his ally, the Muslim emir of Tortosa. They married immediately (despite the fact both of her previous husbands were still alive) and they appear with their twin sons in a charter the next year. Pope Victor II excommunicated Almodis and Ramon for this illegal marriage until 1056. Together they produced four children:

Berenguer Ramon II, Count of Barcelona
Ramon Berenguer II, Count of Barcelona
Agnes of Barcelona, married Count Guigues II of Albon
Sancha of Barcelona, married Count Guillermo Ramon I of Cerdagne

Almodis maintained contact with her former husbands and many children, and in 1066/1067 she traveled to Toulouse for her daughter's wedding. A few years before, in 1060, Hugh V of Lusignan had revolted against his lord, Duke William VIII of Aquitaine, in support of Almodis' son William IV of Toulouse. Her sons supported one another in military campaigns; Hugh VI of Lusignan, Raymond IV of Toulouse, and Berenguer Ramon all took the Cross.

Her third husband Ramon had a son from a previous marriage, Pedro Ramon, who was his heir. Pedro apparently resented Almodis' influence and was concerned she was trying to replace him with her own two sons. He murdered her in October 1071. Pedro was disinherited and exiled for his crime, and fled the country. When his father died in 1076, Barcelona was split between Berenguer Ramon and Ramon Berenguer, Almodis' sons. The family history of murder did not end with Pedro Ramon, as Berenguer Ramon earned his nickname "The Fratricide" when he killed his own twin brother. 
de la Marche, Almodis (I5522)
 
71 Alpaida (Elfide, Chalpaida) was Pepin II's (635 or 640 - December 16, 714) concubine and mother to Pepin II's two illegitimate sons, Charles Martel (Charles the Hammer) (d. October 22, 741) and Childebrand (b. 678, Heristal d. 751).
 
Elphide (I4594)
 
72 Alpin of Kintyre, King of Scotland was the son of Eochaid IV 'the Poisonous', King of Dalraida and Fergusa. He died on 20 July 834 at Galloway, Scotland, killed fighting the Picts. He gained the title of King Alpin of Scotland in 843. He gained the title of King Alpin of Kintyre.

Alpín mac Eochaid may refer to two persons. The first person is a presumed king of Dál Riata in the late 730s. The second is the father of Kenneth MacAlpin (Cináed mac Ailpín). The name Alpín is taken to be a Pictish one, derived from the Anglo-Saxon name Ælfwine; Alpín's patronymic means son of Eochaid or son of Eochu.

Alpín father of King Kenneth

Irish annals such as the Annals of Ulster and the Annals of Innisfallen name Kenneth's father as one Alpín. This much is reasonably certain.

The Chronicle of the Kings of Alba usually begins with Kenneth, but some variants include a reference to Kenneth's father: "[Alpín] was killed in Galloway, after he had entirely destroyed and devastated it. And then the kingdom of the Scots was transferred to the kingdom [variant: land] of the Picts."

John of Fordun (IV, ii) calls Kenneth's father "Alpin son of Achay" (Alpín son of Eochu) and has him killed in war with the Picts in 836; Andrew of Wyntoun's version mixes Fordun's war with the Picts with the Chronicle version which has him killed in Galloway.

Alpín of Dál Riata

The genealogies produced for Kings of Scots in the High Middle Ages traced their ancestry through Kenneth MacAlpin, through the Cenél nGabráin of Dál Riata to Fergus Mór, and then to legendary Irish kings such as Conaire Mór and the shadowy Deda mac Sin.

These genealogies, perhaps oral in origin, were subjected to some regularisation by the scribes who copied them into sources such as the Chronicle of Melrose, the Poppleton Manuscript and the like. Either by accident, or by design, a number of kings were misplaced, being moved from the early 8th century to the late 8th and early 9th century.

The original list is presumed to have resembled the following:

1. Eochaid mac Domangairt
2. Ainbcellach mac Ferchair
3. Eógan mac Ferchair
4. Selbach mac Ferchair
5. Eochaid mac Echdach
6. Dúngal mac Selbaig
7. Alpín
8. Muiredach mac Ainbcellaig
9. Eógan mac Muiredaig
10. Áed Find
11. Fergus mac Echdach

After modification to link this list of kings of Dál Riata to the family of Kenneth MacAlpin, the list is presumed to have been in this form:

1. Eochaid mac Domangairt
2. Ainbcellach mac Ferchair
3. Eógan mac Ferchair
8. Muiredach mac Ainbcellaig
9. Eogan mac Muiredaig
10. Áed Find
11. Fergus mac Echdach
4. Selbach mac Ferchair (called Selbach mac Eógain)
5. Eochaid mac Echdach (called Eochaid mac Áeda Find)
6. Dúngal mac Selbaig (name unchanged)
7. Alpín (called Alpín mac Echdach)

