General Notes

!1st Earl of Sussex and Arundel.  Married Adeliza (wid. of Henry I, King of England). [Ped. of Charlemagne]

MINOR, WAITE LINE - 24th ggrandfather

!Known as William with the Strong Hand because of a gallant achievement performed by him at a tournament at Paris and quaintly related by Dugdale in his Baronage. [Roll of the Battle Abbey]

William d'Albini, earl of Arundel, m. the former Queen Adeliza; parents of Countess Alice who m. 2. Alured de Saint-Martin. [Falaise Roll, p. 104]

During the rebellion of 1173 against Henry II, at Franham St. Genevieve the rebels met the king's men led by Richard de Lucy and the earl of Arundel who had both come with all speed from the Scottish border, and the rebels were defeated. [Victoria History of Suffolk, p. 166]

2nd husband of Adeliza of Louvain. [Ancestral Roots, p. 3]

Handsome, brave, and an honorable knight; his marriage to the Dowager Queen Adelicia was in every sense a love match. They lived at Arundel Castle, which Henry had bestowed on his wife, and so the saying,
     Since William rose and Harold fell,
     There have been earls of Arundel.
The great castle stood close to the coast of Sussex and the Empress Matilda and her party obtained shelter there for their invasion. He and Adelicia were parents of William, Reyner, Henry, Godfrey, Alice, Olivia and Agatha. [The Conquering Family, p. 11-12]

Following the attainting of Robert de Belesme, the title of Earl of Arundel and the office of Chief Butler of England were bestowed upon the d'Albini (D'Aubigny) family. William d'Albini m. 1138 Adeliza of Louvain, widow of Henry I. The following year Matilda, the dau. of Henry I, came to England to claim the throne from Stephen and stayed at Arundel at her step-mother's invitation. When Stephen appeared with a besieging force Matilda fled to the West. Many legends have grown up over the centuries concerning her visit. In the 19th century visitors were shown her bed, but this venerable fake has disappeared. A room in the gatehouse, however, is still called 'Queen Matilda's Room'. [Arundel Castle, p. 22]

m. Adeliza de Louvain; father of Alice who m. John, Count of Eu. [GRS 3.03, Automated Archives, CD#100]

Son of William de Albany; m. Adeliza; father of Simon Pincerna. [WFT Vol 6 Ped 1102]

Rising Castle was built in 1138 by William d'Albini, Earl of Sussex, for his new wife, the widow of Henry I. This doughty castle originally comprised of a substantial keep surrounded by huge earthworks. Today all that stands are the Norman gatehouse and an impressively decorated gallery and chapel. [Rising Castle<http://www.camelotintl.com/heritage/rising.html]

Castle Rising was first founded by the Norman Albini lords of Rising, and little doubt that this was done in their second generation in England and in the person of William de Albini II, soon to be Earl of Sussex, in or very soon after 1138. [Castle Rising, p. 8]

William de Albini (known to English genealogists as William de Albini I, though in fact the second of that name) was established in Norfolk especially, where he was granted Snettisham with Rising by both Rufus and Henry I; he was lord of Buckenham, which evidently became the center of his new honor or barony, and received from the latter King, according to the inquest of 1166, a total of 42 knights' fees. He stood particularly close to Henry I who gave him the office of butler (hence he is often called, then and now, William de Albini Pincerna) and also gave him in marriage Maud, daughter of the great East Anglian house of Bigod (subsequently Earls of Norfolk), when that young lady was in the King's wardship. He had, in short, arrived, and appropriately, according to the custom of the time, in 1107 he set about founding a religious house as a symbol of his status and the means to obtain heavenly benefits and divine grace and favour for himself, his family and descendants. This was a house for Benedictine monks at Wymondham, not far from his castle at Buckenham. At first is was a priory and a dependency of St Albans (where William's uncle, Richard, was abbot); eventually it became an independent abbey but not until 1449. [Castle Rising, p. 10]

