Ela (Warenne) MacDuff (abt. 1145)

Ancestors

Descendants

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Hela (Warenne) MacDuff was an inhabitant of Medieval Scotland. Join: Scotland Project Discuss: Scotland

D i s a m b i g u a t i o n

• Not to be confused with: Ela de Warenne Warenne-102, daughter of Isabel de Warenne and Hamelin, 4th Earl of Surrey.

Biography

Ela or Hela, who appears in one key document of about 1160 as "Ada", which was in fact the name of the king's mother at the time, married Duncan the Earl of Fife. Doubts have been raised about the document. The person who transcribed the surviving version was Sir James Balfour of Kinnaird and Denmylne, Lord Lyon King of Arms (1630-54). Unfortunately, he is known to have made errors, and we do not know where he found this record. He probably did not fabricate the document of course, but he may have added things like the date, which is given as the 7th year of King Malcolm IV, "anno 7 regni regis". That would mean a period from May 1159 until May 1160 .^[1] Barrow's judgement was that "the witness list presents no objections to the authenticity of the charter, and the attestation of Bishop Arnold gives us limit-dates of November 1160 to September 1162".^[2] So he though the date was not exactly correct, and probably added by the transcriber.

She appears in several other documents as a witness. In all of these her name is Ela or Hela, and this is generally considered to be her correct name. Barrow for example wrote that "it is certain that Earl Duncan II's wife was called Ela or Hela. Since Ala might be a variant of Ela, the Ada of our charter could be explained without much difficulty as a misreading of Ala.^[2] He cited the Register of Dunfermelyn, No.153 (she also appears in no.152); the Register of the Priory of Saint Andrew, pp. p.208, p.242 (two charters), p.244, p.248, p.249 (she also appears on p.264); and the Charters of North Berwick, No.3, all published by the Bannatyne Club.

Importantly, in the "Ada" document of about 1160 she is identified as a niece (neptis) of the Scottish King, Malcolm IV. "Neptis" can mean any young relative, including a niece. However, it is unlikely that she was the daughter of a legitimate sibling of Malcolm, because as explained by Barrow:^[2]

At the period of this charter, King Malcolm was giving his sisters in marriage, and no niece of his is known who could possibly have been of marriageable age before 1162.

See the Research notes for more on this.

Marriage and Children

Ela and her husband Duncan are known to have had at least the following children:

1. Malcolm, in 1204 succeeded his father as earl of Fife, died 1228, married Matilda, the daughter of Gilbert, earl of Stratherne,^[3] who granted in frank marriage to Malcolm, son of Earl Duncan of Fife, with his daughter Maud, Glendevon, Carnbo, Aldie, Fossoway, Dalkeith and (?) Pitfar (1194-8);^[2]
2. Duncan, married Alice Corbet, the daughter of Walter Corbet of Makerstoun;^[3]
3. David, who received the lands of Strathbogie, Aberdeenshire, from his father;^[3]
4. a daughter, her father gave 500 marks to the King of England, in 1188, for the custody of Roger de Merlay's land in Northumberland, the ward of Roger's son and leave for the son to marry his daughter.^[3]

Research notes

Although described as a "niece" (cousin of similar or younger age) of the king, the exact parentage of Ela is unknown. Several speculative proposals have nevertheless been made.

• Option 1. Relative through Malcolm's father Henry of Scotland, Earl of Huntingdon and Earl of Northumberland.

One old version of this idea is that Ela was an illegitimate half-sister of King Malcolm. It was a possibility mentioned in 1907 in Balfour Paul's Scots Peerage,^[3] As pointed out by Barrow, Balfour Paul added this suggestion as a possible way to explain how a sibling of Malcolm IV could already have a daughter in 1160, which was a problem noted already in Wood's earlier 1813 Peerage edition.^[4] In other words, by this account Ela would the daughter of King Malcolm's father Henry, and an unknown woman who was not his wife. But both Woods and Balfour were therefore assuming that neptis had to mean the daughter of a sibling, which is certainly not necessary!

A second newer paternal connection proposal can be found on the MEDLANDS website by Charles Cawley.^[5] As of July 2022 it proposes that Ela was a grand daughter of King David I, making her a first cousin of King Malcolm IV.

• Option 2. Relative through Malcolm's mother the Scottish queen mother at the time, Ada de Warenne.

