Gilbert de Gant, 1st
Earl of Lincoln ( 1126 – 1156) was an English nobleman who fought for
King Stephen during
The Anarchy
The Anarchy was a civil war in England and Normandy between 1138 and 1153, which resulted in a widespread breakdown in law and order. The conflict was a war of succession precipitated by the accidental death of William Adelin, the only legiti ...
.
He was the son of
Walter de Gant
Walter de Gant (died 1139), Lord of Folkingham was an English nobleman.
Walter was a son of Gilbert de Gant and Alice, Dame de Montfort-sur-Risle. He inherited the English titles of his father, while his younger brother Hugh adopted his mothe ...
(third son of the Domesday magnate
Gilbert de Gant
Gilbert de Gant (Giselbert de Gand, Ghent, Gaunt) (c. 1040 – 1095) was the son of Ralph, Lord of Aalst near Ghent, and Gisele of Luxembourg, the sister-in-law of Baldwin IV, Count of Flanders. Gilbert de Gant was a kinsman of Matilda of Fl ...
, Gant being a contemporary name for
Ghent
Ghent ( nl, Gent ; french: Gand ; traditional English: Gaunt) is a city and a municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the East Flanders province, and the third largest in the country, exceeded in ...
) and Maud of Brittany,
a daughter of
Stephen, Count of Tréguier
Stephen of Penthièvre, Count of Tréguier, 3rd Lord of Richmond (1058/62 – 21 April 1136) was a Breton noble and a younger son of Odo, Count of Penthièvre and Agnes of Cornouaille, sister of Hoël II, Duke of Brittany. In 1093, he succeeded ...
. Gilbert was thus a nephew of
Alan, 1st Earl of Richmond
Alan, 1st Earl of Richmond (before 1100 – 15 September 1146), Breton ''Alan Penteur'', also known as "Alan the Black", was a Breton noble who fought for Stephen, King of England. Alan was the third son of Stephen, Count of Tréguier, and ...
, one of King Stephen's commanders. Another uncle,
Robert de Gant, was
Lord Chancellor
The lord chancellor, formally the lord high chancellor of Great Britain, is the highest-ranking traditional minister among the Great Officers of State in Scotland and England in the United Kingdom, nominally outranking the prime minister. The ...
for
King Stephen. His father Walter de Gant is thought to have accompanied David, Earl of Huntingdon (later King David I) when he came north to the Lowlands in the early 1100s. Walter de Gant became known as Walter de Lindsey, a baron in Scotland under King David. He is described in 19th-century clan records using modernized spellings as "Walter de Ghent Now Walter de Lindsay".
While still fairly young, Gilbert fought on the side of King Stephen at the
Battle of Lincoln in 1141, where he was captured along with the king. He was then compelled to marry Rohese de Clare, daughter of
Richard de Clare
Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from Old Frankish and is a compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' and ''*hardu-'' 'strong, brave, hardy', and it therefore means 'stron ...
and Adeliza de Meschines, and a niece of
Ranulph de Gernon, 2nd Earl of Chester
Ranulf II (also known as Ranulf de Gernon), 4th Earl of Chester (1099–1153), was an Anglo-Norman baron who inherited the honour of the palatine county of Chester upon the death of his father Ranulf le Meschin, 3rd Earl of Chester. He was de ...
.
In 1149 or 1150 the king created him
Earl of Lincoln as a rival to
William de Roumare
William de Romare (born c. 1096) (also Roumare or Romayre or Romay), Earl of Lincoln, 2nd Baron of Kendal, Lord of Bolingbroke.
He was the son of Roger FitzGerold (de Roumare), 1st Baron of Kendal, Lord of Bolingbroke and Lucy, widow of Ivo de T ...
, who had gone over to the side of
Empress Matilda
Empress Matilda ( 7 February 110210 September 1167), also known as the Empress Maude, was one of the claimants to the English throne during the civil war known as the Anarchy. The daughter of King Henry I of England, she moved to Germany as ...
. Evidence suggests that in the period 1149–1151, Stephen almost lost control of Yorkshire and that the only magnates in Yorkshire who openly supported him at the time were Gilbert de Gant and his brother Robert.
He and Rohese had only one child, a daughter, Alice de Gant, who married
Simon III de Senlis, son of
Simon II de Senlis, Earl of Huntingdon-Northampton
Simon II de Senlis (or Senliz, St. Liz, etc.), 4th Earl of the Honour of Huntingdon and Northampton ( 1098 – 1153) was an Anglo-Norman nobleman. He was the son of Simon I de Senlis, Earl of Huntingdon-Northampton and Maud, Countess of Huntin ...
.
[
He founded ]Rufford Abbey
Rufford Abbey is a country estate in Rufford, Nottinghamshire, England, two miles (4 km) south of Ollerton. Originally a Cistercian abbey, it was converted to a country house in the 16th century after the Dissolution of the Monasteries ...
c. 1148 in Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The traditi ...
, England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
.
Notes
References
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Lincoln, Gilbert De Gant, Earl Of
1120s births
1156 deaths
Year of birth uncertain
12th-century English nobility
Earls of Lincoln
People from Hunmanby
People of The Anarchy
Peers created by King Stephen