However, the existence of the original Alpín is less than certain. No king in Dál Riata of that name is recorded in the Irish annals in the early 730s. A Pictish king named Alpín, whose father's name is not given in any Irish sources, or even from the Pictish Chronicle king-lists, is known from the late 720s, when he was defeated by Óengus mac Fergusa and Nechtan mac Der-Ilei. For the year 742, the Annals of Ulster are read as referring to the capture of "Elffin son of Crop" (the former reading had besieged rather than captured). Whether Álpin son of Crup is related to the Álpin of the 720s is unknown.
 
of Kintyre, Alpin King of Scotland (I2103)
 
73 Also known as Alberée de la Haye Auberie. Albreda (I2213)
 
74 Also known as Elgiva.
 
Ælfgifu (I1802)
 
75 Also known as Emma. of Swabia, Imma (I444)
 
76 Also known as Helen.
 
de Morville, Eleanor (I469)
 
77 Also known as Patia. Pavia (I5085)
 
78 Also known as Rudolph I of Aalst. Hereditary Advocate or Protector of St Peter of Ghent 1036 - 1056.
 
Ghent, Lord of Aalst Ralph of (I472)
 
79 Amaury III de Montfort (died 1137) was seigneur de Montfort l'Amaury from 1101 to 1137 and comte d'Évreux from 1118 to 1137. He was the son of Simon I, seigneur de Montfort, and his wife Agnès d'Évreux

Marriages and children

Around 1115 he married his first wife, Richilde de Hainaut, daughter of Baudouin II, comte de Hainaut and of Ide de Louvain, but they separated in 1118 on grounds of consanguinity.

In 1118 he remarried, to Agnès de Garlande, daughter of Anseau de Garlande, seigneur de Rochefort-en-Yvelines, and of Béatrice or Agnès de Rochefort. Their children were :

Agnès († 1181), in 1141 married Waleran IV de Meulan (1104 † 1166), count of Meulan
Simon III († 1181), count of Évreux, then seigneur de Montfort
Amaury IV († 1140), seigneur de Montfort
Robert de Montfort
 
de Montfort, Amaury Count of Évreux (I4356)
 
80 Ancilla (Auxilia or Ancilia) of Lenzburg, the daughter of the master of ceremonies of Burgundy of Lenzburg, Ancilla (I5420)
 
81 Anne married Rev John Sohier, and had at least six children (Johannis, Anna, Joseph, Madelena, Adolphe, Oswald). They lived in Nantes in France, but were listed with Anne's parents in St Helier in the 1841 census. Le Bailly, Anne (I6545)
 
82 Anne of Kiev (or Anna Yaroslavna) (between 1024 and 1032-1075) was the queen consort of France as the wife of Henry I, and regent for her son Philip I.

Her parents were Yaroslav I the Wise and princess Ingegerd Olofsdotter of Sweden.

Marriage and children

After the death of his first wife, Matilda of Frisia, King Henry searched the courts of Europe for a suitable bride, but could not locate a princess who was not related to him within legal degrees of kinship. At last he sent an embassy to distant Kiev, which returned with Anne (also called Agnes). Anne and Henry were married at the cathedral of Reims on 19 May 1051.

The new queen consort was not instantly attracted to her new realm. She wrote to her father that Francia was "a barbarous country where the houses are gloomy, the churches ugly and the customs revolting."

Anne is credited with bringing the name Philip to Western Europe. She imported this Greek name (Philippos, from philos and hippos, meaning "loves horses") from her Eastern Orthodox culture.

Regency

For six years after Henry's death in 1060, she served as regent for Philip, who was only eight at the time. She was the first queen of France to serve as regent. Her co-regent was Count Baldwin V of Flanders. Anne was a literate woman, rare for the time, but there was some opposition to her as regent on the grounds that her mastery of French was less than fluent.

A year after the king's death, Anne, acting as regent, took a passionate fancy for Count Ralph III of Valois, a man whose political ambition encouraged him to repudiate his wife to marry Anne in 1062. Accused of adultery, Ralph's wife appealed to Pope Alexander II, who excommunicated the couple. The young king Philip forgave his mother, which was just as well, since he was to find himself in a very similar predicament in the 1090s. Ralph died in September 1074, at which time Anne returned to the French court. She died in 1075, was buried at Villiers Abbey, La Ferte-Alais, Essonne and her obits were celebrated on 5 September. 
of Kiev, Anne (I4238)
 
83 Anscar I (died March 902) was the margrave of Ivrea from 888 to his death. From 877 or 879, he was the count of Oscheret in Burgundy. He supported Guy III of Spoleto for the throne of France after the deposition of Charles the Fat in 887, but after Guy's failed attempt and the coronation of Odo, Count of Paris, he returned with Guy across the Alps, where the duke was elected King of Italy. In gratitude, he created the March of Ivrea in the northeast and invested his Burgundian supporter. He was a son of the count Amadeus of Oscheret of possible Bavarian origin with landholdings also in Tegernsee. Anscar was a counsellor of Boso of Provence and brother of Fulk, Archbishop of Rheims, who strongly supported the Carolingian dynasty in France. With Fulk, he probably invited Guy to France. Anscar fought on behalf of Guy's kingship in Italy. He battled Arnulf of Carinthia during the latter's invasion of 894 and he supported Guy's son Lambert after Guy's death that year. In 896, he was one of the few in the north to oppose Arnulf second invasion. After Lambert's death, he supported Berengar of Friuli as king and became his chief counsellor.

