Bertram de Verdun

[1] Members of the family appear in original records in Normandy from at least c.1068-1085 when the first Bertram de Verdun attests a charter of Guillaume fitz-Guimond of Avranches, who makes a donation to the Abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel.

[2] Bertram I de Verdun appears in the Domesday Book (1086), holding the land and the manor of Farnham Royal in Buckinghamshire, held before the conquest by princess Goda of England.

[4] Bertram III de Verdun's widow Rohese is recorded as enjoying dower in Kirkby (Lincolnshire), Wiles (Buckinghamshire) and Lutterworth (Leicestershire)[5] The 'Wiles' that Hagger mentions is clearly 'Willen' in Buckinghamshire, and it appears subsequently to have descended with the de Verdun manor of Farnham Royal.

The suggestion that this was an error in the PhD may be confirmed by the fact that Hagger does not give Rohais's name as d'Amundeville in the updated pedigree chart or elsewhere in his later book.

Istud autem servicium debet facere pro eo Bertramnus de Verdum, filius Normanni."

At the beginning of the reign of Henry II a papal bull had been obtained authorizing the King to conquer Ireland and bring the Irish church in line with the rest of Europe.

Henry had not found the time to act upon it but, in 1169, Dermot MacMurrough, the expelled king of Leinster, together with Richard FitzGilbert (Strongbow) Earl of Pembroke and Clare landed in Ireland.

Further to this campaign, Bertram received a royal grant of land in Louth, in Ireland, where he held the towns of Drogheda-in-Uriel and Dundalk and several castles.

Bertram de Verdun, whose lands were in the main surrounded by rebel lords, supported the king and successfully defended Kenilworth.

He spent a good deal of his time in both Ireland and Normandy where he founded or endowed many monastic houses not to mention his patronage in England.

Undignified by any great office yet close to the king, but ready for any kind of business, Bertram was sometime custodian of Pontorson, sheriff of Warwickshire and Leicestershire from 1169 to 1184, itinerant justice, sent to a mission to Spain in 1177,[11] despatched to clear up dangerous muddle in Ireland in 1185, guardian of the heir to the earldom of Chester.

Clearly he was a man of many parts (he was put in charge of Acre on the Third Crusade and died in Jaffa); but again, when not entrusted with a special task, he was to be found constantly with the king Henry II and numbered among his most intimate counselors.

Bertram de Verdun set sail with Richard on what has come to be known as the Third Crusade and after many delays (including the king's marriage to Berengaria of Navarre) finally reached Acre in 1191.

Bertram's death also occurred soon after the battle for Jaffa, which began with Saladin laying siege to the town at the end of July 1192.