 
### Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

Chapter One: THE CONQUEROR'S LIEUTENANT

Chapter Two: THE WALL OF SHIELDS

Chapter Three:: FROM VIKING BLOOD DESCENDED

Chapter Four: THE TRAITOR

Chapter Five: THE CRUSADER

Chapter Six: THE COUNTESS AND THE PRINCE

Chapter Seven: THE PRICE OF LOYALTY

Chapter Eight: THE KING'S LIEUTENANT

Chapter Nine: A KNIGHT ERRANT

Chapter Ten: THE END OF THE BEGINNING

Epilogue: THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN EARLS AND THEIR LEGACY

Selected Bibliography
Introduction

This is the true, untold story of the Warenne family, an obscure line of the Norman nobility who went on to become one of the richest, most powerful dynasties not only in English history, but in the history of the world.

While growing up, I had heard vague rumours that my mother's family had links to the aristocracy of feudalistic Britain, and in the haze of my youthful imagination -obsessed as I was by Arthurian legends- I pictured my ancient ancestors as people something along the lines of the benign and ever-elevated heroes I had read about in Knightly myths of quest and daring.

Given the nature of life, it should not have surprised me, as I researched this project, to find that that was a simplistic view, and that in reality my kin were actually a bunch of murdering, pillaging, raping and looting thugs. This fact has certainly made my studies far more interesting... But then those were the times, turbulent and violent as they were, and I have always been against the notion of white-washing history in order to make it more palatable to a modern sensibility. Besides, had my relatives not asserted themselves as ruthlessly as they did, they would surely have remained peaceable farmers, and would never have risen to the heights of glory, fame and fortune they eventually attained, and thus been uninteresting to read about.

This narrative begins with the story of William de Warenne, a Godfather-like figure, who threw in his lot with William the Conqueror in 1066 during the fateful invasion of England as one of his most trusted commanders, and who then went on to become the earl of Surrey -the first step in the founding of an important dynasty- and to amass one of the greatest fortunes ever!

In generations and centuries to come, Warenne's sons and grandsons would make their own marks upon the era by participating in some of the most pivotal events in medieval history, such as the Crusades, the signing of the Magna Carta, and the supression of the Scottish under Edward I, where they played a role on both sides of the conflict.

It seems that no matter where one looks, during the four-hundred year reign of the Plantagenets, the Warennes were always there: as loyal companions and advisors to the Kings and Queens, and sometimes even as traitors to the crown (though they were always forgiven in the end); and they were there for every charter, victory, or political upset, not to mention the fact that out of their great fortune they founded many churches and cathedrals, such as the ones at Lewes and Salisbury. Eventually, the Warenne's became so powerful they were able to give birth to kings of their own, and thus to help shape the destinyies of Britain, Scotland, Wales and France.

This then, is their story: the story of one family's ruthless drive for wealth, status, fame, glory, and the hunger for power and the will to forge a nation out of the ashes of the old, conquered Anglo-Saxon world they inherited with their swords. And it is not a merely personal project that will be of interest only to those curious about their own geneology, for it tells not only of one family, but of many of the most important events that shaped the United Kingdom into what it is today...
Chapter One:

The Conqueror's Lieutenant

In the year 1066 a whirlwind is about to descend upon England: The Normans!

Born of Viking blood, the Normans of West Francia (France) were a mixed race by the tenth century AD. Less than two-hundred years before they had come from Denmark and Norway in their longships to raid, loot and pillage the coastal towns and villages of Europe and England. They even made it as far as Paris by way of the Seine River, which they desisted from sacking and putting to the torch only because they were paid in tens of thousands of pounds of silver as a form of bribery. They always came back again though, and not only for booty, but because these were such temptingly rich and fertile lands when compared to the harsh climates they had come from.

One such ruthless warrior was called Rollo 'the walker', thus named because he was apparently so large no horse could carry him. Rollo spent his early years like any good Viking, raiding and killing far from home, but eventually decided he would rather settle down in these warmer climbs, and somehow managed to convince King Charles 'the Simple' of West Francia, to let him and his men settle permanently on the very land they had earlier run rampant over.

Fearing more Viking raids, European Kings of the time had had to decentralize their own power. They could not fend off the invaders and be everywhere at once with their armies, and so they appointed sub-rulers, called Lords, or Barons, to govern these territorial units. Naturally, with time, these barons came more and more to see these principalities as their own, and this is how Anjou, Flanders, Burgundy, and of course Normandy, essentially broke off to become their own separate mini kingdoms. The irony is that it so happened that the best people to fight off further incursions of Norsemen, or Vikings, were the Vikings themselves, and this was achieved by giving them a stake in the land.

Within a remarkably short period, the Vikings had settled down, taken local wives, and even consented to convert to Christianity (there was some dismay by the locals when many Vikings were found to have been baptized several times each -because they received a new white linen garment as a sign of their spiritual rebirth. It is clear though that they had not become completely domesticated, as they still continued to fight among themselves for land and wealth, only on their own soil now, and not so far afield as before. They also proved to be the King's most unruly vassals.

Two centuries later, somewhere between the years 1030-35 AD, my ancestor William de Warenne was born. He was the son of a nobleman, Ranulph II, and his wife Beatrice, who was a niece of Rollo's grandson, Richard I of Normandy. Young Warenne would have enjoyed a comfortable life by the standards of the time, there within the stone walls of his family's castle, and would have learned early on the various diversions this fertile land had to offer those of noble birth, such as hunting, hawking, and feasting.

Besides such activities, these Viking descendants, now called the Normans, were obsessed with their horses, and had bred them into large warhorses, bigger and more fearsome than any other breeds in Europe at that time. With these mighty steeds under them, they had devised a whole new way of waging war, their tactics depending largely upon devastating cavalry charges which were capable of breaking up enemy infantry and sowing confusion, panic, and fear against any they took to the field against.

Warenne would have practically lived on horseback throughout his youth, and trained with the various types of weaponry, such as shield, sword and spear, toughening his body to the hardships of war and learning to bear the weight of heavy armor. Upon reaching twenty years of age he would have been knighted, receiving blows to his ears, administered by a knight, along with a sword and spurs -symbols of his entrance into the sacred brotherhood. Such things put Warenne above and beyond the average peasantry of the time, and ensured he would always live a life of privilege and plenty.

And yet, always in the back of his mind, he would have been more than aware that upon his father's death, it would be his brother, Radulph III, who would receive all lands, money and titles belonging to his family, and not himself. The laws of Primogeniture at the time were strict, and only a first son would inherit, and then that man's first son, should he have one. A second son, such as Warenne, had to go out and seek his own fame and fortune, and secure his own legacy, or else be put into the position of having to depend upon his older brother for a job and allowance.

This harsh reality drove many second and third sons off to try their luck elsewhere, and the traditional way of doing this was to ally oneself with a Lord who was particularily skilled not only at winning battles, but who also knew how to reward his fellow men-at-arms for their proven loyalty and usefulness on his campaigns.

Just such a Lord young Warenne found in Duke William, later called King William the Conqueror. The Duke was a great-great-great grandson of Rollo, and was related to Warenne by way of their mother's line, as Duke William's great grandmother Gunnora and Warenne's great grandmother Wevia de Crepon had been sisters, who themselves had been the granddaughters of the Danish or Norwegian nobles Gunhilde Olafsdatter and her Frankish husband Herfastus de Crepon. Now in his twenties, Duke William was determined to gain a stranglehold on Normandy in order to secure power over his fellow barons, and would have been happy to receive his blood relation into the fold as he set out to achieve this goal.

After participating in several decisive and victorious battles, such as at Arques, Val-`es-Dunes, and Mortemer, which occured in the 1050's, Warenne had by now proven his loyalty to the Duke, who by 1060 had achieved his intention of bringing all Normandy under his personal control. The rewards to Warenne would have been great, and he would have been able to bask in the security of knowing that he had backed a winner. But there was also a price to pay for such powerful patronage, as he now owed his Lord service in battle for forty days out of the year, and also had to help raise funds and men for any expedition his Duke should undertake, no matter how risky the venture seemed.

After about six years of relative peace, just such a situation arose in 1066, when across the sea, the King of England, Edward the Confessor, a first cousin once-removed from the Duke, died. Immediately, William insisted it was he who was owed the British crown as the King had promised it to him. However, he was not the only contender, and Harold Godwinson, an advisor and general of Edward, claimed the throne for himself. Duke William countered that Harold had sworn an oath on holy relics before him that he would not try to hinder William's claim, and so on...

The Duke was livid at Harold's betrayal, feeling that his birthright had been snatched from his hands, though just how legitimate his claim to the throne was is still debated. In any case, he determined to set sail for England with an invasion force as soon as possible in order to take what was his. Shortly after, he called a meeting of his advisors, an assembly known to us as the Council of Lillebonne. The Duke's half-brothers Robert and Odo, and the Bishop of Bayeux were there, as was William de Warenne, Warenne's cousin Walter Giffard, and his uncle Roger de Beaumont, with a total of at least thirteen lords of Normandy present in all.

It is unlikely there would have been much dissention among the assembled nobles as to the planned invasion, beyond the usual grumblings of men being asked to risk their lives and fortunes upon a very risky venture, as the Duke by now had them all very firmly under his control. These men would also no doubt have been tempted by the spoils, prestige and titles that would await them if they were indeed successful, and this might have been just the thing that Warenne had been waiting for all his life: A conquest that would make him not only totally independent of his family, but also wealthy and powerful, and the shaper of his own destiny.

Duke William's call for help in his quest yielded over two-thousand Knights, as well as six-thousand foot soldiers. Many of these men came because they owed loyalty to William, but many more were mercenaries, troops from Flanders and Burgundy who were either conscripted or paid freelancers who went from battle to battle seeking their fortunes. There was light infantry made up of archers, and slingers, and heavy infantry, men expert at wielding axes and spears: Everything from fresh-faced recruits to battle-scarred veterans, and by that summer Warenne had joined the long line of soldiers winding its way to the coast.

By August, a great fleet had been assembled, well over five-hundred ships in all, many of them paid for by Roger de Beaumont, Warenne's uncle. Roger was too old by this time to join in the fighting, but showed his loyalty with this generous and essential endowment to the campaign, and it is likely that Warenne would also have contributed in this way as well. We can imagine what he must have felt upon seeing such a naval assembly for the first time as it harboured on the shores of France. Normans were not swimmers, nor sailors even, despite their Viking heritage, and he would no doubt have looked out over the seventy miles of English channel with some trepidation, knowing as he did that if the ship should sink under him there would be little chance of rescue, or even the possibility of saving himself.

Warenne would also have heard of the men who lived in England, fearsome Anglo-Saxon warriors who would be fighting on their home soil and who would be far more familiar with the terrain. There was also the question of just who they would be fighting, as Harold Hardrada, the Viking King, had also laid claim to the British crown, and if he had managed to steal a march on the Normans and defeat the Anglo-Saxons first, then Warenne and his fellow warriors might be up against a Viking army. Even in the best of all scenarios, the Normans only really faced small odds of victory, and nothing was assured, though he must have felt some confidence when thinking about the advantage garnered by the large warhorses that only his own army possessed.

But an even more pressing concern was that once the army had marched to the shore of the Somme River, from where the invasion was to be launched, gale-strength winds blew in straight against them. There was no chance they would make it across the channel in such weather, and so until it cleared, they would be grounded. Boredom then became their greatest enemy, as they waited six full weeks for the weather to finally clear. In the meantime, they had had to feed and shelter an army of eight-thousand men and thousands of horses. But in this way Duke William already had an advantage over Harold Godwinson, for he had planned intelligently, and had a well-oiled logistical machine in motion that kept everything in order while they waited.

Little did the Duke know that the Anglo-Saxons had been ready for him on their shores, waiting for him to cross so they could do battle with him as soon as he landed. But then disaster stuck the English army, as news reached them that King Harold Hardrada of Norway had landed to their north, and was looting and pillaging as he drew more and more inland. To Harold Godwinson, the only option was to turn his army about and march north to meet the very real Viking threat. It was now late in the campaigning season, the weather had been bad, and the British King highly doubted whether the Normans would risk a channel crossing in such conditions.

But in this he underestimated Norman resolve, for by September 27, when the winds had died down sufficiently, Duke William ordered his troops to board their ships. Men and horses clattered aboard the unfamiliar and unsteady open-boats. By nightfall, men and horses had assembled on the light, sturdy crafts that were all but indistinquishable from the very same ships their Viking ancestors had used. A beacon of light shone upon the prow of the Duke's flagship, a guide for all who followed. Two centuries earlier these longships had brought terror to England's shores, and now, under a blanket of night, the terror was returning.

There must have been no small amount of fear for the Normans as well, though, and Warenne must have felt it on this voyage, as it is unlikely that either he nor any of his companions would have ever undertaken any similiar trip before, and all this in complete darkness. We can imagine him praying fervently within himself, while trying not to appear too frightened in front of the men he was to command, especially when the fleet was momentarily lost in a thick blanket of fog. The horses whinied and stamped in their fright, and men would have groaned with the labor of pulling the large wooden oars that sent the ships slicing through the waters.

