Roger DE MONTGOMERIE

   Another name for Roger was De Bellesme De Alencon DE MONTGOMERY.

  General Notes:

Governor of Normandy, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, Earl of Arundel

Arundel Castle, West Sussex, England

'Oft on the mouldering Keep by night Earl Roger takes his stand, With the sword that shone at Hastings' fight,Firm grasped in his red, right hand ! ' This is how an ancient poem begins about Roger de Montgomery who it was believed had fought alongside Duke William at Hastings. In fact Roger de Montgomery wasn't at the Battle of Hastings, but was left at home to look after Normandy for William while he was in England. He contributed greatly to the invasion force and was to be richly rewarded for his loyal services.

Duke William, now King William, bestowed upon him the Earldoms of Shrewsbury and Arundel, of which the latter consisted of the rape and honor of the district, as well as the rape of Chichester, which made him Lord of 84 manors. He also founded the Abbey at Shrewsbury in 1083, which he is reputed to have entered 3 days before his death, yet his ghost is said to haunt the magnificent keep at Arundel.
After the Norman Conquest, King William divided the County of 'Sudsexe' (Sussex) into six 'rapes' - Chichester, Arundel, Bramber, Lewis, Pevensey, and Hastings. Each one commanded a harbour or river, along with a carefully sited Castle. The 'rape' system in Sussex cannot be found in any other County. The origin of the term 'rape' is unknown but it is believed to come from the Icelandic measure, 'hrapa' or it could well come from the Norman French word, 'rapiner' to plunder. There is evidence that William systematically laid waste to much of the County in his efforts to form a strong bridgehead for his troops. Sussex was the nearest County to Normandy where reinforcements could be rushed in the event of a Saxon revolt and in every Sussex 'rape', lesser castles and towers were built to support the main castle.
The origins of Arundel are vague and much of what the visitor sees today is the result of 18th and 19th century reconstruction, although according to local folklaw King Alfred is said to have had fortifications here, but there is no evidence of this site. Over the river at Warningcamp, high on the opposite side of the Arun are the ancient remains of defensive earthworks, but very little is known about them. When the castle was built at Arundel it soon started to gather its history as time progressed. Kings and Queens, Empresses and Princes, have all stayed at Arundel, each and every one of them adding to the story of this magnificent Castle.

Earl Roger de Montgomery founded the first castle at Arundel on Christmas Day 1067. It was after King William had held his Christmas Court at Gloucester and awarded Montgomery the Earldom, that he ordered him to build a castle on the Arun to protect the inland reaches. Roger de Montgomery was already an extremely powerful man in his native Normandy and had been a close friend of William's since William was a teenager as he was his cousin. He was present at the Council of Lillebonne in 1066, and agreed to contribute 60 ships to aid the invasion plans of England. He returned with William from Normandy in 1067 and he was summoned to attend Chrismas at Gloucester with the king where he was awarded his honours as one of William's most trusted men. Earl Roger immediately started to build a classic motte and bailey castle of timber on his Sussex estate. It was planned with a central motte between two baileys, rather than the single bailey of most Norman castles and was similar in consruction to the double bailey plan of Grimboscai in Normandy, South of Caen.The Earthworks at Arundel were begun in 1068 and are still in superb condition. They consist of a central motte protected by a deep fosse (dry ditch) on the west side. The motte is 100ft high from the bottom of the ditch and 69ft high on its inner side with a total dimesion north to south of 950 ft. The original timbers were gradually replaced with stone, starting first with the curtain wall and gatehouse, which still survive with its original retangular portcullis groove.

In 1071 Roger was made Earl of Shrewsbury, and although these lands were not in control of the Crown, the new Earl added his own special share to the conquest at the expense of the Welsh. This was done by setting up political govenment and a well devised scheme of castle-building. He later secretly supported the Conqueror's eldest son, Robert Duke of Normandy, in his claim against William Rufus, but took no active part in the rebellion. Roger de Montgomery died in 1094 and was succeeded at Arundel by his son, Robert, known as Robert de Belleme. Robert de Belleme was a very hard and cruel man who was very keen on military architecture. He set out to strengthen all his properties with a series of building plans, probably to keep out all those who sought to have him dead as he had many enemies. Belleme rebelled against Henry I in 1102 and supported Henry's brother Robert in Normandy. However, he was soon punished for his disloyalty. While Robert was away, the castle at Arundel was besieged and only surrendered after 3 months, after which Robert was banished for life, his lands and possessions confiscated by the Crown.

