TO HOLD BY THE SWORD

THE 3RD NORMAN EARL OF CHESTER - RICHARD D’AVRANCHES

BY PHILLIP E JONES

When his father Hugh Lupus died in July 1101 his 7 year old son Richard became heir to the Earldom of Chester, but as he was a minor was reported to have become the ward of the new king Henry I who had ascended the English throne in 1100, around a year before Hugh’s death.

With Henry as his guardian, the young Richard was said to have been raised and educated along with the monarchs own children at court, whilst at the same time his inheritance and entitlements were administered by the king and his agents. Towards the end of his minority, the young Earl was reported to have been betrothed to Maud, the daughter of Stephen of Blois, a political union which was designed to further strengthen the relationship between King Henry and his young ward.

Having reached his majority Richard was thought to have spent a good deal of time at his family’s estates in Normandy, as well as at Chester. He was said to have taken part in the military campaign against the rebel Welsh Prince Gruffudd  in 1114, but the Anglo-Norman force was unable to engage the rebels in a decisive battle and so were forced to agree an uneasy peace, which was to last through to the Welsh Prince’s death in 1137.

Unlike his father, Richard’s relationship with the Abbots of St Werburgh’s was generally strained, largely through disputes over land ownership. When the first Abbot, Richard of Bec died in 1117, Earl Richard was reported to have refused to nominate his successor for well over 4 years because the monks refused to hand over their Grange at Saigton to the young Earl.

Around December 1120 Richard and his wife Maud were reported to have been visiting Henry’s court in Normandy, when the king and his entourage decided to return to England and made plans to take ship from France. The historian Orderic Vitalis reports;

“The master of the ship was Thomas, the son of Stephen, who came to the king who was then in Normandy and ready to take ship to England and offered him a mark of gold, desiring that as his father had transported The Conqueror when he fought against King Harold and was his constant mariner in all his passages between England and Normandy, that he too might have the transportation of the King and his attendants. He told the monarch that he had a good ship called the “Candida Navis”, otherwise called the “White Ship” which was well furnished for the purpose of carrying a king”.

“Henry thanked Thomas, but informed him that he had already chosen another ship for the purpose which he could not change. However, he would recommend Thomas’ ship to his two sons, William and Richard and their retinues”.

Thomas and his crew were so pleased at the news of the king’s commendation that they celebrated their good fortune with a great deal of drink. When the ship left Normandy the following day it was thought that many of the crew and her noble passengers were still largely incapacitated, leading to a mistake in the ships navigation which caused her to strike a rock outside of Barfleur. The stricken vessel was said to have sunk fairly quickly and taken with her all but one of her crew and passengers.

A legend suggests that Henry’s son, William the Atheling, actually survived the initial sinking and was saved by being placed in a small boat. However, desperate to save his friends and fellow nobles he was reported to have ordered the small boat back towards the wreck, where it was subsequently swamped by the sheer number of passengers and crew who tried to rescue themselves from the waters.

For days after the disaster, the bodies of those that had perished were thought to have been washed up on the French coastline. The body of Richard, the young Earl of Chester was reported to have been recovered and later identified by his clothing, but the body of Henry’s son, William, was never recovered from the waters and was lost forever. Not only did the disaster rob the monarch of his son and heir, but also put into doubt Henry’s carefully laid plans for the future rule of England.  

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