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 324 SURREY. was more generally spoken of as KARL WAUENXE.( a ) He m. before 107S; b ) and probably hef"re 1070, Gundred, a lady whose parentage, tho' she was of "Ducal" race (" stirps durum," aa recorded on her monument*, has been the cause of, probably, greater controversy than that of any other person. (") She d. in childbed at Castle Acre, meditated the invasion of Normandy, and that he lived but a short time to enjoy it." [t'ourtht>pe. That his creation was by William 11. is continued by " Tht Hook of Hyde Abbey" (a contemporary chronicle) pub. in 1866. See, also, in the u JUmarki as to this Earldom " on p. 322. (*) Examples of "the system or rather want of system" in the nomenclature of the Knglish Karls during the 11th and 12th centuries are given in Kound's " Geffrey dc Mttijuavdlc " : tlius the Karls of Hertford, Surrey, Derby, and Muckineham are usually spoken of by their family names of Clare, Warenue, Kerrers and Gitl'ard. bat the Earls of Norfolk, Essex, Devon, and Cornwall, by the names of their respective counties. (•>) In 107S, they were joint founders of the priory of Lewes. ( c ) That of two other persons (both also ladies), VIZ. (1) Aniicia, wife of Sir Thomas Mainwaring. and (2) Ita, Countess of Hapsburg, comes perhaps next. There arc various theories as to Guudrada's parentage (see " ft. and Q," tith S., iv, 509 — 611). Of these (1), one is that adopted by Dugdale on a positive statement of Ordoric, confirmed by the Hook of J/i/dc Abbey (a Contemporary record) that she was sister to Gherbod, Earl of Chester. He was, presumably, son of another Gherbod, advocate of St. Ilertin'a Abbey at St. Onier, 10'2ti — 1056. This is the view, which, after two centuries of disfavour, is taken by H. E. Chester Waters, in his able pamphlet on " tlundrada " [Arch. Inst. Journal, xli, 10S], who suggests that the " ttirps ducum" refers to the Ducal house of Burgundy, the founders and patrons of Cluni Abbey (one closely connected with the family of Warenne, in which house, also, the name lieynold, that of Gundred's second son, was common. (21 Another theory, baseil on evidences (which, however, are not free from suspicion) at Lewes Abbey, fco., is that Gundred was da. of William the Conqueror by his Queen Matilda of Elanders, the "duces ' in her epitaph referring to the Dukes of Normandy, her paternal ancestors. This, till about 1846, was the most prevalent opinion and was adopted by Leland, Ellis, l'algrave, Lappenberg, &c, not to mention the number of Worn in which " Royal descents '* were freely furnished for the innumerable descendants of the said Gundred. This theory has the support of an able antiquary, Sir George Dttckett, F.S.A., who, in his " Observations «« the parentage of Gnudrcda" [Cuinb. and Westm. Society's Transactions, vol. iii, 1878, M also in the Sussex Arch. Soc, vol. xxxviii], suggests that Orderie. in calling her the" SorOT 'of Qherbod, may mean thereby merely " St ut dc Init," or " foster-sister." a suggestion which met with the approval C_»9 dune, 1886) of Leopold Delisle, Director Gen. of the Nat. Library of Kranee, one of the first Latin scholars and nrclueologists. A letter from "A. Hall" in " and Q." (7th S., vii. 64). suggests that her father, Duke William, " as a result of the Papal interdict of 1019, relinquished his briile, and that, being enrrintc, she was placed under the nominal protection of Gherbod, senior," which would make her da., Gnndred, the foster-sister of Gherbod, junior. (31 Another theory put forth about 1845 by the well-known Thomas Stapleton, F.S.A., in the "Arch. Journal" (vol. iii, pp. 1-26), was to the effect that Gnndred (as well as Gherbod, Earl of Chester) was a child of Matilda of Flanders, but not by King William, but by a former husband, i.e., by Gherbod, senior, above- mentioned. This reconciled the first theory with one of the Lewes charters (one which, till recently, was never suspected) in which William de Warenne makes a grant for the soul of Gundred, his deceased wife, and for that of Queen Matilda " mulris vxoris mee," a remarkable description, and one that certainly implied that King William was not her father. This theory, owing, perhaps, to the reputation of its author, " caught on " prodigiously, and was paramount for some thirty years, among the leading authorities, including Planche and many others as, also, (down to 1S75) Chester Waters and (down to 1S38I Prof. Freeman. The latter [.Vora. Couq. iii, 8U-S7J states that Matilda was, when William married her, a " mature willow," in contradiction to the " puella," " pucelle," &c, so often applied to her [see Duckett's pamphlet] j that " there is no doubt " as to Gnndred being her da. by Gherbod, and that the duces of her epitaph were, " of course," the Counts of Flanders. Subsequently, however, he altogether recants this view [Emjlish Hist. Review, Oct. 1883J, stating that there is nothing to shew that Gundred teas, ami a