Waleran de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Worcester
Encyclopedia
Waleran de Beaumont, Count of Meulan, 1st Earl of Worcester
Earl of Worcester
Earl of Worcester is a title that has been created five times in the Peerage of England. The first creation came in 1138 in favour of the Norman noble Waleran de Beaumont. He was the son of Robert de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Leicester, by Elizabeth of Vermandois, and the twin brother of Robert de...

 (1104 – 9 April 1166, Preaux
Préaux
Préaux may refer to the following places in France:* Préaux, Ardèche, a commune in the department of Ardèche* Préaux, Indre, a commune in the department of Indre* Préaux, Mayenne, a commune in the department of Mayenne...

), was the son of Robert de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Leicester
Robert de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Leicester
Robert de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Leicester, Count of Meulan was a powerful English and French nobleman, revered as one of the wisest men of his age...

 and Elizabeth de Vermandois
Elizabeth de Vermandois (d. 1131)
Elizabeth of Vermandois, or Elisabeth or Isabel de Vermandois , was a niece of Philip I of France who was twice married to influential Anglo-Norman magnates.-Family:...

, and the twin brother of Robert de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Leicester
Robert de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Leicester
Robert de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Leicester was Justiciar of England 1155–1168.The surname "de Beaumont" is given him by genealogists. The only known contemporary surname applied to him is "Robert son of Count Robert"...

. He is not referred to by any surname in a contemporary document other than 'Waleran son of Count Robert'.

Early life

Waleran was born in 1104, the eldest of twin sons of Robert de Beaumont, count of Meulan, who was also to become earl of Leicester in 1107. On their father's death in June 1118, the boys came into the wardship of King Henry I of England
Henry I of England
Henry I was the fourth son of William I of England. He succeeded his elder brother William II as King of England in 1100 and defeated his eldest brother, Robert Curthose, to become Duke of Normandy in 1106...

. They remained in his care till late in 1120 when they were declared adult and allowed to succeed to their father's lands by a division already arranged between the king and their father before his death. By the arrangement, Waleran succeeded to the county of Meulan
Meulan
Meulan-en-Yvelines is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France. It hosted part of the sailing events for the 1900 Summer Olympics held in neighboring Paris, and would do so again twenty-four years later.-People:*Mbaye Niang footballer*Ibrahim Sacko...

 upriver on the Seine from the Norman border, and the principal family Norman honors of Beaumont-le-Roger
Beaumont-le-Roger
Beaumont-le-Roger is a commune in the department of Eure in the Haute-Normandie region in northern France.-Geography:The commune is located in the valley of the Risle on the edge of the forest with which it shares its name. It is crossed by the Paris-Cherbourg railway line...

 and Pont Audemer. His great possessions included the forest of Brotonne, which was centred on his castle of Vatteville
Vatteville
Vatteville is a commune in the Eure department in Haute-Normandie in northern France.-Population:...

 on the left bank of the Seine
Seine
The Seine is a -long river and an important commercial waterway within the Paris Basin in the north of France. It rises at Saint-Seine near Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plateau, flowing through Paris and into the English Channel at Le Havre . It is navigable by ocean-going vessels...

. As part of the family arrangement, Waleran also received a large estate in Dorset centred on the manor of Sturminster Marshall
Sturminster Marshall
Sturminster Marshall is a village and civil parish in east Dorset in England, situated on the River Stour between Blandford Forum and Poole. The parish has a population of 1,895 , and includes the village of Almer west of Sturminster Marshall, near Winterborne Zelston and the hamlet of Henbury to...

.

Rebellion and Imprisonment

Late in 1122 Waleran was drawn into a conspiracy with Amaury III of Montfort
Amaury III of Montfort
Amaury III de Montfort was seigneur de Montfort l'Amaury from 1101 to 1137 and comte d'Évreux from 1118 to 1137. He was the son of Simon I, seigneur de Montfort, and his wife Agnès d'Évreux.- Marriages and children :...

, count of Évreux, in support of the claimant to Normandy, William Clito
William Clito
William Clito was the son of Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy, by his marriage with Sibylla of Conversano...

, son of Robert Curthose. The king however detected the conspiracy, and Waleran and his young colleagues were caught unawares by a preemptive strike by the king's army against the rebel centre of Montfort-sur-Risle
Montfort-sur-Risle
Montfort-sur-Risle is a commune in the Eure department in the Haute-Normandie region in northern France.-History:In Gallic times the river Risle delimited the territories of the tribes of Veliocasses and the Lexovii....

