Enguerrand II (d. 25 October 1053) was the son of
Hugh II count of
Ponthieu. He assumed the county upon the death of his father on November 20, 1052.
Life
Enguerrand II was the eldest son and heir of
Hugh II, Count of Ponthieu Hugh II of Ponthieu was count of Ponthieu and lord of Abbeville, the son of Enguerrand I of Ponthieu. Evidently, Hugh II was the half-brother of Guy, who became the bishop of Amiens; Fulk, who became the abbot of Forest l'Abbaye; and Robert. Howev ...
and his wife
Bertha of Aumale, heiress of
Aumale.
[Detlev Schwennicke, '' Europäische Stammtafeln: Stammtafeln zur Geschichte der Europäischen Staaten'', Neue Folge, Band III Teilband 4 (Verlag von J. A. Stargardt, Marburg, Germany, 1989), Tafel 635]
Enguerrand was married to
Adelaide, daughter of
Robert I, Duke of Normandy and sister of
William the Conqueror. But at the
Council of Reims in 1049, when the proposed marriage of Duke William with
Matilda of Flanders was prohibited based on
consanguinity, so was Enguerrand's existing marriage to Adelaide, causing him to be
excommunicated. The marriage was apparently annulled c.1049/50. He had given her in
dower,
Aumale, which she retained after the dissolution of their marriage.
The Conqueror's uncle,
William of Arques, who had originally challenged Duke William's right to the duchy based on his illegitimacy, had been given the county of Talou by Duke William as a fief, but still defiant and on his own authority proceeded to build a strong castle at Arques. Enguerrand was allied to William of Arques by virtue of the latter being married to Enguerrand's sister.
By 1053
William of Arques was in open revolt against Duke William and
Henry I of France came to William of Arques' aid invading Normandy and attempting to relieve the castle of
Arques Arques may refer to the following places in France:
* Arques, Aude, in the Aude department
* Arques, Aveyron, in the Aveyron department
* Arques, Pas-de-Calais, in the Pas-de-Calais department
* Arques-la-Bataille
Arques-la-Bataille () is a com ...
.
[Jim Bradbury, ''The Routledge Companion to Medieval Warfare'' (Routledge, NY, 2004), pp. 160-1] Duke William had put Arques under siege, but had remained mobile with another force in the countryside nearby. To relieve the siege Enguerrand was with Henry I of France and on October 25, 1053 was killed when the Normans feigned a retreat in which Enguerrand and his companions followed and were ambushed, a tactic the Normans used again to great success at the
Battle of Hastings.
Issue
Enguerrand married
Adelaide of Normandy, Countess of Aumale, daughter of Robert I, Duke of Normandy.
[The name of Adelaide's mother remains unsettled. David C. Douglas 'William the Conqueror'', 1964, pp. 381stated that William had a sister or half-sister Adelaide; that she may have been the daughter of Robert I by a mistress other than Herleva, but that "it is more probable she was the Conqueror's sister of the whole blood". As such the question remains open.] By her he had a daughter:
* Adelaide, living in 1096.
[George Edward Cokayne, ''The Complete Peerage of England Scotland Ireland Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant Extinct or Dormant'', ed. Vicary Gibbs, Vol. I (The St. Catherine Press, Ltd., London, 1910), p. 351]
As Enguerrand died without male issue
he was followed by his brother
Guy I as
Count of Ponthieu.
[ Thomas Stapleton, 'Observations on the History of Adeliza, Sister of William the Conqueror', ''Archaeologia'', Vol. 26 (J.B. Nichols & Sons, 1836), pp. 349-360]
References
Notes
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Year of birth unknown
Counts of Ponthieu
People excommunicated by the Catholic Church
1053 deaths
11th-century French people