Talk:Ida de Tosny

Relationship to Henry II

From article: "Ida was not the first English royal ward to be taken as mistress by a king who was her guardian; that honour probably belongs to Isabel de Beaumont (Elizabeth de Beaumont), daughter of Robert de Beaumont, who fought at the Battle of Hastings with the Conqueror. That king's youngest son made Beaumont's daughter his mistress.[4]"

This is interesting, but what does it have to do with Ida de Tosny? It reads like a close paraphrase of a passage from the source text and it's internally illogical. I seriously doubt that Elizabeth de Beaumont was the first royal ward to become a mistress. If true, William, her guardian, did not take her as his mistress. William, unlike his sons, is believed to have been faithful to his wife. His youngest son, Henry, acknowledged 20 to 23 illegitimate children and is thought to have had as many as 50. He used his illegitimate children as political pawns and, especially before his marriage to Matilda of Scotland, had long relationships with mistresses that produced several children, notably with Sybil Corbet, daughter of Sir Robert Corbet, and with Ansfride, a knight's widow. But the author of the article doesn't identify Henry by name.

My primary source on this is the . The only mention in this book of the name Beaumont in connection with Henry I's mistresses and bastards is in the table of Henry I's bastards on page 63. His daughter Constance, child 13 of the 23 listed, married Roscelin de Beaumont, vicomte of Maine, before 1135. She was the grandmother of Ermengard, queen of Scots. Granted, the authors also don't identify Ida as William's mother, because the charter had not yet been discovered, but they also dismiss Rosamond Clifford as a possibility. I have a Post-it note on p. 100 of this book that reads: "William Longsprée, earl of Salisbury ca 1170–1226; mother IDed 2002 as Ida, wife (and countess) of Roger Bigod; her parentage unk but possibly dau of Roger de Toeni and Ida of Hainault; 2 sources 1) charter signed by William, referencing her 2) list of prisoners after Battle of Bouvines 1214 in which Ralph Bigod is called brother of the earl of Salisbury."

I would prefer to delete this passage entirely as irrelevant to the article. What I will do instead is change it to make it benign: "Ida was not the first English royal ward to be taken as a royal mistress. Isabel de Beaumont (Elizabeth de Beaumont), daughter of Robert de Beaumont, who fought at the Battle of Hastings with the Conqueror, was the ward of William the Conqueror and the mistress of one of his sons.[4]"

--Dee Fraser 17:32, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

References