William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey
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William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey, (died 1088) was one of the Norman aristocrats who fought at the Battle of Hastings and became great landowners in England.
He was a son of Ralph de Warenne and Emma and a grandnephew of duchess Gunnor, wife of duke Richard I of Normandy. As a young man he helped secure duke William's hold on Normandy, most notably in the campaigns of 1052 through 1054 which culminated in the Battle of Mortemer. After this battle Roger de Mortemer forfeited most of his lands, and the duke gave them to William. The de Warenne surname derives from the castle of that name on the River Varenne, which flows through the territory William acquired in Upper Normandy.
William was one of the nobles who advised duke William when the decision to invade England was being considered. He fought at Hastings, and afterwards received the Rape of Lewes in Sussex, and subsequently lands in twelve other shires. In addition to the cluster around Lewes, there were clusters around the castles he built at Castle Acre in Norfolk and Conisbrough in Yorkshire. By the time of the Domesday survey he was one of the wealthiest landholders in England.
William was loyal to William II, and it was probably after the rebellion of 1088 that he was created Earl of Surrey. He died shortly afterwards of wounds he received while helping suppress the rebellion.
He married twice, first to Gundred (Latin: Gundrada), sister of Gerbod, Earl of Chester, and secondly to a sister of Richard Gouet. William and Gundred had three children: William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey (d. 1138); Edith de Warenne who married Gerard de Gournay; and Reynold de Warenne, who inherited lands from his mother in Flanders and died before 1118.
It was at one time thought that Gundred was a daughter of William the Conqueror and his wife Matilda of Flanders. This was disproved in the 19th Century but nevertheless remains in many faulty genealogies. William and Gundred were married around 1070, when her brother Frederick was killed by Hereward the Wake. [edit]
References
- Victoria Chandler, "Gundrada de Warenne and the Victorian Gentleman-Scholars", Southern History 12 (1990) 68
- Edward A. Freeman, "The Parentage of Gundrada, Wife of William of Warren", English Historical Review 3 (1888) 680-701
- C. P. Lewis, "The Earldom of Surrey and the Date of Domesday Book", Historical Research 63 (1990)
- Notes on the family of Gerbod, Earl of Chester, and of Gundred, wife of William de Warenne, Earl of Surrey (http://www.medievalgenealogy.org.uk/families/gundred/gunindex.shtml)
- William Warenne (http://genealogy.patp.us/warenne.shm), reprinted from the 1917 Dictionary of National Biographyde:William de Warenne, 1. Earl of Surrey