Please keep name as Lucy Thoroldsdottir of Lincoln, Countess of Chester.

Parents: Thorold, Sheriff of Lincoln, and a daughter (name unknown) of William Malet

married to (1) Ivo de Taillebois, (2) Roger/Richard de Roumare, and (3) Ranulph "de Briquessart" le Meschin Earl of Chester.

Children:

• William de Roumare, Earl of Lincoln [father was Roger FitzGerold de Roumare]
• Ranulf "de Gernon" des Meschines, Earl of Chester [father was Ranulph III de Briquessart "le Meschin," Earl of Chester] m. Maud FitzRobert de Caen of Gloucester

possible children:

• Adeliza/Alicia des Meschines of Chester Wife of Richard FitzGilbert de Clare and Robert de Condet (Cundy), Lord of Thorngate
• Agnes des Meschines of Chester m. Robert de Grandmesnil (Grentemesnil)

NOTE: Many people have a Beatrice de Taillebois in their tree as a daughter of Lucy, but contemporary researchers believe that Beatrice was in fact the wife of Ivo de Taillebois' son by his first marriage and was not descended from Lucy.

A footnote from The foundations of England, Volume 2 by Sir James Henry Ramsay [(S. Sonnenschein & Co., Ltd., 1898), p. 292] provides some additional information:

"[After the death of the Earl of Chester aboard the White Ship in 1120], The Earldom of Chester passed to Ralph of Briquessart, Viscount of Bayeux, surnamed "Meschin," of whom we heard at Tinchebrai, cousin to the late Earl, being son of his aunt Matilda, sister to Earl Hugh. Ralph was married to Lucy, a relict of Roger fitz Cerold of Roumare. This Lucy, a great crux to genealogists, was daughter and heiress of one Thorold or Turold, apparently an Angevin, who was Sheriff of Lincolnshire, founder of Spalding, and married to a daughter of William Malet. Lucy was first married to Ivo Taillebois, by whom she had no issue; then to Roger of Roumare, by whom she had a son William of Roumare, afterwards Earl of Lincoln; by Ralph she had another, Ralph "Gernons," who succeeded his father as Earl of Chester. On being admitted to Chester Ralph Meschin was required to surrender to the King the Honour of Carlisle, previously held by him, as well as some of his wife's estates in Lincolnshire, a source of trouble in the future. See Orderic, 871, 876; Symeon, H.R. Cont. p. 306; National MSS. of Scotland, No. 19. For Countess Lucy see the exhaustive paper by Mr. R. E. G. Kirk, New Genealogist, V. 60, 153.

For an excellent article (1995) by Katherine Keats-Rohan about the historical controversies surrounding Lucy's parentage, please see the following:

http://users.ox.ac.uk/~prosop/prosopon/issue2-2.pdf

Prosopon Newsletter, 2 (May 1995)

"A lot of ink has flowed on the subject, but there can be no doubt that the ‘mysterious’ Countess Lucy of Chester was William Malet’s thrice-married granddaughter, the daughter of Robert Malet’s sister and Turold the Sheriff of Lincoln (dead by 1079).1 The suggestion was first made by R. Kirk in 1888.2 As N. Sumner has more recently observed: ‘This account has the merit of explaining why the lordship of Spalding and other places in Lincolnshire were held after Ivo’s death not by Beatrice, his direct heir and the daughter of his marriage to Lucy,3 but by the later husbands of Lucy, Roger fitz Gerold and Ranulph Meschines.’4 It is clear from her charters that Lucy was an heiress; as was to be expected, her estates passed to the sons of her second and third marriages. Kirk’s work was based upon conjecture, and contained a number of errors. The question of Lucy’s parentage has therefore remained open. Nevertheless, there is proof that Kirk was right.....

A spurious charter of Crowland Abbey made Turold of Bucknall (the Sheriff) the founder of the priory of Spalding as a cell of Crowland. It also called Turold brother of Godiva countess of Mercia, but subsequently described Godiva’s son Earl Algar as Turold’s cognatus (cousin).5 A genealogia fundatoris of Coventry Abbey made Lucy a daughter of Earl Algar and sister and heiress of earls Edwin and Morcar.6 The Peterborough Chronicle and the Pseudo-Ingulf’s Chronicle of Crowland both made Lucy the daughter of Algar and niece or great-niece of Turold.7 We know that William Malet was half-English, so these traditions probably boil down to a relationship between Countess Godiva and William’s English mother.

In 1153 a charter [RRAN iii, 180] of the future Henry II for Lucy’s son Ranulf II of Chester referred to her uncles Robert Malet and Alan of Lincoln. Alan of Lincoln was the successor, and almost certainly the son, of Domesday’s Alfred of Lincoln. Chronologically, it is most unlikely that Alan was Lucy’s uncle. It was probably another of Alfred’s sons whom Domesday described as Alfred nepos [nephew or grandson] of Turold, then holding a fee which was certainly thereafter held with the rest of the senior Alfred’s fee by his heir Alan. Domesday provides a further indication that Alfred senior married another of William Malet’s daughters when it names a William as Alfred’s predecessor in two of his manors.8 Other parts of each of these manors (Linwood and Rothwell) were held in 1086 by Durand Malet, who was probably William’s son. It seems that Henry’s charter can be explained by seeing a scribe, perhaps in search of rhetorical balance, commit the error of ascribing two uncles to Lucy, instead of a niece (Lucy) and a nephew (Alan of Lincoln) to Robert Malet, who was uncle to both.

Turold is evidenced in Domesday Book as a benefactor of Crowland Abbey, to which he gave a parcel of land at Bucknall.9 The abbey also held land at Spalding that had probably been granted to it by Earl Algar and there is evidence to suggest that Turold the Sheriff gave further land there to the abbey of St Nicholas, Angers, before 1079.10 Lucy and her first husband Ivo Taillebois subsequently founded, or perhaps re-founded, a priory at Spalding subject to St. Nicholas, Angers. A revealing phrase from the Register of Spalding Priory reads: ‘mortuo quia dicto Thoraldo relicta sibi herede Lucia predicta’ [at his death Turold left an heir, the aforesaid Lucy].11 The word heres, ‘heir’, was often used of the child who was to inherit his/her father’s property. Lucy later confirmed the gifts of all three of her husbands: ‘pro redempcione anime patris mei et matris mee et dominorum meorum et parentum meorum’ [for the souls of my father and mother, my husbands and my (other) relatives].12 The association of the priory with such a small group of people and the description of Lucy as heres of Turold strongly hint at Lucy’s parentage. But we can go further still.

