Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 3.djvu/187

 CHESTER 167 Charter to Salisbury granted at the Northampton Council of Henry I, 8 Sep. 1 131. To Stephen's second "Charter of Liberties" he was, in 1 136, a witness, and by him he was made Constable of Lincoln. Against that King, however, he took part at the battle of Lincoln, 2 Feb. 1141, in which Stephen was made prisoner, who retaliated on the Earl 29 Aug. 1 146, by seizing him at Court, at Northampton. The King granted him the Castle and city of Lincoln, probably after the pacification of 1 1 5 1 .(*) He /»., about 1 141, Maud, da. of Robert, Earl of Gloucester, by Mabel, da. and h. of Robert Fitz-Hamond, lord of Tewkesbury. Having again taken part with King Stephen, and being consequently distrusted by both sides, he d. 16 Dec. 1 153,('') being supposed to have been poisoned by his wife and "William Peverell, of Nottingham. He was bur. at St. Werburg's, Chester. His widow, who in 1 172 founded Repton Priory, co. Derby, ^. 29 July 1 189. VL 1 1 53. 3. Hugh, styled " of Kevelioc," Earl of Chester, also VicoMTE d'Avranches, fffc, in Normandy, s. and h. He was b. in ii47,() ^^ Kevelioc, co. Merioneth. He joined in the rebellion against King Henry II, set on foot by Henry, the son of that King, and was taken prisoner at Alnwick, 13 July 1 174. He was deprived of his Earldom, and was again in rebellion both in England and Normandy, but, in Jan. 1 177, was restored. He m., in 1 169,() Bertrade, then aged 14 (the King giving her away in marriage "because she was his own cousin "),() da. of Simon Count d'Evreux, by his ist wife, Maud.('=) He d. at Leeke, CO. Stafford, 1 1 8 1, aged about 34.() His widow d. 1 22-],{^) aged about 7 1 .(') VII. 1 181 4. Ranulph,(') styled "de Blundeville,"(^) Earl to OF Chester, also Vicomte d'Avranches, &'c., in Nor- 1232, mandy, only s. and h. He was b. at Oswestry {Album MonaUerium or Blonde Ville) in Powys, about 1172. On (^) See J. H. Round's " King Stephen and the Earl of Chester " in Eng, Hist. Review^ vol. x, p. 87. V.G. ('') See '■'■ Annales Cestriemes" edit. 1887, by R. C. Christie, who remarks (in the "Introduction") on the light which the dates of the birth and marriage of Earl Hugh (1147 and 1169) throw "on that bitterly debated point, the question of the legitimacy of his da. Amicia, wife of Ralph Mainwaring." (■=) She, who was aged 29 (at least) in 1 185-86, was not a child by the 2nd wife, Amice (sister of Robert, Earl of Leicester), whose marriage (probably about 1 1 66-69) could not have been as early as 1 1 56. Bertrade's cousinship to Henry II was owing to her grandfather's sister, Bertrade de Montfort, wife of Fulk IV, Count of Anjou [1060- 1 109], being great-grandmother to that King. ("Earls of Leicester," by G. W. Watson, The Genealogist, N.S., vol. x). V.G. {^) The Pipe Roll implies that he died about Midsummer, {ex inform. J. H. Round). V.G. (•) She was aged 29 (1186) 32 Hen. II. See "Rot. de dominabus ^c," p. 8. (') Of this Earl an exhaustive account is given by J. H, Round in Diet. Nat. Biog., under the heading of "Blundevill." (») So called from his birthplace.