Enguerrand II, Count of Ponthieu

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 and his wife Bertha of Aumale, heiress of Aumale. 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. 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. By her he had a daughter:

• Adelaide, living in 1096.

As Enguerrand died without male issue he was followed by his brother Guy I as Count of Ponthieu.

Notes

Sources

• Barlow, Frank, ed. (1999). The Carmen de Hastingae Proelio of Guy, Bishop of Amiens. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-820758-1.
• Musset, Lucien (2005). The Bayeux Tapestry. Boydell Press.
• Paul, Nicholas L. (2012). To Follow in Their Footsteps: The Crusades and Family Memory in the High Middle Ages. Cornell University Press. When Count Hugh II of Ponthieu died in 1052, his son Enguerrand II...
• Power, Daniel (2004). The Norman Frontier in the Twelfth and Early Thirteenth Centuries. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-57172-3.
• Tanner, Heather (2004). Families, Friends and Allies: Boulogne and Politics in Northern France and England, C.879-1160. Brill.
• Thompson, Kathleen (2022). "The Perspective from Ponthieu: Count Guy and his Norman Neighbour". In Church, Stephen D. (ed.). . The Boydell Press. pp. 19–34. doi:. ISBN 978-1-80010-631-4. It was not a happy start for Enguerrand's successor, his younger brother, Guy, who must have been a very young man in 1053..

Further reading

• Hariulf (1894). Lot, Ferdinand (ed.). (in French). Alphonse Picard et Fils, Editeurs. p. 236. Gui I, comte de Ponthieu, frère d'Enguerrand II (mort en 1053).(Gui I, Count of Ponthieu, brother of Enguerrand II (died in 1053)).
• Louandre, C. F. (1845). (in French). Vol. 1. T. Jeunet, Imprimeur-Editeur, rue Saint-Gilles. p. 116. "L'histoire ne nous a rien transmis sur les actions de Hugues II, sinon qu'il enrichit differents monasteres et qu'il mourut en 1052, peu de temps apres son avenement. Il laissa deux fils: Enguerrand II et Gui I..."(History has not transmitted anything to us about the actions of Hugh II, except that he enriched various monasteries and that he died in 1052, shortly after his accession. He left two sons: Enguerrand II and Gui I...)
• Montgomery, Thomas Harrison, ed. (1863). . Philadelphia. pp. 32–33. Hugh II, succeeded to the county of Ponthieu, and died November 20, 1052. His children were I. Enguerrand, and II. Guy, successively Counts of Ponthieu..