In their initial benefaction Ivo and Lucy referred to ‘antecessorum suorum13 Turoldi scilicet uxorisque eius regine’ [our ‘ancestors’ Turold and his wife].14 The reference to Turold’s wife indicates that some part of his landholding had come to him through his wife, something also indicated by the occurrence of William Malet amongst those who had held the Domesday lands of Lucy’s first husband Ivo Taillebois before him.15 The apparently vague Latin words antecessor and predecessor can both be used to mean something like ‘predecessor’. Each of them conveys a range of very precise meanings in different circumstances. The description of Turold and his wife as antecessores of Ivo and Lucy may be compared to the usage in a charter in the cartulary of Mont-Saint-Michel by which the Angevins Hugh Chalibot and his wife confirmed the grants of her father, who was described as antecessor noster.16 Other examples of this phrase show clearly that it was used by a married man to describe the parent from whom his wife had inherited the property she brought to the marriage. Acting on her own account (normally after her husband’s death), the heiress will often describe herself as the daughter of the parent her husband described as antecessor noster. A rare use of the phrase was to indicate the couple’s immediate predecessor, not her father but her brother.17 In Lucy and Ivo’s case the plurality of their antecessores, Turold and his wife, puts the matter beyond doubt. Lucy’s parents were indeed Turold the Sheriff and a daughter of William Malet.

NOTES

1 See Round, Feudal England, pp. 255-6; Complete Peerage, ed. G.E.C., 13 vols., (1910-59) vol. vii, App. J, 743-6.

2 R.E.G. Kirk, ‘The Countess Lucy: Singular or Plural?’, Genealogist, n.s. 5, 60-75, 131-44, 153-73.

3 Beatrice (who bore the name of Robert Malet’s sister) married Ribald, half-brother of Count Alan; Monasticon Anglicanum, ed. W.Dugdale, new edition, 6 vols. (1817-30), iii, 553, no. xx. For their descendants see Rev.H.C. Fitz Herbert, ‘An original pedigree of Tailbois and Neville’, The Genealogist, n.s. iii, 31. Clay thought Beatrice was probably illegitimate (see Early Yorkshire Charters, v. p.291).

4 N. Sumner, ‘The Countess Lucy’s Priory? The Early History of Spalding Priory and its Estates’, Reading Medieval Studies 13 (1988), 81-103, here, 84.

5 Monasticon Anglicanum ii, 118-19.

6 Ibid., ii, 192.

7 See Complete Peerage, vii, App. J, 743-6, here 745 and note.

8 Domesday Book, fol. 357d.

9 Domesday Book, fol. 346d.

10 Domesday Book, fol. 346d; see N. Sumner, ‘The Countess Lucy’s priory?’, 83-4 and n.12.

11 B.M. Add. 35296, fol. 2r.

12 B.M. Add. 35296, fol. 9r.

13 suorum, ‘their’ in the Register would have been nostrorum, ‘our’, in the original charter.

14 B.N. Coll. Anjou-Touraine 3, no. 876 (Saint-Nicholas d’Angers), and B.M. Add. 35296 (Spalding), though both later copies, agree upon this wording.

15 Monasticon Anglicanum, ii, p.220, nos. v and viii.

16 Bibliothèque de la Ville d’Avranches, ms 210, fol. 104r-v. I am preparing an edition of this cartulary.

17 Red Book of the Exchequer, ed. H. Hall, 3 vols (Rolls Series, 1896), i, 368.

--------------------

Lucy of Bolingbroke

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lucy

Born mid-to-late 1000s

Died around 1138

Other names Lucia

Ethnicity Anglo-Norman

Title Countess-consort of Chester

Term 1120 — 1129

Spouse(s)

1) Ivo Taillebois

2) Roger fitz Gerold [de Roumare]

3) Ranulf le Meshcin

Children William de Roumare, Ranulf de Gernon, Alicia

Lucy (died c. 1138), sometimes called Lucy of Bolingbroke[1] was an Anglo-Norman heiress in central England and, later in life, countess-consort of Chester. Probably related to the old English earls of Mercia, she came to possess extensive lands in Lincolnshire which she passed on to her husbands and sons. She was a notable religious patron, founding or co-founding two small religious houses and endowing several with lands and churches.

Ancestry

A charter of Crowland Abbey, now thought to be spurious, described Thorold of Bucknall, perhaps the same as her probable father Thorold of Lincoln, as a brother of Godgifu (Godiva), wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia.[2] The same charter contradicted itself on the matter, proceeding to style Godgifu's son (by Leofric), Ælfgar, as Thorold's cognatus (cousin).[3] Another later source, from Coventry Abbey, made Lucy the sister of Earls Edwin and Morcar Leofricsson, while two other unreliable sources, the Chronicle of Abbot Ingmund of Crowland and the Peterbrough Chronicle also make Lucy the daughter of Earl Ælfgar.[3] Keats-Rohan's explanation for these accounts is that they were ill-informed and were confusing Lucy with her ancestor, William Malet's mother, who was in some manner related to the family of Godgifu.[3]

Although there is much confusion about Lucy's ancestry in earlier writings, recent historians tend to believe that she was the daughter of Thorold, sheriff of Lincoln, by a daughter of William Malet (died 1071).[4] She inherited a huge group of estates centred on Spalding in Lincolnshire, probably inherited from both the Lincoln and the Malet family.[5] This group of estates have come to be called the "Honour of Bolingbroke".[6]

Marriages

The heiress Lucy was married to three different husbands, all of whom died in her lifetime. The first of these was to Ivo Taillebois, a marriage which took place "around 1083".[7] Ivo took over her lands as husband, and seems in addition to have been granted estates and extensive authority in Westmorland and Cumberland.[8] Ivo died in 1094.[9]

The second marriage was to one Roger de Roumare or Roger fitz Gerold, with whom she had one son, William de Roumare (future Earl of Lincoln), who inherited some of her land.[10] The latter was the ancestor of the de Roumare family of Westmorland.[11] Roger died in either 1097 or 1098.[12]

Sometime after this, though before 1101, she was married to Ranulf le Meschin, her last and longest marriage.[13] A son Ranulf de Gernon, succeeded his father to the earldom of Chester (which Ranulf acquired in 1121) and a daughter, Alice, married Richard de Clare.[6]

Upon her death, most of the Lincolnshire lands she inherited passed to her younger son William de Roumare, while the rest passed to Ranulf II of Chester (forty versus twenty knights' fees).[14] The 1130 pipe roll informs us that Lucy had paid King Henry I 500 marks after her last husband's death for the right not to have to remarry.[15] She died around 1138.[6]

Religious patronage

Lucy, as widowed countess, founded the convent of Stixwould in 1135, becoming, in the words of one historian, "one of the few aristocratic women of the late eleventh and twelfth centuryes to achieve the role of independent lay founder".[16] Her religious patronage however centered on Spalding Priory, a religious house for which her own family was the primary patron. This house (a monastic cell of Crowland) was founded, or re-founded, in 1085 by Lucy and her first husband Ivo Taillebois.[16]

Later, she was responsible for many endowments, for instance in the 1120s she and her third husband Earl Ranulf granted the priory the churches of Minting, Belchford and Scamblesby.[16] In 1135, Lucy, now widowed for the last time, granted the priory her own manor of Spalding for the permanent use of the monks.[16] The records indicate that Lucy went to great effort to ensure that, after her own death, her sons would honour and uphold her gifts.[17]

Notes

  1. ^ Called such in King, "Ranulf (I)".

