General Notes

REFN: 6697AN
The Conqueror and His Companions
by J.R. Planché, Somerset Herald. London: Tin sley Brothers, 1874.
Of the group of nobles at the head of this chapter, the f irst two are
mentioned by Wace, and Guillaume De Poitiers speaks only of the son of
Count Richard.
Other writers, however, assert that both Count Richard and his son fought
siDe by siDe in the battle of Senlac. It is possible they might have done
so, as Count Richard died on the 13th of December of the fol lowing year,
1067, and there is nothing to prove that he was not in the army of
invasion. It is remarkable, however, that in Taylor's List it is William,
Count of Evreux, who is set down as contributing eighty vessels to the
flee t; and as William was not Count of Evreux in 1066, it is possible
that it is one of the many mistakes we find in the baptismal names of
these early nobles and their wives, and we ought to read "Richard," at
least as far as the furn ishing so noble a contingent as eighty vessels,
which must surely have been t he act of the reigning Prince, and not of
his son, who might at the same time have had the command of them.
Richard, Count of Evreux, was the grandson of Richard I, Duke of
Normandy, and succeeded his father, Robert, Count of Evreu x and
Archbishop of Rouen, in 1037. Beyond the fact that at a date variously
stated as 1055, 1060, and 1066 or 1067, he founded the abbey of St.
Sauveur ; nothing is stated of his acts and deeds worth recording; but he
is describe d by the monk of Jumièges as equally a good Christian and a
good soldier.
He was twice married. His first wife was Adela (called by Pere Anselm,
Helene), widow of the Roger De Toeni who was slain in 1038, by whom he
had William, w ho succeeded him, and Agnes, third wife of Simon de
Montfort, and whose abduc tion by her half-brother, Ralph De Toeni, I have
already mentioned. By his se cond wife, Godechilde, of whose family we
know as little as we do of that of his first, he had only one daughter,
named after her mother, who became abbes s of St. Sauveur, the abbey
founded by her father at Evreux.
Of William, Cou nt of Evreux, the undoubted companion of the Conqueror,
much more is recorded , though nothing previous to the invasion, except
his being present with his father at the great Council at Lillebonne,
wherein that invasion was decided upon. He is reported as having borne
himself valiantly in the battle, and rec eived an ample share of the lands
in England distributed by the Conqueror in 1070 to the chieftains who had
accompanied him in his expedition. He returned to Normandy in 1078, and
was one of the mediators in the treaty of Peace of BlanchelanDe (viDe p.
198, ante). Shortly afterwards, King William, as if to indemnify himself
for the property he had bestowed upon him in England, took from him the
Castle of Evreux, and placed a royal garrison in it. Nevertheles s, he
fought on the King's siDe during the disturbances in Maine, and was tak en
prisoner at the assault of the Castle of Saint Suzanne, held against the
King by Hubert, Vicomte De Maine. In 1087, on the death of the Conqueror,
he recovered the Castle of Evreux, driving out the royal troops both from
there and from the town of Dangu in the Norman Vexin.
Being without issue, he had a dopted his niece Bertrade, daughter of his
brother-in-law, Simon De Montfort. In 1089, Fulk le Rechin, or the
Quarreller, Count of Anjou, captivated by he r beauty, determined to
repudiate his third wife, Arengarde, daughter of Isam bert, Lord of
Chalet-dillon, whom he had only married, 21st January, 1087, in order to
obtain the hand of the lovely Bertrade. At this moment, the Manceau x
making a fresh effort to throw off the yoke of the Normans, Duke Robert
C ourt-heuse entreated the Count of Anjou to assist him in their
repression, wh ich he promised to do on condition that the Duke would
obtain for him the han d of Bertrade. On Robert's application to the Cou