William II de Albini in 1138 married the Queen of England, Alice of Louvain, second wife and widow of Henry I who died in 1135. No qualification as queen-dowager diminishes her description simply as Alice the Queen in subsequent Albini charters, and it requires an exercise of historical imagination to realise the full significance of the brilliant match in an age of personal and near-sacrosanct monarchy, and, moreover, in the troubled reign of Stephen, who was the nephew of this Queen. The marriage brought the young Albini at once to the summit of that close-knit and immensely powerful Anglo-Norman aristocracy wherein his father had won a place by loyal service to two former kings. A hostile chronicler at Waltham Holy Cross asserts, indeed, that he now become intolerably puffed up, would recognise no one as his peer, and looked down upon every other eminence in the world except that of the King. Alice the Queen, moreover, brought him not only status and prestige, but also new lordships, honors, lands and power. Through her he acquired the castle and honour of Arundel in Sussex, which were her dower, and also an earldom. At the time of his marriage he was made Earl of Lincoln, and thereafter, and instead, in about 1141, Earl of Sussex, alias of Arundel, alias of Chichester. [Castle Rising, p. 11-12]

William de Albini II and his wife Alice the Queen are said to have received at Arundel Stephen's rival, the Empress Mathilda, daughter of Henry I, when she first landed in England in 1139, but otherwise they remained loyal to the King. He was instrumental in bringing about the treaty between Stephen and the future Henry II (son of the Empress) which ended the civil war in 1153, and was thereafter prominent in the favour and counsels of the latter King, being employed by him in the controversy with Becket, and serving in arms against the King's rebellious son in 1137-4, in Normandy and in England at the battle of Fornham St Genevieve, near Bury St Edmunds, where the rebel forces of the Earl of Leicester and the Bigod Earl of Norfolk (Albini's neighbour) were defeated. He died in 1176, 25 years after the wife who had brought him such good fortune.
     In 1150 she had withdrawn to the nunnery at Afflighem in her native Brabant, where she died in 1151. He was buried beside his father and his mother before the high altar of their priory church at Wymondham, where all his Albini successors as Earls of Sussex were also to be laid to rest. [Castle Rising, p. 14-15]

Lord of the Manor of Buckenham, Norfolk; aka as "the Strong Hand"; ju. ux. 1st Earl of Arundel/Earl of Sussex; Commander of the Royal Army; m. Adeliza, Queen Dowager of England; father of William II d'Aubigny who m. Maud de St. Hilaire. [Charlemagne, Alfred the Great, and Other Ancestors, Chart 2928]