2. ^ Keats-Rohan, "Antecessor Noster", p. 1; Williams, "Godgifu".
3. ^ a b c Keats-Rohan, "Antecessor Noster", p. 1.
4. ^ Johns, Noblewomen, Aristocracy and Power, p. 76, n. 26; Keats-Rohan, "Antecessor Noster", pp. 1–2; Sharpe, Norman Rule in Cumbria, p. 36, n. 85.
5. ^ Keats-Rohan, "Antecessor Noster", p. 2.
6. ^ a b c King, "Ranulf (I)".
7. ^ Sharpe, Norman Rule in Cumbria, pp. 36–7.
8. ^ For discussion of Cumbria during the lifetime of Lucy's husbands and their role, see Sharpe, Norman Rule in Cumbria, pp. 34–52. The lands of Ivo in Lincolnshire are listed in the Doomsday Book, see Williams & Martin (eds.), Doomsday Book, pp. 909–14.
9. ^ Sharpe, Norman Rule in Cumbria, p. 40.
10. ^ King, "Ranulf (I)"; Sharpe, Norman Rule in Cumbria, p. 40.
11. ^ Sharpe, Norman Rule in Cumbria, p. 41. n. 98.
12. ^ Green, Aristocracy, p. 369; Sharpe, Norman Rule in Cumbria, p. 41.
13. ^ Sharpe, Norman Rule in Cumbria, p. 45.
14. ^ Green, Aristocracy, p. 369.
15. ^ Johns, Noblewomen, Aristocracy and Power, p. 60; King, "Ranulf (I)".
16. ^ a b c d Johns, Noblewomen, Aristocracy and Power, p. 60.
17. ^ Johns, Noblewomen, Aristocracy and Power, p. 61.
References

   * Green, Judith (2002), The Aristocracy of Norman England, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521524652 

* Johns, Susan M. (2003), Noblewomen, Aristocracy and Power in the Twelfth-century Anglo-Norman Realm, Manchester: Manchester University Press, ISBN 0719063051
* Keats-Rohan, Katherine S. B. (1995), "Antecessor Noster: The Parentage of Countess Lucy Made Plain", Prosopon - Newsletter of the Unit for Prosopographical Research (2): 1–2, http://users.ox.ac.uk/~prosop/prosopon/issue2-2.pdf
* King, Edmund (2004), "Ranulf (I) , third earl of Chester (d. 1129)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/23127, retrieved on 2008-11-07
* Sharpe, Richard (2006), Norman Rule in Cumbria, 1092—1136: A Lecture Delivered to Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society on 9th April 2005 at Carlisle, Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society Tract Series No. XXI, Kendal: Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, ISBN 1-873124-43-0
* Williams, Ann; Martin, G. H., eds. (2003), Doomsday Book: A Complete Translation, Alecto Historical Editions (Penguin Classics ed.), London: Penguin Books Ltd, ISBN 0-141-43994-7
* Williams, Ann (2004), "Godgifu [Godiva (d. 1067?)]", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/10873, retrieved on 2008-11-07
_______________________

A thoughtful discussion of the many conflicting interpretations of Lucy's ancestry over the years

from John Stockman's family history site (contact information: J. E. STOCKMAN, Mill Creek, Washington United States; j.stockman@gte.net), February 2008

http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/s/t/o/John-E-Stockman/GE...

Much of what is believed about Lady Lucy (or Lucia), Countess of Chester, remains unsubstantiated, and diligent attempts have long been made to determine decisively her identity and ancestry. We find her first as the young wife of Ivo de Taillebois, Companion of WILLIAM the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings. In recognition of his services, WILLIAM granted Ivo not only the lands and title formerly belonging to the Saxon Baron of Kentdale (Kendal), but the Baron's daughter Lucy as well. Of Lucy, his second wife, Ivo is said to have remarked, "I have her father's lands, why not have the daughter too?"[a] It is recorded that Lady Lucy married twice again after Ivo's death, first to Roger FitzGerold de Roumare, and last to Ranulf de Meschines, 4th Earl of Chester.[b]

Regarding her ancestry, a scholarly account of the Earls of Chester speaks of

". . . the marriage of the 4th earl of Chester, Ranulf de Meschin to the English woman Lucy. Much time has been spent trying to identify who Lucy was. There would appear to be two separate views of her antecedents. It is agreed that she was related to the family of Ælfgar but either as Ælfgar's daughter or a Lincolnshire niece."[c]

Another account states that

"It is unclear as to who her parents were. One tradition is that she is the daughter of Aelfgifu and Aelfgar. However, the more modern view is that she was related to them via Thorold, sheriff of Lincoln."[c]

These two traditions concerning Lucy's ancestry agree that she was related to Ælfgar, Earl of Mercia, son of Leofric and Lady Godgifu / Godiva, the Earl and Countess of Mercia.[c] The most common variation of the older tradition held that she was the daughter of the Earl Ælfgar and his wife Ælfgifu, who was the granddaughter of ETHELRED the Unready, King of England.[b, c] The later view places Lucy as Ælfgar's niece, the daughter of Ælfgar's brother Thorold/Turold of Bucknall, Lincolnshire, Earl of Leicester and Sheriff of Lincoln[d] in the time of ETHELRED's son, St EDWARD the Confessor, who reigned from 1042 to 1066.[b, c, d]

Turold / Thorold / Thorkell of Bucknall in Lincoln, the Earl of Leicester and Sheriff of Lincolnshire, was the son of Alwin (Aluredus) and a brother (stated as "near kinsman") of Ælfgar / Algar II, seventh Earl of Mercia. Thorold, a Saxon, is believed by some to have had strong Norman blood through his mother, perhaps explaining why he retained his considerable lands in Warwickshire after the Conquest.[d]

The uncertainty relating to Lady Lucy's parentage appears finally to have been resolved by research in 1995 by an Oxford scholar, Lady Katherine Keats-Rohan, that offers compelling evidence in support of the claim that

"there can be no doubt that the 'mysterious' Countess Lucy of Chester was William Malet's thrice-married granddaughter, the daughter of Robert Malet's sister and Turold the Sheriff of Lincoln".[e]

Lady Keats-Rohan goes on to say that Lucy and her first husband, Ivo de Taillebois, founded a priory at Spalding, Lincolnshire, which was subject to the Abbey of St Nicholas at Angers in the French Province of Anjou. In a phrase in the Register of Spalding Priory, it is stated that

" 'mortuo quia dicto Thoraldo relicta sibi herede Lucia predicta' [at his death Thorold left an heir, the aforesaid Lucy]."[e]

In another phrase in the Register, Lucy said that gifts given by her to the Priory were

" 'pro redempcione anime patris mei et matris mee et dominorum meorum et parentum meorum' [for the redemption of the souls of my father and mother, my husbands, and my ancestors]."[e]

Finally, in yet another phrase in the Register, Lucy and Ivo referred to

" 'antecessorum suorum Turoldi scilicet uxorisque eius regine' [our forerunners, namely Thorold and the lady his wife]."[e]

The word "antecessor" was used in similar documents of that era to mean "parent".