Anscar's wife was unknown, but he had only one son, Adalbert, through whom he was the progenitor of a dynasty, the Anscarids. 
of Ivrea, Anscar (I5032)
 
84 Ansegisel is the son of St. Arnulf of Metz and Dode. He married St. Begga, daughter of Pepin of Landen.

Ansegisel (also Ansgise, Ansegus, or Anchises) (c. 602 or 610 - murdered before 679 or 662) was the son of Saint Arnulf, bishop of Metz and his wife Saint Doda. He served King Sigbert III of Austrasia (634-656) as a duke (Latin dux, a military leader) and domesticus. He was killed sometime before 679, slain in a feud by his enemy Gundewin.

Marriage and issue

He married sometime after 639 to Saint Begga, the daughter of Pepin of Landen. They had the following children:

Pippin II (635 or 640-December 16, 714), mayor of the palace of Austrasia
Possibly Clotilda of Heristal (650-699), married King Theodoric III of Neustria
 
Duke Ansegisel (I1572)
 
85 Ansgarde of Burgundy (826-880/882) was a French queen of Aquitaine, but never of West Francia, the daughter of Hardouin of Burgundy. She secretly married Louis II of France before he was king; her sons became Louis III and Carloman II of France.

At the time of the marriage, Ansgarde was 36 years old; Louis was only 16. Because Charles the Bald wished to marry his son to Adélaïde de Frioul, he had to seek a papal annulment; this he did, and Adélaïde married Louis in February 878.

Ansgarde was thus repudiated, but at the death of Louis II in 879 she worked to ensure that her sons could mount the throne of France themselves. To that end, she sought to revisit the subject of her divorce with the archbishop of Reims. Adélaïde, however, was pregnant, and gave birth to a son on September 17 of that year, which thus called into doubt the inheritance of Ansgarde's own sons.

Ansgarde and her sons attacked Adélaïde's marriage, accusing her of adultery; consequently, Louis and Carloman mounted the throne together. However, both died without issue, and after a long and difficult process Adélaïde finally saw her son confirmed as Charles III, the only legitimate heir to the throne.

Ansgarde passes into obscurity after this episode, and the date of her death is not conclusively known.
 
de Bourgogne, Ansgarde (I1458)
 
86 Aoife MacMurrough (1145-1188, Irish: Aoife Ní Diarmait), also known by later historians as Eva of Leinster, was the daughter of Dermot MacMurrough (Irish: Diarmait MacMurchada), King of Leinster, and his wife Mor O'Toole (c.1114-1191).

Marriage

On the 29 August 1170, following the Norman invasion of Ireland that her father had requested, she married Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, better known as Strongbow, the leader of the Norman invasion force, in Reginald's Tower in Waterford. She had been promised to Strongbow by her father who had visited England to ask for an invasion army. He was not allowed to give his daughter away, as under Early Irish Law Aoife had the choice of whom she married, but she had to agree to an arranged marriage.

Under Anglo-Norman law, this gave Strongbow succession rights to the Kingdom of Leinster. Under Irish Brehon law, the marriage gave her a life interest only, after which any land would normally revert to male cousins; but Brehon law also recognised a transfer of "swordland" following a conquest. Aoife conducted battles on behalf of her husband and is sometimes known as Red Eva (Irish: Aoife Rua). She had two sons and a daughter with her husband Richard de Clare, and within several generations her descendants included much of the nobility of northwestern Europe, including Robert the Bruce and Richard, 1st Earl of Cornwall who was elected King of the Romans in 1257.

Aoife is the ancestress of many Kings of England by a number of lineal descent, such as that of her granddaughter Eva Marshal, whose daughter Maud de Braose, married Roger de Mortimer. All the monarchs of England from 1413, as well as Mary, Queen of Scots, were directly descended from Maud, as is the current British Royal Family. Queen consorts Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Catherine Howard, and Catherine Parr were also notable descendants of Aoife through multiple lines. By her descendant, Lady Katherine Mortimer, who married Thomas de Beauchamp, 11th Earl of Warwick, Aoife and Strongbow were ancestors of the Earls of Warwick and the last of the Plantagenet kings which included Richard III of England and his wife, Lady Anne Neville.
 
