Richard d'Avranches, 2nd Earl of Chester (1094 – 25 November 1120) was the son of

Hugh d'Avranches, 1st Earl of Chester Hugh d'Avranches ( 1047 – 27 July 1101), nicknamed ''le Gros'' (the Large) or ''Lupus'' (the Wolf), was from 1071 the second Norman Earl of Chester and one of the great magnates of early Norman England. Early life and career Hugh d'A ...

, and his wife, Ermentrude of Clermont.

Early life

Born in 1094, Richard was the son of

, and his wife, Ermentrude of Clermont. His father died in 1101 leaving Richard as his heir. Due to his age, a stewardship would have ruled until he was old enough. He probably became Earl of Chester in 1107. Richard married Matilda de Blois daughter of

Stephen, Count of Blois Stephen Henry (in French, ''Étienne Henri'', in Old French, ''Estienne Henri''; – 19 May 1102) was the count of Blois and County of Chartres, Chartres. He led an army during the First Crusade, was at the siege of Nicaea, surrender of the ci ...

and

Adela of Normandy Adela of Normandy, of Blois, or of England (c. 1067 – 8 March 1137),LoPrete, Kimberly. "Adela of Blois". ''Women and Gender in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia''. Ed. Margaret Schaus. New York: Routledge, 2006. 6–7. also known as in the C ...

, daughter of

William the Conqueror William the Conqueror (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), sometimes called William the Bastard, was the first Norman king of England (as William I), reigning from 1066 until his death. A descendant of Rollo, he was D ...

Military career

At the age of twenty, in 1114, Richard was on a military campaign and was styled the Earl of Chester. Together with King Alexander of Scotland, he led an Anglo-Norman army into

Gwynedd Gwynedd () is a county in the north-west of Wales. It borders Anglesey across the Menai Strait to the north, Conwy, Denbighshire, and Powys to the east, Ceredigion over the Dyfi estuary to the south, and the Irish Sea to the west. The ci ...

as part of a three-pronged campaign organised by

Henry I of England Henry I ( – 1 December 1135), also known as Henry Beauclerc, was King of England from 1100 to his death in 1135. He was the fourth son of William the Conqueror and was educated in Latin and the liberal arts. On William's death in 1087, Henr ...

against Gwynedd, and

Gruffudd ap Cynan Gruffudd ap Cynan (–1137) was List of rulers of Gwynedd, King of Gwynedd from 1081 until his death in 1137. In the course of a long and eventful life, he became a key figure in Welsh resistance to House of Normandy, Norman rule. As a descen ...

. Gruffudd, rather than risk battle, satisfied the King with an oath of homage and a suitable fine. The campaign soon fizzled out, and Richard returned to

Chester Chester is a cathedral city in Cheshire, England, on the River Dee, Wales, River Dee, close to the England–Wales border. With a built-up area population of 92,760 in 2021, it is the most populous settlement in the borough of Cheshire West an ...

''White Ship''

The line of the d'Avranches as Earls of Chester failed when Richard, his wife, and his illegitimate half-brother Ottuel, joined the young

William Adelin William Ætheling (, ; 5 August 1103 – 25 November 1120), commonly called Adelin (sometimes ''Adelinus'', ''Adelingus'', ''A(u)delin'' or other Latinised Norman-French variants of '' Ætheling''), was the son of Henry I of England by his wif ...

, heir to the English King Henry aboard the doomed ''

White Ship The ''White Ship'' (; Medieval Latin: ''Candida navis'') was a vessel transporting many nobles, including the heir to the English throne, that sank in the English Channel near the Normandy coast off Barfleur during a trip from France to Engla ...

''. The captain, unwisely, chose to race out of the harbour. The ship struck a submerged rocky embankment, capsized and sank. Richard, aged twenty-six, his wife Matilda, and half-brother Ottuel all drowned. The earldom then passed through his father Hugh's sister Maud to Richard's first cousin Ranulph I, in 1121, because Hugh had no other suitable male heirs.

References

Sources

* * * * * *39 {{DEFAULTSORT:Chester, Richard Davranches, 2nd Earl Of 1094 births 1120 deaths Anglo-Normans in Wales Norman warriors Deaths on the White Ship Viscounts of Avranches *02