ROGER DE MONGOMERI: The Conqueror and His Companions by J.R. Planché, Somerset Herald. London: Tinsley Brothers, 1874.

"William sat on his war-horse and called out Rogier, whom they name De Montgomeri. ' I rely greatly on you. Lead your men thitherward and attack them from that side. William, the son of Osbern, the seneschal, a right good vassal, shall go with you and help in the attack, and you shall have the men of Boulogne and Poix and all my soldiers' " (i.e. paid troops -- mercenaries). Such are the words Wace puts in the mouth of the Conqueror. And yet, according to Orderic, Roger de Montgomeri was not present at Hastings, having been left by the Duke in Normandy, governor of the duchy.

His statement is most explicit. King William, during his visit to his Norman dominions in 1067, was greatly disquieted by the reports from England of the disaffection of his new subjects, and the advantage taken of it by the Danes. "Leaving the government of Normandy," he proceeds, "to his Queen Matilda, and his young son Robert, with a council of religious priests and valiant nobles, to be guardians of the state, he rode, on the night of the 6th of December, to the mouth of the river Dieppe, below the town of Arques, and setting sail with a south wind in the first watch of the cold night, reached in the morning, after a most prosperous voyage, the harbor on the opposite coast called Winchester. . . . In his present voyage he was attended by Roger de Montgomeri, who at the time of his former expedition to invade England was left with his wife, governor of Normandy." Now when we remember that the father of Orderic was Odelirius of Orleans, one of the followers of this very Roger de Montgomeri when he came into England, and for his services received a grant of land lying on the banks of the river Meole at the east gate of Shrewsbury; that, with the help of his lord, he founded the monastery there of St. Peter and St. Paul, to which he retired in 1110, the Earl himself having died therein fourteen years previously; that Orderic, born in 1075, was at school at Shrewsbury until he was ten years of age, when he was sent to Normandy, became a monk in the Abbey of St. Evreux, of which Roger de Montgomeri was a patron and benefactor, revisited England in 1115, and was living, at the age of sixty-six, in 1141, -- it surely follows, that of all the companions of the Conqueror he had ever seen or heard of, Roger de Montgomeri, Earl of Shrewsbury, his father's lord and friend, was the one respecting whom he must have possessed the most accurate information. Is it likely, supposing Roger de Montgomeri had commanded a wing of the invading army, and performed feats of bravery at Senlac, that his servant and protégé who came over with him, and must in that case have been present at Hastings himself, would have been silent on the subject? Would not his deeds have been the theme of his whole household, and of the very school-fellows of the young Orderic? Was the Lord of Belesme amongst the noble personages who accompanied King William on his visit to Normandy in 1067? and if not, what was he doing in England during the disturbances in the King's absence? How was it that a man of his position and prowess was not associated with the other great warriors appointed to guard the realm and administer justice throughout it? His name never occurs even incidentally during that period.

Against this, to me overwhelming evidence, we have to place the statement of William of Poitiers, who, without any allusion to Roger de Montgomeri, simply says that Roger de Beaumont was the person at the head of the council appointed by the Duke to assist Matilda in the government of Normandy, and that of Wace, who circumstantially describes the actions of Roger de Montgomeri in the great battle. As the latter authority distinctly contradicts William of Poitiers, by making "old Rogier de Belmont" present at Senlac, in lieu of remaining in Normandy to counsel Matilda, he is as likely to be wrong in one assertion as the other. William of Poitiers is more to be trusted, but he does not say that Roger de Montgomeri was in the battle; he makes no mention of him whatever, though he gives the names of a dozen of the principal personages present; nor does he prove that he was not amongst the noble and wise men selected by the Duke to compose that council, of which the writer states Roger de Beaumont was the president. Mr. Freeman, confiding in the archdeacon, sets down the assertion of Orderic as "a plain though very strange confusion between Roger of Montgomeri and Roger of Beaumont." I only suggest that the son of Odelirius is the least likely person to have made that confusion, and that we have no proof of Roger de Montgomeri's presence in England previous to 1068. The Lord of Belesme, however, is too remarkable a personage in the annals of those times to be omitted, on anything short of conclusive evidence, from an account of the companions of the Conqueror, and his family history is full of stirring and romantic incidents.