. Waleran rallied and based his resistance to the king at his castle of Brionne
Brionne
Brionne is a commune in the Eure department in Haute-Normandie in northern France.-Population:-Sights:The keep, built in the 11th century was one of the rare Norman squareshaped defensive keeps, reminding of British architecture. It was destroyed in the 18th century.The church Saint-Martin has a...

. In October 1123 he lost his fortress of Pont Audemer on the Norman coast to a siege, despite calling in military help from his French relations and allies. After a winter of raiding, on 25 March 1125, Waleran proceeded to the relief of his castle of Vatteville
Vatteville
Vatteville is a commune in the Eure department in Haute-Normandie in northern France.-Population:...

, with his three brothers-in-law, Hugh de Châteauneuf, Hugh de Montfort and William, Lord of Bréval. The returning column was intercepted by a force of knights and soldiers of Henry I's household between Bourgtheroulde and Boissy-le-Châtel, the royal commander being given variously as William de Tancarville or Odo Borleng. The royal household troops decisively defeated Waleran when he attempted a mounted charge at the head of his men, shooting their horses from under them. Waleran's remaining castles continued to resist until 16 April 1124 when Waleran was forced by the king to order his seneschal Morin du Pin to surrender them. Waleran's lands were seized and he was imprisoned first at Rouen, then at Bridgnorth
Bridgnorth
Bridgnorth is a town in Shropshire, England, along the Severn Valley. It is split into Low Town and High Town, named on account of their elevations relative to the River Severn, which separates the upper town on the right bank from the lower on the left...

 in Shropshire and finally at Wallingford Castle
Wallingford Castle
Wallingford Castle was a major medieval castle situated in Wallingford in the English county of Oxfordshire , adjacent to the River Thames...

.

Waleran was released for unknown reasons in 1129. He resumed an active role at court and he and his twin brother were both present at Henry's deathbed. He was probably involved in the discussions of the Norman magnates in December 1135 as to who should succeed to Normandy and England.

Lieutenant of Normandy

The accession of Stephen
Stephen of England
Stephen , often referred to as Stephen of Blois , was a grandson of William the Conqueror. He was King of England from 1135 to his death, and also the Count of Boulogne by right of his wife. Stephen's reign was marked by the Anarchy, a civil war with his cousin and rival, the Empress Matilda...

 may have taken him by surprise but he had already offered his allegiance to the new king before Easter 1136. At the court he was betrothed to the king's infant daughter, Mathilda, and received the city and county of Worcester as her marriage portion. After Easter he went to Normandy taking authority from the king to act as his lieutenant in the duchy. In September he commanded the army of Norman magnates which repelled the invasion by Geoffrey of Anjou, husband of the Empress Matilda
Empress Matilda
Empress Matilda , also known as Matilda of England or Maude, was the daughter and heir of King Henry I of England. Matilda and her younger brother, William Adelin, were the only legitimate children of King Henry to survive to adulthood...

, daughter of Henry I. He was also able to capture the chief rebel Roger de Toeni. He remained there until the following spring and then returned to England.

The next year he attended the king on his tour of Normandy, crossed back to England with him at the end of the year, by which time he was beginning to undermine the previous ascendancy at court of the bishops of Winchester and Salisbury. He and his family began to monopolise favour and patronage at Stephen's court and they alienated the faction headed by Earl Robert of Gloucester
Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester
Robert Fitzroy, 1st Earl of Gloucester was an illegitimate son of King Henry I of England. He was called "Rufus" and occasionally "de Caen", he is also known as Robert "the Consul"...

, who in retaliation adopted the cause of his half-sister, the Empress. In June 1138, Waleran was in Normandy to confront successfully again an invading Angevin army. Waleran used his extensive connections at the French court to mobilise a large force of French knights to assist him. It was probably in 1138 that he received the second title of Earl of Worcester. He founded the Cistercian abbey of Bordesley at the end of that year to mark his arrival in the county. The same year his youngest brother Hugh received the earldom of Bedford and other relations were similarly honoured.

Before Easter 1139 Waleran was in Paris on an embassy to his cousin, the new King Louis VII of France
Louis VII of France
Louis VII was King of France, the son and successor of Louis VI . He ruled from 1137 until his death. He was a member of the House of Capet. His reign was dominated by feudal struggles , and saw the beginning of the long rivalry between France and England...

. On his return he was the motivating force behind the overthrow of the court faction headed by the justiciar, Bishop Roger of Salisbury
Roger of Salisbury
Roger was a Norman medieval Bishop of Salisbury and the seventh Lord Chancellor and Lord Keeper of England.-Life:...

