Alice de Gernon

Notes:

Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Fitz_Gilbert_de_Clare

Richard married Alice, sister of Ranulf de Gernon, 4th Earl of Chester, by her having:

1. Gilbert Fitz Richard de Clare, d. 1153 (without issue), 1st Earl of Hertford.

2. Roger de Clare, d. 1173, 2nd Earl of Hertford.

3. Alice de Clare (Adelize de Tonbridge), m. (1) about 1133, Sir William de Percy, Lord of Topcliffe, son of Alan de Percy and Emma de Gant; (2) Cadwaladr ap Gruffydd, brother of Owain Gwynedd

4. Robert Fitz Richard de Clare, perhaps died in childhood

5. Rohese de Clare, m. Gilbert de Gant, Earl of Lincoln.

The Welsh won a crushing victory over the Normans at the Battle of Crug Mawr, just outside Cardigan. The town of Cardigan was taken and burnt, and Richard's widow, Alice, took refuge in Cardigan Castle, which was successfully defended by Robert Fitz Martin. She was rescued by Miles of Gloucester, who led an expedition to bring her to safety in England.

Alice married Richard Fitz Gilbert de Clare. Richard (son of Gilbert Fitz Richard de Clare, 2nd Lord of Clare and Adeliza de Clermont) was born , Clare, Suffolk, England; died 15 Apr 1136, Monmouthshire, Wales; was buried , Tonbridge Priory, Tonbridge, Kent, England. [Group Sheet]

1. Roger de Clare, 2nd Earl of Hertford was born 1116, Tonbridge Castle, Kent, England; died 1173, Oxfordshire, England; was buried , Eynsham Abbey, Eynsham, Oxfordshire, England.

Notes:

Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranulf_le_Meschin,_3rd_Earl_of_Chester

He was a late 11th and early 12th-century Norman magnate based in northern and central England. Originating in Bessin in Normandy, Ranulf made his career in England thanks to his kinship with Hugh d'Avranches - the Earl of Chester, the patronage of kings William II Rufus and Henry I Beauclerc, and his marriage to Lucy, heiress of the Bolingbroke-Spalding estates in Lincolnshire.

Ranulf fought in Normandy on behalf of Henry I, and served the English king. After the death of his cousin Richard d'Avranches in the White Ship Disaster of November 1120, Ranulf became Earl of the county of Chester on the Anglo-Welsh marches. He held this position for the remainder of his life, and passed the title on to his son, Ranulf de Gernon.

Ranulf le Meschin's father and mother represented two different families of viscounts in Normandy, and both of them were strongly tied to Henry, son of William the Conqueror. His father was Ranulf de Briquessart, and likely for this reason the former Ranulf was styled le Meschin, "the younger." Ranulf's father was viscount of the Bessin, the area around Bayeux. Besides Odo, bishop of Bayeux, Ranulf the elder was the most powerful nobleman in the Bessin region of Normandy.

Ranulf le Meschin's mother, Margaret, was the daughter of Richard Goz. Richard's father Thurstan Goz had become viscount of the Hiémois between 1017 and 1025, while Richard himself became viscount of the Avranchin in either 1055 or 1056. Her brother (Richard Goz's son) was Hugh d'Avranches "Lupus" ("the Wolf"), Viscount of the Avranchin and Earl of Chester (from c. 1070). In addition to being heir to the Bessin, Ranulf was the nephew of one of Norman England's most powerful and prestigious families.

Between 1098 and 1101 (probably in 1098) Ranulf became a major English landowner in his own right when he became the third husband of Lucy, heiress of the lands of Bolingbroke in Lincolnshire. Marriage to a great heiress came only with royal patronage, which in turn meant that Ranulf had to be respected and trusted by the king. Ranulf was probably, like his father, among the earliest and most loyal of Henry's followers.

Ranulf was however not recorded often at the court of Henry I, and did not form part of the king's closest group of administrative advisers. He witnessed charters only occasionally, though this became more frequent after he became earl. Ranulf was, however, one of the king's military companions. When, soon after Whitsun 1101 Henry heard news of a planned invasion of England by his brother Robert Curthose, he sought promises from his subjects to defend the kingdom. A letter to the men of Lincolnshire names Ranulf as one of four figures entrusted with collecting these oaths. Ranulf served under Henry as an officer of the royal household when the latter was on campaign; Ranulf was in fact one of his three commanders at the Battle of Tinchebrai.

