William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey, Lord of Lewes, Seigneur de Varennes (died 1088), was a

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

nobleman created

Earl of Surrey Earl of Surrey is a title in the Peerage of England that has been created five times. It was first created for William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey, William de Warenne, a close Companions of William the Conqueror, companion of William the Con ...

under William II Rufus. He is among the few known from documents to have fought under

William the Conqueror William I; ang, WillelmI (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first House of Normandy, Norman List of English monarchs#House of Norman ...

at the

Battle of Hastings The Battle of Hastings nrf, Batâle dé Hastings was fought on 14 October 1066 between the Norman-French army of William the Conqueror, William, the Duke of Normandy, and an English army under the Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godw ...

in 1066. At the time of the

Domesday Survey Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

in 1086, he held extensive lands in 13 counties, including the

Rape of Lewes The Rape of Lewes (also known as Lewes Rape) is one of the rapes, the traditional sub-divisions unique to the historic county of Sussex in England. Location The rape of Bramber lies to its west and the rape of Pevensey lies to its east. The n ...

, a tract now divided between the ceremonial counties of

East Sussex East Sussex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England on the English Channel coast. It is bordered by Kent to the north and east, West Sussex to the west, and Surrey to the north-west. The largest settlement in East Su ...

and

West Sussex West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an ar ...

Early career

William was a son of Rodulf or Ralph de Warenne and Emma, and reported to have descended from a sibling of Duchess

Gunnor Gunnor or Gunnora ( – ) was Duchess of Normandy by marriage to Richard I of Normandy, having previously been his long-time mistress. She functioned as regent of Normandy during the absence of her spouse, as well as the adviser to him and later t ...

, wife of Duke

Richard I Richard I (8 September 1157 – 6 April 1199) was King of England from 1189 until his death in 1199. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Aquitaine and Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, and Count of Poitiers, Anjou, Maine, and Nantes, and was ...

. Chronicler

Robert of Torigny Robert of Torigni (also known as Roburtus de Monte) (c. 1110–1186) was a Norman monk, prior, abbot and twelfth century chronicler. Religious life Robert was born at Torigni-sur-Vire, Normandy c. 1110 most probably to an aristocratic family but ...

reported, in his additions to the ''

Gesta Normannorum Ducum ''Gesta Normannorum Ducum'' (''Deeds of the Norman Dukes'') is a chronicle originally created by the monk William of Jumièges just before 1060. In 1070 William I had William of Jumièges extend the work to detail his rights to the throne of Engl ...

'' of

William of Jumièges William of Jumièges (born c. 1000 - died after 1070) (french: Guillaume de Jumièges) was a contemporary of the events of 1066, and one of the earliest writers on the subject of the Norman conquest of England. He is himself a shadowy figure, only ...

, that William de Warenne and Anglo-Norman baron Roger de Mortimer were both sons of an unnamed niece of Gunnor. Unfortunately, Robert's genealogies are somewhat confused – elsewhere he gives Roger as the son of William, and yet again makes both sons of Walter de Saint Martin – while several of Robert's

stemmata A simple eye (sometimes called a pigment pit) refers to a form of eye or an optical arrangement composed of a single lens and without an elaborate retina such as occurs in most vertebrates. In this sense "simple eye" is distinct from a multi-l ...

seem to contain too few generations.K. S. B. Keats-Rohan, "Aspects of Torigny's Genealogy Revisited", ''Nottingham Medieval Studies'' 37:21–27

Orderic Vitalis Orderic Vitalis ( la, Ordericus Vitalis; 16 February 1075 – ) was an English chronicler and Benedictine monk who wrote one of the great contemporary chronicles of 11th- and 12th-century Normandy and Anglo-Norman England. Modern historia ...

describes William as Roger's ''consanguineus'' – literally a "cousin", more generally a term of close kinship not typically used to describe brothers – and Roger de Mortimer appears to have been a generation older than him. Charters report several earlier men associated with Warenne. A Radulf de Warenne appears in two charters, one dating between 1027 and 1035, the other from about 1050 and naming his wife, Beatrice. In 1059, a Radulf and wife Emma appear along with their sons Radulf and William. These occurrences have typically been taken to represent a single Radulf with successive wives, of which Beatrice was the mother of William and hence identical to the Gunnorid niece described by Robert de Torigny,G. H. White, "The Sisters and Nieces of Gunnor, Duchess of Normandy", ''Genealogist'', n. s. 37:57–65. yet the 1059 charter explicitly names Emma as William's mother. Re-evaluation of surviving charters led Katherine Keats-Rohan to suggest that Robert of Torigny compressed two generations into one, as he appears to have done elsewhere, with Radulf (I) and Beatrice being parents of Radulf (II) de Warenne and of Roger de Mortimer – a Roger son of Radulf de Warenne appears in a charter dated 1040/1053 – while Radulf (II) in turn married Emma, and as attested by the 1059 charter, they had as sons Radulf (III) as the heir in Normandy, and William. Associations with the village of

