Isabel de Warenne, Countess of Surrey

Isabel de Warenne, 4th Countess of Surrey (c. 1137 – 12 July 1203) was an English peer. She was the only surviving heir of William de Warenne, 3rd Earl of Surrey, and his wife, Adela, the daughter of William III of Ponthieu.[1][2]

Life

She was the great-granddaughter of the first Norman earl, William, and his Flemish wife Gundred.[2] When her father died in the Holy Land about 1148 she inherited the earldom of Surrey and was married in around 1153 to William of Blois, the younger son of King Stephen, who became earl in her right.[1][2] The marriage occurred at a critical moment in The Anarchy as part of the king's attempt to control the de Warenne lands.

The couple did not have any children and after William's death in 1159, King Henry II's younger brother, William FitzEmpress, sought her hand in 1162/3, but Thomas Becket refused a dispensation from affinity on the grounds of consanguinity. In April 1164, the countess married Hamelin of Anjou, a natural half-brother of King Henry, who became jure uxoris Earl of Surrey. The countess lived an unusually long life, dying at the age of 66.[2]

Family

She and William of Blois had no children.[1] Isabelle and her second husband Hamelin had four surviving children:

• William, later 5th Earl of Surrey (1166–1240)[3]
• Ela (born c. 1170, date of death unknown), married first Robert of Naburn and secondly William FitzWilliam of Sprotborough.[4]
• Isabel, married first Robert de Lacy and secondly Gilbert de l'Aigle, Lord of Pevensey.[4]
• Matilda, married first Henry, Count of Eu and Lord of Hastings[5] and secondly Henry de Stuteville.[4]

Ancestry

Ancestors of Isabel de Warenne, Countess of Surrey

16. Rodulf de Warenne 8. William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey 17. Emma 4. William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey 18. Gerbod (II) of Oosterzele-Scheldewindeke, Advocate of Saint-Bertin 9. Gundred, Countess of Surrey 2. William de Warenne, 3rd Earl of Surrey 20. Henry I of France 10. Hugh I, Count of Vermandois 21. Anne of Kiev 5. Elizabeth of Vermandois, Countess of Leicester 22. Herbert IV, Count of Vermandois 11. Adelaide, Countess of Vermandois 23. Adele of Valois 1. Isabel de Warenne 24. Roger de Montgomerie, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury 12. Robert of Bellême, 3rd Earl of Shrewsbury 25. Mabel de Bellême 6. William III, Count of Ponthieu 26. Guy I, Count of Ponthieu 13. Agnes, Countess of Ponthieu 27. Ada d'Amiens 3. Adela (or Ela) of Ponthieu 28. Henry of Burgundy 14. Odo I, Duke of Burgundy 7. Helie of Burgundy 30. William I, Count of Burgundy 15. Sibylla of Burgundy, Duchess of Burgundy 31. Stephanie

References

1. G. E. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, Vol. XII/1 (London" The St. Catherine Press, 1953), p. 498.
2. Elisabeth van Houts, "The Warenne View of the Past 1066–1203", Anglo-Norman Studies XXVI, Proceedings of the Battle Conference 2003, ed. John Gillingham (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2004), p. 103.
3. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, Vol. XII/1 (1953), pp. 500–503.
4. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, Vol. XII/1 (1953) p. 500, n. (g).
5. The Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, Vol. 9, Yorkshire Archaeological Society (Bradbury, Agnew and Co., 1886), 300.