Ranulf de Blondeville, 6th Earl of Chester
Ranulf succeeded to the earldom of Chester (like his father before him) as a minor (aged eleven) and was knighted in 1188 or 1189, which gave him control of his estates in England and Normandy.
[1] Although he used, not inconsistently, the style Duke of Brittany on account of his marriage, he never had the control of the duchy, and is not known to have played an important role there.
Through his most powerful vassal the de Lacy constable of Chester he was also overlord of the honours of Clitheroe and Pontefract, Halton and the Lordship of Bowland which were large baronies with dozens of fiefs attached to them.
Ranulf held several important developing manors and market towns such as Frodsham, Macclesfield in Cheshire and Chipping Campden in Gloucestershire.
This was, at least in part, a move to strengthen Richard's power over the Duchy of Brittany, which his father Henry had never fully achieved.
In the winter of 1204–5, Ranulph, suspected of dealings with the rebellious Welsh and of contemplating revolt himself, had extensive estates temporarily confiscated by the king.
There was concern that Ranulf might object to the decision, but when he arrived (29 October 1216) he stated that he did not want to be regent, so any potential conflict vanished.
De Blondeville put his political weight behind re-issuing Magna Carta in 1216 and 1217; his military experience was used in defeating the rebels at Lincoln in 1217.
Following the battle in recognition of his support, Ranulf was created Earl of Lincoln by King Henry III of England on 23 May 1217.
They finally refused the offer and on 5 November they found the walls of Damietta poorly manned, so they attacked and secured the city.
Ranulf left Damietta in September 1220, with his fellow English earls, leaving behind an indecisive force under the command of Bishop Pelagius and the Military Orders.
Upon the crusade's failure, he returned to England to find his rival, William Marshal dead and the government in the hands of Hubert de Burgh.
This flared into open conflict in the winter of 1223–4 when Ranulf among others briefly tried to resist de Burgh's policy of resumption of sheriffdoms and royal castles.
He made an alliance with Llywelyn the Great, whose daughter Elen married Ranulf's nephew and heir, John the Scot, in about 1222.
De Blondeville's final years saw him acting as an elder statesman, witnessing the 1225 re-issue of Magna Carta, playing a prominent role in the dispute in 1227 over Forest Laws and, as a veteran, leading Henry III's army on the ill-fated Poitou expedition of 1230–1.
His viscera were buried at Wallingford Castle, his heart at Dieulacres Abbey, which he had founded, and the remainder of his body at St Werburg's in Chester.
[9][10] Prior to Ranulf's death, however, he had also made Hawise, his youngest sister, an inter vivos gift, after receiving dispensation from the Crown, of the Earldom of Lincoln.
[1] "Ranulf Earl of Chester" is mentioned in the same line as Robin Hood in Piers Plowman, the first definite reference to stories circulating about the latter figure.
Ranulf de Blondeville is a supporting character in James Goldman's 1979 novel Myself as Witness set in the reign of King John.
Goldman's narrator describes Ranulf as the "only living Visigoth" and condemns him for killing many Welshman in his capacity as an Anglo-Norman lord of the Welsh Marches.
