• General Notes

  TITLE:  Earl of HEREFORD
  BURIAL:  Peterborough Abbey, Northamptonshire, ENGLAND
  NICK:  "The Timid" or "The Staller"
  NOTE:
  A pre-Conquest Earldom of Hereford has been assigned to Ralph, son of Dreux, Count of the Vexin, by Goda, sister of Edward the Confessor, but he is first credited with an Earldom of Worcester prior to 1049. On the landing of Eustace, Count of Boulogne, "Earl Ralph" is stated to have been one of those who brought assistance "de suo comitatu", but it is not by any means clear what is intended by "comitatu". When the great earldom of Swein was confiscated and broken up, Ralph is presumed to have received Herefordshire, and to have been Earl of Hereford when he opposed Aelfgar's forces in 1055. According to Hoveden, he met the enemy 2 miles from Hereford and shortly after the battle fled from the field with his French and Norman followers, leaving Hereford to be sacked and burnt. He d. 21 Dec 1057, and was buried in Peterborough Abbey. [Complete Peerage VI:446-7]
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  RALPH, 2nd son of Dreux and Godgifu. He held Sudeley and Toddington, co. Gloucester, and Chilvers Coton, co. Warwick, T.R.E. In 1051, when Godwine, Earl of Kent, rebelled and collected an army at Tetbury, Leofric, Earl of Mercia, and Siward, Earl of Northumbria, went to the aid of the King at Gloucester, and Radulfus comes . . . de juo comitatu quot potuit congregavit. In the same year, he and Odda, Earl of Devon and Somerset, were appointed by the King to command the fleet. In 1055 he was sent with a numerous army to protect Hereford against Alfgar, the rebel Earl of Chester, and Griffin, his Welsh ally; but he and his horsemen fled before the battle was effectively joined, and Hereford was burnt by the Welsh. He married Getha. He died 21 December 1057 and was buried at Peterborough.
  [Complete Peerage XII/1:411-2]
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  Ralph, the Timid, Earl of Hereford (d 1057), younger son of Drogo or Dreux (d 1035), count of the Vexin, by Godgifu or Goda, daughter of Ethelred II, came over to England in 1041, during the reign of Hardecanute, with his uncle, Edward the Confessor. The latter, who came to the throne the next year, regarded the young man with favour, and he was entrusted with the earldom of Worcestershire, probably in subordination to Leofric, earl of Mercia; he was in command there in July 1049, when a force of pirates from Ireland and Welsh under Gruffydd ab Rhydderch invaded the shire. He fled before them, leaving Worcester to be burnt by the invaders, and gaining for himself the appellation of "the timid earl." On the outbreak of the quarrel between the King and Earl Godwin, which arose out of the outrage committed by Ralph's stepfather, Count Eustace of Boulogne, at Dover in 1051, he marched to Gloucester to uphold the king. When Godwin and his sons were banished he received Swegen's earldom of Herefordshire, and it was thought possible at this time that, in spite of the fact that Ralph had an elder brother living (Count Walter III, who died in 1063), Edward might fix upon him as his successor. It was known in June 1052 that Godwin was about to attempt to return to England, and Ralph, in conjunction with Earl Odda, another of the king's kinsmen, was put in command of a fleet at Sandwich to prevent his landing. The weather was bad, and Godwin returned with his vessels to Flanders; but Ralph was held to have displayed little activity, and both he and Odda were replaced in their command. Ralph was the only foreign ear that was allowed to retain his earldom after Godwin's return. In 1055 his earldom was invaded by Ælfgar, the dispossessed Earl of East Anglia, and his Welsh allies under Gruffydd. He met the invaders on 24 Oct, two miles from Hereford, at the head of an army composed partly of the English of his earldom and partly of French and Normans. He commanded the English to fight on horseback, contrary to their custom. He was the first to flee, and it is said that his French and No

Details of (Earl) Ralph's family with Getha * UNKNOWN