Fair winds followed the Normans, and they landed on England's shores at Pevensey Bay, soon after dawn. So far, their luck was holding, and there was no one to meet them but a few circling seagulls. King Harold was still fighting off the Vikings, but William took no chances, and set his men to establishing a defensive fort made from materials brought with them from France, and scavenging the local countryside for food. But the Duke had no intention of sitting idle, and soon began a campaign of terror in the local villages of Sussex, pillaging and burning everything in order to hasten Harold Godwinson's return from his clash with the Vikings. It was in the Duke's interest to fight a definitive battle with the man whom he saw as the usurper of the throne so that he could take the crown for himself...
Chapter Two:

The Wall of Shields

It is called the Battle of Hastings, and has come to be regarded as one of the most important and decisive battles in history; important because it completely transformed England, moving it away from an Anglo-Saxon/Scandinavian culture to a Norman one. Under Norman rule, everything was to be transformed, from the architectural style of castles, churches and palaces, to the laws of the land, to the art, music, type of government, military fighting styles as well as the places of higher learning.

On the fateful day, October 14, 1066, above the channel cliffs, William de Warenne made his way with the other troops toward the village of Hastings. By now he would have known that the Anglo-Saxon army, commanded by Harold Godwinson, was assembled nearby, and that very soon a battle would ensue. He would most likely have been confident in the abilities of his Duke, whom he had fought successfully under before, but might have wondered if this time they had bitten off just a little more than they could chew. Afterall, they were strangers in a strange land, and Duke William had insisted that his ships be burned -a way of ensuring that his troops didn't get cold feet at the last minute and try to beat a hasty retreat back to Normany. The message was clear: They had to fight it out and win, or death or capture would be their fate.

An army on the march in those days was a disorganized and ponderous convoy, made up of donkeys, oxen and packhorses, who dragged carts with the noblemen's supplies, while the infantry had to carry everything they owned with them. They had to walk for miles over poor roads, which turned to quagmires in the rain. Lacking any sense of cohesion, an army would have been a calamity for the local countryside, as men looted and ransacked anything they came to. For a longer campaign, such as this, a knight like Warenne would have needed assistance, several horses to carry his shield, spears, and armor, and would have brought along some groom boys to look after his horses, as well as one or more foot soldiers to stand guard over his belongings. Such a group of men came to be called a lance, or banner.

Contrary to popular belief, Warenne would not have worn his armor as he rode toward the place of battle, and would not have put it on until he came within three miles or so of where the enemy awaited them. The suit of chainmail he wore, as a mounted cavalryman, would have been heavy, about thirty pounds, and that plus the weight of his helmet, spear, sword and kite-shaped shield would mean that fully geared-up for battle he would be carrying an extra sixty pounds of equipment. Even the fittest of men would have tired quickly wearing that much extra weight.

One of the most important weapons a knight like Warenne would have had would be his sword, for a sword, unlike a spear, was made to last, and could be handed down from generation to generation. In these times it came to take on an almost mystical significance, due in part to the veneration of the sword that played a part in Viking culture (from which Warenne descended) but also added to by the fact that it was in the shape of a cross. But the strongest weapon of all he would have had, would have been his faith, his faith that God was on his side, and that if his armor did fail, then at least he would gain a heavenly existence in the hereafter. It is likely that many of the men would have worn saints' relics around their necks as added protection, and would have seen their goal of conquest in the light of a divine mission of sorts.

As they got closer and closer to Hastings, where the enemy awaited them, Duke William called a halt at Blackhorse Hill, on the Hastings to London road, where they put on their armor and were blessed by a priest. Young squires would have been knighted, as a way of boosting morale, and with their papal banner raised aloft, given to them by the Pope himself, who had blessed Duke William's venture, the troops must have been confident.

As the Norman horses mounted the final rise, Warenne would have seen the Anglo-Saxon army, which slightly outnumbered his own army, not half a mile away. The English stood, shoulder to shoulder, assembled on a hill, which looked out over a shallow valley, about six to eight thousand strong. The line of troops was six-hundred yards in length and ten to twelve men deep. Harold Godwinson stood just a hundred yards behind his army, surrounded by his personal bodyguards, who were called the Husecarls. They were tired, having just fought off another invasion by the Vikings only three weeks before, and had spent days marching to reach this spot, and yet they were also brimming with confidence, as thus far they had been victorious. When they saw the approaching Normans, the English screamed and shouted at the top of their lungs, and banged on their shields with their weapons in a savage rhythm. In their hands they wielded battle axes with four foot handles and twelve-inch blades that were capable of cleaving a man in two.

Duke William and his commanders, Warenne among them, assembled their men into position on a slight ridge, called Senlac Hill, just 137 metres from the enemy. His horsemen waited at the rear, in three separate divisions, with the cavalry from Brittany under the command of Alan of Brittany on the left, the Flemish cavalry on the right under the command of Count Eustace of Boulogne, and the Norman horsemen in the middle, under both the Papal banner and his own Norman Leopard standards. Making up the long thin front ranks were the archers and crossbowmen, and just behind them were the heavy infantry, who were also armed with chainmail and wielded double-edged swords, as well as maces and spears. These men would have been concerned to see that the enemy had the advantage of the high-ground, and the thought of running up the side of the hill to attack would have been daunting. They remained professional though, and took their time checking and re-checking their weapons and armor to see that everything was ready.

It was a fine, clear day, with only a few clouds, and little chance of rain. The conditions were ideal for a battle, though the defenders would have preferred some bad weather which would have delayed the fight and given them time to erect some proper defences. At 9 AM The Normans struck the first blow, firing swarms of arrows to try to break up the English formations just as the infantry advanced slowly up the slope of Senlac Ridge. (The archers used longbows, not quite six feet high, slinging their arrows at their waist or over their shoulders, and fired not from the ear but from the body). But the arrows were easily repulsed by the solid shield wall the English had made, assembled by interlocking their shields together into a solid mass, so that nothing could get through. The Anglo-Saxon archers had still not arrived to the battle yet, and so the response to this attack was feeble.

After launching an infantry attack which was easily repulsed by the English, Duke William then unleashed his cavalry, though it was his mercenaries whom he sent forward first, and not his fellow Normans whom he would have been saving till last. They charged into the fray, rescuing their fleeing Breton comrades from slaughter by cutting down any Anglo-Saxons who gave chase, and then returned to their ranks to regroup. Duke William led the second cavalry charge himself at 11:00 AM, likely followed by Warenne, and my ancestor would have known that this was the moment all of his previous training had led up to, and that this was his chance to prove his valour. But as they went, the ground was slippery, having been trampled to mud. It was slow-going up the hill, their horses tired by the time they reached the top, but they persisted, and either jabbed with their spears (both under-hand and over-hand) to try to penetrate the enemy wall, or else hurled their spears up and over the shields, attempting to hit the men beyond.

This was a titanic clash between new European tactics and old-fashioned Scandinavian tactics, and the sound of shouts, screams and clanging metal would have been deafening. The English were no doubt terrified of the horse charges, which they would never have seen before, and one can imagine the sight of hundreds of mounted knights charging straight toward one. These were no ordinary horses, for they had been taught not only to brave the harshest of battle conditions, but to actively trample upon anyone unlucky enough to be caught under their hoofs. But the English fought on bravely, and pelted their harrassers with spears, axes, and stones tied to long pieces of wood. The Norman attack was unsucessful, and they were forced to concede the strength of the enemy shield wall, as well as the fearsomeness of their foe, and so returned down the hill for a brief respite.

For the English warriors, their main objective was to see to it that nothing got through their wall of shields, not an arrow, nor spear, and certainly not a horseman, for once the wall was breached it could very well be like a house of cards coming down, and everyone inside the wall of protection could be slaughtered at will by the enemy. Therefore, they packed themselves in very tightly, so tightly that even the dead had no room to fall, and instantly plugged up any gaps left by men in the front lines. This was a particularily Viking way of fighting, something the English had learned over the centuries in the many skirmaches and battles they had fought against their Scandinavian foes.

By 1 AM, the Norman forces were tiring considerably, but their commander Eustace rallied them with the Papal banner when they turned to flee, and admonished them to fight on. At this point in the battle Duke William had had his Spanish charger killed from underneath him, and was now fighting on foot. A rumour spread that he had been killed, but he got a new steed, and rode back and forth amongst his men, and even raised his helmet so they could see his face. Apparently he said: 'I live, and with God's help, we will conquer yet!'

In such battles the tactics could not be other than crude, as the heads of the army, in this case, Duke William and his commanders, were most often fighting alongside their troops, and therefore had little overall understanding of what was even happening in a wider sense. Besides, it often proved impossible for even the most charismatic leader to hold back his eager young knights from charging pell-mell into battle, thirsty as they were for individual glory. Success in battle was not so much to be measured in grand strategic moves, as it is today, and in forces working together, but was seen as an opportunity for men of arms to distinguish themselves, even if it meant ultimate defeat. The fact that William and his leaders were able to initiate any kind of tactical directives at all is something of a miracle, and a mark of the Duke's genius for war.

Like all important Norman knights Warenne would have had his own flag, so that should his men become separated in battle they could rally to their leader and standard. Usually, they would charge five men in a row, standing knee to knee in their stirrups, with lances levelled. But this day, facing an unyeilding mass of shields, they used a different technique, and instead attacked one by one, hurling their lances, and then wheeling away. Warenne would also have used his double-edged sword, utilizing a downward-cutting blow onto the heads of the enemy, which could slice straight through a metal helmet.

But by mid-afternoon, neither side had really won an advantage, though in reality, this meant that Duke William was losing, as it was up to him to win decisively. All the English had to do was to hold out and they would win. Both sides fell back to lick their wounds. As the battle progressed, Duke William began to rely more and more upon the archers, as their barbed arrows inflicted a steadily rising number of English casualties.

When the battle really got started again, Norman trickery came into play. One of the Duke's favourite tactics, something he had used before against his enemies in France, was to send forward infantrymen to attack a shield wall, and then have them feign a retreat. As soon as the Normans turned to run, thousands of Anglo-Saxons could not resist the temptation of giving pursuit to cut them down. But as they broke ranks, that is when the Norman cavalry, Warenne most likely among them, came in to trample down the defenceless pursuers. He would have held his spear on the left side of his horse's head, where he had the added protection of a shield, but could also suddenly switch to the right side if he wished it. The force of a spear held by a mounted man could pierce shields, armor and bone quite easily, and the rider sometimes had to struggle to stay mounted due to the force of the impact.

Time and again this strategy was used, and time and again the English fell for it, until there were huge gaping holes in the shield wall. And yet still it stood, with the banner of the Golden Dragon of Wessex, and the King's own standard of the Fighting Man still held aloft. It was then that the Duke ordered his archers, who by now had been moved to the rear of his troops -as all forces now advanced slowly up the hill in a final all-out assault- to fire beyond the remaining shields and directly into the enemy. From this nearness the archers could get a better angle and far more accuracy for their shots. By 4 PM a breach had been made in the shield wall, and for the next hour-and-a-half Norman infantry and cavalry poured through the gap, engaging in deadly hand-to-hand combat with the English.

It is possible that an arrow pierced the eye of Harold Godwinson, or so the legend tells, though more likely he was killed by a specially arranged team of four men -helped by twenty knights who created a distraction- whose sole task was to hunt down and kill the enemy King. Harold's slain body was mutilated and his head cut off, and so the battle ended. In those days, if a leader was killed, most often that signalled the end of a battle, because the pay came from the commander, and also the loyalty of the men went to the leader. If he was killed they would not necessarily have been rewarded for their efforts, and the whole point of the battle -to see who would sit on the English throne- would have been rendered a moot point.

On the field, the dead and the dying lay, some too weak to move. After the fighting wound down, the fallen would have been stripped of their valuables, and the loot divided amongst the victors. Commoners and horses would have been quickly buried in mass graves, to avoid pestilence, while noblemens' bodies would have been carted home or buried at the nearest church or abbey. Men who had fought on the losing side would have simply returned home to their fields and their work, and would most often not have caused further problems to their conquerors. As for the wounded, they would have been left in the care of physicians, most often a fate worse than death in those times.

England now belonged to the Normans, though there would be many more battles over the next five years to truly consolidate their power over the country. By the end of the day England's future was uncertain, but the bravery and loyalty of Warenne and his fellow nobles had been exemplary, and would not be overlooked by the now victorious King William of England.
Chapter Three:

From Viking Blood Descended

William de Warenne's career was more than meteoric. He started out life as second son of an obscure Norman nobleman, and had risen through the ranks of King William's army to become one of the richest men in one of the richest lands in Europe (his fortune today would stand in access of 147 billion dollars, making him the 13th richest person in human history, according to a 2012 survey) but he was also the founder of a dynasty which, powerful, wealthy and influential, survived until 1347.

