General Notes

Henry de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Warwick, so created between July and Dec 1088 and granted lands which up till two years previously had belonged to a Saxon Thane, Turkill or Turchil of Arden (an ancestor of William Shakespeare); born c1048; granted feudal Lordship of Gower, South Wales by Henry I some time between 1106 and 1116; married Margaret (died in or after 1156), daughter of Geoffrey, Count de Perche, and died most probably 20 June 1119.  [Burke's Peerage]

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Earldom of Warwick: Apart from the period 1618 to 1759 the various creations and descents of the Earldom of Warwick have been to and among grantees connected by blood, however tenuously.  That is remarkable, given that the period stretches to nearly a thousand years.  [Burke's Peerage, p. 2944]

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The first who bore the title of Earl of Warwick, after the Norman Conquest, was Henry de Newburgh (so called from the castle of that name in Normandy), a younger son of Roger de Bellomont, Earl of Mellent. When this eminent person obtained that earldom is not exactly ascertained, but Sir William Dugdale presumed the period to be toward the close of the Conqueror's reign, "for then," saith he, "King William, having begirt Warwick with a mighty ditch, for the precinct of its walls, and erected the gates at his own charge, did promote this Henry to the earldom, and annexed thereto the royalty of the borough, which at that time belonged to the crown." But, though Henry de Newburgh was made Earl of Warwick by the first Norman sovereign, he was not invested with all the lands attached to the earldom until the ensuing reign, as we find William Rufus, soon after his accession to the throne, conferring upon him the whole inheritance of Turchil de Warwick, a Saxon, who, at the coming of Duke William, had the reputation of earl; and thenceforth the "bear and ragged staff," the device of Turchil's family derived from the chivalrous Guy, Earl of Warwick, was assumed by the first of the Newburgh dynasty, and it has been continued ever since as a badge of the successive Earls of Warwick. The name of this Henry, Earl of Warwick, appears as a witness to the charter of King Henry I, whereby that prince confirmed the laws of Edward the Confessor, and granted many other immunities to the clergy and laity. His lordship m. Margaret, dau. of Geffrey, Count de Moreton, and sister of Rotrode, Earl of Perch, and had issue, two daus., whose names are not mentioned, and five sons, viz., Roger, his successor; Henry; Geffrey; Rotrode, bishop of Evreux; and Robert, seneschal and justice of Normandy, who was a great benefactor to the abbey of Bec in which he was afterwards shorn a monk and d. in 1123.

This Earl Henry commenced imparking Wedgenock, near his castle of Warwick, following the example of his sovereign, King Henry, who made the first park that had ever been in England, at Woodstock. His lordship, who was as memorable for pious foundations as distinguished for military achievements, d. in 1123 and was s. by his eldest son, Roger de Newburgh. [Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage, Ltd., London, 1883, p. 399, Newburgh, Earls of Warwick]

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The earldom of Warwick was created by William II in 1088 for Henry de Beaumont, who had held Warwick castle since its building by William the Conqueror 20 years before.

Henry, younger brother of Robert, count of Meulan, was lord of Neubourg, near Beaumont-le-Roger in Normandy, and Rufus gave him the great midland estate of the English noble, Thurkill of Arden. The new earl was an intimate friend of Henry I, whose succession he did much to promote. He died in 1123 and was buried at Preaux (Normandy). Roger, his eldest son, held the earldom until his death in 1153. [EncyclopEdia Britannica, 1961 ed., Vol. 23, p. 375, EARLS OF WARWICK]