MacMorrough, Aoife (I4564)
 
87 Archives de Paris et sa région: Publications des bans de Mariages 1860-1930, Paris: ARFIDO S.A., 2006 Source (S64)
 
88 Arduin Glaber (Italian: Arduino Glabrio, Glabrione, or il Glabro, meaning "the Bald"; died c. 977) was the Count of Auriate from c. 935 and Margrave of Turin from c. 950. He placed his family, the Arduinici, on a firm foundation and established the march of Turin through conquests and royal concessions. The Chronicon Novaliciense, the chronicle of the abbey of Novalesa, is the primary source for his life.

Arduin was the eldest son of Roger, Count of Auriate, a Frankish nobleman who immigrated to Italy in the early tenth century. Auriate comprised the region bounded by the Alps, the Po River, and the Stura, today the regions of the Saluzzese and Cuneese. Arduin succeeded his father sometime around 935.

Count Arduin (Ardoino comes) is first documented on 13 April 945, when he sat in judgement at a conference (placitum) of count Lanfranc at Pavia in the presence of King Lothair II. It was probably earlier, between 940 and 942, that he had acquired Turin and the Susa Valley, bring Novalesa back under Christian control. In 941 King Hugh exiled Berengar of Ivrea and abolished the March of Ivrea. Since Berengar's family, the Anscarids, had thitherto held Turin, it is probably that Hugh bestowed it on Arduin at this time. By the spring of 942 Berengar had arrived at the court of Otto I of Germany.

Berengar returned on Hugh's death, he dominated the younger Lothair II and his mother Adelaide. He appears as summus consiliarius (highest counsellor) in March-April 945 and consors regni (royal consort) in June 948. Arduin moved closer to Berengar during this period and probably benefited from Berengar's coronation on 15 December 950. On 13 November 950 he was given the administration of the abbey of Novalesa, legally by Lothair, but probably through Berengar. At that time Turin was Arduin's principal residence. Though he is not recorded with the title of marchio (margrave) until 20 June 967, it was probably during the reorganisation of the marches on Berengar's succession that he received the title and the marca Arduinica. The march consisted of the counties of Auriate, Turin, Asti, Albenga, and probably Bredula, Alba, and Ventimiglia.

The early twelfth-century Vita Mathildis, biography of Matilda of Canossa, by Domnizo places Arduin at the siege of Canossa by Berengar in 951, after Adelaide, the former queen mother, had sought the protection of Adalbert Atto of Canossa. This story is probably false, since Arduin was cultivating a marital alliance with Adalbert Atto, whose daughter Prangarda eventually married his son and successor, Manfred I.

From an early date Arduin was certainly occupied with the Saracens who had occupied the Susa Valley and established a base at Fraxinetum in neighbouring Provence. He may have expelled them from the valley in 940-41. To this he probably added Albenga, Alba, and Ventimiglia by conquest. He definitely took part in the wars of William I and Rotbold II of Provence against the Saracens of Fraxinetum. According to Liutprand of Cremona in his Antapodosis, in 972 or 973 Arduin and Rotbold led the successful assault on Fraxinetum itself. William meanwhile attacked the abductors of Abbot Maieul of Cluny. According to a later comital document of 1041, he took the cities of Tenda, Briga, and Saorgio from them and granted them concessions. Arduin was last recorded alive on 4 April 976. Despite the fact that he repatriated their land from the Saracens, the monks of Novalesa-who had fled Saracen incursions in 906 and were still in Turin as late as 929-accused him of disrespecting their rights: Ardoinus vir potens ... nobis tulit [vallem Segusinam] tantum ... erat plenus viciis ... superbia tumidus ... in adquirendis rebus alienis avaricie faucibus succensus.

Arduin married a woman named Vmille in the Necrologio Sanctæ Andreæ Taurinensis, probably Emilia or Immula. They had two daughters: Alsinda, who married Giselbert II of Bergamo, and Richilda, who married Conrad of Ivrea. Arduin was succeeded by his eldest son Manfred. He had two younger sons named Arduin and Otto. 
Glaber, Arduin (I5424)
 
89 Army Medal Office, WWI Medal Index Cards Source (S19)
 
90 Arnulf II of Boulogne (died 971) was a son of Count Adalolf. He succeeded as Count of Boulogne in 964 after the death of his uncle Arnulf I, and held it until 971. He was the father of Arnulf III, Count of Boulogne.
 
Arnulf II Count of Boulogne (I1612)
 
91 Arnulf III of Boulogne (died 990) was a son of Arnulf II, Count of Boulogne. He succeeded his father as count of Boulogne from 971 to 990. On his death his lands were divided between his 3 sons:

Baldwin got Boulogne
Arnulf got Ternois
a third son got Thérouanne. 
Arnulf Count of Boulogne III (I1617)
 
92 Arnulf III, Comte de Flandre et Hainaut also went by the nick-name of Arnulf 'the Unfortunate'. He succeeded to the title of Comte de Hainaut in 1070. He succeeded to the title of Comte de Flandre in 1070.
 
