Isabel OF ENGLAND

Fille illégitime. Parfois appelée Hedwig ou Hawise.

Robert of Torigny in his addition to the work of Guillaume de Jumiègeswrote that Henry I's seventh daughter was the (unnamed) child of Elisabeth (or Isabelle), sister of Galeran, count of Meulan, adding that thisdaughter was unmarried at the time of

writing (in the 1140s) ["Filiarum uero ... Septima, que nata est ex Elisabeth, sorore Waleranni comiti Metlenti, adhuc innupta permanet"].

The information about her in Chronique de Normandie was based on this,not on Roman de Rou in which she and her mother were not mentioned. Thewriter was clearly confused, calling Henry I's seventh daughter Isabelle

(which may be accidentally true) but then describing her as daughter ofher uncle Galeran of Meulan ("La VIIe fille Ysabelle, fille le Conte Gallerant de Meulent, ne fut pas mariée"). This is not useful evidence that she never married, only that the author repeated as fact what

Robert de Torigny had provisionally stated earlier (though again it maybe accidentally true).

The appendix (H) in CP X is on "The Families of the First and Second Earls of Pembroke"; another appendix on Henry I's illegitimate children,in CP XI, was also written by Geoffrey White. He pointed out in both that Isabelle de Meulan's daughter by Henry was probably the namesake

daughter who occurred in two undated charters of Richard Strongbow, earl of Pembroke (her maternal half-brother), one for St Mary's, Usk, known from an inspeximus of 1330 ("Hij sunt testes Isabella comitissa, Isabella filia ejus") and the second a charter for Goldcliff priory

known from an inspeximus dated 1290.

Henry's daughter by Isabelle of Meulan has been called Hedwig, for no good reason as canvassed elsewhere in this thread; she has also been confused with Sibyl who married Alexander I of Scotland and with Mathildewho was abbess of Montivilliers between a predecessor living in 1152 and a successor in office by April 1193.

In other words, very little is known about her.

Peter Stewart

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