These passages from the Spalding Priory Register seem clearly to put to rest the confusion concerning Lucy's parentage, and Lady Keats-Rohan thus concludes that

"Lucy's parents were indeed Turold the Sheriff and a daughter of William Malet".[e]

Having established Lucy's parentage, Lady Keats-Rohan then reconstructs Lucy's descent in this way (except for Durand, who others hold was William Malet's brother,[f 35] not his son):[e]

Leofric, Earl of Mercia = Lady Godiva/Godwa/Godgifu

|

Robert Malet = (Dau. of Leofric)

[Norman] | [English]

_____|_____________

| |

Durand Malet William Malet = Hesilia (Esilia) Crispin

____________________________|____________________________________

| | | | |

Robert Malet Gilbert Malet [Dau.] Malet = Thorold Beatrice Malet= [Dau.] Malet =

| of Bucknall Ribald Alfred of Lincoln

| |

Lucy = Ivo de Taillebois Alan of Lincoln

By this construction, Lucy was the great-great-granddaughter of the famed Lady Godiva who rode naked through Coventry to protest the overtaxation of the people by her husband, the Earl Leofric of Mercia (d. 1057).

Lucy's grandfather, William Malet, "Sire de Graville", was from Graville Sainte Honorine, located between Le Havre and Harfleur on the coast of the Province of Normandy (now the Department of Seine-Maritime), France.[f] It is believed that William's parents were the Norman Robert Malet and a daughter of Leofric, the English Earl of Mercia, and his wife, Lady Godiva.

Although his heritage included both the French and Saxon sides, William's fealty was to WILLIAM the Conqueror of whom he was a companion in the Norman Conquest, and for whom he fought valiantly at the Battle of Hastings.[f] Following the Battle, which saw the defeat of HAROLD, the English King, William, who may have been related to HAROLD through his mother, was entrusted by Duke WILLIAM to undertake the burial of the defeated monarch. William chose a site on a cliff above the beach at Hastings where HAROLD had attempted so courageously to defend his country. Atop the pile of stones under which HAROLD was buried, William placed a rock on which was engraved:

"By command of the Duke, you rest here a King, O Harold, that you may be guardian still of the shore and sea".[f]

William, who later became the Sheriff of York, gained land holdings in Suffolk and Norfolk, in addition to the lands in Lincolnshire that he and his brother Durand held before the Conquest.[f] It is believed that William died in 1071 in the marshland surrounding the Isle of Ely while fighting to put down the Saxon rebellion led by Hereward the Wake. The Domesday Book states simply that ". . . he went into the marsh . . . on the King's service, where he died".[f]

Lucy herself "was an important enough person to have married into the upper echelons of the Norman aristocracy . .",[b] and "was a pivotal person in the development of an Anglo Norman aristocracy".[b] As mentioned above, her first marriage, apparently at a young age, was to Ivo de Taillebois,[c] Earl of Holland, Baron of Kentdale (Kendal), companion of WILLIAM I at the Norman Conquest, and a steward to King WILLIAM II. Only one child, Beatrice de Taillebois, seems to have been born to Lucy and Ivo,[e] although many researchers hold that Ivo's heir and successor as Baron of Kendal, Ælftred de Taillebois, was also born of Lucy and Ivo's union. If this is correct, Lady Lucy rather than Lady Gondreda would be the writer's thirtieth great-grandmother.[NOTE from Pam Wilson: Recent thinking is that Beatrice was most likely the wife of Ælftred rather than the daughter of Ivo and Lucy]

After Ivo's death, Lucy married Roger de Roumare,[c] by whom she bore a son, William de Roumare (b. c.1096--d. before 1161),[c] who was made the Earl of Lincoln in 1141.[g]

Lucy's third husband was the powerful Ranulf le Meschin (d. c.1129),[c, h] Viscount of Bayeux and 4th Earl of Chester. The immense influence of the Earls of Chester, who enjoyed semi-regal powers and were largely exempt from the scope of the King's Government, arose primarily out of the great estates known collectively as the Honour of Chester, which extended into more than twenty shires including Lincolnshire and the midland counties.

To Lucy and Ranulf was born a son, Ranulf de Gernons (c.1100-1153),[c, h] the proud and unscrupulous 5th Earl of Chester, who, with his half-brother William de Roumare, played a most important part in the civil wars of King STEPHEN's reign during the 1130s and 40s. Through marriage, Lucy became "the link between the powerful late Mercian dynasty and the equally powerful Norman earl of Chester dynasty".[c]

------------------------------------------------------------------

a. Deborah Thornsbury Keser, in her Web site, THORNSBERRY GENEALOGY; Website: (http://www.aros.net/~deboraht/genealogy.htm).

b. "People" in MEASHAM AND THE MEASE VALLEY TO 1300 AD, History Project Website

(http://www.btinternet.com/~simonmarchini/history.htm#Home).

c. "Norman and Post Conquest: The Earls of Chester" in HISTORY PROJECT Website

http://www.btinternet.com/~simonmarchini/norman.htm

d. WARWICK - WARWICKSHIRE - THE DOMESDAY BOOK IN 1086; URL: http://www.family2001.com/warwick/warwick2.htm; © 1996 Hall of Names International, Inc.;

e-mail address: bock0@ibm.net.

e. Katherine S.B. Keats-Rohan, "Antecessor Noster: The Parentage of Countess Lucy Made Plain" in PROSOPON: NEWSLETTER OF THE UNIT FOR PROSOPOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH, no. 2 (May 1995) © Linacre College, Oxford; published on the Internet at : http://www.linacre.ox.ac.uk/research/prosop/PRSPN2.stm.

f. "William Malet, Companion of William the Conqueror, 1066" in MALLETT FAMILY HISTORY, Website of Bob Mallett, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, e-mail: rhmallett@igs.net; URL: http://www.ott.igs.net/~rhmallett/index.htm.

g. "Lincoln" in ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, Vol. 14 (Chicago, Lond, Toronto: The Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1966) p. 45.

h. "Chester" in ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, Vol. 5 (Chicago, Lond, Toronto: The Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1966) pp. 469-470.

