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Archiver > GEN-MEDIEVAL > 1999-02 > 0918826889
From: John Carmi Parsons < >
Subject: Re: Norman genealogy
Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1999 08:41:29 -0500 (EST)
Comments interspersed below:
On Fri, 12 Feb 1999 Michelle.Murphy% wrote:
> 2) Did Henry II's two younger brothers, Geoffrey and William, have any
> heirs? Also, did he have a sister Eleanor who married Prince Davydd of
> Wales, son of Owain Gwynedd? Would this not have been an extremely low
> match for the sister of the all-powerful Henry II of England,
> Normandy, Anjou and Aquitaine/Poitou?
Neither Geoffrey nor William ever married. William wanted to marry the widow
of King Stephen's son William (d. 1159) but Archbishop Becket forbade the
marriage because the two Williams were second cousins. William Plantagenet
supposedly died of grief because he could not marry the object of his
affections. William is sometimes stated to have had an out-of-wedlock
daughter, but the assertion rests on no reliable evidence whatever.
Henry II did marry a half-sister to a Welsh prince, but her name was Emma
and she was the daughter of Count Geoffrey of Anjou by an unknown mistress.
Emma married first Guy, sire de Laval in Brittany, and then the Welsh prince.
I believe both marriages produced issue--certainly the Laval union did.
> 3) What is the relationship between Thibault, elder brother of King
> Stephen and Count of Champagne and Blois; and the husbands of Eleanor
> of Aquitaine's two daughters by King Louis VII of France: Marie
> married a Count of Champagne and Alix married a Count of Blois.
Louis VII's sons-in-law were Thibaut's sons by Matilda of Carinthia.
> 4) Did Constance, daughter of William the Conqueror, marry and have
> descendants?
She married Alain, duke of Brittany in 1086 but died in 1090 without any
children who lived long enough to leave any trace of themselves on the
historical record.
> 5) Was Matilda of Boulogne, wife of King Stephen, the only child of
> her father Eustace Count of Boulogne and Mary of Scotland? What
> happened to the county of Boulogne after Stephen's death: did Eustace
> succeed to the title or did it revert to the English or French crowns?
Eustace did not survive Stephen. Stephen's younger son William (mentioned
above) inherited the county of Boulogne but died childless in 1159. The only
other surviving child of Stephen and Matilda of Boulogne, Mary, who had spent
most of her early life flitting from one convent to another, either ran away
from, or was abducted from, her current convent in 1159 or 1160 and married
(her alleged abductor) Matthew of Alsace, a younger brother of Count Philip of
Flanders. They lived together for about 10 yrs and produced 2 daughters before
ecclesiastical pressure forced them to separate and Mary returned to the
religious life. Matthew died in 1173, Mary in 1183. Their elder daughter
married 4 times but her issue became extinct before the middle of the 13th
century. The younger married (as his first wife) Henry I, duke of Brabant, and
their issue continued the lineage of the counts of Boulogne.
> 6) Does anyone have any further information on Henry Holy Roman
> Emperor, first husband of the Empress Matilda e.g. his first wife,
> children and who succeeded him.
ES (Ysenburg-Buedingen/Freytag von Loringhoven) shows only one marriage for
Henry V, that to Matilda of England/Normandy, celebrated in 1114. The marriage
is usually said to have been barren, but Marjorie Chibnall's recent study of
Matilda's life refers to the chronicle of Herman of Tournai, which indicates
that the couple had at least one child who must have died very young. Henry V
was succeeded by Lothar, duke of Saxony and count of Supplinburg (Lothar II,
1075-1137). Lothar was not Henry V's near relative; his election represented a
re-assertion of German nobles' right to elect a king, as against the dynastic
principle. During Lothar's reign Henry V's sister's son, Conrad of Swabia/
Hohenstaufen, was elected anti-king (1127), and was elected king (Conrad III)
in 1138. At Conrad's death in 1152 his sons were too young to be considered
for the throne, and his nephew Frederick of Hohenstaufen (Barbarossa) was
elected to succeed Conrad.
John Parsons
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