Surnamed "William with the Strong Hand", from the following circumstance, as related by William Dugdale: "It happened that the Queen of France, being then a widow, and a very beautiful woman, became much in love with a knight from another country, who was a homely person, and in the flower of his youth; and because she thought that no man excelled him in valor, she caused a tournament to be proclaimed throughout her dominions, promising to reward those who should exercise themselves therein, according to their respective abilities; and concluded that if the person whom she so well affected should act his part better than others in those military exercises, she might marry him without any dishonor to herself. Whereup divers gallant men, from foreign parts hasting to Paris, among others came this William de Albini, ravely accoutered, and in the tournament excelled all others, overcoming many, and wounding one mortally with his lance, which being observed by the queen, she became exceedingly enamored of him, and forthwith invited him to a costly banquet, and afterwards bestowing certain jewels upon him, offered him marriage; but, having plighted his troth to the Queen of England, a widow, he refused her, whereat she grew so discontented that she consulted with her maids how she might take away his life; and in pursuance of that design, inticed him into a garden...which she descended by divers steps, under color of showing him a beast; and when she told him of its fierceness, he answered, that it was a womanish and not a manly quality to be afraid therof. But having him there, by the advantage of a folding door, thrust him to the lion; being therefore in this danger, he rolled his mantle about his arm, and putting his hand into the mouth of the beast, pulled out his tongue by the root; which done, he followed the queen to her palace, and gave it to one of her maids to present her. Returning thereupon to England, with the fame of this glorious exploit, he was forthwith advanced to the Earldom of Arundel, and for his arms the Lion given him." He subsequently m. Adeliza of Lorraine, Queen of England, widow of King Henry I, and the daughter of Godfrey, Duke of Lorraine. Adeliza had the castle of Arundel in dowry from her deceased husband, the monarch, and thus her new lord became its feudal earl, 1st Earl of Arundel in this family. The earl was one of those who solicited the Empress Maud to come to England, and received her and her brother Robert, Earl of Gloucester, at the port of Arundel, in August 1139, and in three years afterwards (1142), in the report made of King Stephen's taking William de Mandeville at St. Albans, it is stated "that before he could be laid hold on, he underwent a sharp skirmish with the king's party, wherein the Earl of Arundel, though a stout and expert soldier, was unhorsed in the midst of the water by Walceline de Oxeai, and almost drowned." In 1150, he wrote himself Earl of Chichester, but we find him styled again Earl of Arundel, upon a very memorable occasion, namely, the reconciliation of Henry, Duke of Normandy, afterwards King Henry II and King Stephen at the siege of Wallingford Castle in 1152. "It was scarce possible," says Rapin, "for the armies to part without fighting. Accordingly the two leaders were preparing for battle with equal ardor, when, by the prudent advice of the Earl of Arundel, who was on the king's side, they were prevented from coming to blows." A truce and peace followed this interference of the earl's, which led to the subsequent accession of Henry after Stephen's decease, in whose favor the earl stood so high that he not only obtained for himself and his heirs the castle and honor of Arundel, but a confirmation of the Earldom of Sussex, of which county he was really earl, by a grant of the Tertium Denarium of the pleas of the shire. In 1164, we find the Earl of Arundel deputed with Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of London, to remonstrate with Louis, King of France, upon according an asylum to Thomas a Becket within his dominions, and on the failure of that mission, dispatched with the archbishop of York, the Bishops of Winchester, London, Chichester, and Exeter, Wido Rufus, Richard de Invecestre, John de Oxford (priests), Hugh de Gundevile, Bernard de St. Valery, and Henry Fitzgerald to lay the whole affair of Becket at the foot of the pontifical throne.
   Upon levying the aid for the marriage of the king's daughter, in the 12th year of Henry II, the knight's fees of the honor of Arundel were certified to be 97, and those in Norfolk, belonging to the earl, 42. In 1173 we find the Earl of Arundel commanding, in conjunction with William, Earl of Mandeville, the king's army in Normandy, and compelling the French monarch to abandon Verneuil after a long siege, and in the next year, with Richard de Lucy, Justice of England, defeating Robert, Earl of Leicester, then in rebellion at St. Edmundbury. This potent nobleman, after founding and endowing several religious houses, died at Waverley, in Surrey, on 3 Oct 1176, and was buried in the Abbey of Wymondham.
   With his marriage to Adela, widow of Henry I, he acquired Arundel Castle as part of her dowry. His possession of the castle and honor of Arundel was confirmed by Henry II in 1154. [UTZ@aol.com]

Castle Rising in Norfolk was built in about 1150 by William d'Aubigny (William de Albini) who by marrying the widow of Henry I became the Earl of Sussex and Arundel. This castle is unique if only for the splendidly preserved fore-building which in so many cases has been drastically altered and restored in many other castles. The blank arcading on the walls is similar to that which occurs on the main outer walls of Norwich keep. The staircase from the outer doorway ascends from the ground to a second doorway on a landing half-way up. The upper flight of stairs passes through a third doorway, which finally covers the main door of the keep. In this case the fine Norman archway entrance to the great hall has been blocked off by a 16th century fireplace, and entrance to the first floor is made by a passage to the side of it. The keep is divided into two main chambers with a great hall and gallery and a soldiers' hall with basement rooms beneath.
   The castle remained in the same family until 1243 passing to De Montalt until 1329. [Castles of East Anglia: Castle Rising]

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Custom Field:<_FA#> 1st EARL de ARUNDEL
Custom Field:<_FA#> "Strong Hand"