Barrow speculated that the name Ela points to a connection with the powerful Anglo-Norman Warenne dynasty:^[2]

The name Ela is rare in Scottish record of the time, [The only 12th-century example I have found seems significant: Ela, daughter of Alexander of St Martin, one of the Countess Ada de Warenne's principal tenants (Cartulary of Newbattle, Nos. 101. and 102).] but it occurs in a number of English baronial families, where its use may be traced to the marriage of King Malcolm's uncle, William III earl Warenne, to Ela of Ponthieu, daughter of Ela of Burgundy. [Complete Peerage (ed. G. H. White [1st ed.]), xi, 377, 379; xi, pt. i, 497.] The name Ela might thus suggest a Warenne connexion, and it is certainly worth noting an association between the two countesses, Ada de Warenne and Ela, in contemporary record, [Reg. Prior. S. Andree, 207-8 (c. 1160-5), 248-9] and also that Reginald de Warenne, probably the Countess Ada's brother, witnessed an unprinted charter issued by Earl Duncan II of Fife in favour of the monks of May. [Duncan and Malcolm occur four times and twice respectively, Coustantine once] It is by no means improbable that King Malcolm should have given a relative in marriage to the earl of Fife, but her exact identity and relationship to the king are not known for certain, and the solution of this problem must await further evidence.

Note that Barrow originally suggested that Ela might be a young sister of Reginald de Warenne, and therefore also of the Queen mother, rather than being in a younger generation. Chronologically this is not the most obvious proposal, and the word neptis would not normally be used for an aunt.

Unsurprisingly, a second version of the maternal proposal is that Ela might be a daughter of Reginald, rather than sister. This is proposed for example, by Victoria Chandler in an article which Barrow supported.^[6]

Another noble found in Ada's company was the Countess Ela, wife of Duncan II of Fife (d. 1204). Ela may have been Ada's niece, the child of Reginald de Warenne.

[footnote: Ela witnessed Ada's charter, St Andrews Liber, 208 and joined her in witnessing for Morgrund and Agnes of Mar, ibid., 248-9. Her own grant to Dunfermline was witnessed by Alexander de St Martin, Registrum, no. 153.]

Note: it is not only Ela's name which connects her to the family of the king's mother Ada, but also the way in which Ela seems to be specifically associated with Ada in witness lists, which would be typical of a close relative. Remember that Ada was a member of a powerful foreign dynasty, who had apparently brought various allies with her to Scotland. Perhaps this association, whatever the basis, might have even led to Ela being called Ada in the 1160 document?

On balance it seems most likely that Ela was related to King Malcolm through his mother. If we had to pick a best guess Chandler's version would probably be it. However, it is still just a speculation. The Warenne family was quite prodigious in this period, and we should not forget that Ela did not have to even have a Warenne father, or even mother, to be called a "neptis" of Ada. And what's more, while Barrow's argumentation is certainly quite strong, he did not really disprove the old idea that Ela was related to Malcolm's father instead of his mother. Ela's first name could for example have come from the Warenne family via a godparent.

Sources

1. ↑ Scottish regnal years can be found here for example: https://ia600202.us.archive.org/10/items/scottishkingsrev00dunbuoft/scottishkingsrev00dunbuoft.pdf
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4} Geoffrey Barrow, (1953). "The Earls of Fife in the 12th Century", Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 87, 51-62. http://journals.socantscot.org/index.php/psas/article/view/8431/8399
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4} Balfour Paul, Sir James (1907) The Scots Peerage (David Douglas, Edinburgh), volume 4, page 7.
4. ↑ John Philip Wood The peerage of Scotland, volume 1, pp. 573-4. Available on Familysearch.
5. ↑ Charles Cawley, MEDLANDS https://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/SCOTLAND.htm#ElaMDuncanFife . Consulted in July 2022.
6. ↑ Victoria Chandler, "Ada De Warenne, Queen Mother of Scotland (c. 1123-1178)." The Scottish Historical Review 60, no. 170 (1981) p. 128. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25529417

Other websites

• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, "Pedigree Resource File," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/2:2:3747-5T5 : accessed 2017-09-10), entry for Ela Ada De /Warrenne/ citing a user-generated family tree not freely available.
• Lewis, M. (2020, April 4). Ela de Warenne #6385. ORTNCA, citing Scot's Peerage, IV, p. 7; Charles Cawley; and Douglas Richardson.
• SGM post of John M Watson, "Sibyl de Valoignes", Jan 4, 2011, 9:53:08 PM https://groups.google.com/g/soc.genealogy.medieval/c/0VFdl_5dGWQ/m/AjPZrRbAAcIJ