As mentioned previously, he descended from noble Viking stock, both from Denmark and Norway, intermingled with the blood of the local French of Normandy. His immediate ancestors were the de Crepons and the de Bolbecs. Geoffrey de Bolbec married Beatrice, and they had Osbert de Bolbec, who became the husband of Wevia, who was William de Warenne's great grandmother. Gunnora, great grandmother of King William the Conqueror, was sister to Wevia, Sainfrada, Herfastus de Crepon, and Duvelina (who became mother of Humphrey de Vielles, who went on to found the famous House of Beaumont).

The de Crepon family held sway in western Normandy, and they were very rich. The story of how Gunnora became the Duchess of Normandy is as follows: One day, as Duke Richard the First (the Conqueror's great grandfather) was out hunting, he spotted the beautiful Sainfrada, and ordered her to his bed. But Sainfrada was married, and so used some subterfuge to trick the Duke, and instead sent her unmarried sister Gunnora in her place. Richard was so pleased with Gunnora that they ended up marrying and having six children together.

The first mention that is made of the Warrene name is Radulph I de Warenne, William's grandfather. Radulph took this name from the River Varenne, which flows through Upper Normandy (which is now in a place called Bellencombre) and is also the name of the castle where young Warenne would have lived in while growing up. The 'de' simply means 'of' Warenne, the region one came from or ruled.

As loyal adherent to Duke William, Warenne had played a major role in the Battle of Mortemer, in Febuary, 1054, for which he was rewarded with lands confiscated from his father's brother, Roger de Mortemer, including Castle Mortemer and most of the surrounding lands. At the same time, he was given the castle he had grown up in, and which had until then belonged to his father, and was promised to his older brother Radulph III. It is entirely plausable to believe these lands had been confiscated by Duke William as punishment to Warenne's father and brother for having stood against him, and this is certainly the case with regards to Roger de Mortemer, who had forfeited his lands after the Battle of Mortemer, which was the usual penalty for having stood against a victorious Duke.

Presumably, Warenne had few moral scruples about casting his kin out of their homes and stealing their fortunes and titles once he got the chance. It is said that he and his brother fought with each other for possession of the Castle Warenne (Bellencombre), and while it is clear that Warenne won out in the end, the details of this struggle are not known. We can easily imagine that having grown up as a second son, and thus being entitled to inherit nothing, it must have been a sweet, if cruel satisfation for him to claim himself lord and master of lands and wealth far exceeding that which he would have lawfully inherited from his father.

After the victorious Battle of Hastings in 1066, Warenne emerged as one of the most important of King William's top men, if we are to judge by the size of the reward he received. He was given the rich landholdings of the Rape of Lewes, in Sussex, several manors in Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex, and also the manor of Conisborough in Yorkshire, and Castle Acre in Norfolk. All in all, he was able to get about 150 landholdings, making him one of the most powerful men in the country. So extensive were these grants of land that his possessions were more like those of a King or Prince than of a subject.

He also enjoyed the highest confidence of King William, who, in 1067, left him in England to support his Vice-Regents, William FitzOsbern, and the King's half-brother Odo the Bishop of Bayeax, while he himself went back to Normandy. King William then appointed him as Joint Justice General with Richard de Benefactis for administering the law throughout the whole realm. While he held this office, there was a rebellion, now called the Revolt of the Earls, and these rebels, men from Breton who had fought at Hastings, Ralph de Gael, Earl of Norfolk, and Roger de Breteuil, Earl of Hereford, were the ringleaders.

After being banned from intermarrying their two families, they rebelled against King William, and refused to appear before Warenne and his colleague in obedience to a citation. In retaliation, Warenne joined an armed expedition to bring the rebels to heel, helped to defeat them at the River Severn, and for the purpose of striking terror into anyone reckless enough to challenge his authority, or that of the King, decided to make an example of the Earl's soldiers, and so cut off the right foot of each of the prisoners. The Earls, meanwhile, were stripped of their titles and lands and sent to prison.

Some time in the late 1070's Warenne married a woman named Gundred. It has been said that she was the sister of Gerbod the Fleming, 1st Earl of Chester, and Frederick, both men who had fought with Warenne during the Battle of Hastings. They had come from one of the most prominant families of Barons in Flanders, and held the Lordships of Oosterzele, Sheldewindeke, Arques, and St. Omer. Gerbod was created the Earl of Chester in 1070 as a reward for his loyal service to King William, while his brother Frederick was made tenant-in-chief of East Anglia.

However, Sir George Duckett, in his excellent treaties on the subject of Gundred's parentage, argues persuasively that Gundred was actually the first daughter of King William, the Conqueror. For a thousand years this was taken as fact, and there is plenty of proof to substantiate his claim, a view shared by much of the scholarly community. It is also entirely logical that King William should further reward he who had served him so loyally by binding their families even closer in kinship than they already were. And yet, in my own mind I tend to favour the idea that she was of Flemish origin, as there are later referrences to Flemish lands in her possession, as well as other clues. It is only possible at this time to say that we don't really know...

The story of Gundred's mother Matilda, if she was indeed the daughter of the Conqueror, is an interesting one, and well worth relating. Matilda was of very high noble French blood, being the daughter of a Duke and Granddaughter of a King, and when William the Conqueror, a bastard, proposed marriage to her, she is said to have refused his offer with contempt. Her rebuttal enraged William, and he rode all the way to Bruges where she lived, entered her home, dragged her into the street by her long braids, while she kicked and screamed all the way, and then beat her in front of her father and servants, and then rode off. Contrary to dissauding her further though, this violent act apparenty had the effect of exciting Matilda, and she consented to the marriage on the grounds that anyone bold enough to do such a thing deserved her hand.

Both Warenne and Gundred seem to have been a very pious couple, even for the time, and sometime between 1078 and 1082 they went on a pilgrimage to Rome, visiting monestaries along the way. Unfortunately, they only got as far as Burgandy, because of a war that was going on between Emperor Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII. They visited Cluny Abbey and were very impressed by the monks and their dedication. When they returned home they decided to found a cluniac priory on their own lands in England. Warenne restored buildings for an abbey and then sent word to Hugh, the abbot of Cluny, to send monks to come live at their monastery. At first Hugh was reluctant, but he sent several monks, including Lazlo, who was to be the first abbot. The house they founded was Lewes Priory, the first Cluniac priory in England.

In 1070-1, four to five years after the initial invasion of England, there were still rebellions going on against Norman rule, especially in the north. The most formidable opponent the French faced was a man called Hereward the Wake, whose name translates roughly to 'watchful army guard.' Hereward had been an Anglo-Saxon noble who's brother had been killed by the invaders, and he had sworn revenge. He joined a small rebellious army led by Morcar, a Saxon, and former Earl of Northumbria, who had been ousted by King William. William sent an army to deal with the rebels, who retreated back to their stonghold at the Isle of Ely. Apparently, Warenne had a personal grudge against Hereward, who is said to have killed his brother-in-law Frederick, unseating him from his horse with a single bow shot. (This may be just a story, and it is not certain they were even related, though it is possible they could have been close, since they'd both fought at Hastings together).

After arriving at Ely, the Normans made a frontal assault, aided by a mile-long timber causeway over the marshlands surrounding the island, but it sank under the weight of all their men and horses. Then someone came up with the bright idea of building a tower of wood and having a witch call out curses at the enemy in an attempt to intimidate the defenders. Hereward supposedly toppled the tower with the witch in it. Then someone with a much more practical approach decided to bribe the monks of the island to reveal the safe passage across the marshes, resulting in Ely's capture. Hereward managed to escape, but the rebellion was effectively crushed.

During the period 1083-1086 the siege of the castle at Saint-Suzanne took place, and again Warenne was in on the action, defending his King. Hubert de Beaumont, a relation of both Warenne and the King, led another rebellion, this time in Normandy, against King William, who was still just a Duke in his homeland. This seems to have been yet another attempt by the French barons to free themselves from the rule of William, whom they might have felt had been weakened in Normandy due to his concerns over his new kingdom in England. In this they were mistaken though, as William attacked them with all his usual zeal, setting up a huge military camp on the outskirts of town, and utilizing Roman earthworks in the area to protect his troops.

Initially, he left Alan Rufus in command of the siege for the first three years, until 1085, but then turned over leadership to another Breton who was eventually killed. Also killed in the action was Richer d'Aigle, son in law of Richard le Goz, Viscount of Avranches, who had provided 60 ships for the invasion of England. Richer was killed with an arrow to the eye, and Warenne and he must have been close, as Warenne, wanting to take revenge for the death, launched an attack of his own in January of 1086 which failed. He was accompanied in this battle by Richer's son, and another of Warenne's cousins, Baron Gilbert II, Count of Brionne, whose hair was said to stand up like a pine tree, and Baudrey II de Guitry.

Siege warfare at this time was an extremely brutal affair, with the attackers trying to starve the defenders out of their castle. They set up defensive earthen walls around the castle, called circumvallations, as well as a second line called the contravallation, which covered their backs so they could not be attacked from behind. Once these defenses were constructed, usually out of earth and wooden stakes, the enemy would not be able to get in or out. The attackers then proceeded, usually in fits and starts, to bombard the stone walls of the castle with large rocks from their trebuchets and catapults, and to scale them with long ladders. It was also common to send miners and sappers to burrow underneath the walls so that fires could be started which would effectively burn the wooden supports that held the walls up, thus collapsing them.

At the military camp there would have been an army of blacksmiths and carpenters, who would have been employed to build the siege equipment, as well as soldiers, who helped in the construction of the machines, and also in foraging the nearby countryside for food and water when not fighting. They might also have employed battering rams, for smashing down the front gate of the castle, and siege towers, if the terrain allowed it, which were large wooden structures that were surrounded by a protective layer of animal hides. These towers allowed troops to move closer to the castle while remaining protected from arrows, and to scale the walls. None of these methods seems to have been effective in this case though, as the defense was a success, and King William, having received many losses of brave knights, eventually sued for peace, and even restored Hubert de Beaumont, the leader of the rebellion, to favour.

The ultimate outcome of this siege may seem strange to a modern reader, to have fought a harsh battle for this long and then to simply let the rebels off the hook, but in those times such things were not unusual, for complete victory was not always the goal, especially when noblemen were fighting one another. They had a very keen sense of chivalry and an aristocratic code of conduct, though it only applied to men of their own rank of course. The objective more often than not was to simply bring one of their wayward cousins back into line, and if this could be achieved with the minimum loss of blood and treasure, than so much the better.

Between 1083-85 Warenne was fighting for the King in Maine, and sometime after Easter, in April of 1088, Warenne was made an earl, the Earl of Surrey and Warenne, by William Rufus, the new King. The Conqueror had died just the year before, which must have been a sad occasion for Warenne, though he went right on serving William's son just as loyally. This title was a great honour, and one which held much distinction at the time. In the ranks of nobles there were -from least to most important- Barons, Viscounts, Earls/Counts, then Marquess, and finally Duke, which was just a notch beneath a King. He may have been astounded at having risen so high in the nobility, for he'd started out as the second son of a minor nobleman, and was now one of the richest, most powerful men in the world.

Warenne was getting old though, and must have felt it at times. His wife Gundred had died three years before, on May 27, in childbirth, and though he had remarried to his second young wife, a sister of Richard Guet, one of his subordinate landholders, he must have understood there was no turning back the clock. He was then a man well-on in his fifties, fairly old for the time to be chasing about after adventure, and yet in that year he participated in the First Siege of Pevensey Castle, in Sussex, his own county.

Back in 1066, this was the castle King William had used as a fort when marching to Hastings. It had been useful as a place of protection while he regrouped his forces. After the conquest, he granted it to his half-brother Robert, the Count of Mortaine. The castle had originally been a Roman fort, which had been added to and rebuilt over the centuries. It was oval in shape, and followed the contours of the gound it had been built upon. Robert had erected his castle in the south-east corner of the fort, and built walls that were 20-30 feet high, and 10 feet thick. It was surrounded by water and marshes, and had a cluster of towers from which archers could rain down arrows. It was so well defended it would prove hard to capture.

William the Conqueror had divided his lands between his three sons, William Rufus, Henry (later Henry I), and Robert, Duke of Normandy. This decision, probably made in an effort to be fair, was not popular with his magnates, who preferred to serve one lord only. Both Robert of Mortain and his brother Odo of Bayeux rebelled against the rule of William Rufus, now King of England. Instead, they supported Robert, Rufus's brother, and wanted him on the throne. The two rebels took refuge together at Pevensey during a siege which lasted six weeks, and which was personally overseen by both the King and Warenne. Count Robert of Normandy tried to support Robert and Odo by sending a fleet, but William Rufus made sure all the ports were well guarded. Robert of Normandy had to admit defeat, and withdrew his support for the rebels, who only gave up when they ran out of food.

Twenty-two years after the Battle of Hastings, Warenne was still loyally serving the Royal line that had helped elevate him to his current status and wealth, and it was sometime during the siege of Pevensey that he fell. It is not known how he was wounded, but it was a fatal blow, and he died some days later, on June 24, 1088, at his home in Lewes, Sussex. He was a potent Lord, had built the castle of Holt, and founded a priory. His life had been one of daring, boldness, opportunism, brutality, and naked ambition. He had cast in his lot with King William, and reaped magnificent rewards, and even managed to die the death of a glorious warrior.