---

Lucy "the Countess" of Lincoln1,2,3,4

b. circa 1066

Lucy "the Countess" of Lincoln|b. c 1066|p62.htm#i14645|Turold of Bucknell, Sheriff of Lincoln|d. b 1079|p350.htm#i21611|N. N. Malet||p193.htm#i21612|||||||Willelm Malet, seigneur de Graville|b. c 1026\nd. c 1071|p348.htm#i21613|Elise Crespin|b. c 1031|p207.htm#i23422|

Father Turold of Bucknell, Sheriff of Lincoln3,5 d. before 1079

Mother N. N. Malet3

    Lucy "the Countess" of Lincoln was the mother of Ranulph de Gernon, 5th Earl of Chester; son of Countess Lucy of Lincoln.6 Lucy "the Countess" of Lincoln married Ivo Taillebois, Sheriff of Lincolnshire; Her 1st.2,3,5 Lucy "the Countess" of Lincoln was per the Peterborough Chronicle and the Pseudo-Ingulf's Chronicle of Crowland, the daughter of Algar and niece or great-niece of Turold.3 

She was per the genealogia fundatoris of Coventry Abbey, a daughter of Earl Algar, and sister and heiress of earls Edwin and Morcar.

Family 1

Ivo Taillebois, Sheriff of Lincolnshire b. circa 1050?, d. 1093

Child

   * N. N. Taillebois+ 

Family 2

Roger fitz Gerald de Romare, Lord of Bolingbroke

Child

   * William de Romare, Earl of Lincoln+ b. c 1096?10

Family 3

Ranulph "le Meschin", 4th Earl of Chester b. circa 1068, d. circa 1129

Children

   * Agnes le Meschines b. c 1099?12

* Ranulph de Gernon, 5th Earl of Chester+ b. b 1100, d. 16 Dec 11533
* Adeliza de Meschines+ b. c 1100?, d. 112812
* William Meschines b. c 1101?12
Citations

  1. [S305] John S. Wurts, Magna Charta, pg. 422.

2. [S682] D.S.O. Lt.-Col. W. H. Turton, Turton, pg. 95.
3. [S936] K. S. B. Keats-Rohan, "Parentage of Countess Lucy".
4. [S215] Revised by others later George Edward Cokayne CP, VII:667.
5. [S1032] K.S.B. Keats-Rohan, Domesday People, Iuo Tillebois, pg. 283.
6. [S936] K. S. B. Keats-Rohan, "Parentage of Countess Lucy", per a 1153 a charter.
7. [S209] Somerset Herald J.R. Planché, Planché, J.R..
8. [S936] K. S. B. Keats-Rohan, "Parentage of Countess Lucy", first suggested by R. Kirk in 1888, and proven correct.
9. [S215] Revised by others later George Edward Cokayne CP, VII:744.
10. [S215] Revised by others later George Edward Cokayne CP, III:166.
11. [S603] C.B., LL.D., Ulster King of Arms Sir Bernard Burke, B:xP, pg. 457.
12. [S603] C.B., LL.D., Ulster King of Arms Sir Bernard Burke, B:xP, pg. 365.
13. [S215] Revised by others later George Edward Cokayne CP, VII:743, about 1098.
14. [S936] K. S. B. Keats-Rohan, "Parentage of Countess Lucy", per RRAN, III, 180.

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Lucy Countess of Chester [Parents] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 was born 1069 in Spalding, Lincolnshire, England. She died 1138 in Bolingbroke Castle, Lincolnshire, England. Lucy married Ranulph III le MESCHIN Earl of Chester on 1098 in Gernon Castle, Normandie, France.

   Other marriages:

TAILLEBOIS, Ivo
ROUMARE, Roger de
They had the following children:

     		F 	i 	Adeliza la MESCHIN was born 1099.

M ii Ranulph IV de GERNON Earl of Chester was born 1101 and died 16 Dec 1153.
M iii William le MESCHIN 1 was born 1103 in Gernon Castle, Normandie, France.
Sources:

   1Weis, Frederick Lewis, Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America before 1700 (7th ed., Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1992.), 125-27, 132A-26, 132D-26, Los Angeles Public Library, Gen 974 W426 1992.

2Keats-Rohan, K. S. B., "Antecessor Noster: The Parentage of Countess Lucy Made Plain," Prosopon, No. 2 (May 1995), p. 1, Linacre College.
3Weis, F., Ancestral Roots 7, 246B-25.
4Cokayne, George Edward, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct, or Dormant (London: St. Catherine Press, 1910.), 7:667, Los Angeles Public Library, 929.721 C682.
5Keats-Rohan, K.S.B., Domesday Descendants: A Prosopography of Persons Occurring in English Documents 1066-1166 (Rochester, New York: The Boydell Press, 2002.), pp. 228, 246, Library of Congress, DA177 .K4 2002.
6Sanders, Ivor John, English Baronies: A Study of Their Origin and Descent, 1086-1327 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960.), p. 18, Los Angeles Public Library, 929.722 S215.
7Dugdale, William, Monasticon Anglicanum (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, 1817-1831. FHL BRITISH Film #496,906.), 3:584, Family History Library.
8Dugdale, W., Monasticon Anglicanum, 3:553.
9Nichols, John Gough (Editor), "The Earldom of Lincoln," The Topographer and Genealogist, Vol. 1 (1846) (London: Society of Antiquaries, 1846-1858.), p. 15t, Los Angeles Public Library.

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Lucy Countess Of Chester. We now proceed to trace the history of this heiress, respecting many circumstances of whose life there is no uncertainty. Concluding Ivo Taillebois to have been her father, she was first married to Roger de Romara (who will be further noticed presently); and secondly, to Ranulph de Briquesard, surnamed le Meschin (or the younger,) Vicomte du Bessin, who in the year 1120 succeeded to the Earldom of Chester. Before that period he appears to have been regarded, in right of his marriage, as Earl Of The County Of Lincoln, for in a catalogue of tenants of lands in that county, made during the lifetime of his predecessor in the Earldom of Chester, the words " Comes Linc." are twice placed over the name of Ranulfus Mischinus.b He died in 1129, and was buried at Chester. The Countess Lucy was thereupon admitted to the inheritance of her father's lands in Lincolnshire, for which she paid a fine of 268/. 13s. 4d. into the Exchequer, purchasing at the same time, by the payment of 500 marks of silver, exemption from being again given away by the Crown in marriage within the next five years. She further rendered account of 45 marks to be paid for the conclusion of this covenant, and given to whom the King willed ; and of which 20 marks had been already paid to the Queen. And she owed 100 marks for the privilege of administering justice in her court among her vassals.c Her son Earl Ranulph (who must have been then of age) accounts in the same roll as a debtor to the Crown in 500 marks of silver for the agreement which the King made between him and his mother respecting her dower.2 She confirmed in her second widowhood the manor of Spalding to the monks of that place,* where either she, or her mother, or perhaps both, were buried.0 Her children were, by Roger de Romara, William Earl of Lincoln; and by Ranulph Earl of Chester, two sons and two daughters, viz. Ranulph de Gernons, Earl of Chester ; William, said to have been Earl of Cambridge; Alice, the wife of Richard Fitz-Gilbert, ancestor of the Clares, Earls of Gloucester and Hertford; and Agnes, the wife of Robert de Grandmesnil.

