♀Isabel of Vermandois

Isabel of Vermandois^W, also called Elizabeth, was a granddaughter of King Henry I of France who was the wife first of Robert, Count of Meulan, and then of William de Warenne, Earl of Surrey. She was the twenty-fifth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) through her daughter Ada de Warenne, and her twenty-sixth great-grandmother through her son William de Warenne, so by two separate lines of descent.

Two marriages

Isabel was a daughter of Hugh the Great, Count of Vermandois^W, a son of King Henry I of France, and of Adelaide, the daughter and heir of Herbert, Count of Vermandois and Valois. Her first husband was Robert, Count of Meulan^W, and among their children were the twins Waleran^W and Robert, born in 1104, who became Count of Meulan and Earl of Leicester, and Hugh, whom King Stephen made Earl of Bedford in 1138.

Robert died on 5 June 1118, and before his death Isabel is said to have eloped with William de Warenne while still Robert’s wife, already the mother of eight children. In 1118 she married William de Warenne^W, Earl of Surrey, a Norman lord who had commanded for Henry I of England at the Battle of Tinchebray. The checkered gold and blue shield of the Warennes was taken from the arms of her family, the counts of Vermandois.

William and Isabel’s children included William de Warenne^W, their eldest son and heir, and Ada de Warenne, who married Henry of Scotland, Earl of Huntingdon. William died on 11 May 1138 and was buried at Lewes Priory^W.

Lines of descent

The two lines part with her children. Ada’s runs through her daughter Margaret of Scotland and Margaret’s son Henry de Bohun (1176–1220) to Henry’s son Humphrey de Bohun. The younger William’s runs through his daughter Isabel de Warenne, her daughter Maud de Warenne, and Maud’s granddaughter Maud of Eu (died 1241). Humphrey de Bohun married Maud of Eu, and the two lines meet again in their daughter Alice de Bohun. From her the pedigrees carry the descent down to John Washburn (died 1547), and so probably to Nancy Jane Blanchard.

Notes

Sources

Isabel’s parentage, her first husband’s death on 5 June 1118, her marriage to William de Warenne in 1118, his death and burial, and her son William’s place as “1st s. and h.” are given in the first edition of the Complete Peerage (vol. 7, 1896, under Surrey, pp. 325–326). The same work names her children by Robert of Meulan in other entries: Waleran, born in 1104, “twin br. of Robert, Earl of Leicester” (vol. 8, 1898, p. 198), and Hugh de Beaumont, “3rd s.” of Robert by Elizabeth, daughter of Hugh, Count of Vermandois, created Earl of Bedford by King Stephen in 1138 (vol. 1, 1887, p. 292). The second edition (vol. 6, 1926, under Huntingdon) names Ada, wife of Henry of Scotland, as the daughter of William, Earl of Surrey, and Isabel, daughter of Hugh, Count of Vermandois. These are compiled peerage accounts, not records of the time.

The elopement

The Complete Peerage (1st ed., vol. 7, pp. 325–326) says that Isabel, “being then the mother of 8 children”, had eloped with Earl William before her first husband’s death on 5 June 1118, citing G. W. Watson’s “Ancient Earls of Leicester” in The Genealogist. The same page notes that the “well known chequy [or and az] coat of Warren was adopted from that of Vermandois”, though the right to represent Isabel’s family passed to her eldest son by her first husband.

The descent through John Washburn

That the John whom the pedigrees give as a son of Joyce Botetourt’s great-granddaughter Joan Mitton was John Washburn of Bengeworth, who died in 1547, is the identification of the Washbournes’ historian, James Davenport, not a record’s, so the descent through him is given here as probable.