Orderic has minutely chronicled his marriages, his children, his deeds of velour and piety, his death and burial, and yet such is the mist that hangs over the genealogical history of our ancient nobility, that the father of this great and powerful Earl has only been recently identified. Brooke, in his Catalogue, declared him to be the son of Hugh de Montgomeri and of Sibell, his wife, fifth daughter of Herfastus the Dane, brother of Gunnora, Duchess of Normandy. Vincent triumphantly quotes the monk of Jumièges in contradiction of this assertion, and insists that he was the son of Hugh de Montgomeri by Jocellina, his wife, daughter of Turolf de Pontaudemer, by Weeva, sister of the said Duchess Gunnora, and so he continued to be considered, notwithstanding that many passages in Orderic show this to be a mistake, until the French editors of that historian and the late Mr. Stapleton, in his illustration of the Norman Rolls of the Exchequer, clearly proved that the first Earl of Arundel and Shrewsbury was not the son of a Hugh de Montgomeri by either lady, but of another Roger de Montgomeri, living in the time of Richard III and his brother Robert, Dukes of Normandy, and who in an early deed describes himself: "Ego Rogerius, quam dicunt Montgomeri." His son Roger, the subject of this memoir, in the act of foundation for the Abbey of Troarn in the Hiemois, acknowledging and distinguishing his father in the following words: "Ego Rogerius, ex Normannis, Normannus magni autem Rogerii filius." "The old chronicler, Robert du Mont, had heard," observes Mr. Stapleton, "of the reputed descent from a niece of the Duchess Gunnora, wife of Richard 1, Duke of Normandy, but the genealogy given is certainly erroneous in making her, as wife to Hugh de Montgomeri, the immediate progenitrix of Roger, the Viscount of the 0ximin or Hiemois."

To any one unaccustomed to the examination of such subjects, it would appear strange that modern historians and genealogists could have overlooked the obvious inference to be drawn from the very circumstantial account given of the assassination of Osbern the seneschal by Guillaume de Jumièges himself, who, in the second chapter of his seventh book, informs us that Osbern, the son of Herfast, brother of the Duchess Gunnora, had his throat cut by William, son of Roger de Montgomeri, one night while sleeping in the Duke's chamber at Vaudreuil; that Roger, for his perfidy, was exiled to Paris; and that five of his sons, Hugh, Robert, Roger, William, and Gilbert, continued their wicked careers in Normandy. Surely no statement can be much clearer than this that there was a Roger de Montgomeri living during the minority of William II, Duke of Normandy, who had five sons, the third being named after him, and who, it is evident from subsequent passages in the same and other histories, was the Roger de Montgomeri who ultimately became Earl of Shrewsbury. Of these five sons we can trace the destinies. Hugh, Robert, and William were slain, -- the latter by Barno de Glotis, a servant of the Seneschal 0sbern in revenge for the murder of his master. Roger was Viscount of the Hiemois; and Gilbert, his youngest brother, was unintentionally poisoned by his sister-in-law, as I shall hereafter have occasion to mention.

Of the five sons of the first Roger de Montgomeri, Hugh was apparently the eldest, as at the foot of one of his charters in the time of Duke Robert is "Signum Hugonis filii ejus," and it is therefore highly probable that the father of the first Roger might have been named Hugh, and was the husband of one of the nieces of Gunnora, and the confusion have arisen from that circumstance. The story told by the monk of Jumièges, though clear enough as regards the family of Montgomeri, is obscure in other respects. William de Montgomeri is named as the murderer of Osbern, who, if there be any truth in the statement of Brooke, must have been his near kinsman, and Roger, the father of the criminal, is banished, apparently for the crime; which would imply that he was " particeps criminis" -- the instigator or accomplice of his son. However this may be, it appears to have been the result of a personal quarrel, if not a family feud, for Orderic records that Osbern, the steward of Normandy, and William and Hugh, two sons of Roger de Montgomeri, and many other powerful knights, made war on each other in turn, causing great distress and confusion in the country, which was deprived at that time of its natural protectors, simply mentioning that Osbern was one of the many nobles who fell in those mutual quarrels.