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LUCY (-1138, bur Spalding).  According to a charter of Henri Duke of Normandy (later Henry II King of England) issued in favour of her son Ranulf Earl of Chester dated 1153, Ctss Lucy was the niece of Robert Malet of Eye and of Alan of Lincoln, as well as kinswoman of Thorold "the Sheriff"[1834].  The precise relationships between these individuals has not yet been ascertained.  Domesday Descendants suggests that Thorold was her father[1835].  The Complete Peerage also discusses whether Thorold could have been her father[1836].  If this was correct, it would seem unlikely that Lucy would have been described as Thorold´s “kinswoman” in the 1153 charter.  An alternative origin is suggested by Ingulph's Chronicle of the Abbey of Croyland, which records that William I King of England arranged the marriage of "Ivo Taillebois" and "Lucia sister of Edwin and Morcar", her dowry consisting of their land at Hoyland[1837].  The Genealogia Fundatoris of Coventry Monastery also names “Luciam postea comitissam” as daughter of “Algarus tertius”, adding that she married firstly “Yvoni Taylboys” by whom she was childless, secondly “Rogero filio Geroldi Romara”, thirdly “Ranulfo comiti Cestriæ”, and was buried “apud Spalding”[1838].  Lastly, the Annals of Peterborough name “Yvo Taylboys, comes Andegavensis, dominus Spaldynge et totius Holandiæ…maritus Luciæ, filiæ Algari comitis Leicestriæ” and "Toraldus avunculus…Luciæ" when recording his donation to Spalding Monastery in 1074[1839].  This relationship with Earls Edwin and Morcar is impossible from a chronological point of view, in particular because Lucy gave birth to children by her third husband at a time when she would have been over fifty if she has been their sister.

Lucy, the daughter of Earl Algar, was married to Ivo de Taillebois, according to the Croyland chronicles, before the year 1071 ;V the only issue of which marriage is said to have been a daughter, " nobly espoused." Yet after the death of Ivo in 1114, forty-three years after, she is made to marry again,* and have issue William de Romara, Earl of Lincoln; and still again to marry thirdly, Ranulph Earl of Chester, and have issue two sons and two daughters. It is evident that this account of a single Lucy, the wife both of Ivo Tailleboys and of Ranulph Earl of Chester, must be incorrect; and it has been suggested* that there were two heiresses, the mother and the daughter, which will account for the " only daughter, nobly espoused," who has been already mentioned, but of whom the Croyland monk could tell nothing further.

Disengaging ourselves from the "crafty imaginations " of the monastic genealogists, we will now proceed to inquire who Lucy wife of Jvo Taillebois, the ancestress of the Earls of Lincoln, may actually have been. Her grandson Ranulph Earl of Chester claimed and obtained from Henry Duke of Normandy, in 1152, the inheritance of two "uncles of his mother," namely Robert Malet and Alan de Lincoln, o In that case, each of these persons must have been the brother either of Ivo Taillebois or of Lucy.

We will first speak of Alan de Lincoln. He was doubtless a kinsman of Alured de Lincoln, who held an extensive fief in the shire of Lincoln at the Domesday survey, and who is possibly the same person designated under the city of Lincoln as Aluredus nepos Turoldi. Whether this refers to Turold the Sheriff, it may be difficult to decide; but the name of Turold itself is not Anglo- Saxon, and the sheriff may have been a Norman, or rather an Angevin, employed by the Confessor.P Alan de Lincoln, (perhaps the brother of Alured,'!) may have been the son of Hesilia Crespin (to be mentioned presently,) the mother of Robert Malet, by a second husband.

Robert Malet, the other " uncle " of the Countess Lucy, was the son of William Malet, who was killed at the siege of York in 1069 by the hands of the Danes, who had taken him prisoner r His mother was Hesilia Crispin, the sister of Emma Crispin, whose descendants of the name of Condie, or Cundet, inherited various estates in Lincolnshire.3

Lucy, the wife of Ivo Taillebois, was thus the sister of Robert Malet;1 and, unless Ivo had another wife," she was also the mother of Beatrix,35 wife of Ribald brother to Alan Earl of Richmond, the Domesday lord of Middleham, co. York,? whose son Ralph, and grandson Ribald, both took the surname ot Taillebois.z Ivo made a large benefaction to the abbey of St. Mary, at York, during the time of its first abbat, Stephen, 1088-1112, for the soul's health of himself and his wife Lucy, she being witness thereto, together with Ribald his son-in-law, Ralph Taillebois, and others."

• Lucia of Mercia

born about 1040 Mercia, England

died England

buried Spalding, Lincoln, England

father:

• Ælfgar III Earl of Mercia

born about 1002 Mercia, England

died 1059 Mercia, England

buried Coventry, Warwickshire, England

mother:

• Ælfgifu Princess of England

born about 0997 Wessex, England

siblings:

Burhheard of Mercia born about 1030 Mercia, England

• Ealdgyth Queen of England born about 1034 Mercia, England

died after 1086

Leverunia born <1034 Mercia, England>

Edwin Earl of Mercia born about 1028 Mercia, England died after 1070 England

Morcar Earl of Northumbria born about 1030 Mercia, England died after 1070 England

spouse:

• Ivo FitzRichard de Roumare Taillebois

born 1036 Yorkshire, England

died 1094

children:

• Lucy (de Taillebois?) Countess of Chester born about 1070 Spalding, Lincolnshire, England

died about 1136

Mathilda de Taillebois born about 1070

Eldred of Kendal

• William de Taillebois born about 1096 Gernon Castle, Normandie, France

biographical and/or anecdotal:

notes or source:

LDS

ancestry.com

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was living in 1130

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From Wikipedia:

Lucy (died c. 1138), sometimes called Lucy of Bolingbroke[1] was an Anglo-Norman heiress in central England and, later in life, countess-consort of Chester. Probably related to the old English earls of Mercia, she came to possess extensive lands in Lincolnshire which she passed on to her husbands and sons. She was a notable religious patron, founding or co-founding two small religious houses and endowing several with lands and churches.

Although there is much confusion about Lucy's ancestry in earlier writings, recent historians tend to believe that she was the daughter of Thorold, sheriff of Lincoln, by a daughter of William Malet (died 1071). She inherited a huge group of estates centred on Spalding in Lincolnshire, probably inherited from both the Lincoln and the Malet family. This group of estates have come to be called the "Honour of Bolingbroke".