Arnulf Comte de Flandre et Hainaut III (I15)
 
93 Arnulf of Montgomery (c. 1068-1118/1122) was an Anglo-Norman aristocrat, who played a role in the history of England, Wales, and Ireland.

Lineage

He was the youngest son of Roger de Montgomerie, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury and Mabel de Bellême.

Early career

Around 1093 he was part of the invasion of South Wales following the death in battle of Rhys ap Tewdwr. the last king of South Wales. Arnulf built a castle at Pembroke in West Wales, described by Giraldus Cambrensis as a "slender fortress of turf and stakes" under the command of one of his young officers, Gerald FitzWalter (aka Gerald de Windsor), who held it for Arnulf in the face of the great Welsh uprising of 1093. In 1094 king William II of England rewarded Arnulf with the formal lordship of Pembroke; some historians say that he was in fact created Earl of Pembroke. In any case the lordship was smaller than the later Pembrokeshire.

Arnulf's holdings were greatly expanded in 1096 when Rufus gave him the lordship of Holderness, which in addition to that part of Yorkshire included land in Lincolnshire.

Rebellion & Banishment

It is likely that Arnulf had been designated heir of his brother Hugh of Montgomery, 2nd Earl of Shrewsbury, but after Hugh's death in 1098 Arnulf was outmaneouvered by their eldest brother, Robert of Belleme, 3rd earl of Shrewsbury. This caused some rift between the brothers; nevertheless Arnulf participated in their 1101 rebellion against Henry I of England. As a result, they lost their English and Welsh lands, and were exiled from England.

Ireland

Arnulf turned his attention to Ireland, where, prior to the Montgomery rebellion, he had sent Gerald de Windsor to secure for him the hand in marriage of Lafracoth, daughter of the Irish king Muircheartach Ua Briain; by 1102, Arnulf was mentioned by Muirchertach as his son-in-law in a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury Anselm of Bec. Muirchertach provided support for the Montgomerys' rebellion; as a result King Henry I of England placed a trade embargo on Ireland.

Orderic Vitalis states that Arnulf went to Ireland after the rebellion failed and served for Muirchertach Ua Briain, although the Irish Annals make no mention of this. He further relates that Arnulf was used by Muirchertach to defeat Magnus Barelegs. Then, "when the Irish had tasted blood by killing King Magnus and his companions they grew more unruly and suddently turned to kill the Normans. Their king took his daughter away from Arnulf and gave the wanton girl in unlawful marriage to one of his cousins. He resolved to murder Arnulf himself as a reward for his alliance, but the latter, learning of the execrable plots of this barbarous race, fled to his own people and lived for twenty years afterwards with no fixed abode."

Later life

In later years Arnulf was in the entourage of count Fulk V of Anjou.

A tombstone in Tulsk, Ireland bears the name Arnoulf and the date 1122.

Arnulf died sometime between 1118 and 1122. Some sources list him as having died without issue[1], although other sources list him as having left two daughters. 
de Montgomery, Arnulf (I5831)
 
94 Arnulf, also known as Aernout or Arnold succeeded his father in 988 as Count in Frisia. He was born in 951 in Ghent and because of this he is also known as Arnulf of Ghent. Arnulf was the son of Dirk II, Count of Holland and Hildegard, thought to be a daughter of Arnulf of Flanders.

Career

Arnulf is first mentioned (together with his parents) in 970. Like his father, his name appears in numerous Flemish documents at the time. In 983 Arnulf accompanied Emperor Otto II and future Emperor Otto III on their journey to Verona and Rome. As count he managed to expand his territories southwards. Arnulf donated several properties to Egmond Abbey, amongst others Hillegersberg (which was previously called Bergan, but renamed after Arnulf's mother) and Overschie, which may have been rewards for the land-clearing activities of the monks of Egmond.

Arnulf was the first count to come into conflict with the West-Frisians and in 993 he invaded their territory, but on 18 September of that year he was defeated and killed in a battle near Winkel in West-Friesland. His son Dirk was still a boy at this time, but Arnulf's widow Luitgard managed to retain the county for her son with support from first Emperor Otto III and later her brother-in-law, Emperor Henry II.

Family

In May 980 Arnulf married Lutgard of Luxemburg, a daughter of Siegfried, Count of Luxemburg. The couple had (at least) two sons; the future Count Dirk III and Siegfried (also known as Sicco). Arnulf, his wife and his sons were all buried at Egmond.

He also had a daughter, Adelina of Holland, who was married to Baldwin II, Count of Boulogne and Enguerrand I, Count of Ponthieu.

On 20 September 993 Liutgard donated her properties at Rugge to Saint Peter's abbey of Ghent for the soul of her husband. In June 1005 she made peace with the West-Frisians through mediation by Emperor Henry.
 