There is a tale about his death which is no doubt fiction, but is worth telling nevertheless, as it illustrates how he was viewed by some of his contemporaries. Apparently, after the Battle of Ely, Warenne violently stole some lands from the monks of that district. The abbot of the monastery admonished Warenne repeatedly, but to no effect, and Warenne made no restitution of any kind for what he had unlawfully taken. On the night that Warenne died, the abbot had a dream that the earl's soul cried out 'Lord have mercy on me!' as he was dragged off by the devil to hell. Four days later Warenne's widow sent a messenger carrying 100 shillings for the good of the earl's soul, but the monks refused to take money from a damned person.

He was survived by his second wife, and children, William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey, Edith de Warenne (1075-1125), who married firstly, in 1091, Gerardde Gourney, Lord of Gourney-en-Bray, (1066-1104) who later fought with William Rufus in 1090 against Duke Robert of Normandy, and then later with Robert, going on crusade together in 1096, and dying while on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Secondly, she married Drew III de Monchy (1080-). Then there was Reynold de Warenne, second son of Warenne, who inherited lands from his mother in Flanders, and an unnamed daughter who married Ernice de Coulances.

Warenne was buried beside the body of his first wife Gundred at the Chapter House of Lewes Priory, the place they had built together.
Chapter Four:

The Traitor

While William de Warenne, the 1st Earl of Surrey, had been a loyal adherent of the King, faithfully serving the Crown and being richly rewarded in return, his first son, William De Warenne, the 2nd Earl of Surrey, was not nearly so trustworthy.

Henry I, William the Conqueror's fourth son, took the crown from his brother William II (William Rufus) in the year 1100. When Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy, and first son of William the Conqueror, decided to invade England in 1101 to overthrow his younger brother Henry, Warenne not only gladly joined in, but was said to have been one of the men who had incited Robert to consider an invasion in the first place. It is hard to imagine that the Duke and he were close friends though, as they had fought against each other ten years earlier in January, 1091, when Warenne assisted Hugh of Grantmesnil (who had fought with Warenne's father at Hastings) in his defence of Courcy in north-eastern France against the forces of Duke Robert and Robert de Belleme, the Count of Shrewsbury and Ponthieu, who was known as 'Robert the Devil' for his cruel and malicious ways.

Hugh was defending his lands against Robert and Belleme, and made a stand with his friend Richard de Courcy at the Castle of Courcy, as Belleme laid siege to them. Belleme did not have enough troops to surround the castle, so he set about building a wooden siege engine, a great tower which could be rolled up to the castle walls. Every time the tower was rolled forward though, Hugh sent troops out to attack different parts of his enemy's lines.

A comedy of errors was played out, as the two sides began to fight over a giant bread oven which had been built midway between the main gate and Belleme's siege tower. The Courcy defenders would rush forward and surround the oven, while a team of bakers set to work making bread for their starving army. Meanwhile, Belleme's men rushed forward to try to capture the oven, or to at least make off with armfuls of the fresh bread.

Since both sides desperately wanted the oven, they poured more and more troops into the fray, causing an all-out war which only ended with the Courcy defenders burning the great siege engine. It was then that Duke Robert joined in the fight, and it looked as though everything was over for Warenne and De Grandmesnil. But then at the last moment King William Rufus arrived with fresh troops to save the day, and Dukes Robert and Bellesme were forced to simply pack up and go home.

Unfortunately for Warenne, Duke Robert, along with his nephew William, the Count of Mortaine (son of the same Count who rebelled against William Rufus at Pevensey Castle) and Robert of Belleme, didn't put up much of a fight during the 1101 invasion of England in which Warenne participated, and Duke Robert promptly surrendered to his brother, the King. For having helped his cousin with this expedition, Warenne's punishment was to have his lands and titles in England stripped from him, and to be exiled to Normandy by Henry I.

Part of the reason he had wanted to participate in this revolt in the first place may have had to do with the fact that the magnates, of whom Warenne was one, saw Robert as having a weaker character than William, and so thought that he would be easier for them to control and circumvent. There was always the worry in those times that the King would get too much control, and that this would limit the barons' own power. Likewise, a King was always suspicious of his subordinates, wondering when they might rise up in revolt against him (which they usually did).

But Warenne may have also been at least partly motivated by revenge. In 1093, he had wanted to marry Matilda, daughter of King Malcolm III of Scotland, but instead, she married William, and this made Warenne dislike the King very much, and so he made fun of the King for his love of hunting, calling him 'Hart's foot.' Not only had Matilda been a great catch because of her royal blood, but she was also later very nearly made a saint, and was called 'Matilda the Good Queen,' which was hardly a bad recommendation of her character.

Once the two failed usurpers were back in Normandy, Warenne complained bitterly to Duke Robert that he had expended much effort on the his behalf, and lost all his lands and titles in England -things hard won by his father- on account of their failed expedition. Duke Robert, apparently a good friend, returned to England to plead with his brother the King to let Warenne have his English lands and titles restored. They were, though the price the King demanded was that Duke Robert himself must forfeit the 3000 mark annual pension he had been receiving. A friend indeed!.. But from the moment Warenne got his lands and titles back, he seems to have been on the best of terms with the King, and was considered a trusted friend.

King Henry further ensured Warenne's continued loyalty by considering marrying him to one of his illigitimate daughters (He seems to have been quite virile, as he had 15 such illigitimate daughters with which to secure alliances, along with 9 illigitimate sons and 3 legitimate children). This union never took place however, due to the fact that Archbishop Anselm of Canterbury forbade the marriage based on the fact that the couple was related in the 4th generation on one side, and in the 6th on the other. This seems to support the idea that the Warennes and the King's family were not joined through Gundred, first wife of William de Warenne I, and daughter of the Conqueror.

For this next act of generosity on the king's part, Warenne now pledged his allegiance to Henry, and took up arms against his old ally Robert, Duke of Normandy. (This flip-flopping of loyalties may seem strange to us now, but in those times most Knights did this kind of a thing on a regular basis, pledging their support to whomever would help them to advance their careers the most. (It seems that the louder they proclaimed their undying loyalty, the more ready they were to act as turn-coats).

Warenne was one of the commanders at Henry's side during the Battle of Tinchebray on September 28, 1106. After invading Normandy, Henry took Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives, near Falaise. The King then turned south and besieged Tinchebray Castle, on a hill above the town. Tinchebray is on the border of the county of Mortaine, in the south-west of Normandy. William, Count of Mortaine, who was one of the only Norman barons still loyal to Duke Robert, held the castle. Robert brought his own forces to break the siege by attacking the besiegers, and felt an open battle would be his best option.

King Henry's army was organized into three groups. Ranulph of Bayeux, Robert de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Leicester, and William de Warenne, commanded the two primary forces. That these three men were all cousins is interesting to note, as well as the fact that Beaumont was current husband to Warenne's future wife, Isabella, while Robert's son later married Warenne's daughter.

A reserve force was commanded by Elias I of Maine, and he remained out of sight on the flank, ready to be called into action. Alan IV, Duke of Brittany, William, Count of Evreux, Ralph de Tosny, Robert de Montfort and Robert III de Grandmesil (son of Hugh, whom Warenne had fought beside in 1091) all sided with Henry. Fighting for Count Robert Curthose of Normandy were William, Count of Mortaine, and Robert de Belleme 'The Devil' of the Courcy siege.

The battle lasted a mere hour (though this would still have been a considerable amount of time if one considers the grueling nature of medieval combat). Henry dismounted his Knights (an unusual move for a Norman) and let his infantry play a decisive role. William, Count of Evreux, charged the front line with men from Bayeux, Avranches and the Cotentin. Henry's reserve force proved victorious though, and most of Robert's army was killed or captured. Robert de Belleme, commanding Robert's rearguard, led the retreat, thus saving himself from defeat or capture. Most of the captives were later released, except for Duke Robert and William Mortaine, who spent the rest of their lives in jail.

But the battles were far from over.

Duke Robert had a son named William Clito, who in 1111 was about 7 or 8 years old. Henry had originally wanted to show that he was compassionate, and so had placed the boy under the care of Helias of Saint-Saens, Count of Arques. This had backfired though, when young Clito started to become the focal point for anyone wishing to resist Henry's rule. It was supposed that Clito would one day grow up to challenge Henry for the Lordship of Normandy, and even the Kingship of England. It was then that Clito was hunted down ruthlessly, and in that year Henry ordered Robert de Beauchamp, Viscount of Arques, to capture his nephew.

The plot failed however, and Helias Saint-Saens managed to whisk Clito away to the court of Baldwin VII, Count of Flanders, where they received sanctuary. Meanwhile, Beauchamp seized the castle of Saint-Saens, and held it for King Henry, who cleverly gave it as a bribe to his cousin Warenne, who would of course never support the return of William Clito, or any claims to the throne he might have, as that would mean giving up the new lands and castle he had just acquired.

Nine years later Clito was all grown up, and had joined King Louis VI 'The Fat' of France who had been trying to steal Henry's lands in Normandy. All this culminated in the Battle of Bremule in 1119, in which Warenne took part, and he is said to have encouraged the King to engage in personal combat. In this clash, Henry decisively defeated the French, receiving only 3 casualties on his own side despite much fierce fighting. After the battle, the barons' rebellion was effectively crippled, and William Clito lost his claim to the duchy, though King Louis still supported him.

As mentioned earlier, William's attempt to marry a royal bride had failed, but in the year 1118 he at last fulfilled his wish. Elizabeth of Vermandois was everything a noble of the time could have hoped for, and more. She was the daughter of Hugh and Adelaide of Vermandois, and granddaughter of Olaf, King of Sweden, and represented both the Capetian line of her paternal grandfather, Henry I, King of France, and the Carolingian ancestry of her maternal Grandfather Herbert V of Vermandois. Her blood went back all the way to King Clovis and Charlemagne, as well as every King of France since, and on top of that, she was also very beautiful.

She had also been married to Robert de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Leicester, a cousin of Warenne's, who had fought beside his father at the Battle of Hastings, and had fought beside Warenne himself at Tinchebray. Robert had married his young bride when she was only eleven and he was over fifty at the time. This was not the problem then that it would be today, as even though the two were already related, Elizabeth's father Hugh, who was shortly to set out on crusade, was the one who managed to convince the Pope that the marriage should go ahead, despite the close relationship.

It is said that Warenne and Elizabeth had a passionate affair when she was still married to Robert, who was by then a very old man, and who was also the last surviving companion of the Battle of Hastings. Apparently it was Warenne who did the seducing, and when Earl Robert died, the couple married very shortly thereafter. It was these two marriages that led to the Warennes and the Beaumonts, who had before been cousins, to become even more closely related, as Warenne's and Elizabeth's son's and daughters would now be half-brothers and sisters with the Beaumont's whom she had given birth to, of which there were eight.

In 1135, in Lions, King Henry I ate far too much food and fell seriously ill, whether by food-poisoning, intentional poisoning, or some other cause we do not know. He gave confession and then summoned his magnates of the royal court, Warenne amongst them, to his bedside, and he died on December 1st, 1135. His corpse was accompanied by the barons to Rouen, where it was buried. As always happens when a monarch passes, everyone around him scrambled either to find a replacement or to become that replacement. Henry's daughter, Matilda, who was married to Geoffrey of Anjou, was no exception to this rule, and had been trying to get support for herself and Geoffrey for some time, even before Henry died, but there was not much enthusiasm from the magnates for this couple to succeed to the throne.

After the King's death, Matilda and Geoffrey were in Anjou to support those barons (Robert of Gloucester at the lead) who had rebelled in support of them against the royal army. Most of the other nobles, though, were in favour of naming Theobald of Blois, who was a son of Adela -another sister of Henry I- to be King. Theobald's younger brother, Stephen of Blois, stole the march on everyone however, when he quickly crossed the channel to England and seized the crown for himself. Matilda did not give up her claim, and this sparked a war between the two rival powers which was to throw Britain into anarchy for the next eighteen years.

After the death of the Henry, Warenne was sent to Rouen, which is the capital city of Normandy, and the Pay de Caux, which lies along the coast. He had been elected the governor of these districts by the chief men of the duchy, and his task was to stand guard. But whether he sided with Matilda and Geoffrey, or with Stephen, is unknown, and the fact that his son later supported Stephen gives us little indication either way, as loyalties shifted so easily. It is likely that he supported Stephen though, since he is recorded as having witnessed a charter of liberties by King Stephen in Oxford. It was only much later, after Stephen had been captured and imprisoned, that most of the Norman barons switched their loyalties to Matilda, owing to the fact that they feared their lands in England and Normandy being confiscated by the Crown, and so wished to be on good terms with her.

Warenne, like his father before him, was a great donor to the church, and was mentioned as having given generously to Longueville Priory in Rouen, and to the priory of Bellencombre, and his sons and daughters were witnesses to many of these charters. He is recorded as dying on May 11, 1138, at the age of 66, in the register of Lewes Priory where he was buried at his father's feet in the Chapter house there.