The heiress Lucy was married to three different husbands, all of whom died in her lifetime. The first of these was to Ivo Taillebois, a marriage which took place "around 1083". Ivo took over her lands as husband, and seems in addition to have been granted estates and extensive authority in Westmorland and Cumberland. Ivo died in 1094.

The second marriage was to one Roger de Roumare or Roger fitz Gerold, with whom she had one son, William de Roumare (future Earl of Lincoln), who inherited some of her land.[10] The latter was the ancestor of the de Roumare family of Westmorland. ] Roger died in either 1097 or 1098.

Sometime after this, though before 1101, she was married to Ranulf le Meschin, her last and longest marriage. A son Ranulf de Gernon, succeeded his father to the earldom of Chester (which Ranulf acquired in 1121) and a daughter, Alice, married Richard de Clare.

Upon her death, most of the Lincolnshire lands she inherited passed to her older son William de Roumare, while the rest passed to Ranulf II of Chester (forty versus twenty knights' fees). The 1130 pipe roll informs us that Lucy had paid King Henry I 500 marks after her last husband's death for the right not to have to remarry. She died around 1138.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_(countess-consort_of_Chester)

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Widow of Roger de Romara, Earl of Lincoln

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Lucy was our ancestor through two different descent paths--both through her son Ranulf and her daughter UNKNOWN, each of whom were independently our ancestors.

There is considerable controversy about the genealogy of Lucy; see "My Lines"

( http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cousin/html/p62.htm#i14645 )

from Compiler: R. B. Stewart, Evans, GA

( http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cousin/html/index.htm ).

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Everything you wanted to know about Lucy of Mercia, Countess of Taillebois:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_(countess-consort_of_Chester)

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Lucy Possibly daughter of Thorold, the Sheriff. She married Ivo Talboys, Earl of Anjou, son of Reinfred Tailbois. Lucy married Roger FitzGerold de Romare, son of Gerold de Roumare and Aubreye. Lucy was born circa 1068. She married Ranulph, Earl of Chester, Vicomte de Bayeux & d'Avranches, son of Ranulph, Vicomte de Bayeaux and Margaret of Chester, circa 1100. Lucy died in 1141.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_of_Bolingbroke

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The Parentage of Countess Lucy Made Plain

A lot of ink has flowed on the subject, but there can be no doubt that the 'mysterious' Countess Lucy of Chester was William Malet's thrice-married granddaughter, the daughter of Robert Malet's sister and Turold the Sheriff of Lincoln (dead by 1079). The suggestion was first made by R. Kirk in 1888. As N. Sumner has more recently observed: 'This account has the merit of explaining why the lordship of Spalding and other places in Lincolnshire were held after Ivo's death not by Beatrice, his direct heir and the daughter of his marriage to Lucy, but by the later husbands of Lucy, Roger fitz Gerold and Ranulph Meschines.' It is clear from her charters that Lucy was an heiress; as was to be expected, her estates passed to the sons of her second and third marriages. Kirk's work was based upon conjecture, and contained a number of errors. The question of Lucy's parentage has therefore remained open. Nevertheless, there is proof that Kirk was right.

A spurious charter of Crowland Abbey made Turold of Bucknall (the Sheriff) the founder of the priory of Spalding as a cell of Crowland. It also called Turold brother of Godiva countess of Mercia, but subsequently described Godiva's son Earl Algar as Turold's cognatus (cousin). A genealogia fundatoris of Coventry Abbey made Lucy a daughter of Earl Algar and sister and heiress of earls Edwin and Morcar. The Peterborough Chronicle and the Pseudo-Ingulf's Chronicle of Crowland both made Lucy the daughter of Algar and niece or great-niece of Turold. We know that William Malet was half-English, so these traditions probably boil down to a relationship between Countess Godiva and William's English mother.

In 1153 a charter [RRAN, III, 180] of the future Henry II for Lucy's son Ranulf II of Chester referred to her uncles Robert Malet and Alan of Lincoln. Alan of Lincoln was the successor, and almost certainly the son, of Domesday's Alfred of Lincoln. Chronologically, it is most unlikely that Alan was Lucy's uncle. It was probably another of Alfred's sons whom Domesday described as Alfred nepos [nephew or grandson] of Turold, then holding a fee which was certainly thereafter held with the rest of the senior Alfred's fee by his heir Alan. Domesday provides a further indication that Alfred senior married another of William Malet's daughters when it names a William as Alfred's predecessor in two of his manors. Other parts of each of these manors (Linwood and Rothwell) were held in 1086 by Durand Malet, who was probably William's son. It seems that Henry's charter can be explained by seeing a scribe, perhaps in search of rhetorical balance, commit the error of ascribing two uncles to Lucy, instead of a niece (Lucy) and a nephew (Alan of Lincoln) to Robert Malet, who was uncle to both.

Turold is evidenced in Domesday Book as a benefactor of Crowland Abbey, to which he gave a parcel of land at Bucknall. The abbey also held land at Spalding that had probably been granted to it by Earl Algar and there is evidence to suggest that Turold the Sheriff gave further land there to the abbey of St Nicholas, Angers, before 1079. Lucy and her first husband Ivo Taillebois subsequently founded, or perhaps re-founded, a priory at Spalding subject to St Nicholas, Angers. A revealing phrase from the Register of Spalding Priory reads: 'mortuo quia dicto Thoraldo relicta sibi herede Lucia predicta' [at his death Turold left an heir, the aforesaid Lucy]. The word heres, 'heir', was often used of the child who was to inherit his/her father's property. Lucy later confirmed the gifts of all three of her husbands: 'pro redempcione anime patris mei et matris mee et dominorum meorum et parentum meorum' [for the souls of my father and mother, my husbands and my (other) relatives]. The association of the priory with such a small group of people and the description of Lucy as heres of Turold strongly hint at Lucy's parentage. But we can go further still.

In their initial benefaction Ivo and Lucy referred to 'antecessorum suorum Turoldi scilicet uxorisque eius regine' [our 'ancestors' Turold and his wife]. The reference to Turold's wife indicates that some part of his landholding had come to him through his wife, something also indicated by the occurrence of William Malet amongst those who had held the Domesday lands of Lucy's first husband Ivo Taillebois before him. The apparently vague Latin words antecessor and predecessor can both be used to mean something like 'predecessor'. Each of them conveys a range of very precise meanings in different circumstances. The description of Turold and his wife as antecessores of Ivo and Lucy may be compared to the usage in a charter in the cartulary of Mont-Saint-Michel by which the Angevins Hugh Chalibot and his wife confirmed the grants of her father, who was described as antecessor noster. Other examples of this phrase show clearly that it was used by a married man to describe the parent from whom his wife had inherited the property she brought to the marriage. Acting on her own account (normally after her husband's death), the heiress will often describe herself as the daughter of the parent her husband described as antecessor noster. A rare use of the phrase was to indicate the couple's immediate predecessor, not her father but her brother. In Lucy and Ivo's case the plurality of their antecessores, Turold and his wife, puts the matter beyond doubt. Lucy's parents were indeed Turold the Sheriff and a daughter of William Malet.

