General Notes

Name Suffix:<NSFX> 1st Earl Of Huntingdon
After the execution of Waltheof, Earl of Huntingdon, King William offered Judith, his niece, the deceased earl's widow, in marriage to Simon St. Liz, a noble Norman, but the lady peremptorily rejected the alliance, owing, Dugdale says, to St. Liz's halting in one leg, which refusal so displeased the Conqueror that he immediately seized upon the castle and honour of Huntingdon, which the countess held in dower, exposing herself and her dau. to a state of privation and obscurity in the Isle of Ely and other places, while he bestowed upon the said Simon St. Liz the town of Northampton and the whole hundred of Falkeley, then valued at £40 per annum, to provide shoes for his horses. St. Liz thus disappointed in obtaining the hand of the Countess of Huntingdon, made his addresses with greater success to her elder dau., the Lady Maud, who became his wife, when William conferred upon the said Simon de St. Liz, the Earldoms of Huntingdon and Northampton. This nobleman built the castle of Northampton as also the priory of St. Andrews there about the 18th year of the Conqueror's reign, and was a liberal benefactor to the church. His lordship was witness to King Henry I's laws in 1100, after which he made a voyage to the Holy Land and d. on his return (1115), at the abbey of Charity, in France, leaving issue, Simon, Waltheof, and Maud.
Upon the death of Simon de St. Liz, Earl of Huntingdon and Northampton, his elder son, Simon, should have succeeded to both dignities, but it appears he only inherited the former. The Earldom of Huntingdon being assumed by David, son of Malcolm III, King of Scotland, who had m. the deceased earl's widow, the Countess Maud, under the especial sanction of King Henry I. [Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited, and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage, Ltd., London, 1883, p. 468, St. Liz, Earls of Huntingdon]