General Notes

REFN: 4860AN
REFN: P4861
The Conqueror and His Companions
by J.R. Planché, Somerset Herald . London: Tinsley Brothers, 1874.
Of the group of nobles at the head of this c hapter, the first 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 Decemb er of the following 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
fleet; 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 fa r as the furnishing so noble a contingent as eighty vessels,
which must surel y have been the 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, C ount of Evreux and
Archbishop of Rouen, in 1037. Beyond the fact that at a da te 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 described 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 Ansel m,
Helene), widow of the Roger De Toeni who was slain in 1038, by whom he
h ad William, who succeeded him, and Agnes, third wife of Simon de
Montfort, an d whose abduction by her half-brother, Ralph De Toeni, I have
already mention ed. By his second wife, Godechilde, of whose family we
know as little as we d o of that of his first, he had only one daughter,
named after her mother, who became abbess of St. Sauveur, the abbey
founded by her father at Evreux.
Of William, Count of Evreux, the undoubted companion of the Conqueror,
much mor e is recorded, though nothing previous to the invasion, except
his being pres ent 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 ba ttle, and received 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 Willi am, as if to indemnify himself
for the property he had bestowed upon him in E ngland, took from him the
Castle of Evreux, and placed a royal garrison in it . Nevertheless, he
fought on the King's siDe during the disturbances in Maine , and was taken
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 Co nqueror,
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 is sue, he had adopted his niece Bertrade, daughter of his
brother-in-law, Simon De Montfort. In 1089, Fulk le Rechin, or the
Quarreller, Count of Anjou, cap tivated by her beauty, determined to
repudiate his third wife, Arengarde, dau ghter of Isambert, Lord of
Chalet-dillon, whom he had only married, 21st Janu ary, 1087, in order to
obtain the hand of the lovely Bertrade. At this moment , the Manceaux
making a fresh effort to throw off the yoke of the Normans, Du ke Robert
Court-heuse entreated the Count of Anjou to assist him in their
r epression, which he promised to do on condition that the Duke would
obtain fo r him the hand of Bertrade. On Robert's applicati