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Sources 1.[S265] Colquoun_Cunningham.ged, Jamie Vans

2.[S285] London 1910. Alan Sutton, 1982, G E C, (London 1910. Alan Sutton, 1982

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• http://childsfamily.com/reunion/PS13/PS13_448.HTM

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This ancient record is from www.mathematical.com/caenrobert1090.html

Se also en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_of_bolingbroke

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Mother of Aelftred (Taillebois) de Kendal, Beatrix (Taillebois) de Tallebois, Adeliza Matilda (Taillebois) Beauchamp, Christiana (Taillebois) Kendel, William (Taillebois) De Taillebois, Adeliza (Meschines) de Condet, Ranulph IV D. Meschines, Agnes (Meschines) Grandmesnil and William De RoumaraLucy of Bolingbroke (Thoroldsdottir of Lincoln), Countess of Chester. b: May 23rd 1074 d: c 1136 (62) Chester, Cheshire

Parents: Thorold, Sheriff of Lincoln, and a daughter of William Malet Lucy.

Thorold, who may or may not be identical with a Thorold of Bucknall (both names are variants of the Scandinavian Thorvaldr); m: (1) Ivo de Taillebois,

(2) Roger/Richard de Roumare,

(3) Ranulph "de Briquessart" le Meschin Earl of Chester. children:

Adeliza/Alicia des Meschines of Chester Wife of Richard FitzGilbert de Clare and Robert de Condet (Cundy), Lord of Thorngate

Agnes des Meschines of Chester m. Robert de Grandmesnil (Grentemesnil)

"It is unclear as to who her parents were. One tradition is that she is the daughter of Aelfgifu and Aelfgar. However, the more modern view is that she was related to them via Thorold, sheriff of Lincoln."[c]

These two traditions concerning Lucy's ancestry agree that she was related to Ælfgar, Earl of Mercia, son of Leofric and Lady Godgifu / Godiva, the Earl and Countess of Mercia.[c] The most common variation of the older tradition held that she was the daughter of the Earl Ælfgar and his wife Ælfgifu, who was the granddaughter of ETHELRED the Unready, King of England. The later view places Lucy as Ælfgar's niece, the daughter of Ælfgar's brother Thorold/Turold of Bucknall, Lincolnshire, Earl of Leicester and Sheriff of Lincoln, in the time of ETHELRED's son, St EDWARD the Confessor, who reigned from 1042 to 1066.

Turold / Thorold / Thorkell of Bucknall in Lincoln, the Earl of Leicester and Sheriff of Lincolnshire, was the son of Alwin (Aluredus) and a brother (stated as "near kinsman") of Ælfgar / Algar II, seventh Earl of Mercia. Thorold, a Saxon, is believed by some to have had strong Norman blood through his mother, perhaps explaining why he retained his considerable lands in Warwickshire after the Conquest.

[1]

Sources

Katherine S.B. Keats-Rohan, "Antecessor Noster: The Parentage of Countess Lucy Made Plain" in PROSOPON: NEWSLETTER OF THE UNIT FOR PROSOPOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH, no. 2 (May 1995) © Linacre College, Oxford;

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• Lucy and Ranulf were married before 1101, at which time she become the Countess of Chester.
• Lucy brought into her marriage with Ranulf extensive lands (named the "Honour of Bolingbroke") at Spalding in Lincolnshire.
• Although her parentage has been in dispute for many years, recent scholarship suggests that her father was Thorold, Sheriff of Lincoln, and that her mother was a daughter of William Malet (died 1071), a Companion of William the Conqueror and a combatant in the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

Förnamn Lucy (Mercia) of Mercia Lucia Mellannamn Countess Demercia Efternamn Detaillebois Födelsedatum 23 maj 1074 27 september 1040 Födelseort Chester, Cheshire, England Mercia, Heptarche, England Dödsdatum 1136 1086 Dödsort Chester, Cheshire, England Spalding, Lincolnshire, England.

Mother of Aelftred (Taillebois) de Kendal, Beatrix (Taillebois) de Tallebois, Adeliza Matilda (Taillebois) Beauchamp, Christiana (Taillebois) Kendel, William (Taillebois) De Taillebois, Adeliza (Meschines) de Condet, Ranulph IV D. Meschines, Agnes (Meschines) Grandmesnil and William De RoumaraLucy of Bolingbroke (Thoroldsdottir of Lincoln), Countess of Chester. b: May 23rd 1074 d: c 1136 (62) Chester, Cheshire

Parents: Thorold, Sheriff of Lincoln, and a daughter of William Malet Lucy.

Thorold, who may or may not be identical with a Thorold of Bucknall (both names are variants of the Scandinavian Thorvaldr); m: (1) Ivo de Taillebois,

(2) Roger/Richard de Roumare,

(3) Ranulph "de Briquessart" le Meschin Earl of Chester. children:

Adeliza/Alicia des Meschines of Chester Wife of Richard FitzGilbert de Clare and Robert de Condet (Cundy), Lord of Thorngate

Agnes des Meschines of Chester m. Robert de Grandmesnil (Grentemesnil)

"It is unclear as to who her parents were. One tradition is that she is the daughter of Aelfgifu and Aelfgar. However, the more modern view is that she was related to them via Thorold, sheriff of Lincoln."[c]

These two traditions concerning Lucy's ancestry agree that she was related to Ælfgar, Earl of Mercia, son of Leofric and Lady Godgifu / Godiva, the Earl and Countess of Mercia.[c] The most common variation of the older tradition held that she was the daughter of the Earl Ælfgar and his wife Ælfgifu, who was the granddaughter of ETHELRED the Unready, King of England. The later view places Lucy as Ælfgar's niece, the daughter of Ælfgar's brother Thorold/Turold of Bucknall, Lincolnshire, Earl of Leicester and Sheriff of Lincoln, in the time of ETHELRED's son, St EDWARD the Confessor, who reigned from 1042 to 1066.

Turold / Thorold / Thorkell of Bucknall in Lincoln, the Earl of Leicester and Sheriff of Lincolnshire, was the son of Alwin (Aluredus) and a brother (stated as "near kinsman") of Ælfgar / Algar II, seventh Earl of Mercia. Thorold, a Saxon, is believed by some to have had strong Norman blood through his mother, perhaps explaining why he retained his considerable lands in Warwickshire after the Conquest.

[1]

Sources

Katherine S.B. Keats-Rohan, "Antecessor Noster: The Parentage of Countess Lucy Made Plain" in PROSOPON: NEWSLETTER OF THE UNIT FOR PROSOPOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH, no. 2 (May 1995) © Linacre College, Oxford;