Ancestral File Number: 8XQ8-7R Lucy, living 1130, widow susscessively, ofIves Taillebois and Roger Fitz Gerold; m. probably c 1098 Ranulph III le Meschin. [Ancestral Roots]
He [Ranulph le Meschin] married Lucy, widow of Roger FITZ-GEROLD (by whom she was mother of William de Roumare, afterwards Earl of Lincoln). He died 17 or 27 January 1128/9, and was buried at St. Werburg's, Chester. The Countess Lucy confirmed, as his widow, the grant of the Manor of Spalding to the monks of that place (f). [Complete Peerage III:166, XIV:170, (transcribed by Dave Utzinger)]
(f) She paid 500 marks to King Henry in 1130 for license to remain unmarried for 5 years.
--------------------------------- ----------------------------------------- --------------------------- The following copied from www.lin acre.ox.ac.uk/research/prosop/PRSPN2.stm, gives the latest research on the ancestry of Lucy: --------------------------------- ----------------------------------------- ---------------------------
Antecessor Noster: The Parentage of Countess Lucy Made Plain
A lot of ink has flowed on the subject, but there can be no doubt that the 'mysterious' Countess Lucy of Chester was William Malet's thrice-married granddaughter, the daughter of Robert Malet's sister and Turold the Sheriff of Lincoln (dead by 1079). The suggestionwas first made by R. Kirk in 1888. As N. Sumner has more recently observed: 'This account has the merit of explaining why the lordship of Spalding and other places in Lincolnshire were held after Ivo's death not by Beatrice, his direct heir and the daughter of his marriage to Lucy, but by the later husbands of Lucy, Roger fitz Gerold and Ranulph Meschines.' It is clear from her charters thatLucy was an heiress; as was to be expected, her estates passed to the sons of her second and third marriages. Kirk's work was based upon conjecture, and contained a number of errors. The question of Lucy's parentage has therefore remained open. Nevertheless, there is proof that Kirk was right.
A spurious charter of Crowland Abbey made Turold of Bucknall (the Sheriff) the founder of the priory of Spalding as a cell of Crowland. It also called Turold brother of Godivacountess of Mercia, but subsequently described Godiva's son Earl Algar as Turold's cognatus (cousin). A genealogia fundatoris of Coventry Abbey made Lucy a daughter of Earl Algar and sister and heiress of earls Edwin and Morcar. The Peterborough Chronicle and the Pseudo-Ingulf's Chronicle of Crowland both made Lucy the daughter of Algar and niece or great-niece of Turold. We know that William Malet was half-English, so these traditions probably boil down to a relationship between Countess Godiva and William's English mother.
In 1153 a charter [RRAN, III, 180] of the future Henry II for Lucy's son Ranulf II of Chester referred to her uncles Robert Malet and Alan of Lincoln. Alan of Lincoln was the successor, and almost certainly the son, of Domesday's Alfred of Lincoln. Chronologically, it is most unlikely that Alan was Lucy's uncle. It was probably another of Alfred's sons whom Domesday described as Alfred nepos [nephew or grandson] of Turold, then holding a fee which was certainly thereafter held with the rest of the senior Alfred's fee by his heir Alan. Domesday provides a further indication that Alfred senior married another of William Malet's daughters when it names a William as Alfred's predecessor in two of his manors. Other parts of each of these manors (Linwood and Rothwell) were held in 1086 by Durand Malet, who was probably William's son. It seems that Henry's charter can be explained by seeing a scribe, perhaps in search of rhetorical balance, commit the error of ascribing two uncles to Lucy, instead of a niece (Lucy) and a nephew (Alan ofLincoln) to Robert Malet, who was uncle to both.
Turold is evidenced in Domesday Book as a benefactor of Crowland Abbey, to