1120 was a fateful year for both Henry I and Ranulf. Richard, earl of Chester, like Henry's son and heir William Adeling, died in the White Ship Disaster near Barfleur on 25 November. Only four days before the disaster, Ranulf and his cousin Richard had witnessed a charter together at Cerisy. Henry probably could not wait long to replace Richard, as the Welsh were resurgent, raiding Cheshire, looting, killing, and burning two castles. Perhaps because of his recognized military ability and social strength, because he was loyal and because he was the closest male relation to Earl Richard, Henry recognized Ranulf as Richard's successor to the county of Chester.

In 1123, Henry sent Ranulf to Normandy with a large number of knights and with his bastard son, Robert, Earl of Gloucester, to strengthen the garrisons there. He also assisted in the capture of Waleran, Count of Meulan.

Although Ranulf bore the title "earl of Chester", the honor (i.e., group of estates) which formed the holdings of the Earl of Chester were scattered throughout England with only only a quarter of the value of the estates actually lay in Cheshire, which was one of England's poorest and least developed counties. Estates elsewhere were probably given to the earls in compensation for Cheshire's poverty, with the possibility of conquest and booty in Wales to supplement the lordship's wealth.

Ranulf died in January 1129, and was buried in Chester Abbey. He was survived by his wife and countess, Lucy, and succeeded by his son Ranulf de Gernon. A daughter, Alicia, married Richard de Clare, a lord in the Anglo-Welsh marches. One of his offspring, his fifth son, participated in the Siege of Lisbon, and for this aid was granted the Lordship of Azambuja by King Afonso I of Portugal.

Ranulf distributed land to the church, founding a Benedictine monastic house at Wetheral. This he established as a daughter-house of St Mary's Abbey, York.

Ranulf married Lucy of Bolingbroke. Lucy was born , Lincolnshire; died ca 1138, Spalding, Lincolnshire; was buried , Spalding Priory, Spalding, Lincolnshire. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_of_Bolingbroke

Also known as Lucia, she was an Anglo-Norman heiress in central England and, later in life, Countess of Chester. She came to possess extensive lands in Lincolnshire which she passed on to her husbands and sons. She was a notable religious patron, founding or co-founding two small religious houses and endowing several with lands and churches.

There is much confusion about Lucy's ancestry in earlier writings, recent historians tend to believe that she was the daughter of Thorold, sheriff of Lincoln, by a daughter of William Malet (died 1071). She inherited a huge group of estates centred on Spalding in Lincolnshire, probably inherited from both the Lincoln and the Malet family. This group of estates have come to be called the "Honor of Bolingbroke."

The heiress Lucy was married to three different husbands, all of whom she outlived. The first was to Ivo Taillebois, around 1083. Ivo took over her lands as husband, and seems in addition to have been granted estates and extensive authority in Westmorland and Cumberland. Ivo died in 1094

The second marriage was to one Roger de Roumare or Roger fitz Gerold, with whom she had one son, William de Roumare (future Earl of Lincoln), who inherited some of her land. William was the ancestor of the de Roumare family of Westmorland. Roger died in either 1097 or 1098.

Before 1101, she was married to Ranulf le Meschin, her last and longest marriage. A son Ranulf de Gernon, succeeded his father to the earldom of Chester (which Ranulf acquired in 1121) and a daughter, Alice, married Richard de Clare.

Upon her death, most of the Lincolnshire lands she inherited passed to her older son William de Roumare, while the rest passed to Ranulf II of Chester (forty versus twenty knights' fees). The 1130 pipe roll informs us that Lucy had paid King Henry I 500 marks after her last husband's death for the right not to have to remarry. She died around 1138.

Lucy, as widowed countess, founded the convent of Stixwould in 1135, becoming, in the words of one historian, "one of the few aristocratic women of the late eleventh and twelfth centuries to achieve the role of independent lay founder." Her religious patronage however centered on Spalding Priory, a religious house for which her own family was the primary patron. In 1135, Lucy, now widowed for the last time, granted the priory her own manor of Spalding for the permanent use of the monks. The records indicate that Lucy went to great effort to ensure that, after her own death, her sons would honour and uphold her gifts.

Buried:
This is the most likely place for her burial given her patronage. The priory was re-founded in 1074 as a dependent priory of St. Nicholas's Abbey, Angers. In 1540 when the house was surrendered at the dissolution and the ruins disappeared.