General Notes

Ancestral Roots claims that Eustace had an illegitimate daughter named Eustachie, who married Anselme Canavaine Comte de St. Pol.  But the following post to SGM, 28 Aug 1998, by Todd A. Farmerie discounts that in favor of another line for Eustachie.  There is very little hard evidence either way.  I am sticking with my "published source" until something decisive occurs.

From: Todd A. Farmerie (farmerie@@interfold.com)
Subject: Re: John I of Ponthieu
Newsgroups: soc.genealogy.medieval
Date: 2002-06-09 12:59:30 PST

Todd A. Farmerie wrote:

> Beatrice of St. Pol, daughter of Anselme, Count of St. Pol, by Eustachie.

As has been pointed out, Eustachie was suggested by Charles Evans to be illegitimate daughter of Eustace, son of King Stephen. This conclusion was based on onomastics and kinship.  Eustachie is specifically stated to have been a kinswoman of King Henry II, and is found in several modern sources as Eustachie of Champagne.   Eustachie being the female form of Eustace, Evans argued that the only time that Eustace/Eustachie was associated with Champagne was following the marriage of King Stephen to Matilda of Boulogne, daughter of Eustace III of Boulogne.  He then chose Eustace, Stephen's son (and Henry II's second cousin) to be father of Eustachie.  (It is unclear why Eustace was preferable to Evans over his brother William.)  That, anyway, is Evans' suggestion.

The problem with this is that I have traced back her being called Eustachie "of Champagne", and cannot find anything contemporary that calls her this.  Where does it come from, then?  (One possibility is that this somehow derived from a misunderstanding regarding the nickname of her husband, Anselme 'Campdaveine'.) If "de Champagne" is non-contemporary, then the primary reason for attaching her to the Champagne/Boulogne family disappears.

It is in this context that we can view the suggestion of Kathleen Thompson, (apparently again based on onomastics and kinship), that Eustachie was daughter of William Gouet (III) by his wife Mabel.  This would make her, on her father's side, granddaughter of Eustachie, wife of William Gouet (II), explaining her given name, and on her mother's side, granddaughter, through an illegitimate daughter Mabel, of King Henry I, making her (half-)first cousin of King Henry II.  Thus this solution accounts for both the kinship and onomastics.

The take-home message here is that Evans based his conclusion on scant evidence, at least some of which appears to have been flawed.  There is an alternative that explains the existing material at least as well, and doesn't require the invention of an illegitimate child of Eustace IV of Boulogne, otherwise thought to have d.s.p.

taf