General Notes

REFN: 1853AN
REFN: P1853
The Conqueror and His Companions
by J.R. Planché, Somerset Herald . London: Tinsley Brothers, 1874.
" De Garenes i vint Willeme " is all we lear n from Wace about his
appearance at Hastings, except that his helmet fitted h im admirably,
"Mult li sist bien et chief li helme;" for the mention of which
interesting circumstance I suspect the gallant knight is more indebted to
rhyme than to record — to the art of poetry rather than to the skill of
his a rmourer. Fortunately we have made his acquaintance some time
previous to the Conquest, and there are circumstances of much more
importance and interest co nnected with him than the well-fitting of his
helmet. His parentage has been variously represented, and that of his
wife the subject of the keenest contro versy.
To begin with the beginning. Without bewildering the reader with the
conflicting accounts of the early contemporary chroniclers, and the
unsatisfa ctory conclusions of more recent writers, I will at once refer
to the earlies t mention of William De Warren in history that I am aware
of, which occurs in Orderic Vital's account of the battle of Mortemer and
its results in 1054. " Duke William," he tells us, "being enraged by the
shelter and safe conduct gr anted by Roger De Mortemer, who commanded the
Norman forces on that occasion, to the Comte De Montdidier, who had
fought on the siDe of the French and tak en refuge in the Castle of
Mortemer, banished Roger from Normandy and confisc ated all his
possessions;" but being afterwards reconciled to him he restored them to
him, with the exception of the Castle of Mortemer, which the Duke ga ve to
William De Warren, "one of his loyal young vassals," whom Orderic makes
the Conqueror describe as a cousin or kinsman of De Mortemer,
acknowledgin g no consanguinity to himself.
The probabilities are that he was the son of a Ralph De Warren, a
benefactor to the abbey of La Trinité du Mont about the mi ddle of the
11th century, who, as well as Roger De Mortemer, Nicholas De Basq ueville,
Walter De St. Martin, and many others, were the issue of some of the
numerous nieces of the Duchess Gonnor ("Nepotes plures predicta
Gunnora"), who have been inaccurately set down as kinsmen instead of
distant connection s of her great-grandson the Conqueror.
William De Warren, to whom the Duke of Normandy gave the Castle of
Mortemer, was a young man, we are told, at that p eriod, and would,
therefore, scarcely have attained the prime of life in 1066 . He is named
amongst the principal persons summoned to attend the Council at
Lillebonne, when the invasion of England was decided upon, and was no
doub t present in the great battle, for his services in which he received
as his s hare of the spoil some three hundred manors, nearly half that
number being in the county of Norfolk.
In 1067, on the King's departure for Normandy, William De Warren was
joined with Hugh De Grentmesnil, Hugh De Montfort, and other v aliant men
in the government of England, under the superior jurisdiction of t he
Earl-bishop Odo and William Fitz 0sbern.
In 1074, on the breaking out of the rebellion of Roger, Earl of Hereford,
and Ralph, Earl of Norfolk, we find him associated with Richard de
Bienfaite as Chief Justiciaries of England, a nd summoning the rebels to
appear before the King's High Court; and on their refusal, William de
Warren with Robert, son of William Malet, marched against Earl Ralph, and
routing the rebels at Fagadune, pursued them to Norwich, tak ing many
prisoners, whom, according to the barbarous practice of the age, the y
mutilated by chopping off the right foot—an unmistakable proof that the
s ufferers had taken a step in the wrong direction.
Of his personal prowess no s pecial anecdote has been preserved, and it is
as the husband of the mysteriou s Gundred, or Gundrada, that his name has
descended to the present day with a ny special interest attached to it.
Whether the