G2G: Is there a definitive answer to who the mother of Hameline Plantagenet?

Question

  Was it Empress Mathilda or  Adelaide of Angers? Or someone else??

Answer 1

Hello Randall

Hamelin or Hameline is definitely not the son of the Empress Mathilda, as he was illegitimate and there seems to be no definite proof that Adelaide of Angers was his mother either.

Charles Cawley in the Medieval Lands database, has the mother or mothers of all three of Geoffrey 'Plantagenet''s illegitimate children as unknown.

http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ANJOU,%20MAINE.htm#GeoffroyVdied1151B

The Complete Peerage, 2nd ed. Vol12, part 1, page 499, (one of the best works on the peerage of Great Britain), also states that Hamelin's mother was unknown.

John

Comments

Empress Maud and Geoff m. 22 May 1128. They only had 3 kids (all boys):

1. Henry I (b.25 Mar 1133)
2. Geoffrey,
3. and William. 

 

More importantly, Maud was 25 when her dad forced her to marry a 13 year old.

 

The kicker is... Hamelin's page says that he's born in 1129 ... before the future Henry I.

 

So I ask...

 

Is it possible that an 11/12 year old Geoffrey impregnated a mistress before he knocked up old Dowager Empress Maud?

 

 

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According to the Medieval Lands site and Alison Weir's book Britain's Royal Families, Geoffrey was born on 24 August 1113, which means he was not quite 15 when he married.  I'm not sure where I read it, but I have a feeling that Matilda wasn't happy about being forced to marry him, and the marriage wasn't consummated for a while for this reason, not necessarily because Geoffrey was too young.

In the meantime it is highly possible for a 16 or 17 year old to father an illegitimate son if Hamelin was born in 1129 or 1130.

I hadn't looked before but it's in Alison Weir's book, that Hamelin's mother was Adelaide of Angers, but as she unfortunately doesn't name her sources, and everything else I looked at sticks with his mother as being unknown, I think that is still the best answer.

John

Answer 2

Sir

Hameline of Anjou,Normandy France was born in 1129. Father is Geoffrey IV Plantagenet of Anjou France who was born in1113,Wife is Adelaide(Matilda) Plantagenet Bleanclerc of France

Married to Isabel Warenne who was born in 1137.