General Notes

EARLDOM of CORNWALL (I)

BIOGRAPHY: Reginald de Dunstanville, 3rd of the fourteen illegitimate sons of King Henry I by the dau. of Robert Corbet, was made Earl of Cornwall by King Stephen, anno 1140. Notwithstanding which, he subsequently espoused the cause of the Empress Maud and was in rebellion until the fall of Stephen's power at the battle of Lincoln. From which period we find nothing remarkable of him until the 10th Henry II [1164], when he appears to have been an unsuccessful mediator between that monarch and the haughty prelate, Thomas à Becket. His lordship was afterward in arms on the side of the king against Robert, Earl of Leicester (who had reared the standard of revolt in favour of Prince Henry, the king's son), and joined Richard de Luci, justice of England, in the siege of Leicester; the town of which they carried, but no the castle. His lordship m. Beatrice, dau. of William FitzRichard, a potent man of Cornwall, and d. in 1175 when, leaving no legitimate male issue, the Earldom of Cornwall reverted to the crown and was retained by King Henry II for the use of John, his younger son, excepting a small proportion which devolved upon the deceased lord's daus., viz., Hawyse, m. to Richard de Redvers; Maud, m. to Robert, Earl of Mellent; Ursula, m. to Walter de Dunstanville; Sarah, m. to the Viscount of Limoges; and Reginald de Dunstanville, d. 1175. Besides his legitimate daus. above-mentioned, the earl left by Beatrice de Vaux, lady of Torre and Karswell, two bastard sons, Henry and William, whereof the elder, Henry, surnamed FitzCount, became a person of great celebrity. [Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited, and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage, Ltd., London, 1883, p. 184, Dunstanvill, Earl of Cornwall]

BIOGRAPHY: ----------

BIOGRAPHY: Rainald is well known as the Earl of Cornwall, called also Rainald de Dunstanville, perhaps indicating the place of his birth. He helped to foment trouble against Stephen in Normandy, then headed a successful rising in the West Country in support of Matilda and was rewarded by her with his earldom in 1141. Rainald had married a wealthy heiress, Beatrice, daughter of William FitzRichard, 'a man of large estates in Cornwall.' It was not Henry I's policy to establish his bastards on large estates belonging to the crown; rather he used his powers of wardship and marriage to marry them off well. Most of Robert of Gloucester's great domain came to him through his wife and, although Rainald did not marry until five years after Henry's death, he was following a pattern which was well established. Thanks to the conditions of the Anarchy and his support for Matilda and then Henry II, a precedent was set that Rainald had direct control of the country and did not account for it to the exchequer. Much as Henry II must have disliked the condition he no doubt felt it unwise to strip a firm ally of considerable powers, and it was not until Rainald died in 1175, without a male heir, that the king again gained control of the revenues of the county, the earldom reverting to the crown. [The Royal Bastards of Medieval England, C. Given-Wilson and A. Curteis, Barnes and Noble Books, 1984]