The Shields
(on the right) from the top, down:
The Count of Boulogne,his second son
from Lens, Advocate of Boulogne (House of Bethune), Saher de Quincy, Count of
St. Pol, Count of Hesdin, Count of Vermandois, Walter the Steward of Scotland,
Count of Guines, Duke of Brittany, Lord of Alost, Erskine of Scotland.
Alost
Baldwin of Alost and his younger brother, Gilbert de Ghent, companion
of the Conqueror, were sons of Ralph of Alsot and cadets of Guines.
Gilbert de Ghent, Earl of Lincoln, was father of Walter de Lindsay, ancestor
of the Scottish family of Lindsay.
Bethune
Hereditary Advocates of Bethune.
A son of Robert IV de Bethune went to Scotland with David I and Maud
his wife, and founded the Beaton family. A cadet of Bethune was Roger de Insula, hereditary castellain of Lille,
ancestor of the Lords Lyle.
Boulogne
Count Eustace I of Boulogne married Maud de Louvain, grandaughter of
the last male heir of Charlemagne, and kinswomen of Robert de Bruce. Their eldest
son, Eustace II, was William the Conqueror’s most powerful ally at the Battle
of Hastings. Two of Eustace II’s
three sons, Godfrey de Bouillon and Baldwin de Boulogne, became first and second
Kings of Jerusalem. His great-niece,
Maud (granddaughter of his brother Lambert) became Queen of Scotland.
His heir, Count Eustace III, married Princess Mary of Scotland, sister
of Maud’s husband, David I; their
daughter and heiress, Countess Matilda of Boulogne, married Stephen of Blois
and became Queen of England.
Hesdin
Arnulf de Hesdin, companion of the Conqueror, was brother of Count Enguerrand. Arnulf’s elder son, Walter, succeeded to the Hesdin countship
on Enguerrand’s death; his younger
son, William, took the Hesdin arms to Scotland as William de Graham. Arnulf’s daughter, Avelina de Hesdin, became the wife of Alan Fitz-Flaad,
and was the mother of Walter, ancestor of the Stuarts.
Lens
Count Lambert de Lens was the second son of Eustace I of Boulogne. His sons by an unnamed first wife were Seier and Walter;
by his second wife, Adele, sister of William I, the Conqueror, he had
Judith, married to the last Saxon nobleman, Waltheof of Northumberland, and
by Domesday the richest woman in England.
Maud, her elder daughter, inherited her great possessions and married,
first, Simon de Senlis, a cadet of Vermandois, and second, David I of Scotland.
From Lambert’s sons, Seier and Walter, descended the Scottish families
of Seton/Seaton, Oliphant, Fleming and their cadets; from his granddaughter’s first marriage came the English Seatons;
from her second sprang the Kings of Scotland.
St. Pol
Family
name Comines, cousins of Hesdin and Guines, kinsmen of Boulogne.
William, grandson of Robert de Comines, companion of the Conqueror, took
the wheatsheaf emblem of the comte to Scotland with King David and Queen Maud, and founded the Comyn family there.