Isabel de Warenne, Countess of Surrey

For the Countess of Arundel, see Isabel de Warenne.

The Right Honourable Isabel de Warenne
4rd Countess of Surrey
Predecessor	William de Warenne, 3rd Earl of Surrey
Successor	William de Warenne, 5th Earl of Surrey
Father	William de Warenne, 3rd Earl of Surrey

Isabel de Warenne, 4th Countess of Surrey (c. 1130 – 1203) was an English peer. She was the only surviving heir of William de Warenne, 3rd Earl of Surrey, and his wife, Adela, the daughter of William III of Ponthieu.[1][2]

Life

Isabel was the great-granddaughter of the first Norman earl, William, and his Flemish wife Gundred.[2] When her father died in the Holy Land in January 1148 she inherited the earldom of Surrey and was married in around 1153 to William of Blois, the younger son of King Stephen, who became earl in her right.[1][2] The marriage occurred at a critical moment in The Anarchy as part of King Stephen's attempt to control the de Warenne lands.The couple did not have any children and William died in 1159.[1]

William FitzEmpress, younger brother of King Henry II, sought Isabel's hand in 1162 or 1163, but Thomas Becket refused a dispensation from affinity on the grounds of consanguinity. In April 1164, she married Hamelin of Anjou, a natural half-brother of King Henry, who became jure uxoris Earl of Surrey. Isabel died in 1203.[2]

Family

Isabel and her second husband Hamelin had four surviving children:

• William, later 5th Earl of Surrey (1166–1240)[3]
• Ela (born c. 1170, date of death unknown), married first Robert of Naburn and secondly William FitzWilliam of Sprotborough.[4]
• Isabel, married first Robert de Lacy and secondly Gilbert de l'Aigle, Lord of Pevensey.[4]
• Matilda, married first Henry, Count of Eu and Lord of Hastings[5] and secondly Henry de Stuteville.[4]

Ancestry

[6]

Ancestors of Isabel de Warenne, Countess of Surrey

8. William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey 4. William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey 9. Gundred, Countess of Surrey 2. William de Warenne, 3rd Earl of Surrey 10. Hugh I, Count of Vermandois 5. Elizabeth of Vermandois, Countess of Leicester 11. Adelaide, Countess of Vermandois 1. Isabel de Warenne 12. Robert of Bellême, 3rd Earl of Shrewsbury 6. William III, Count of Ponthieu 13. Agnes, Countess of Ponthieu 3. Adela (or Ela) of Ponthieu 14. Odo I, Duke of Burgundy 7. Helie of Burgundy 15. Sibylla of Burgundy, Duchess of Burgundy

References

1. Cokayne, George Edward. The Complete Peerage, Vol. XII/1 (London" The St. Catherine Press, 1953), p. 498.
2. Elisabeth van Houts, (2004) "The Warenne View of the Past 1066–1203", Anglo-Norman Studies XXVI, Proceedings of the Battle Conference 2003, ed. John Gillingham. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, p. 103. ISBN 978-1-84615-205-4.
3. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, Vol. XII/1 (1953), pp. 500–503.
4. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, Vol. XII/1 (1953) p. 500, n. (g).
5. The Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, Vol. 9, Yorkshire Archaeological Society (Bradbury, Agnew and Co., 1886), 300.
6. "The Ancestry of Elizabeth FitzAlan (and her sister Joan FitzAlan) to the 9th generation". Archived from the original on 30 October 2022. Retrieved 30 October 2022.

Peerage of England
Preceded by William de Warenne	Countess of Surrey 1148–1203	Succeeded by Hamelin de Warenne