C.P. Addition: Death date of Mabel, wife of Robert Fitz Roy, Earl of Gloucester

[Douglas Richardson]

Dear Newsgroup ~

Complete Peerage 6 (1926): 683–686 (sub Gloucester) has a good account
of Robert Fitz Roy, Earl of Gloucester (died 1147), who is a well
known illegitimate son of King Henry I of England. A recent biography
of Robert, Earl of Gloucester, in ODNB says of him:

“Robert of Gloucester was one of the great aristocrats of his age.
Between 1121 and his death he was rarely rivalled in England for
power, wealth, and political influence. He was a consummate creature
of the royal court, a great man of business, affable, and courtly.”
END OF QUOTE.

Regarding his marriage to Mabel, daughter and heiress of Robert Fitz
Hamon, Complete Peerage provides the following meager information:

"He married Mabel, daughter and heiress of Robert Fitz Hamon, by
Sibyl, daughter of Roger (de Montgomery), Earl of Shrewsbury ... His
widow [i.e., Mabel] died in 1157." END OF QUOTE.

The source given by Complete Peerage for Countess Mabel's year of
death is given as "Annales Monast. (Rolls Ser.), vol. i, p. 48." That
source is the Tewkesbury Annals and it reads as follows:

Tewkesbury Annals sub 1157: “Mabilia comitissa Gloucestriæ
obiit..” [Reference: Luard, Annales Monastici 1 (Rolls Ser. 36)
(1864): 48].

Elsewhere I find that Archaeologia Cambrensis 3rd Ser. 8 (1862): 274
also includes a record of the death year of Countess Mabel, which
record which is taken from a 13th Century Chronicle. It reads as
follows:

Date: A.D. 1157: “Obiit Mabilia Comitissa Gloucestriæ.”

The above source can be viewed at the following weblink:

http://books.google.com/books?id=AUBKAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA274

Both sources cited above agree that Countess Mabel died in 1157. But
what month and day?

Recently I found another source not consulted by Complete Peerage
which records the death dates of both Earl Robert and his wife,
Countess Mabel, as follows:

Source: Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France 23 (1894)

pg. 580 (Notæ Monasterii Montis Sancti Michaelis: “29 Sept. [Obiit]
Mabilia comitissa.”),
pg. 581 (Notæ Monasterii Montis Sancti Michaelis: “31 Oct. [Obiit]
Robertus comes.”).

The above information may be viewed at the following weblinks:

pg. 580: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k50141v/f597.image.r=Recueil+des+Historiens+des+Gaules+et+de+la+France.langEN

pg. 581: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k50141v/f598.image.r=Recueil+des+Historiens+des+Gaules+et+de+la+France.langEN

So now we have day, month, and year for the death date of Mabel,
Countess of Gloucester.

For a charter of Countess Mabel issued after her husband's death, see
Hart, Historia et Cartularium Monasterii Sancti Petri Gloucestriae 2
(Rolls Ser.) (1865): 50, which is available at the following weblink:

http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?u=1&num=50&seq=9&view=image&size=100&id=njp.32101039869126

For interest's sake, the following is a list of the legion number of
New World immigrants that descend from Robert Fitz Roy, Earl of
Gloucester, and his wife, Mabel Fitz Robert:

