General Notes

Richmond, previous creations: Conan IV had an only child, a daughter Constance, who married first Geoffrey, a younger son of Henry II of England who was thus acknowledged as Earl of Richmond and Duke of Brittany, then Ranulf, Earl of Chester, who styled himself Earl of Richmond and Duke of Brittany too.  She divorced Ranulf in 1199 and took a third husband, Guy de Thouars, who ran the Richmond estates, but may not necessarily have been recognized as Earl of Richmond.  Guy sided with the King of France against King John of England in 1203, whereupon his English lands were forfeited, after which the question as to whether he enjoyed recognition as Earl hardly arises.  [Burke's Peerage, p. 2402]

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He [Ranulph de Blunderville] married, 1stly, 3 February 1187/8, Constance, widow of the King's nephew [sic. son] Geoffrey, EARL OF RICHMOND and DUKE OF BRITTANY, daughter and heir of Conan, 3rd EARL OF RICHMOND and DUKE OF BRITTANY by Margaret of Scotland, daughter of Henry, 4th Earl of Huntingdon, son of David I of Scotland. From her he was divorced in 1199.  [Complete Peerage III168-9]

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EARLDOM OF RICHMOND (III)

CONSTANCE, only daughter and heir. In 1166, when aged 5 or less, she was betrothed to Geoffrey, 3rd surviving son of HENRY II; the marriage took place in 1181. In September-October 1183 or 1184 she issued at QuimperIE a charter for the abbey of Ste. Croix there, and in 1184 at Redon Geoffrey and Constance issued contemporaneous charters founding a chaplaincy in Rouen Cathedral for the soul of the young King Henry and endowing it with a rent from the mills of Guingamp. On 19 August 1197 a year after Geoffrey's death, she executed a charter at Rennes confirming certain gifts to the abbey of St. Melaine there. Some time in 1187 she married Ranulf, EARL OF CHESTER, but she was averse to the marriage and does not seem willingly to have consorted with him. By a charter dated at Nantes in 1192 she granted to the Bishop and chapter of St. Malo, with the consent and goodwill of her son Arthur, a weekly market at St. Malo, and by another of the same year at Nantes she gave the isle of "Bremen" to the abbey of Buzay. At Rennes in 1193 she issued a charter for the abbey of St. Melaine there, and on 15 March 1194/5 she was at Angers, where she executed one for the hospital of St. John in that City. In 1196 she was captured at Pontorson by her husband, the Earl of Chester, who imprisoned her in his castle of St. James de Beuvron, a step which led to an insurrection in Brittany, which was suppressed by Richard I. Constance seems to have recovered her liberty by the summer of 1198, when she confirmed the peace made between Andrew de VitE and William de la Guerche by a charter which probably passed at PloIrmel. Next year she repudiated her marriage with Earl Ranulf and married GUY DE THOUARS. The remainder of Constance's. life seems to have been spent in peace. In June 1201 she executed a charter at Nantes for the Templars; and in the same year she founded the abbey of Villeneuve in the diocese of Nantes, including among the endowments a rent of £10 sterling charged on the Earldom of Richmond and payable annually at the time of the fair of Boston, Lincs.

Constance married, 1stly, Geoffrey, 4th son of HENRY II, by ELEANOR of Aquitaine, born 23 September 1158; on his marriage in 1181 he was recognised as DUKE OF BRITTANY and EARL OF RICHMOND; he had previously in May 1169 received the homage of the Breton barons at Rennes. He left England for Brittany in 1179, and the only later occasion on which he seems to have been in England was in 1184, the probable date of a charter which he executed at Winchester confirming to Kirkstead Abbey land in Gayton le Wold, Lincs, which Duke Conan had given. On 30 March 1184 at Rennes he confirmed an agreement between the priory of St. Cyr and Geoffrey de la Guerche. At Rennes in 1185, in conjunction with Constance, he issued his celebrated assize regulating the succession to lands in Brittany held by barony or military tenure, and at Nantes in 1186 a charter for the abbey of Buzay. He was killed in a tournament at Paris on 19 August 1186, and buried in the quire of the cathedral there. Constance married, 2ndly, Ranulf, EARL OF CHESTER. She married 3rdly, Guy DE THOUARS, brother of Almery, VICOMTE OF THOUARS. She died 4 or 5 September 1201, at Nantes, and was buried at Villeneuve. In 1201, after her death, Guy de Thouars was administering the honor of Richmond, the King ratifying leases granted by him, and in 1202 he had licence to sell his wood of Richmond, half the proceeds to go to the King and half to himself; on 2 April 1203 the King ratified the yearly farm to be paid by him for the honor. Later in that year he joined Philip Augustus, and his English lands were confiscated, grants being made from them in September 1203; this terminated his connection with Richmond. In 1204 he invaded Normandy at the head of the Bretons. In Brittany after Constance's death he occupied the position of regent until 1213, when Piers de Braine married his daughter Alice and was made Duke. He then disappears from history, and the date of his death is not certainly known; he was ultimately buried at Villeneuve at the same time as his wife and daughter.  [Complete Peerage X:794-7, (transcribed by Dave Utzinger)]