| History |
Simon de St.Liz was the son of a Norman, Raudoul \'le Riche\'. About 1090 he married Maud of Huntingdon, daughter of Waltheof, earl of Northumberland, Huntingdon and Northampton, and Judith of Lens. Maud\'s father was the last of the major Anglo-Saxon earls to remain powerful after the Norman conquest of England in 1066; her mother was a niece of William \'the Conqueror\'. Before the end of 1090 Simon received the earldom of Huntingdon (including Northampton) from William Rufus, king of England, probably in right of his wife. Simon and Maud had three known children, of whom Maud and Simon would have progeny.
The elder Simon reportedly built Northampton Castle and the town walls. He also built one of the three remaining round churches in England, the Holy Sepulchre, in Sheep Street, Northampton.
In 1098 Simon was captured during the Vexin campaign of King William Rufus in that year, and was subsequently ransomed. He witnessed King Henry I\'s charter of liberties issued at his coronation in 1100. He attested royal charters in England from 1100 to 1103, in 1106 and 1107, and from 1109 to 1111. Sometime in the period 1093-1100 he and his wife Maud founded the priory of St. Andrew\'s, Northampton. He witnessed a grant of King Henry I to Bath Abbey on 8 August 1111 at Bishop\'s Waltham, as the king was crossing to Normandy.
Simon subsequently went abroad on crusade \'cruce signatus\' or on pilgrimage. He died at La Charité-sur-Loise in France either late in 1111 or the following year, and was buried there in the new priory church.
About Christmas 1113 his widow Maud married Dabid mac Máil Choluim, David I \'the Saint\', who became King of Scots in 1124. Maud died in 1130 or 1131, and was succeeded to the earldom of Huntingdon by her son Simon. However in 1135 the earldom was bestowed on her son Henry from her second marriage, as well as the promise of the earldom of Northumberland, as the price of peace after Henry\'s father King David penetrated into England as far as Durham on the side of the Empress Matilda. [1] |
Ellie Wood Keith Genealogy
Abt 1060 - Abt 1111 (~ 51 years)