Next to Charlemagne, the Duchess Gonnor, or Gunnora, appears to have been the favorite starting-point for our Norman genealogists. If there is any insuperable obstacle in the way of hooking their line on to the Emperor of the West, they eagerly hitch it up, no matter how, to some loose end of the family of that fortunate fair one for whose romantic history we are indebted to the pages of Guillaume de Jumièges. As it is short as well as romantic, and so very old that it may be new to many of my readers, I will venture to tell it in the fewest words possible.

One of the foresters of Richard 1, Duke of Normandy, was blest with a most beautiful wife, of Danish blood it would appear, named Sanfrie, the report of whose charms inspired the Duke with a vehement desire to ascertain the truth of it by personal observation. He therefore ordered a hunting party in the direction of the forester's dwelling, at which he stopped during the day, as a matter of course for rest and refreshment. The beautiful Sanfrie received her sovereign as was her duty, and the Duke was so captivated that he commanded her husband to resign her to him. As resistance could avail nothing, the woman, who had as much wit as beauty, contrived to substitute her sister for herself, and, the Duke, luckily for all parties, was not only well pleased with the exchange, but piously rejoiced that be had escaped a more flagrant breach of the decalogue. The fair substitute was named Gonnor or Gunnora, and on the death of Richard's first wife became Duchess of Normandy, and mother of Duke Richard I1, called after her Gonnorides.

Such is the story, and at least there is no doubt about the marriage, which naturally led to the elevation of the other members of the Duchess's family. Besides Sanfrie (the wife of the forester), Gunnora had two sisters, the one named Eva or Weeva, and the other Avelina or Duvelima, and a brother named Herfast: and to one or other of these lucky Danes the majority of our Norman pedigrees are, as I have stated, hung on by hook or by crook. The date of the death of the elder Roger de Montgomeri is not yet known, but he was evidently dead in 1056, when Roger II invited Gislebert, Abbot of Chatillon, with his monks, to Froarn, and expelled thence the twelve canons who had been placed there by his father in 1022, and had abandoned themselves to gluttony, debauchery, carnal pleasures, and worldly occupations.

I have traveled a little out of the record, as the lawyers say, in order to complete the story of this special representative of the hereditary wickedness of the family of Belesme, and must now return to her husband, whom the chronicler appears to acquit of direct complicity in the darker deeds of his wife, and simply observes, that as long as Mabel lived he was, at her instigation, a very troublesome neighbor to the inmates of Ouche, she having been always opposed to the family of Giroie. In 1066 we find him at the Council of Lillebonne, and, according to Taylor's List, contributing a noble contingent to the fleet of his sovereign, "A Rogero de Mongomeri sexaginta naves," the furnishing of which by no means proves that he accompanied them to England. Wace is the only writer worth consideration who speaks of him as present in the great conflict, and selected by the Duke to command a wing of the invading army, while Dugdale, quoting the annals of St. Augustin at Canterbury, says he "led the middle part," which Wace as distinctly asserts was led by William himself, composed of all his principal nobles, his personal friends and kinsmen. Neither Robert du Mont, nor William of Jumièges, nor Benoit de St.-More, nor William of Poitiers, nor the author of Carmen de Bello make any mention of Roger de Montgomeri at that period, while Wace, not content with giving him the command of an important division, tells us of his single combat with a gigantic Englishman, captain of a hundred men, who, with his long Saxon axe, had hewed down horse and man till the Normans stood aghast at him. Roger de Montgomeri, riding at full speed with his lance couched, and shouting "strike, Frenchmen!" ("Ferrez, Franceiz") bore the giant to the earth, and revived the courage of his soldiers. Orderic, however, seems never to have heard of this brilliant exploit, nor anyone else that I am aware of.

In 1068, however, he appears to have been in England, and two years afterwards received from the Conqueror the earldoms of Arundel and Shrewsbury, with the honor of Eye in Suffolk, and various estates in the counties of Cambridge, Warwick, Hampshire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Staffordshire, Hertfordshire, Surrey, and Middlesex, amounting in all to one hundred and fifty-seven manors, besides the cities of Chichester and Shrewsbury, and the Castle of Arundel.

At the same date (1070), by the death of lvo, Bishop of Séez, he became, in right of his wife Mabel, Seigneur of Belesme and Count of Alencon, which, added to his patrimonial lordship of Montgomeri, rendered him comparatively as powerful in Normandy as in England.