This is appropriate, as it seems as though the two men had much in common. They were both highly opportunistic, ruthless, and hungry for lands and wealth. None of the things that Warenne did seem to have been out of step with the times he lived in; he just seems to have been an extreme example of a knight, and a highly successful one, even if he did not always back the right horse. Altogether, he was a gambler playing for very high stakes, just like his father, just like most noblemen of the time, and seems to have come out on top most of the time.

His wife Elizabeth survived him until July, 1147. They left behind them three sons and two daughters:

William de Warenne, 3rd Earl of Surrey.

Reginald de Warenne, who inherited his father's property in upper Normandy, including the castles of Bellencombre and Mortemer. He later married Alice de Wormegay, daughter of William de Wormegay, and heiress of Combe castle, in 1133 when his bride was just 13. They had a son, William de Warenne, founder of the Priory of Wormegay, whose daughter and sole heir Beatrice de Warenne, married firstly Doun, Lord Bardolf, and secondly Hubert de burgh. Reginald also had two daughters, Ada and Gundred, who married William de Courcy, second son of William de Courcy. Reginald was one of the persecutors of Archbishop Thomas Becket in 1170, and also tried to counsel King Henry II and Becket to resolve the differences that had sprung up between them concerning who should influence church policy, though these attempts came to nothing. He served as one of the four main justices to King Henry II and was a baron of the exchequer and Sheriff of Sussex. He retired from public life to become a monk, and died in great debt. He was known as the 'fixer' of the Warenne family.

Ralph de Warenne.

Gundred de Warenne, who married firstly, Roger de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Warwick, who was her half-brother, and secondly, William de Lancaster, Lord of Kendal (who is most remembered for having expelled King Stephen's garrison from Warwick castle.

Ada de Warenne, who married Henry of Scotland, 3rd Earl of Huntington, and who was the mother of two Scottish Kings. She never became Queen, as Henry died in 1152, a year before the death of King David I, his father. David recognized Ada's son William as his heir though. William became the longest reigning King of Scotland. He married Ermengarde de Beaumont, granddaughter of Henry I of England, by his illigitimate daughter Constance. They had two daughters and a son, Alexander II in 1224. Ada's and Henry's third son, David, Earl of Huntington, married Matilda of Chester and their daughter was mother to Robert the Bruce, and it is through them that both Robert the Bruce and John Balliol claimed the Scots crown in the 1290's. Ada played no part in politics after her husband died, and instead retired to her dower lands at Huddington and East Lothian, and made many donations to Lewes Priory.
Chapter Five:

The Crusader

By now the Warenne family was firmly established in England, and yet events that were unfolding both in Normandy and in Britain would challenge the authority that William, the 3rd Earl of Surrey, had inherited from his father and grandfather.

Born in 1119, by 1137 he was still in his minority, while his father had only one more year to live. At this time there was great turmoil in the empire, as Matilda, who had been the wife of Henry I, son of William the Conqeror, and then Geoffrey of Anjou, a Norman nobleman, battled against King Stephen, a grandson of the Conqueror, for possession of the English throne. Generally, the Norman Lords, young Warenne included, came out in favour of Stephen, and fought by his side. It appears, however, that Warenne was neither as brave nor as loyal as he might have been, and Stephen himself had to pursue both him and some other lords who had fled the scene of battle to try to pursuade them to rejoin his cause, though he did not force them to fight.

A year later, in 1138, Warenne became the 3rd Earl of Surrey following his father's death, and this must have been a heady experience for him, as he came into his riches and title at the age of 19, a time when most young men wish to be acknowleged as men in their own right, and not just as shadows of their father. He did not lay idle in his responsibilities, and by that Easter, accompanied his half-brother Waleran de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Worchester, his mother's son, on an embassy trip to Paris for the purpose of ratifying a treaty between the English and French kings. It could not have hurt their prospects of success for their mission that both men were the great-grandsons of King Henry I of France through their mother's line.

By February 2, 1141, Warenne and his half-brother Waleran were again fighting by Stephen's side in his seemingly never-ending quest to keep the throne for himself, this time at the Battle of Lincoln. Almost comically, both Warenne and Waleran again fled the field at the first charge of the enemy, and immediately joined Matilda's army. However, when Stephen, who had been captured by Matilda's forces, managed to escape prison, the two faithful followers once again rallied to their king's side. Warenne even witnessed a royal charter at Canterbury in 1141, which was the handing over of authority, or special rights, to one of the King's loyal subjects. As this was something only trusted advisors were able to do, one presumes that, almost miraculously, all was forgiven. Waleran, meanwhile, married Stephen's daughter the Countess of Boulogne, another great honor, though the marriage did not last due to the fact that she died when she was only four years old.

Warenne did not forget his duties to the church either, something that had been near and dear to both his parents and grandparents, and witnessed numerous charters with his brother Ralph between the years 1130 and 1138. He donated great sums to Longueville Priory near Rouen in Normandy, and also with his brother and parents donated to the priory of Bellencombre, also near Rouen in 1135. He was also a primary donor in a number of charters after his father died, between 1138 and 1147, and one donation that was especially important occured during a livery of Seisen, a ceremony that involved a landholder literally handing over his deeds of land possession to another while witnesses looked on. At that event, Warenne gave a large gift to Lewes Priory, which was secured with a lock of his own and his brother Ralph's hair, cut by the Bishop of Winchester, Henry of Blois, who was a grandson of William the Conqueror and brother of King Stephen, and was also the richest man in England during this time. The ritual was performed before the alter of the priory church, which Warenne's grandparents William and Gundrada had founded in 1081.

William married Adela, daughter of Count William of Ponthieu, who was son of Robert of Belleme (Robert 'The Devil') whom the 2nd Earl of Surrey had earlier fought against, and by his wife, daughter of Odo I, Duke of Burgundy, who had taken part in the crusade of 1101. They had one child and sole-heiress, a daughter, Isabel de Warenne, the 4th Countess of Surrey.

In 1146, Warenne was again in France, at the church of Vezaly, with Waleran and his cousin, King Louis VII of France. Louis had arranged with the Pope for the fiery preacher Bernard of Clairvaux to speak about the Second Crusade which was being planned. They knew that only he had the power to incite others to join their great expedition to liberate the Holy Land, and he did not disappoint, as thousands of Knights, clergy and members of the lower classes took up vows that very day, Warenne and Waleran included. Bernard's persuasive powers were so great and his appeals so touching that Eleanor of Aquitaine, wife of King Louis and the future wife of King Henry II (who would soon usurp the English throne) also took vows which she fulfilled. Those present prostrated themselves at the feet of Bernard, and took up the pilgrim's cross, which they sewed onto their clothing and wore thereafter as a sign of their dedication to go crusading.

The reasons for the crusades in the first place had been to protect the many pilgrims who made the long journey to the Holy Land to do penance for their sins. By taking up this long and dangerous journey, they were able to atone for all they had done wrong, and even secure a place in heaven. But Seljuk Turks had in the meantime conquered Byzantine and Arab territories, including Palestine in the late 11th century. Christian pilgrims were ransomed, imprisoned, arrested and even sold as slaves by the Turks. Young Crusader Knights could not only fulfill their Christian obligations by protecting the Holy Shrines from the hands of the pagans, but could also get rich through captured plunder. The opportunities open to wealthy noblemen were the same as they had been at the Battle of Hastings seventy years before; the chance to make a name for oneself, and by and large the First Crusade was successful in that secure bases were established throughout the Holy Land. They did not have many men who wished to stay in this harsh climate though, and so had to make do with building fortified points. These castles were built on the Byzantine model, with regular crenelated walls and flanking towers, and they were used not only for defence but also as logistical bases to store food, water and forage.

What had brought this new crisis about was the fall of the county of Edessa, a Crusader state, to the Turks, which had been established as a Christian haven in the Middle-East during the First Crusade in 1095-1099. The mission of these western warriors was to fight a holy war against pagans, and to reestablish their presence in the Holy Land. The reward for those who fell in battle was eternal life. The warrior would be regarded by his peers as a defender of the faith, and his activities were blessed by the church. As an instrument of Catholic policy, the crusades were meant to contain the threat of a militant Turkish empire, while religiously they were intended to reconquer the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, but also to repulse the enemies of the faith in Spain and to evangelize the pagans in northeastern Europe. The Crusades also provided a useful outlet for the agressive energies of young adventurous knights, who were intent upon gaining wealth and power by any means, even if that meant running rampant over their own homeland. Politically, the Crusades represented a backlash of Christianity against recent Islamic conquests; the Byzantines wanted help from Europe to expand and secure their frontiers, while the Papacy and the German emperor wanted to bring some sort of unity to Christianity under their leadership.

The young knights set out the next year, and in December 1147 the French-Norman force reached Ephesus, an ancient Greek city which was now ruled by the Turks. They were joined by the remnants of the army of the Holy Roman Empire, which had previously suffered losses at the Battle of Dorylaeum. They marched across southwest Turkey and fought an unsuccessful battle at Laodicea, a place of ancient Roman ruins, on 3-4 January on the border between the Byzantine Empire and the Sultanate of Rum, a part of Turkey.

One can only imagine the burning heat and thirst and the outbreaks of illness that would have occured amongst the ranks of these men who were used only to the cool climbs of Europe and England. And surely for many of them their motivation was not just greed but also true devotion to their mission. The overall picture of the crusades was characterized by countless skirmashes, raids, and general hooliganism on the part of the western knights, while on the Muslim side, this fighting against the invaders was in addition to the almost constant tribal warfare between various Islamic chieftains.

Warenne fought at the Battle of Mount Cadmus while the crusader army was marching across Anatolia, or Turkey, on their way to the Holy Land. The Turks had ambushed the infantry and non-combatants only, because they had become separated from the rest of the army. The vanguard, led by Geoffrey de Rancon, was recklessy placed too far ahead of the army. King Louis VII who was protected by his bodyguard of Knights Templar (a military order of monks who were essentially the policemen of Palestine) ignored this obvious blunder in tactics, and preceeded with confidence. They were convinced their comrades held the heights in front of them, though they did not. When the Templars and the Norman and French noblemen spotted the Turks, they recklessly charged ahead without a second thought. Their ranks would have positively bristled with lances as they galloped toward the enemy, their weapons held in their right hands and their shields and reins in the left. Their armor would not have been much different from that of the Battle of Hastings: conical helmets with nasal guard, quilted tunics; knee-length metal hauberks with large, kite-shaped shields.

Battles between the Franks and the Turks were like that of a bull and a matador. When the bull (The Franks) struck home, it was devastating, as they had heavier armor and were better at fighting. But the Turks were well skilled at evasive techniques, and were able to dissapate the force of the blow by effectively dispersing. Their favoured trick was to let the Knights penetrate their ranks and then close in about them, thus sealing them within a deadly trap. Weighted down as they were, western Knights were not used to this sort of tactical subterfuge, nor the Turks unwillingness to engage in pitched battle, preferring instead to fire arrows at the Knights from above, and then to fleeng in a sort of guerilla type of warfare.

The surviving Knights retreated to a narrow gorge, bordered on one side with precipices, and crags on the other. Horses, men and baggage were forced into the abyss. Most of the Knights were killed, Warenne included, either in the initial attack, or in the gorge. King Louis barely escaped with his life, after scrambling up the side of a slope to rejoin the vanguard. Meanwile, Warenne's half-brother Waleran, who was joint leader of Anglo-Norman forces, lived and returned to build an abbey in thanksgiving for having survived both the battle, and then a shipwreck on the coast of Provence while on his homeward journey.

The overall effect of the Second Crusade was of complete failure. Many of the knights never even made it to the Holy Land, and of those who did, their forces were far too disorganized to really accomplish anything concrete. They carried with them not only great religious fervour, but also many of the frictions from back home, and their forces were almost always inadequate to the task at hand. They followed the feudal system that they knew, in which the barons travelled with their retinues, while levies of freemen formed the infantry, buffered by city militia, who were often not well trained or equipped, and mercenary forces, who were notoriously unreliable.

The writing seemed to be on the wall from the beginning. Many sieges were made in their time abroad, but after the failure of the siege against Damascus, the survivors quarrelled amongst themselves one final time and then turned about and returned to Europe in 1148.

It would now be up to young Isabel, only ten years old, to carry on the family line.
Chapter Six:

The Countess and the Prince

Over the next decade the Warenne family was to achieve even greater heights of glory than it had known before, despite the fact that appearances seemed, at first, to suggest otherwise. After all, young Isabel's father had just been killed in his noble but futile quest while on crusade, and the entire fate of the dynasty lay within the hands of a small girl who had just inherited the title of Countess of Warenne in 1148, the same year her father had died. As if this were not enough, King Stephen was attempting to control the Warenne family lands, in other words, to steal them for himself. With the death of the earl, he no doubt spotted a weakness which he wished to exploit. Everything would depend upon whom she chose to marry, which would either gain the family power and influence enough to hold on to their fortune, or else set themselves upon a course of destruction.

