The Flemish Origins

Winemar the Fleming was at Piddington and Hackelton, while Preston Deanery was to become the chief residence of his son, Walter, who also held the neighbouring Quinton. Winemar the Fleming and Grunfrid de Chocques held Rothenthorpe between them, while Walter the Fleming held Wootton. Readers who know this beautiful and historic countryside will realize that all the manor in this list are within an easy ride of Yardley (later Yardley Hastings), that place, in direct communication with Walter’s capital messuage at Odell and Hugh’s at Hinwick, where the widowed Countess Judith was bringing up her fatherless daughters.

When Maud and Alice became bethrothed, to Simon de Senlis and Ralf de Toeny respectively, and the girls moved to their own establishments, at Up Hall, Seaton, and Down Hall, Seaton Thorpe, both in the royal manor of Barrowden, on the north (Rutland) bank of the river Welland, the choice of that place for their residence meant the immediate setting up of a Boulonnais bodyguard there. Some time before 100 the manor of Barrowden was given to Michael de Hanslope, son of Maud’s cousin, Winemar de Lens. Other Flemings who moved into the district to protect their Lady included the builder of Oakham Castle, Walkelin de Ferres (actually Ferrieres in the comte of St. Pol, the present day Fillievres), and Henry I’s Crossbowman, Ernisius “Balistarius” or Ernisius de Seaton, a man made mysterious by a series of misinterpreted records but almost certainly a younger son of Walter de Lens senior, and so, uncle of Michael de Hanslope and cousin of Maud and Alice. Too late for entry in Domesday, a new manor of Seaton was created for Ernisius, involving some kind of responsibility for overseeing both Up Hall and Down Hall. I think it is reasonable to infer that all these territories in England occupied by prominent members of the family of the counts of Boulogne would be marked with devices inherited by their holders from their Flemish connections.

It is more than possible that Count Eustace II of Boulogne and his kinsmen coveted the throne of England themselves, and that their support of the Conqueror’s expedition was undertaken with this ulterior motive. Perhaps the victory at Hastings had been too unexpectedly swift for them. Certainly the stormy relationship between Eustace and William, the abortive Boulonnais attack on Dover in 1067, the Flemish interest in Robert de Mowbray’s rebellion against William Rufus in the 1090’s, coupled with its avowed aim of replacing that monarch by Judith’s half-brother, Stephen of Aumale, all point to this kind of sentiment among Eustace’s followers. Arnulf de Hesdin was severly punished for his part in Mowbray’s uprising, and it seems at least possible that only their departure on the First Crusade in 1096 allowed others of his kinsmen to escape the Norman wrath.

The First Crusade was led to its triumphant conclusion by Eustace II of Boulogne’s three son’s – Count Eustace III, Godfrey de Boullion, who became the first King of Jerusalem (though he never took that title) and Baldwin of Boulogne, who succeeded him on that throne. We know from French histories of the comte that 1200 knights of Boulogne followed their Count and his brothers to the Holy Land, and we may guess that the majority of them, or their fathers, had first followed Eustace II to England. We know a good deal of what happened to them on the long journey to Jerusalem, and something about the sequel – who died, who stayed, and who returned safely. And we can see by the crop of churches in the East Midlands dedicated to the patron saint of the First Crusade, St. Andrew, how the survivors celebrated their thanks to God. We also know that very soon after their return to England, William Rufus was killed in the New Forest under highly suspicious circumstances, and that Henry I’s coronation charter was signed by Simon de Senlis who, because of his marriage to Lambert de Lens’s little granddaughter, Maud, might by now be regarded as the senior representative in England of the Anglo-Boulonnais.