Templar Knight William de Warenne

William de Warenne, my 25th great grandfather, was the eldest son of the William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey and Elizabeth de Vermandois. He was generally loyal to king Stephen. He fought at the Battle of Lincoln (1141), and was one of the leaders of the army that pursued the empress Matilda in her flight from Winchester, and which captured Robert of Gloucester. Crusader Knight (1146-48)He was one of the nobles that, along with Louis VII of France, took crusading vows at Vezelay in 1146, and he accompanied the initial army of the Second Crusade the next year. He was killed by a Turkish attack while the army was marching across Anatolia (modern day Turkey) on their way to the Holy Land.

In Dec 1147 the French-Norman force reaches the Biblical town of Ephesus (I reached the same town in 1966) on the west coast of Turkey. They are joined by remnants of the German army which had previously taken heavy losses at Dorylaeum. Marching across Southwest Turkey and fight in a unsuccessful battle at Laodicea against the Turks on the border between Byzantine Empire and Seljuks of Rum (3-4 Jan 1148). On 8-Jan they battle again in the area of Mount Cadmus, where Turks ambush the main train of infantry and non-combatants because the main force is too far forwards.

King Louis and his bodyguard of Templar Knights and Noblemen sallied forth in a classic example of chivalry to protect the poor and valiantly charged the Turks. Most of the knights were killed, including William, and Louis barely escaped with his life. His army arrives later at the coastal city of Adalia. The battle is recorded by Odo de Deuil, personal chaplain to Louis, in his book De Profectione - pp 68-127.

He was a great-grandson of Henry I of France, and half-brother to Robert de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Leicester, Waleran IV de Beaumont, Count of Meulan, and Hugh de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Bedford. William married Adela (or Ela), daughter of William Talvas, count of Ponthieu, who was the son of Robert of Bellême. They had one child, a daughter, Isabel, who was his heir. She married first William of Blois, second son of King Stephen, and who became earl of Warenne or Surrey. After he died without children in October 1159, she married Hamelin, half-brother of Henry II, who also became Earl of Warenne or Surrey. He took the de Warenne surname, and their descendants carried on the earldom.