Arnulf Count of Holland (I3280)
 
95 At the time of the Norman conquest, Gospatric was lord of the area called Allerdale below Derwent (Lord of Carlisle and Allendale), which formed the fief of which Papcastle was caput, and stretched from the north of that river to the barony of Burgh by Sands. Around 1070 control of Allerdale passed to the Scots, who held the land as tenants of William the Conqueror. As a result around Nov 1072, being deprived of his post in government of Northumberland, he fled to Scotland, receiving from Malcolm III "Dunbar with the adjacent lands in Lothian".

Gospatric or Cospatric (from the Cumbric "Servant of Saint Patrick"), (died after 1073), was Earl of Northumbria, or of Bernicia, and later lord of sizable estates around Dunbar. While his ancestry is uncertain, his descendants held the Earldom of Dunbar, later known as the Earldom of March, in south-east Scotland until 1435.

Background

Gospatric is often said to have been a son of Maldred son of Crínán of Dunkeld. If this is correct, Maldred was apparently not the son of Crínán's known wife Bethóc, daughter of the Scots king Malcolm II, as Gospatric's descendants made no such claim when they submitted their pleadings in the Great Cause (though according to this link his descendant, Patrick the Seventh Earl of Dunbar, did indeed make a claim to the throne during these pleadings) to determine the succession to the kingship of the Scots after the death of Alexander III in 1286. Alternatively, rather than being descended from a half-brother of King Duncan I (Donnchad mac Crínáin), Gospatric may have been the youngest son of Earl Uchtred the Bold (died 1016). Another reconstruction would make Gospatric the grandson of Uchtred's discarded first wife, Ecgfritha, daughter of Aldhun, Bishop of Durham, through Sigrida, her daughter with Kilvert son of Ligulf. Whatever his parentage may have been, Gospatric was clearly an important figure in Northumbria and Cumbria, with ties to the family of Earl Uchtred.

The Life of Edward the Confessor, commissioned by Queen Edith, contains an account of the pilgrimage to Rome of Tostig Godwinson, Earl of Northumbria. It tells how a band of robbers attacked Tostig's party in Italy, seeking to kidnap the Earl. A certain Gospatric "was believed because of the luxury of his clothes and his physical appearance, which was indeed distinguished" to be Earl Tostig, and succeeded in deceiving the would-be kidnappers as to his identity until the real Earl was safely away from the scene. Whether this was the same Gospatric, or a kinsman of the same name, is unclear, but it is suggested that his presence in Tostig's party was as a hostage as much as a guest.

Harrying of the North

After his victory over Harold Godwinson at Hastings, William of Normandy appointed a certain Copsi or Copsig, a supporter of the late Earl Tostig, who had been exiled with his master in 1065, as Earl of Bernicia in the spring of 1067. Copsi was dead within five weeks, killed by Oswulf, grandson of Uchtred, who installed himself as Earl. Oswulf was killed in the autumn by bandits after less than six months as Earl. At this point, Gospatric, who had a plausible claim to the Earldom given the likelihood that he was related to Oswulf and Uchtred, offered King William a large amount of money to be given the Earldom of Bernicia. The King, who was in the process of raising heavy taxes, accepted.

In early 1068, a series of uprisings in England, along with foreign invasion, faced King William with a dire threat. Gospatric is found among the leaders of the uprising, along with Edgar Ætheling and Edwin, Earl of Mercia and his brother Morcar. This uprising soon collapsed, and William proceeded to dispossess many of the northern landowners and grant the lands to Norman incomers. For Gospatric, this meant the loss of his earldom to Robert Comine and exile in Scotland. King William's authority, apart from minor local troubles such as Hereward the Wake and Eadric the Wild, appeared to extend securely across England.

Gospatric joined the invading army of Danes, Scots, and Englishmen under Edgar the Aetheling in the next year. Though the army was defeated, he afterwards was able, from his possession of Bamburgh castle, to make terms with the conqueror, who left him undisturbed till 1072. The widespread destruction in Northumbria known as the Harrying of the North relates to this period.

Exile

In 1072 William the Conqueror stripped Gospatric of his Earldom of Northumbria, and he replaced him with Siward's son Waltheof, 1st Earl of Northampton.

Gospatric fled into exile in Scotland and not long afterwards went to Flanders. When he returned to Scotland he was granted the castle at "Dunbar and lands adjacent to it" and in the Merse by King Malcolm Canmore. This earldom without a name in the Scots-controlled northern part of Bernicia would later become the Earldom of Dunbar.

Gospatric did not long survive in exile according to Roger of Hoveden's chronicle:

"Not long after this, being reduced to extreme infirmity, he sent for Aldwin and Turgot, the monks, who at this time were living at Meilros, in poverty and contrite in spirit for the sake of Christ, and ended his life with a full confession of his sins, and great lamentations and penitence, at Ubbanford, which is also called Northam, and was buried in the porch of the church there."

He was the father of three sons, and a daughter named Uchtreda, who married Donnchad II of Alba, the son of King Malcolm Canmore.

The sons were:

Gospatric who was killed at the battle of the Standard in 1138 was his heir.