. The bishop and his family were arrested in June, and their wealth and many of their possessions confiscated.

Civil war

With the arrival of Robert of Gloucester in England in September 1139, the civil war between Stephen and Mathilda's supporters got under way. One of the first attacks Gloucester sponsored was an assault on Waleran's English base at Worcester. The city was attacked and sacked on 7 November 1139. Waleran retaliated savagely against the rebel centres of Sudeley and Tewkesbury
Tewkesbury
Tewkesbury is a town in Gloucestershire, England. It stands at the confluence of the River Severn and the River Avon, and also minor tributaries the Swilgate and Carrant Brook...

.

Waleran was present at the Battle of Lincoln
Battle of Lincoln (1141)
The Battle of Lincoln or First Battle of Lincoln occurred on 2 February 1141. In it Stephen of England was captured, imprisoned and effectively deposed while Empress Matilda ruled for a short time.-Account:...

 in 1141. He was one of the royalist earls who fled when they saw that the battle was lost. Waleran escaped, but the king was captured and imprisoned at Bristol
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...

. Waleran fought on for several months, probably basing himself at Worcester, where he had to deal with the defection of his sheriff, William de Beauchamp. It may have been at this time that he seized and fortified the Herefordshire Beacon
Herefordshire Beacon
The Herefordshire Beacon is one of the hills of the Malvern Hills.The name Malvern of the nearby town is probably derived from the Welsh moel fryn or "bare hill"....

 for the bishop of Hereford complained of his lordship of this castle in 1148.
At last late in the summer of 1141 Waleran gave up the struggle as news reached him that his Norman lands were being taken over by the invading Angevin army. He surrendered to the Empress Mathilda, and had to accept her appropriation of the abbey of Bordesley as it had been founded on a royal estate. However, once in Normandy, Waleran was accepted at the court of Geoffrey of Anjou, and his lands in England and Normandy were confirmed to him. His first marriage, to the king's daughter Mathilda, had ended with the child's death in London in 1137. Around the end of 1142, Waleran married Agnes, daughter of Amaury de Montfort, count of Évreux. As a result of the marriage he obtained estates in the Pays de Caux and the lordship of Gournay-sur-Marne in the Ile de France. Waleran had already obtained his mother's marriage portion of the honor of Elbeuf on the Seine on her death in or around 1139. Despite the political reverses on 1141, Waleran was considerably wealthier at the end of the year than he had been at the beginning.

Waleran served with Geoffrey of Anjou at the siege of Rouen in 1143/4. During it he captured and burnt the suburb of Emendreville and the Church of St. Sever, where many of both sexes perished in the flames. He consolidated his position as leader of the Norman nobility by a formal treaty with his cousin Robert du Neubourg, seneschal of Normandy. However, Waleran seems to have turned his mind to the French court at this time. In Easter 1146 he was at Vézelay
Vézelay
Vézelay is a commune in the Yonne department in Burgundy in north-central France. It is a defendable hill town famous for Vézelay Abbey. The town and the Basilica of St Magdelene are designated UNESCO World Heritage sites....

 for the preaching of the Second Crusade
Second Crusade
The Second Crusade was the second major crusade launched from Europe. The Second Crusade was started in response to the fall of the County of Edessa the previous year to the forces of Zengi. The county had been founded during the First Crusade by Baldwin of Boulogne in 1098...

 and attended the great assembly of magnates at Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 from April to June 1147 to meet the pope and Louis VII. On 29 June he was joint leader of the Anglo-Norman crusaders on their rendezvous with Louis VII at Worms
Worms, Germany
Worms is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, on the Rhine River. At the end of 2004, it had 85,829 inhabitants.Established by the Celts, who called it Borbetomagus, Worms today remains embattled with the cities Trier and Cologne over the title of "Oldest City in Germany." Worms is the only...

. He accompanied the crusade to Syria and its unfortunate conclusion before Damascus. He seems to have left Palestine before King Louis, taking the sea voyage home. He was shipwrecked somewhere on his return, perhaps on the coast of Provence. He promised to build an abbey of Cistercians if he survived the wreck, and in due course he built the abbey of St Mary de Voto (of the Vow) or Le Valasse in fulfilment of his vow.