Vascœuil Vascœuil () is a commune in the Eure department in Normandy in northern France. Population See also *Communes of the Eure department The following is a list of the 585 communes of the Eure department of France. The communes cooperate in ...

led to identification of the Warenne progenitrix with a widow Beatrice, daughter of Tesselin, Viscount of

Rouen Rouen (, ; or ) is a city on the River Seine in northern France. It is the prefecture of the Regions of France, region of Normandy (administrative region), Normandy and the Departments of France, department of Seine-Maritime. Formerly one of ...

, who appeared there in 1054–1060. Robert of Torigny shows a different Viscount of Rouen to have married a niece of Gunnor, perhaps suggesting that it was through Beatrice that William de Warenne was linked with Gunnor's family. William was from the hamlet of Varenne, near Arques-la-Bataille,

Duchy of Normandy The Duchy of Normandy grew out of the 911 Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte between King Charles III of West Francia and the Viking leader Rollo. The duchy was named for its inhabitants, the Normans. From 1066 until 1204, as a result of the Norman c ...

, now in the canton of

Bellencombre Bellencombre is a commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region in northern France. Geography A forestry and farming village situated by the banks of the river Varenne in the Pays de Bray, some south of Dieppe at the junction ...

Seine Maritime Seine-Maritime () is a department of France in the Normandy region of northern France. It is situated on the northern coast of France, at the mouth of the Seine, and includes the cities of Rouen and Le Havre. Until 1955 it was named Seine-Infé ...

.K. S. B. Keats-Rohan, ''Domesday People, a Prosopography of Persons Occurring in English Documents 1066–1166'' (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1999), p. 480. At the beginning of Duke William's reign, Radulf de Warenne was not a major landholder, while William de Warenne as a second son did not stand to inherit the family's small estates. During the rebellions of 1052–1054, the young William de Warenne proved himself loyal to the Duke and played a strong part in the

Battle of Mortemer The Battle of Mortemer was a defeat for Henry I of France when he led an army against his vassal, William the Bastard, Duke of Normandy in 1054. William was eventually to become known as William the Conqueror after his successful invasion and ...

for which he was rewarded with lands confiscated from his kinsman, Roger of Mortemer, including the Castle of Mortimer and most of its lands. At about the same time, he acquired lands at

including the castle that became the centre of William de Warenne's holdings in Normandy.G. E. Cokayne, ''The Complete Peerage'', Vol. XII/1 (London: The St. Catherine Press, 1953), p. 493.William Farrer, ''Early Yorkshire Charters'', Volume VIII; The Honour of Warenne (The Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 1949), p. 3.

Conquest of England

William was among the Norman barons summoned to the

Council of Lillebonne The Council of Lillebonne was a meeting of the nobles and clergy of Normandy where, among other things, the expedition of William the Conqueror, then Duke of Normandy, was approved. It was held at Lillebonne, in the northeast of Normandy. Wace, the ...

by Duke William when the decision was made to oppose King

Harold II Harold Godwinson ( – 14 October 1066), also called Harold II, was the last crowned Anglo-Saxon English king. Harold reigned from 6 January 1066 until his death at the Battle of Hastings, fighting the Norman invaders led by William the ...

's accession to the throne of England. He fought at Hastings and was rewarded with numerous holdings. Domesday records his lands stretching over 13 counties, including the important

in Sussex, several manors in Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex, the major manor of

Conisbrough Conisbrough () is a town within the City of Doncaster, in South Yorkshire, England. It is roughly midway between Doncaster and Rotherham, and is built alongside the River Don at . It has a ward population (Conisbrough and Denaby) of 14,333. ...

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a Historic counties of England, historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other Eng ...

and Castle Acre in

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

, which became his headquarters or

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