Wilhelm (Blois)

Countess Adela von Blois and her three eldest sons. From left to right: Wilhelm, Theobald and Stephan, who later became King of England. Illustration from the early 14th century.

Wilhelm (* 1090/93; † around 1150) was a Count of Blois and Chartres from the House of Blois . He was the eldest son of Count Stephan (Heinrich) von Blois and Adela von Normandy . On his mother's side he was the eldest grandson of Wilhelm the Conqueror .

Wilhelm succeeded his father, who had fallen on the crusade in 1102, as Count of Blois and Chartres, but because he was still a minor at that time he was under the tutelage of his mother. Around the year 1106/07, at the instigation of his mother, he was deposed as count in favor of the younger brother Theobald , because he allegedly suffered from a mental illness.

In the end, Wilhelm only owned the castle of Sully , which he had acquired through his marriage to her heiress, Agnes von Sully , around 1100 and which his descendants kept until the 14th century. His children were:

• Archambaud II (Odo) by Sully
• Raoul von Sully († 1177), Abbot of Cluny
• Henri de Sully († 1189), Abbot of Fécamp
• Margaret of Sully; ∞ with Count Heinrich I of Eu
• NN daughter , Abbess of Sainte-Trinité in Caen

literature

• Kimberly LoPrete: Adela of Blois as Mother and Countess , in Medieval Mothering , ed. by JC Parsons and B. Wheeler (1996), pp. 320-322
• Edmund King: Stephen of Blois, Count of Mortain and Boulogne , in: The English Historical Review Vol. 115 (2000), pp. 272-273

Individual proof

1. ^ William of Newburgh , Historia rerum Anglicarum, Lib. I, Cap. IV , ed. by Hans Claude Hamilton (1856), p. 22

predecessor	Office	successor
Stephan Heinrich	Count of Blois Count of Chartres 1102–1107	Theobald IV the Great