Dolfin, who seems to have received from Malcolm the government of Carlisle. Dolfin has also been identified with Dolfin de Bradeley and is believed to be the progenitor of the Bradley, Staveley, De Hebden, and Thoresby families.

Waltheof of Allerdale

Lord of Allerdale and Carlisle, he was born between 1040 and 1048. He probably visited Rome in 1061 in company with Tostig. He joined the Danes in an invasion of northern England, and after making peace with William I, he was entrusted with the government of Northumberland at Christmas 1067. In 1071, by order of William I, he escorted Walcher, recently consecrated Bishop, from York to Durham. However, he was deprived of his Northumberland post in Oct/Nov 1072, whence he fled to Scotland, where Malcolm III granted him Dunbar with the adjacent lands in Lothian. He is presumed to have died not long after, in about 1075. He appears to have left three sons, Gospatric, Waltheof, and Dolfin. The Complete Peerage identifies his wife as "sister of Edmund", the identity of said Edmund having baffled genealogists for centuries.
 
Gospatric I Earl Of Northumberland (I2343)
 
96 Aveline de Clare was the daughter of Roger de Clare, 2nd Earl of Hertford. She married Geoffrey fitz Piers, 3rd Earl of Essex, son of Piers de Lutegareshale and Maud de Mandeville, before 29 May 1205.
 
de Clare, Aveline (I2602)
 
97 Avero Publications, Biography Database, 1680-1830, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England: Avero Publications, 1998 Source (S137)
 
98 Ælfflæd (fl. early 10th century) was the second wife of Edward the Elder, king of the English.

Ælfflæd was the daughter of an ealdorman Æthelhelm. There were several contemporaries of this name, but some historians, including Pauline Stafford and David H. Kelley, have identified him as Æthelhelm, a son of Edward's uncle, King Ethelred I. Barbara Yorke rejected the idea, arguing that it does not appear to have been the practice for Æthelings (princes of the royal dynasty who were eligible to be king) to become ealdormen, that in a grant from King Alfred to Ealdorman Æthelhelm there is no reference to kinship between them, and that the hostile reception to King Eadwig's marriage to Ælfgifu, his third cousin once removed, shows that a marriage between Edward and his first cousin once removed would have been forbidden as incestuous.

Ælfflæd married King Edward, c. 901 and became the mother of two sons, Ælfweard of Wessex and Edwin, and six daughters.

Children

Sons

Ælfweard (perhaps ruled one month in 924)
Edwin (d. 933)

Daughters

Eadgifu, wife of Charles the Simple
Eadhild, wife of Duke Hugh the Great
Eadgyth, wife of Otto I
Ælfgifu (Adiva), wife of a continental nobleman
Eadflæd, nun
 
Ælflæd (I1495)
 
99 Ælfgar (died c. 1062) was son of Leofric, Earl of Mercia, by his well-known wife Godgifu (Lady Godiva). He succeeded to his father's title and responsibilities on the latter's death in 1057.

Ælfgar gained from the exile of Earl Godwin of Wessex and his sons in 1051. He was given the Earldom of East Anglia, which had been that of Harold, son of Godwin. Earl Godwin and King Edward were reconciled the following year, so Harold was restored to his earldom-but not for long. At Easter 1053 Godwin died, so Harold became Earl of Wessex, and the earldom of East Anglia returned to Ælfgar.

Ælfgar seems to have learned from the tactics Godwin used to put pressure on King Edward. When he was himself exiled in 1055, he raised a fleet of 18 ships in Ireland and then turned to Wales, where King Gruffydd agreed to join forces with him against King Edward. Two miles from Hereford, on 24 October, they clashed with the army of the Earl of Herefordshire, Ralph the Timid. The Earl and his men eventually took flight, and Gruffydd and Ælfgar pursued them, killing and wounding as they went, and enacting savage reprisals on Hereford. They despoiled and burnt the town, killing many of its citizens. King Edward ordered an army mustered and put Earl Harold in charge of it. This was more formidable opposition, and Ælfgar and Gruffydd fled to South Wales. However the issue was resolved by diplomacy and Earl Ælfgar was reinstated.

Ælfgar is known to have had at least four children. One son, Burgheard, predeceased his father, expiring while returning from Rome early in 1061 and was buried at Reims. This led Ælfgar to give to Reims Abbey lands in Staffordshire and Shropshire, which became the endowment for Lapley Priory. He was survived by three children, two sons, Edwin, later Earl of Mercia, and Morcar, later Earl of Northumbria, and a daughter Ealdgyth, who was first married to Welsh king Gruffydd ap Llywelyn and later to Harold Godwinson, King of England. 
Ælfgar Earl of Mercia (I2075)
 
100 Ælfgifu of York (fl. c. 970-1002) was the first wife of King Æthelred (r. 968-1016), by whom she bore many offspring, including Edmund Ironside. It is most probable that she was a daughter of Thored, earl of southern Northumbria.