Naturally there was no shortage of suitors for the hand of the young Isabel, who had now become one of the richest people in all of England, though of course marriage negotiations would have been worked out by the elder members of the family hierarchy, who no doubt kept a keen eye out for who the richest and most powerful suitor would be.

Around 1153 she married William of Blois, the younger son of King Stephen, and for the moment, this solved everyone's problems very diplomatically, as it assured the continued survival of the Warenne line and name, and allowed all other Warennes to retain the royal favour, while also giving King Stephen the control he wished to exert over the vast estates owned by the family. Such a compromise prevented a war and kept the Warennes, by now a very powerful force, as useful and loyal subjects of the crown. As an added benefit, the Warennes would now be able to comingle their blood once again with royalty, which could only add to their prestige, while the royal house would take up a new and illustrious title, that of Warenne.

Unfortunately, the marriage bore no fruit, and all this planning was for nought, and yet it did buy the family a valuable repreave from any royal ill-will. William of Blois had been passed over for consideration to be made King as he was a third son, and when Stephen resigned his throne in favour of young Henry Plantagenet, son of Matilda and Geoffrey Plantagenet, who had for so long craved power, William took part in conniving a plot against the young Henry II -the plan being to assassinate him in Canterbury with the help of some Flemish mercenaries. When the plot was discovered however, William was forced to flee to Normandy, and died there of disease right before the gates of Toulouse in 1159.

King Henry the II had a younger brother, William X, Count of Poitou, and they now tried to follow the precedant set by King Stephan by forming a marriage alliance between William and Isabel in 1162/3. This did not work though, as Archbishop Thomas Becket refused to allow the two to marry on account of consanguinity -meaning that they were already too closely related. The shrewd King Henry was not to be outsmarted of his prize so easily though, and cleverly put forward his natural half-brother Hamelin of Anjou instead. This arrangement satisfied everyone and in 1164 the countess was married a second time to Hamelin, who now took up the title of Earl of Surrey.

Hamelin was the illegitimate son of Geoffrey of Anjou, and son-in-law to King Henry I, and thus an elder half-brother of Henry II. Later he was uncle to King Richard I and King John (sons of Henry II), and was an important figure at the royal courts, serving throughout the reigns of Henry, Richard and John. Hamelin's lands in England centered on Conisbrough Castle in Yorkshire, a powerful fortification he rebuilt upon the foundations of the one erected by William de Warenne the 1st Earl of Surrey after the Battle of Hastings. He also controlled much of the revenue of the Warenne estates, the rest being divided up by the Warenne family and the King, and was in possession of the castles Mortemer and Bellencombre in Normandy.

Hamelin was one of those who denounced Archbishop Thomas Becket when he fueded with King Henry, although he became a great believer in Becket's sainthhood after the bishop died, apparently having been cured of blindness due to the saint's intervention. He remained loyal to his half-bother Henry, even when other nobles deserted him, and was a firm supporter of Henry's son Richard I. During Richard's absence during the Third Crusade, he took the side of William Longchamp, and was present for the coronation of Richard in 1194, and for John in 1199. He died in 1202, and was buried in the Chapter House of Lewes Priory in Sussex, along with all the earlier earls.

Isabel and Hamelin had five surviving children:

-William, later 5th Earl of Surrey (1166-1240).

-Adela, mistress of her cousin King John, and by him the mother of Richard FitzRoy, feudal baron of Chilham, in Kent.

-Ela (born c. 1170, date of death unknown), married firstly Robert of Naburn, who was the great-grandson of William the Conqueror's standard bearer during the Battle of Hastings, and secondly William FitzWilliam of Sprotsborough, who's great-grandfather had been Marshal of the Conqueror's army and who received a scarf from William's own arm as a mark of favour.

-Isabel, married firstly Robert de lacy, 6th Baron of Pontefract and 7th Lord of Bowland and Blackburnshire, Baron of Halton and Constable of Chester. He was a notable soldier and crusader and joined Richard I on the Third Crusade, and also assisted in Siege of Acre in 1192 and earned the favour and trust of Richard. Secondly she married Gilbert de L'Aigle, Lord of Pevensey, who's grandfather Engenulf was one of the few Norman nobles killed at Hastings. Only someone very loyal to the king could be Lord at Pevensey as it was of key strategic value. Isabel and Gilbert had two children, Alice de L'Aquila and Gilbert de L'Aigle.

-Matilda, married firstly Henry, Count of Eu and Lord of Hastings, who was son of John the Count of Eu and Alice d'Aubingny. He and Matilda had Raoul of Eu, Guy of Eu, Alix, Countess of Eu, who married Raoul of Lusignan who became Count of Eu, and who later died while crusading at Acre, Palestine, and finally Jeanne of Eu. (The Warennes and Lusignans were to intermarry one generation later when Isabel's grandson John married Alice de Lusignan). Secondly Matilda married Henry de Stuteville, who's father was a wealthy Baron.
Chapter Seven:

The Price of Loyalty

William de Warenne, who would become the 5th Earl of Warenne, got as good a start in life as anyone ever has, being born into unimaginable wealth and privilege, and repaid this by displaying a lifelong dedication to his duties, even when this came at a personal cost.

Because his parents Hamelin and Isabel did not die until Warenne was in his mid-twenties, he did not inherit the great titles and lands to which he was entitled until he was mature. In the meantime, Hamelin granted him the manor of Appleby in North Lincolnshire, a small village.

Warenne was present at the coronation of his cousin John, King of England on 27 May 1199, after King Richard the Lionheart died on 6 April 1199. John was supported by the bulk of the Norman nobility, and was crowned at Westminster. Arthur 1st of Brittany, a son of John's elder brother Geoffrey, made a rival claim to the throne, and as he had the duchies of Breton, Maine and Anjou on his side, this was a real threat. John rushed to secure his borders and to prevent his empire being split in two. Soon the balance fell in John's favour as more and more Norman nobles came over to his side, and so a truce was struck with Arthur. Through all this Warenne's support had never wavered.

For a bride, John wished to take Isabella of Angouleme, a great beauty of the age who had as volatile a temper as he himself. The only problem was that she was already promised to Hugh of Lusignan, brother of Count Raoul of Eu (Warenne's nephew) who possessed lands along the sensitive border in Eastern Normandy, and securing these two nobles as trusty allies must have been at the top of both John's and Warenne's list of priorities. When Normandy was lost to the French in 1204, Warenne forfeited the holdings there which he had held since receiving them upon the death of his father two years before. He had also lost his holdings in Gascony, from when he had been lieutenant there in 1202. The Duchy of Gascony was in southwestern France and northeastern Spain, and has long been called England's first foreign colony, and Warenne had ruled there as lord and master. Luckily, however, all was not lost, and King John recompensed him with the territory of Grantham and Stamford in England.

His first tenure of office as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports began in 1204, and lasted until 1206. The Warden's job was to oversee five Norman ports on the southeast coast of England that were formed to collectively supply ships for the Crown in the absence of a formal navy. He was also responsible for the collection of taxes and the arrest of criminals, but would have kept a garrison and administrative staff to carry out these duties. He was also Warden of the Welsh Marshes between 1208 and 1213, and was responsible for the security of the border between Scotland and England, a particularily volitile place, and hence the importance of the job and the neccessity sometimes to take violent action against any Scotch uprisings.

Warenne was one of the few barons who remained loyal to King John during the king's difficulties with the barons, when they sought for the French prince to assume the English throne, and at times Warenne must have felt isolated and ostrasized by his peers. John was not a very good king by any standards, and tended to instill fear in those around him. He had made many enemies, even amongst the aristocracy, who percieved him as a dangerous combination of both weak and dictatorial. Outright revolt by the barons, which would have served no one, and would have led to a civil war, was only averted through diplomacy and compromise when the nobles suggested that John sign an official document which essentially curbed his royal powers.

Warenne is listed as one of those who advised John to accede to the Magna Carta, though we do not know whether he did so because he personally believed in the document, or because he knew that this was his cousin's only chance to hold on to any power at all. His allegiance only faltered a few times when the king's cause seemed hopeless. The Magna Carta, meanwhile, upon which Warenne is listed as one of the witnesses and councillors, went on to become one of the most important documents in human history, though at the time neither the king nor his subjects understood this, nor did either party stand behind their commitments for long.

In March 1217 Warenne again demonstrated his loyalty to England by supporting the young King Henry III, and he was also responsible for the establishment of Salisbury Cathedral, one of the largest and most beautiful cathedrals anywhere in the world, and ironically enough which now contains one of the few original copies of the Magna Carta still in existence.

Between the years 1200 and 1208, and during 1217-1226 he was to serve as the High Sheriff of Surrey, which was a highly independant post where one was responsible for keeping the king's law and order, and also collecting taxes due to the Crown. In 1214 he was again appointed Lord warden of the Cinque Ports.

Warenne married Maud Marshal on 13 October 1225. Maud (1192-1248), was an Anglo-Norman noblewoman and a co-heiress of her father William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke and her mother Isabel de Clare who was herself one of the greatest heiresses in Wales and Ireland. Maud was their eldest daughter, and she had first married Hugh Bigod, 3rd Earl of Norfolk before marrying Warenne. Warenne and Maud had a son and a daughter, and Maud died at age fifty-six and was buried at Tintern Abbey beside her mother and two brothers.

Their son John (1231-1304) succeeded his father as earl, while the daughter, Isabel de Warenne (c. 1228-1282), married Hugh d'Aubigny, 5th Earl of Arundel, but died childless. Hugh was the Chief Butler of England (A distinction at the time) and was the last male Aubigny to hold Arundel Castle. Isabel was during her lifetime an important countess and founded the Cistercian Abbey at Markham.

*Warenne may also have had an earlier childless marriage to another Matilda, daughter of William d'Abigny, 2nd Earl of Arundel.

He died on 27 May, 1240.
Chapter Eight:

The King's Lieutenant

John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey, had a career that was every bit as interesting as any of his ancestors. Where his father had been a man of great devotion to duty and to his king, John seems to come across not only as a fearsome warrior, but also as one who managed, despite many lapses in loyalty, to retain not only the trust of his king, but even his friendship.

A boy when his father died, Warenne became a royal ward, meaning that he would be looked after by the state until such time as he reached a mature enough age to look after his own estates. The man who was appointed to look after him was Peter of Savoy, and young John was raised at the royal court. Count Savoy, builder of the Savoy Palace in London and a former Bishop, had such a varied and interesting life that a book could be written on him alone.

In 1247, John married King Henry III's half-sister Alice le Brun de Lusignan, a marriage that created resentment amongst the English nobility, who did not like seeing a wealthy English nobleman marrying a penniless foreigner. Henry III was determined to see his half-siblings rise in the world, out of gratitude for the fact that they had helped him crush the rebellion in Gascony, and he invited the whole clan to England to live off of royal pensions. The Lusignans were quick to take advantage and secure a future for themselves in England, even it it meant literally roughing up their fellow nobles. This situation created a terrible tension at court, as long-standing loyalists now had to compete for royal favours with these uncouth foreigners. Alice was also said to have had a disdain for all things English, while the wife of Henry III, Eleanor of Provence, seems not to have minded, for her and John were said to have had an affair. During the following years, John was closely associated with the court faction centering on his in-laws.

In 1254, he accompanied the King's son Edward (the future King Edward I) on his journey to Spain to marry Eleanor of Castile. This binding of the two families was done to affirm a political deal of English sovereignty over Gascony, and the couple were happy together. Eleanor was more educated and cultured than most women of the time, and became a keen patron of literature and the arts, and even accompanied her husband on a crusade. When she died, Edward was so grief stricken he ordered that every stopping place on the road to London should bear a shrine dedicated to her memory.

Meanwhile, during the conflicts between Henry III and his barons, John started as a strong supporter of the king, switched his support to Simon de Montfort, the King's brother-in-law, and usurper of the throne, and then returned to the royalist party. John and de Montfort were related, as Simon's paternal grandmother's brother was Robert de Beaumont, 4th Earl of Leicester, who's grandfather was a half-brother to William de Warenne, the 3rd Earl of Surrey. John opposed the initial baronial reform plan of May 1258, but along with other opponents capitulated and took the oath of the provisions of Oxford. The provisions had been imposed upon the king by a barony that was frustrated by their monarch's tyrannical style and also by his displays of favouritism. The provisions gave the barons a greater say in how they were ruled, though the king eventually had these concessions anulled, and thus began the Second Barons' War.

By 1260, John had joined the party of Simon de Montfort, but switched back to the king's side in 1263. In April 1264, he and Roger de Leybourne, an English knight and landowner, were besieged by de Montfort at Rochester Castle during the Battle of Northampton. In April of the same year John was present at the Battle of Lewes (fought near his ancestral home, Lewes Castle). The king encamped at Pancras Priory with a force of infantry, while his son, Prince Edward, commanded the cavalry at Lewes castle 460 metres to the north. De Montfort approached the King with the intention of negotiating a truce or to go to battle. The king rejected the negotiations and de Montfort moved men from Fletching to Offham Hill, a mile to the north-west of Lewes, in a night march that surprised the royalist forces. The royalist army was twice the size of de Montfort's, and Henry held command of the centre, with Prince Edward, William de Valence and John de Warenne on the right, and Richard, 1st Earl of Cornwall on the left. The barons held the higher ground overlooking Lewes, and had ordered their men to wear white crosses as a distinguishing emblem.