Political Decline

Waleran's great influence in Normandy survived till 1151, but the new regime of Duke Henry was not sympathetic to him. He made the fatal error of temporising with the Capetian court and assisting the campaigns of Louis VII, his overlord for Meulan. Though his support gained Waleran the hugely profitable wardship of the great county of Vermandois
Vermandois
Vermandois was a French county, that appears in the Merovingian period. In the tenth century, it was organised around two castellan domains: St Quentin and Péronne . Pepin I of Vermandois, the earliest of its hereditary counts, was descended in direct male line from the emperor Charlemagne...

 during the minority of his young cousin Count Ralph II, it also led to his downfall. In the second half of 1153 he was ambushed by his nephew and enemy Robert de Montfort, who held him captive while his Norman and English estates were stripped from Waleran by Duke Henry's friends and officers. The earldom of Worcester was suppressed and his Worcestershire castles destroyed in 1155.

Although Waleran was released, his power in Normandy was broken, and an attempt to reclaim Montfort-sur-Risle from his nephew was a humiliating failure. Waleran was an outsider at the court of Henry II, and between 1160 and 1162 lost his Norman lands and castles when he supported Louis VII against Henry II. His last years were eked out as a landowner and justice in the duchy. The last notice of his activities is a settlement of his affairs relating to his priory of Gournay-sur-Marne around the end of 1165. Twenty days before his death he entered the abbey of St Peter of Préaux, the ancestral abbey of his family south of Pont Audemer in Normandy, and died as a monk there on 9 or 10 April 1166. He was buried in its chapter house alongside several other members of his dynasty.

Aristocrat and humanist

Waleran was an important twelfth-century character in ways other than political. He was a literate man educated in the liberal arts and philosophy. The elegy to him by Stephen de Rouen, monk of Bec-Hellouin reveals that he composed Latin verse. In 1142 he tells us that he personally researched the deeds in the archive of Meulan priory before confirming its possessions. Like his twin brother, he also seems to have been an assiduous writer of letters and a number of them survive. He was also a literary patron, as Geoffrey of Monmouth
Geoffrey of Monmouth
Geoffrey of Monmouth was a cleric and one of the major figures in the development of British historiography and the popularity of tales of King Arthur...

 dedicated the earliest edition of his History of the Kings of Britain to him in 1136.

Waleran founded Cistercian abbeys at Bordesley
Bordesley, Worcestershire
Bordesley is a village north of Redditch, in Worcestershire, England....

, Worcestershire (1139), and Le Valasse, Normandy (c.1150), though in both cases the abbeys were taken over by the king. He was a generous patron of the two ancestral Benedictine monasteries of Préaux (St Peter for men and St Leger for women). He was besides accepted as advocate of the abbey of Bec-Hellouin, and was patron of its priory at Meulan, founding another at Beaumont-le-Roger. He founded a Benedictine priory at Gournay-sur-Marne. He endowed a major hospital at Pont Audemer, which still survives.

Family and children

He married, firstly, Matilda, daughter of King Stephen of England and Matilda of Boulogne, Countess de Boulogne, circa March 1136. She died in 1137 aged only four. He married, secondly, Agnes de Montfort, daughter of Amaury III de Montfort
Amaury III of Montfort
Amaury III de Montfort was seigneur de Montfort l'Amaury from 1101 to 1137 and comte d'Évreux from 1118 to 1137. He was the son of Simon I, seigneur de Montfort, and his wife Agnès d'Évreux.- Marriages and children :...

, Count of Évreux, and Agnes de Garlande, in 1141/2.

He had children with Agnes de Montfort (the boys as they appear in order in his 1165 charter to Gournay priory):
  1. Robert de Beaumont, Count of Meulan
    Robert de Beaumont, Count of Meulan
    Robert de Beaumont, Count of Meulan , was the son of Waleran IV de Beaumont and Agnes de Montfort.-Family and children:...

    .
  2. Isabelle de Meulan
    Isabelle de Meulan
    Isabelle de Meulan, Dame de Mayenne, Dame de Craon was a French noblewoman, being the daughter of Waleran de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Worcester, Count of Meulan. Isabelle married twice; firstly to Geoffroy, Seigneur de Mayenne, and secondly to Maurice II, Sire de Craon...

    (d. 10 May 1220), married twice:
    1. ca 1161 Geoffroy, lord of Mayenne;
    2. ca 1170 Maurice II, lord of Craon.
  3. Waleran de Meulan
  4. Amaury de Meulan, lord of Gournay-sur-Marne.
  5. Roger de Meulan or Beaumont, viscount of Évreux.
  6. Raoul (Ralph) de Meulan.
  7. Etienne (Stephen) de Meulan.
  8. Mary de Meulan.

External links

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