In 1077, the Earl of Shrewsbury accompanied King William in his expedition to recover the province of Maine, which had revolted, and, after its submission, marched with a division of the army to the relief of the Castle of La Flèche, in which its lord, John de la Flèche was besieged by Fulk le Rechin, Count of Anjou. A battle being prevented by the interposition of some Cardinal not named, terms of peace were agreed upon, Roger Earl of Shrewsbury and William Count of Evreux taking a prominent part in the negotiations. This treaty is known as the Peace of Blanchelande or of Bruere, from the locality in which it was concluded.

After the death of his wicked wife Mabel by the vengeful sword of Hugh de la Roche d'lgé, in December, 1082, Roger de Montgomeri married Adelaide, daughter of Everard de Puiset, an amiable and virtuous lady, who wrought by her advice and her example a great change for the better in his character, which, naturally good, had been warped by the arts and influence of his former Countess. His building of the church at Quatford, near Bridgenorth, in Shropshire, was due to one of those so-called " pious frauds," of which we read so many accounts in our mediaeval chronicles, and which in this instance was practiced on the Countess Adelaide.

On the first passage of this excellent lady from Normandy to England there arose so great a storm at sea, that nothing but shipwreck was expected by the mariners. The chaplain of the Countess, being much wearied with long watching, fell asleep, and saw in his dreams a comely matron, who said to him, "If your lady would be preserved from the danger of this dreadful tempest, let her vow to God that she will build a church to the honor of St. Mary Magdalen in the place where she shall first meet the Earl, her husband, in England" (he having preceded her thither some short time), "and specially where an hollow oak groweth near a hog-stye." All which, when the priest awoke, he related to the Countess, who forthwith made her vow accordingly, whereupon the tempest ceased, and she and her attendants landed safely in England. Journeying to rejoin her husband, she, after divers days, encountered him near Quatford, in a wood, hunting, at a certain spot where such an oak as "the comely matron" had described then grew -- and near a hog-stye, I presume, though it is not mentioned. She lost no time in informing her lord of the chaplain's vision and her consequent vow, and prayed him to fulfill it. The Earl, in gratitude for the preservation of his wife, readily assented. The church in honor of St. Mary Magdalen was built, endowed with ample possessions, and given to the Earl's collegiate chapel in the castle at Bridgenorth -- much to the advantage, no doubt, of the reverend chaplain, who may have been one of the clergymen, Godebald or Herbert, by whose counsels, Orderic tells us, in addition to those of Odelirius, the Earl was always prosperously guided.

The Earl, in common with many of the Norman nobility, appears to have been much attached to Robert Court-heuse, who, with all his faults, was brave, generous, and kindly-hearted. Witness his conduct when besieging his brother Henry in Mont St. Michel, in 1091. The garrison, being in great distress from want of water, Robert forbade his soldiers to prevent detachments issuing from the place to draw water from the wells, and, on being blamed by William Rufus for his consideration, exclaimed, "What, shall we suffer our brother to perish of thirst? who can now give us another should we lose him?" Where shall we find such an incident recorded of the heartless tyrant, his father, who ridiculed and hated him?

As early as 1081, we find the name of Roger, Earl of Shrewsbury, amongst those who zealously interceded with King William at Rouen in favor of Robert after the battle of Gerberoi, and, after long pleading, succeeded in effecting a reconciliation between them, which, reluctantly consented to by the former, was of very brief duration; and on the accession of William Rufus he proved still further his affection for Robert, and his opinion of the injustice with which he had been treated by the Conqueror, by joining with the Earls of Kent, Cornwall, and other powerful noblemen in the attempt to place Robert on the throne of England, as the eldest son and rightful heir to the crown; and though not openly
taking up arms, secretly favoring the movement, his three eldest sons, Robert, Hugh, and Roger, being amongst the young nobility who held Odo's castle at Rochester against the King. The Earl of Shrewsbury is said to have been gained over by the artful promises of Rufus to submit his right to the crown to be decided by him and others whom the late King had assigned to be his curators; and after the reduction of Rochester, and the suppression of the rebellion, we find Earl Roger fortifying his Castles of Belesme and Alencon in the cause of the King, and his son Robert a prisoner of that very Duke of Normandy, to place whom on the throne they had so recently risked their lives and properties.