De Montfort had split his army into four parts, and the baronial forces commenced the battle with a surprise attack at dawn. The king then made his move by leading a cavalry charge on the left of the baronial line that caused them to break and run to the village of Offham. Edward pursued his foe for four miles, leaving the king unsupported. Henry was forced to launch an attack with his centre and right divisions straight up Offham Hill, into the baronial line which awaited them at the defensive. Cornwall's division faltered almost immediately, but Henry's men fought on until compelled to retreat by the arrival of de Montfort's troops.

The king's men were forced down the hill and into Lewes where they engaged in a fighting retreat to the castle and priory. There, John de Warenne and Roger de Leybourne and the other Marcher Lords were defeated, but were allowed to go free on condition they stand trial at the next parliament. When they failed to do so, de Montfort sent an expedition against them, which failed, and they remained a thorn in de Montfort's side for the rest of the war. After the capture of the king and Prince Edward, John fled to the Continent, where he remained for about a year. He returned to fight in the campaign which culminated in the Battle of Evesham, the Battle of Chesterfield and the siege of Kenilworth Castle.

In 1278, Edward I called a parliament at Gloucester with the intention of determining which lords had usurped royal rights- specifically, rights of adjudication- and reclaiming those rights. Walter of Guisborough tells the story that the earl was served a writ of quo warranto ('by what warrant?') as a result of these proceedings. John supposedly responded by drawing a rusty sword and exclaiming that this was his warrant, saying, 'My ancestors came with William the Bastard, and conquered these lands with the sword, and I will defend them with the sword against anyone wishing to seize them.'

John served in Edward I's Welsh campaigns in 1277, 1282, and 1283. In 1282 he received the lordships of Bromfield in Yale in Wales. A good part of the following years were spent in Scotland. He was one of the negotiators for the 1289 treaty of Salisbury and for the 1290 treaty of Birgham, and accompanied King Edward's 1296 invasion of Scotland where he commanded the only major field action of that year in the Battle of Dunbar.

King Edward had invaded Scotland in 1296 to punish King John Balliol for his refusal to support military action in France. The main objective of the campaign was the Earl of March's castle at Dunbar, a few miles up the coast from Berwick. The Scots had occupied the castle, and Edward sent one of his chief lieutenants, John de Warenne, John Balliol's own father-in-law, northwards with a strong force of knights to take the stronghold. The forces met on the field on 27 April, with the Scots occupying a strong position on some high ground. However, when they misinterpreted some maneuvers the English formations were making as a sign that they were leaving the field in disarray, the Scots foolishly abandoned their high ground and charged. The English cavalry also charged in perfect formation and totally subdued the Scots.

On 22 August 1296, the king appointed John, now sixty-six years old, as 'Warden of the Kingdom and land of Scotland,' which made him the de facto head of state. However, he returned to England a few months later saying that the Scottish climate was bad for his health. It was a role he did not relish, nor did he feel it to be a just reward for his loyal service and friendship to the King, and his absence was hardly good for the new English government that had been installed in Scotland. The Scots saw the English as invaders, and were reluctant to do their bidding. Scotland was seen by King Edward as merely a place where he could get the raw materials he needed for his war in France, and this created great resentment amongst the locals, who had to pay extortionant taxes, as well as provide for young fighting men. How much John's absence added to the formenting rebellion is difficult to say, but it certainly had some effect, as such an important role could hardly have been left to secondary authorities.

Predictably, that next spring saw the rebellion of William Wallace, a Scottish knight who became one of the uprisings foremost leaders, and John was ordered to lead his army north by the king after initially refusing to return to Scotland. William Wallace now controlled almost all of northern Scotland, and John marched north with an army from Wicker to relieve Dundee which was besieged. The town of Stirling was the key entry point to the north, and John arrived with his men at the narrow wooden bridge over the River Forth near Stirling Castle and determined that he would be at a tactical disadvantage if he attempted to take his main force across there. So he delayed crossing for several days to allow for negotiations, and to reconnoiter the area.

On 10 September, he gave orders to cross the river the next day. At dawn, the English and Welsh infantry started to cross only to be recalled because John had overslept! The Scots arrived first and camped at Abby Craig, which dominated soft ground north of the river, while the English force camped south of the river. The bridge was small and only two horsemen could cross abreast at a time, and so it woud take several hours for the whole army to get to the other side. The Scots let a certain number of English across, and then swept down on those who had come over the bridge. These men were defenceless because they could not be aided by the bulk of their army on the other side of the river, and many were killed.

John was left with a pitiful number of archers, but he held a strong position south of the river. The bulk of his army remained intact and he could have held the line, but his confidence was gone and so he ordered the bridge destroyed. He then retreated to York, leaving the lowlands to the Scots. The defeat was a shattering one for the English, who lost 100 cavalry and 5,000 infantry on that day.

This humiliation did not stop the King from appointing John as captain of the next campaign against the Scots in early 1298. He raised the siege of Roxburgh and re-took the town of Berwick. The king himself took the field later that year, and John was one of the commanders during the decisive English victory at Falkirk on 22 July 1288. This was one of the major battles in the First War of Scottish Independence led by King Edward, who opposed William Wallace. After marching a sizable army into Scotland, Edward faced supply problems and a demoralized army, because the enemy refused to meet them in the field. But then Edward received intelligence that Wallace was encamped not 13 miles away, and this allowed him to begin an attack.

The Scots army, made up mostly of pikemen, was arranged into four great 'hedgehogs' with their spears pointed outwards. The English cavalry were divided into four battalions, and when they attacked they did so from all directions. Many of the Scotch archers were killed, but the hedgehogs held firm. When the King witnessed the chaos he quickly restored order and recalled his cavalry, only to employ his archers against the tightly-packed Scots who made an easy target. The battle was over almost as soon as the first arrows fell, for the Scots were truly defenceless, and when their ranks began to break and run the cavalry and infantry was unleashed to finish off the survivors. Many Scotsmen were killed, though Wallace himself managed to escape.

John died on 29 September, 1304, in Kennigton, Kent. He was interred in Lewes Priory at a service conducted by the Archbishop of Canturbury. He was succeeded by his grandson, also called John.

He and Alice de Lusignan had three children:

-Eleanor, who married Henry Percy and was the mother of Henry de Percy, 1st Baron Percy of Alnwick.

-Isabella, who married John Balliol (briefly the King of Scots), and was the mother of Edward Balliol.

-William, who married Joan, daughter of Robert de Vere, 5th Earl of Oxford, and was accidentally killed at a tournament on 15 December 1286. Their son John succeeded his grandfather as earl of Surrey; their daughter Alice de Warenne married Edmund FitzAlan, 9th Earl of Arundel. 
Chapter Nine:

A Knight Errant

Out of all of the Warennes written of thus far, William de Warenne, only son of the 6th Earl of Surrey, was by far the shortest lived. He was killed in a jousting tournament at Croydon in 1296, dying well before his father at the age of thirty. It has been suggested that his death was no accident, and that he was murdered by his enemies.

By this time in English history, the code of chivalry had been introduced, which definitely had a civilizing effect upon the psyche of the era. And yet for all that, men at arms remained fighting men through and through. When there were no real battles, knights practiced and honed their skills with tournaments and jousts. The tournament was a large part of the ethos of the times, and young men loved to display their skills for the benefit of the ladies and gentlemen of the court, as well as the peasantry, who often placed bets upon the proceedings.

Tournaments could also be used as a way to settle scores among old foes, and could even be said to be a more organized substitute for the baronial wars that had so lately rocked all of Europe. The joust was a duel between two mounted armored challengers armed with a lance and charging with the intent of unseating one another. This activity permitted the opportunity for personal glory, and as a display of gallantry and skill. In the morning there would have been a ceremonial display of men and arms, and after a series of elaborate preliminaries, the climax came in the afternoon when the aristocratic Knights fought on horseback before the cheering crowds. Noble ladies, draped in silk, watched their favourites, as colorful banners snapped in the breeze, and the day would end with the awarding of valuable prizes for the champions.

It was at an event such as this that young William was killed.

William married Joan, daughter of Robert de Vere, 5th Earl of Oxford. Robert was Chamberlain to Eleanor, wife of Henry III, and was amongst followers of Simon de Montfort during Second Baron's War. William and Joan had the following children:

-John de Warenne, 7th Earl of Surrey (30 June, 1286-June 1347)

-Alice de Warenne (15 June, 1287-23 May, 1338), wife of Edmund FitzAlan, 9th Earl of Arundel. He had been a ward of John de Warenne, grandfather of Alice, in his youth. For reasons unknown, Edmund had initially rejected the idea of marrying Alice, but then had changed his mind. The couple had nine children together and lived at Arundel Castle in Sussex. He challenged the authority of King Edward II, and his favourite, Piers Gaveston, and was one of the men responsible for taking control of the government. He then helped destroy Piers Gaveston, and became more friendly with the King. He fought against Queen Isabella, who was the King's regent, and her lover Roger de Mortimer. He was captured in Shropshire by the Queen's party in 1326 and beheaded, leaving Alice a widow. Alice then became the Countess of Surrey, until the title passed to her eldest son, Richard, while Edmund has been venerated by many as a martyr.

*William de Warenne may also have had an illegitimate son called Griffen de Warenne.
Chapter Ten:

The End of the Beginning

John de Warenne (1286-1347), 7th Earl of Surrey, was the last Warenne earl of Surrey. John was only six months old when his father died, and eight years old when his mother died. He succeeded his grandfather as earl when he was nineteen.

On 25 May 1306, Warenne married Joan of Bar, daughter of count Henry III of Bar and Eleanor of England, eldest daughter of King Edward I of England, at the Franciscan church at Newgate. The two were soon estranged and had no children, though the marriage was never dissolved. Joan called Warenne a 'nasty, brutal man with scarcely one redeeming quality.' She lived at the Warenne family estates, Conisbrough Castle and Sandal Castle, which had been abandoned by her husband, who hated her, and since 1312 had been trying to divorce her. In England, she was close to Isabella of France, her aunt by marriage (Isabella's husband Edward II was Joan's maternal uncle) who was about her same age as her, and spent time with her at court. She was also probably close to Elizabeth de Clare, who left Joan an image of John the Baptist in her will.

After four unhappy years of marriage, Warenne alleged in 1313 that the union was unlawful because Joan was related to him in the third and fourth degree, and because he had been 'precontracted' to Maud of Nerford, his longtime mistress and the mother of his children, before marrying Joan. Despite these obviously self-serving claims, a divorce was never granted. Warenne instead had a long partnership with Matilda de Nerford, a Norfolk gentleman's daughter, with whom he had several illegitimate children (among them John de Warenne and Sir William de Warenne) and later with Isabella Holland, sister of Thomas Holland, later earl of Kent.

On Whitsunday, 22 May of 1306 Warenne was knighted along with the Prince of Wales. He received his first parliamentary summons for 30 May at Westminster. He was excused, however, from attendance at the Carlisle parliament in 1307 as he was in Wales in the service of the king. In that year King Edward I also released him from his grandfather's sizable debt to the crown, no doubt as a way to ensure his continued loyalty.

Warenne was one of the nobles offended by the rise of Edward II's favourite Piers Gaveston, and helped bring about Gaveston's banishment in 1308. Piers Gaveston had been a part of King Edward's household staff when the two men were young, and upon taking up the throne, Edward had made Gaveston an earl and lavished gifts and praise upon him. Whether or not the two were involved in a secret affair, or whether they were merely like brothers is unknown to us, but what is clear is that the other magnates deeply resented the exclusivity of the relationship, and the fact that Gaveston had been promoted beyond his place.

Warenne had earlier approved a land grant of Cornwall to Gaveston, and probably felt that the young upstart owed him something. Therefore he did not take it well when at a tournament at Gaveston's castle at Wallingford when his host gloated about his victory over Warenne's team of Knights in a mock battle. Warenne never treated Gaveston well after that.

When parliament met in 1308 Warenne and a group of magnates led by the Earl of Lincoln produced a series of three shattering articles of huge constitutional importance. 'Homage and the oath of allegiance are more in respect of the crown than in respect of the King's person,' they declared, showing for the first time an explicit distinction between the King and his office. The barons demanded that Gaveston be exiled from the kingdom and stripped of his earldom, writing that 'he disinherits the town and...impoverishes it...and puts discord between the King and his people.'

This was no disaffected minority speaking, but a majority opposition, upheld by nearly all the English barony. The magnates, Warenne included, made a show of armed aggression in Westminster to make it clear how serious they were. It was obvious to the King that Gaveston would have to go, however much he disliked the idea, and so go, Gaveston did. However, Gaveston and Warenne were somewhat reconciled after his return the following year. Archbishop Winchelsea had reconciled Warenne with the barons, and appointed him to keep the peace in London and the eastern counties.