Identity and background

Her name and paternity do not surface in the sources until sometime after the Conquest. The first to offer any information at all, Sulcard of Westminster (fl. 1080s), merely describes her as being “of very noble English stock” (ex nobilioribus Anglis), without naming her, while in in the early 12th century, William of Malmesbury has nothing to report. All primary evidence comes from two Anglo-Norman historians. John of Worcester, in a chronicle which is thought to rely on earlier material compiled c. 1100, tells that Æthelred's first wife was Ælfgifu, daughter of the nobleman Æthelberht (comes Agelberhtus) and the mother of Edmund, Æthelstan, Eadwig and Eadgyth. Writing in the 1150s, Ailred of Rievaulx had reason to identify Æthelred's first wife as a daughter of earl (comes) Thored and the mother of Edmund, though he supplies no name. Ailred had been seneschal at the court of King David I of Scotland (r. 1124-53), whose mother Margaret descended from King Æthelred and his first wife. Although his testimony is late, his proximity to the royal family may have given him access to genuine information.

Problem of fatherhood

These two accounts are irreconcilable at the point of ascribing two different fathers to Æthelred's first wife (in both cases, Edmund's mother). One way out of it would be to assume the existence of two different wives before the arrival of Queen Emma, Æthelred's Norman wife, although this interpretation presents difficulties of its own, especially as the sources envisage a single woman. Historians generally favour the view that John of Worcester was in error about the father's name, as Æthelberht's very existence is under suspicion: if Latin comes is to be interpreted as a gloss on the office of ealdorman, only two doubtful references to one or two duces (ealdormen) of this name can be put forward that would fit the description. All in all, the combined evidence suggests that Æthelred's first wife was Ælfgifu, the daughter of Earl Thored. This magnate is likely to have been the Thored who was a son of Gunnar and earl of (southern) Northumbria.

Marriage and offspring

Based largely on the careers of her sons, Ælfgifu's marriage has been dated approximately to the (mid-)980s. Considering Thored's authority as earl of York and apparently, the tenure of that office without royal appointment, the union would have signified an important step for the West-Saxon royal family by which it secured a foothold in the north. Such a politically weighty union would help explain the close connections maintained by Ælfgifu's eldest sons Edmund and Æthelstan with noble families based in the northern Danelaw.

The marriage produced six sons, all of whom were named after Æthelred's predecessors, and an unknown number of daughters. The eldest sons Æthelstan, Ecgberht, Eadred and Edmund first attest charters in 993, while the younger sons Eadwig and Edgar first make an appearance in them in 997 and 1001 respectively. Some of these sons seem to have spent part of their childhood in fosterage elsewhere, possibly with Æthelred's mother Ælfthryth.

The only ætheling to become king was Edmund Ironside, whose brief reign came to an end when Cnut won a series of victories and so conquered England (1016). Æthelred gave three of his daughters in marriage to ealdormen, presumably in order to secure the loyalties of his nobles and so to consolidate a defence system against Viking attacks.

Sons

Æthelstan (born before 993, d. 1014)
Ecgberht (born before 993, d. 1005)
Edmund (II) Ironside (born before 993, d. 1016)
Eadred (d. 1012 x 1015)
Eadwig (born before 997, exiled and killed 1017)
Edgar (born before 1001, d. 1012 x 1015)

Daughters

Eadgyth (born before 993), married Eadric Streona, ealdorman of Mercia.
Ælfgifu, married ealdorman Uhtred of Northumbria.
(possibly) Wulfhild, who married Ulfcytel (Snillingr) (d. 1016), apparently ealdorman of East Anglia.
possibly an unnamed daughter who married the Æthelstan who was killed fighting the Danes at the Battle of Ringmere in 1010. He is called Æthelred's aðum, meaning either son-in-law or brother-in-law. Ann Williams, however, argues that the latter meaning is the appropriate one and refers to Æthelstan as being Ælfgifu's brother.
possibly unnamed daughter, who became abbess of Wherwell.

Life and death

Unlike her mother-in-law, Ælfthryth, Ælfgifu was not anointed queen and never signed charters. She did, however, make at least some impression on the contemporary record. In a will issued between 975/980 and 987, the thegn Beorhtric and his wife bequeathed to their “lady” (hlæfdige) an armlet worth 30 gold mancuses and a stallion, calling upon her authority to oversee the implementation of the arrangements set out by will. In a will of later date (AD 990 x 1001), in which she is addressed as “my lady” (mire hlæfdian), the noblewoman Æthelgifu promised a bequest of 30 mancuses of gold. Just as little is known of Ælfgifu's life, so the precise date and circumstances of her death cannot be recovered. In any event, she appears to have died by 1002, possibly in childbirth, when Æthelred took to wife Emma, daughter of Count Richard of Rouen, who received or adopted her predecessor's Anglo-Saxon name, Ælfgifu.
 
of York, Ælfgifu (I3207)
 

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