The accounts of these tergiversations are so confused and discordant that, beyond main facts, it is dangerous to state anything, and as to the motives we are completely in the dark; but the days of Roger de Montgomeri were now briefly to be numbered. He returned to England in 1094, and having obtained from the Abbey of Cluni, of which he was a benefactor, the habit of its celebrated abbot, St. Hugh, assumed it, and was shorn a monk in the Abbey of St. Peter and St. Paul at Shrewsbury, with the consent, we are assured, of his wife, the Countess Adeliza, and for three days before his death wholly applied himself to divine conference and devout prayers with the rest of the community, expiring, in the
odor of sanctity, 6th kalends of August, in the above year, leaving by his first wife, Mabel, five sons and four daughters: Robert, the eldest son, who succeeded to his mother's large estates in Normandy as Count of Alencon and Seigneur de Belesme; Hugh, who inherited his father's domains in England, with the earldoms of Arundel and Shrewsbury; Roger, surnamed of Poitou, in consequence of his marriage with Almodis Countess of March, who possessed great estates in that province, and also sometimes called Earl of Lancaster for a similar reason; Philip, who accompanied Duke Robert to the Crusades, and died at Antioch; and Arnoul, who married Lafracota, daughter of a king of Ireland, and by conquest obtained that part of South Wales now called Pembrokeshire, and, building a castle there, appears to have been sometime entitled Earl of Pembroke, as his brother was of Lancaster. The daughters by Mabel were Emma, Abbess of Almenache; Maud, wife of Robert, Count of Mortain and Earl of Cornwall; Mabel, wife of Hugh de Château-neuf; and Sibil, who married Robert Fitz Hamon, Lord of Corboil, in Normandy.

By his second wife he had only a son named Everard, who took holy orders, and was chaplain to King Henry I.

The Earls of Eglintoun are presumed to be descended from this family of Montgomeri, but no proof has ever been made, and though in 1696 there existed a Comte de Montgomeri in France, an Earl of Montgomery in England, a Montgomery Earl of Eglintoun in Scotland, and a Montgomery Earl of Mount Alexander in Ireland, the link has yet to be found which would legitimately connect these noble families with that of the great Earl of Shrewsbury, who has only transmitted his name to us in that county of North Wales which he won by the sword and called Montgomery.

Roger of Montgomery
Marcher Lord - Castle builder, d. 1094
King William (William the Conqueror) turned to another close friend and advisor, Roger of Montgomery, to control the middle range of the frontier (between England and Wales), and he built up a strong feudal enclave centred on his new castle of Shrewsbury. He consolidated his hold on land which was technically within England but not firmly under English control. He moved into territory which was unmistakably Welsh and which passed into the hands of his military tenants. Picot de Say was established at Clun; the family of Tournai at Kinnersley, Reginald de Bailleul had his principal castle at Maesbury, and his lands became the lordship of Oswestry. The Corbets were masters of Caus, east and south of Shrewsbury.

The symbol of advance into Wales was the castle which Earl Roger built at Montgomery, a typical motte and bailey, of which the earthworks still survive. To distinguish it from the later stone castle built at Montgomery by Hubert de Burgh, it came to be known as Hen Domen - the old mound. It was a key point in the natural communication into mid-Wales, and beyond that westwards to Ceredigion. The gains which Earl Roger and his commanders made were compact and, with the exception of Arwystli, did not drive deeply into Wales, but they extended over a long stretch of the frontier.
Roger of Montgomery died in 1094, to be succeeded in Normandy by his eldest son, Robert de Belleme, and in England by his second son Hugh, whose tenure of the earldom of Shrewsbury was brief. Joining the earl of Chester in an invasion of Anglesey he was killed in the summer of 1098 by a Scandinavian force which mounted an unexpected raid on the island. Robert of Belleme claimed his inheritance, combining the family's Norman and English possessions. His loyalties lay with Duke Robert of Normandy, and on the accession of Henry I he joined a rebellion against him. In due course, in 1102, he was deprived of his earldom and his English estates and was forced to retire to Normandy, and with him, his brother, Arnulf of Pembroke, suffered disgrace and forfeiture.

"Medieval Wales" by David Walker, by David Walker, Cambridge University Press.

Roger married Mabel DE TALVAS, daughter of William III DE TALVAS and Hildeburga DE BEAUMONT, in 1048 in Montgomerie, France. (Mabel DE TALVAS was born about 1020 in Belesme, Perche, France, died on 12 Feb 1078-1079 in Chateau DE Bures, France and was buried in Abbey Of Troarn, Eure, France.)