In 1310 Warenne was one of three royalist earls appointed to enforce order at the parliament of March. On the 15th of that month he was granted the castle, honour, and forest of the High Peak. That summer he accompanied Edward II and Gaveston against Robert Bruce, and in 1311 he traversed Selkirk forest, receiving and subduing the local foresters into English obedience. In May, 1312 he was sent with his cousin, Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke, against Gaveston, and besieged Scarborough, forcing Piers to surrender on 18 May, on conditions which they all swore to observe. He was unhappy, though, with Gaveston's execution in 1312 at the behest of Warwick, and this action pushed him back to the king's side.

In 1313 Warenne was pardoned of all offences since the King's accession, meaning that he would be forgiven all past indescretions as long as he fought on the King's side now. But by early the next year he was again at variance with the court and crown, and his land grants at Castleton and High Peak forest were reclaimed by the King. In June he refused to follow Edward to Bannockburn, and in September of 1314 at the parliament of York he supported the northern primate in his attack on Archbishop Reynolds, all things which displeased Edward.

The baronial opposition was led by the king's cousin, Thomas of Lancaster, and he and Warenne became bitter enemies. Private war erupted between the two, and over the next few years he lost a good part of his estates to Lancaster. Leader of the Ordainers, Edward II's cousin Thomas had risen in esteem by refusing to fight in the Bannockburn campaign. He was known to be stupid, arrogant and unscrupulous, though he remained popular with the people and extremely rich. His fellow barons hated him, and he seemed more talented at making enemies when he should have cultivated friendships. Thomas cancelled all land grants to favourites over a six year period, and things like this could not go unchallenged by the other magnates. When Warenne tried to secure an annulment from his wife so that he could marry his mistress, Lancaster intervened and Warenne was excommunicated. The earl of Surrey retaliated by sending one of his knights, Richard de St Martin, to abduct Lancaster's wife. She apparently welcomed the kidnapping, as she had been guilty of adultery.

By the autumn of 1316, Lancaster had abandoned his attempt to rule, and was sulking on his estates. He prepared for civil war, as did Edward, and each man hated and feared the other. While Thomas had no wish to risk his life in battle, and felt little affection for his wife -they lived apart- her abduction nearly drove him into rebellion, because he suspected Edward of encouraging Warenne. When his men harried Warenne's northern lands in Wales and also in Yorkshire where the two men were neighbors, Warenne came off much the worse for this heated exchange, though he was somewhat compensated by land grants given to him by Alice, the wife of Lancaster, the woman whom he had kidnapped! The king saw this infighting as a pretext for crushing Lancaster by force, however Lord Pembroke dissuaded him, while a group of bishops restrained earl Thomas.

At least part of Warenne's fluctuations in loyalties can be ascribed to his unhappy domestic situation during these years. In May of 1313 he was threatened with excommunication, no small matter for a believer of those times, though this sentence was postponed due to the prayers of the king. In June and July the countess was living at the king's expense in the Tower, but before long the bishop of Chichester had issued the excommunication, and an unseemly fray erupted between Warenne's followers and those of the bishop. Warenne sought dissolution of his marriage in the ecclesiastical courts on the grounds of the nearness of kin and want of consent. Archbishop Greenfield of York summoned Joan to appear at Michaelmas of 1314. Warenne was thereafter obligated to pay allimony to support Joan. The marriage was never dissolved but the two lived apart.

The king and Warenne were for the moment close allies. In 1317 the earl attended a council at Claredon, where, perhaps, a plot was formed to attack Lancaster. Warenne's fears prevented his carrying out the scheme, however. In 1319 he attended the muster to Newcastle against the Scots, but little was effected against William the Bruce, whom they were fighting. By 1321 several former court favourites of Edward II, the two Roger Mortimers at the lead, and later Lancaster in 1322, made open rebellion upon the King. The rebels captured the towns of Gloucester, Bridgnorth, and Worchester in the autumn and winter of 1321. But soon the rebellious cause began to disintegrate, as more and more Lords switched sides, fearing what would happen should they be defeated. Warenne and the earl of Kent were sent to take Pontefract Castle, wherein Lancaster was holed-up, and earl Thomas surrendered to royalist forces soon thereafter. This must have been a great moment for Warenne, to have his hated enemy in his power at last!

Warenne was one of the four earls who captured the two Mortimers, the uncle and the nephew, and in 1322 he was one of the nobles who condemned to death Thomas, the earl of Lancaster. As a reward for his loyalty, Warenne received not only all those lands that Lancaster had previously stolen from him, but also more besides from the Lancastrian estates. He also attended the parliament of York which dispensed with all earlier ordinances against the king's absolute powers, though his position was far from secure now that he had been weakened by years of infighting. He was forced to give away large pieces of his estates merely to stay in power and royal favour.

In March of 1325 Warenne reluctantly joined with a hundred men-at-arms as captain of the King's army in Aquitaine, accompanied by his friend Edmund, the Earl of Kent. He did nothing of importance there though, and returned to England in 1326. His support became more valuable at this time to the royal court as arguments broke out between Edward II and Isabella, and he at last received his reward, gaining the custody of the Isle of Axeholme. In May of that year he was appointed chief commissioner of Array in the north. He was given back much of his land by a grateful king, but for reasons of political, and perhaps physical survival, reverted ownership upon his death to the crown, as well as refusing to leave anything to any of his children or mistresses. Only Matilda de Nerford was able to hold onto the West Riding estate, and this effectively gutted all the accumulated wealth that had been acrued by his forefathers.

Warenne and his brother-in-law Edmund FitzAlan, 9th Earl of Arundel, were the last two earls to remain loyal to Edward II after the rise to power of Queen Isabella and Roger Mortimer. After Arundel's execution he obviously pictured his own head on the chopping block and so changed loyalties again, this time to the Queen's side, and urged Edward's abdication in 1327. It seems clear that the massive land grants he reverted to the ownership of the crown were the price of his life. He was a survivor, and had soon worked himself into the favour of Mortimer and was given land grants as well as important jobs, such as the commissioner of peace for Oxfordshire in 1327. He even allowed himself to be bribed into loyalty to Mortimer in exchange for large cash payouts, and somehow managed to retain his position after the fall of Mortimer.

From the beginning of Edward III's reign, he was employed on Scottish affairs, sent to deal with the Scots. He had been the guardian of his cousin Edward Balliol, and after Balliol lay claim to the Scottish throne Warenne profited considerably by their relationship. He accompanied Balliol on his campaign in Lothian, penetrating as far as Perth, and the King made Warenne Earl of Strathern, though only in name, as the properties of the earldom were held by the Scots. When Balliol died however, Warenne lost all hope of retaining this earldom.

In 1337 he received a grant of the manor of Beeston, Norfolk, for life. In September of 1337 he was one of four appointed to lay before the people of Surrey the King's plans of national defence against the French. In 1338 he was a councillor to the little Edward of Cornwall, the nominal regent during Edward III's absence abroad. In 1339 he acted as Sheriff of Surrey and Sussex, and this must have been a humiliation for him, as before this he had been earl of these lands.

In 1340 he was again one of the assistants to the little Duke of Cornwall. During Lent 1342 he was one of the earls whom 'age and infirmity excused from taking part in a tournament in Dunstable.' He was again a counselor of regency during the King's absence abroad though. Toward the end of his life he was greatly enriched by the discovery of a treasure hidden in a cave in Bromfield.

His domestic life remained disorderly. In 1137 Joan of Bar, still legally his wife, left England for good, and Warenne spent his remaining years with Isabella de Holland, the daughter of a Lancashire knight, Robert de Holland. Warenne's chief concern was to transfer his remaining property to her and to his illigitimate children with her. In his final will he left much to his servants, to the poor, to churches, and to Isabella and her children; but to Matilda de Nerford and her children he left little, and to his wife he left absolutely nothing. He also left minute directions on how his funeral service should go once he died. In his final days he had a Franciscan confessor, and was admitted into the brotherhood. He was religious enough to have had a French Bible made specially for himself.

Warenne died in 1347 and was buried with Matilda de Nerford, who had died two years before, at the monastery of Lewes. He was succeeded as earl by his nephew Richard FitzAlan, who was also Earl of Arundel, and so the direct line of Earls from William de Warenne, the 1st Earl of Surrey, who had come over to England with William the Conqueror, had all but died out after nearly 300 years. Strange to think that such a powerful dynasty should be ended simply because of one bad marriage and the inability to produce an heir, as well as the character defects which made Warenne such an untrustworthy ally...

Warenne left numerous illigitimate children. His children by Matilda de Nerford, named John and Thomas, who were living in 1316, had apparently died before him. He had a Welsh son named Ravlyn, who in 1334 joined in the attack on the Hope garrison on Ralph Butler. The sons mentioned in the will are: (1) Sir William de Warenne, the largest legatee, to whom his father had, in January 1340 granted 122 acres of land. (2) Edward de Warenne, the same probably as Sir Edward de Warenne, who, by his marriage to Cecily de Eton, heiress of the barons of Stockport, established himself at Poynton and Stockport, Cheshire, and was the ancestor of the later Warennes of Poynton, barons of Stockport. It was in honor of the last male representative of this house, Sir George Warenne (d. 1801), that John Watson, rector of Stockport, wrote an elaborate 'History of the Earls of Warenne of Surrey,' in which he vainly sought to prove the legitimate descent of his benefactor from Reginald de Warren, the son of Earl William (d. 1138) of the elder Norman house, and to urge that the earldom ought to be revived in his favour. The early arms of this family suggest that Matilda de Nerford was Edward's mother. Another William de Warenne, prior of Horton, Kent, to whom his father bequeathed his French Bible. There were also three daughters: (4) Joan de Basing; (5) Catharine; and (6) Isabella, a canoness of Sempringham.
Epilogue:

The House of the Seven Earls and Their Legacy

The Warenne name and legacy started as a small seed, but continued to grow over the centuries. This narrative began with Vikings settling in Normandy, and then intermarrying with the local French nobility that went all the way back to Charlemagne. These men and women became the new aristocracy of France, and in a small castle by the side of a small river, the River Varenne, a child was born who would take this heritage to England during the invasion of 1066. The name Warenne would be established in the highest circles until the eventual decline of this dynasty nearly 300 years later. But far from dying out with the loss of the earldom to the direct descendants of the 1st Earl of Surrey, the Warennes had by the 1300's become more than well established in England, though not with their former wealth or influence. After their fall from grace, they moved from the Lewes area in east Sussex, down the English coastline to Nayland, located near Suffolk/Essex county border, and in Ripple county Kent.

Later, numerous Warennes, or Warrens as they became known -the name becoming anglicized- emigrated as parliamentary soldiers and financiers to Ireland during the Cromwellian wars, and settled down as baronets and wealthy landowners in counties Carlow, Kinneagh, Cork, Muskerry, Carbery, Kildare, Kilkenny and Wexford. There were also Warennes who had come to Dublin earlier; Edward de Warenne, for example, a grandson of the 1st Earl of Surrey, came to Ireland in Strongbow's time -1172, and intermarried with the local Celts, giving rise to powerful feudal families. His great great grandson Richard Warren acquired the manor of Swords and Corduff in Dublin, and became one of the old established families there. Almost all the corporate and monastic establishments made in Dublin at that time were made by the Earl of Pembroke, under the personal guidance of the 6th Earl of Surrey. One William de Warenne, was, from 1302-1308, the head of the Templar order in Ireland. He was a decendant of William de Warenne, the Earl of Surrey, and Matilda, daughter of Isabel de Clare, Countess of Pembroke.

The Warennes even named a town after themselves: Warrenstown, in county Meath, and soon spread out from there to other counties. Becoming more Irish than the Irish, they took up their old habit of acquiring land and wealth at a great rate, and lived, in general, as wealthy people for almost two hundred years. It wasn't until the Great Potato Famine, at the end of the 18th c. that their fortunes took a turn for the worse, and that is when many of them decided to emigrate to either the United States or Canada. It is to these Warrens that I can trace my own descendancy, and through them to the earls of Surrey, though that in itself is such a large subject it will take another book...
Selected Bibliography:

1. The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens who made England, Dan Jones, 2012, Penguin Books, New York.

2. A Great and Terrible King: Edward I and the forging of Britain, Mark Morris, 2009, Pegasus Books, New York

3. 1066: The Year of the Three Kings, W.L. Warren, 1966, Lutterworth Press, London.

4. The Middle Ages, 1969, The National Geographic Society.

5. The Conquest of England; Eric Linklater, 1966, Doubleday and Company Ltd, New York

6. The Demon's Brood: The Plantagenet Dynasty that forged the English Nation, Desmond Seward, 2014, Constable, London.

7. Medieval Armies and Weapons in Western Europe: An Illustrated History, Jean Denis G.G. Lepage, 2015, Mcfarland and Company, Inc, Jefferson, North Carolina.