Robert Abell, Dannett Abney, Elizabeth Alsop, Samuel Argall, William
Asfordby, Walter Aston, Barbara Aubrey, Frances Baldwin, John Barclay,
Charles Barham, Charles Barnes, Christopher Batt, Henry & Thomas
Batte, John Baynard, Anne Baynton, Marmaduke Beckwith, Dorothy
Beresford, William Berkeley, Richard & William Bernard, John Bevan,
Essex Beville, William Bladen, George & Nehemiah Blakiston, Joseph
Bolles, Thomas Booth, Elizabeth Bosvile, Mary Bourchier, George, Giles
& Robert Brent, Thomas Bressey, Edward Bromfield, Nathaniel Browne,
Obadiah Bruen, Elizabeth, Martha & Peter Bulkeley, Stephen Bull,
William Burnet, Nathaniel Burrough, Elizabeth, John, and Thomas
Butler, Christopher Calthorpe, Charles Calvert, William Campbell,
Edward Carleton, Kenelm Cheseldine, Grace Chetwode, Jeremy Clarke,
James & Norton Claypoole, William Clopton, St. Leger Codd, Henry
Corbin, Elizabeth Covert, William Crymes, James Cudworth, Francis
Dade, Humphrey Davie, Frances, Jane & Katherine Deighton, Anne
Derehaugh, Edward Digges, Robert Drake, Thomas Dudley, Archibald
Dunlop, Rowland Ellis, William Farrer, John Fenwick, Henry Filmer,
John Fisher, Henry Fleete, Edward Foliot, Gerard Fowke, Thomas Gerard,
William Goddard, Thomas Gordon, Thomas Greene, Muriel Gurdon, Mary
Gye, Katherine Hamby, Elizabeth & John Harleston, Edmund Hawes,
Elizabeth Haynes, John Henry, Patrick Houston, Warham Horsmanden, Anne
Humphrey, Robert Hunter, Olive Ingoldsby, Henry Isham, Edmund
Jennings, William Keith, Edmund, Edward, Richard, & Matthew Kempe,
Mary Launce, Hannah, Samuel & Sarah Levis, Thomas Ligon, Nathaniel
Littleton, Thomas Lloyd, James Logan, Simon Lynde, Anne Lovelace,
Henry, Jane & Nicholas Lowe, Percival Lowell, Gabriel, Roger & Sarah
Ludlow, Thomas Lunsford, Agnes Mackworth, Roger & Thomas Mallory,
Anne, Elizabeth & John Mansfield, Oliver Manwaring, Anne, Anne &
Katherine Marbury, Elizabeth Marshall, Anne Mauleverer, Richard More,
Joseph & Mary Need, John and Margaret Nelson, Thomas & Philip Nelson,
Ellen Newton, John Orr, Joshua & Rebecca Owen, Thomas Owsley, John
Oxenbridge, Richard Palgrave, Richard Parker, Herbert Pelham, Robert
Peyton, William & Elizabeth Pole, Henry & William Randolph, Edward
Raynsford, George Reade, William Rodney, Thomas Rudyard, Katherine
Saint Leger, Richard Saltonstall, William Seton, William Skepper,
Diana & Grey Skipwith, Maria Johanna Somerset, Alexander Spottiswood,
John Stockman, Rose Stoughton, John Stratton, John Throckmorton,
Samuel & William Torrey, Margaret Touteville, Margaret Tyndall, Jemima
Waldegrave, Olive Welby, John West, Hawte Wyatt, Margaret Wyatt, Amy
Wyllys, Thomas Yale, George Yate.

Is your ancestor on this list? If so, I'd enjoy hearing from you here
on the newsgroup, especially if you can post your line of descent from
Countess Mabel and her husband, Robert, Earl of Gloucester.

Best always, Douglas Richardson, Salt Lake City, Utah

[Wjhonson]

What about Christopher Branch
Henrico County, Virginia; Will dated 20 Jun 1678, probate 20 Feb 1681-2

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[Peter Stewart]

Not "now" at all - this is hardly news to anyone interested in the lady
herself or in the literature of her period.

If you were not so hung up on the amateurish notion that Complete
Peerage was meant to be the one-stop resource for every detail you
require on each and every person connected in any way to another who
ever held a peerage, you might have bothered to look up - for one
instance among many - Domesday Descendants. There Katherine Keats-Rohan
noted (on p. 246) that "She was the 'Mabilia comitissa' remembered in
the necrology of Mont-Saint-Michel on 29 September", citing the original
document.

Then if you wanted to try some professional research for a change you
might have found out for yourself that this is a manuscript was compiled
after 1450, in which several people are recorded under dates different
from those of their deaths as recorded in earlier sources. It is not
conclusive evidence for the date of Mabilia's death but rather for her
remembrance, as stated by Keats-Rohan - i.e. conveniently on the feast
day of the house's own patron saint, perhaps so that the monks from the
late 15th century onwards did not have to spend any extra resources
especially for her.

Peter Stewart

[Ian Wallace]

On Mar 9, 8:22 pm, Douglas Richardson <royalances...@msn.com> wrote:
> Dear Newsgroup ~

> For interest's sake, the following is a list of the legion number of
> New World immigrants that descend from Robert Fitz Roy, Earl of
> Gloucester, and his wife, Mabel Fitz Robert:
>
> Robert Abell, Dannett Abney, Elizabeth Alsop, Samuel Argall, William
> Asfordby, Walter Aston, Barbara Aubrey, Frances Baldwin, John Barclay,
> Charles Barham, Charles Barnes, Christopher Batt, Henry & Thomas

> Batte....

As usual, I'll point out that to Henry and Thomas Batte should be
added their elder brother William. a Virginia immigrant although he
eventually returned to England and left progeny there.

(The surname is more usually spelled Batt in England).

Ian.