General Notes

Count of Vexin, Pontoise, Chaumont and Amiens; 1st husband of Princess Goda, sister of Edward the Confessor; father of Ralf, earl of Hereford/East Angles. [Falaise Roll, p. 74]

The treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte in 911 divided the Vexin into the Norman Vexin (capital, Gisors) and the French Vexin (capital, Pontoise). The Norman Vexin was bounded by the Andelle, the Seine and the Epte, and the French Vexin embraced the territory from the Oise, on both banks of the Seine, including Amiens, Chaumont and Pontoise, to the Epte also. On the death of Robert, king of France, Henry the eldest son was opposed in his rights to the throne by his stepmother, Queen Constance, who supported Henry's younger brother Robert, duke of Burgundy. Robert I the Magnificent, duke of Normandy, came to the aid of Henry in 1032, at which time he invaded France with a strong army; this assistance permitted Henry to place himself securely upon the throne. For these services, he ceded to Duke Robert the whole of the French Vexin, to which arrangement Dreu, who was then count of Vexin, readily agreed, because Duke Robert had previously given to him in marriage his cousin Goda, sister of Edward the Confessor, who came under his protection after Canute the Great hadtaken possession of the English throne. By this marriage Dreu had issue:
1. Gautier le Vieux, count of Pontoise, Chaumont and Mantes
2. Ralf, earl of Hereford
3. Fouque, bishop of Amiens
4. Amaury of Pontoise, the Delicate
Dreu accompanied Duke Robert on his pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where they both died in 1035. [Falaise Roll, p. 129]

m. Goda, Princess of England; father of Ralph the Timid Gael. [WFT Vol 1 Ped 986]

Count of Vexin; son of Walter II the White, Count of Amiens, Valois, and the Vexin, and Adele; m. Godgifu of England; father of Ralph the Timid, Earl of Hereford, who m Gytha. [Ancestral Roots, Line 250, p. 223]