Eustace Families Association
Eustace Counts of Boulogne
EUSTACE I, (d. 1046-1047) was a son of Count Baldwin II. Hebecame count in 1023 or 1027 and served until his death in1046/47. Encyclopedia Brittanica (Vol. 8, p. 894) says he was ason of Arnulf I (d.c. 993) and a great-grandson of Baldwin II,count of Flanders (d. 918)
His son, EUSTACE II (d. 1093), countof Boulogne, was the husband of Goda, daughter of the Englishking Aethelred the Unready, and aunt of Edward the Confessor.Eustace paid a visit to England in 1051, and was honourablyreceived at the Confessor's court. A brawl in which he and hisservants became involved, with the citizens of Dover led to aserious quarrel between the king and Earl Godwin.
The Anglo Saxon Chronicles describes the scene asfollows:
Eustace came from beyond the sea, soon after the bishop went tothe king and spoke to him of what he would, then turned homeward.When he came to Canterbury, he ate there with his men, and wentto Dover. When he was some miles from the sea, behind Dover, heput on his byrnie, and so did his companions they fared to Dover.When they arrived, they meant to lodge where it pleased them; oneof his men came, wishing to lodge at a householder's without hisconsent, wounded the householder, and the householder killed him.Eustace got on his horse, and his companions on theirs, went tothe householder and killed him on own hearth, then went up to thetown and killed, inside and out, more than twenty men. Thetownsmen killed nineteen on the other side, and wounded they knewnot how many. Eustace escaped with a few men, went back to theking, and told him a part of what had happened. The king becamevery angry with the townsmen; he sent for eorl Godwine and badego into Kent in hostility, to Dover, because Eustace had told theking that it was more the fault of the townsmen than his but itwas not so. The eorl would not agree to go in, because it washateful to him to injure his own following.
Then the king sent after all his counsellors, and bade them cometo Gloucester near the second St. Mary's Day. The foreigners hadbuilt a castle in Herefordshire among eorl Swein's followers;they did much harm and insulted the king’s men thereaboutswhere they might.
The latter, to whose jurisdiction the men of Dover were subject,refused to punish them. His contumacy was made the excuse for theoutlawry of himself and his family. In 1066 Eustace came toEngland with Duke William, and fought at the battle of Hastings.In the following year, probably because he was dissatisfied withhis share of the spoil, he assisted the Kentishmen in an attemptto seize Dover Castle. The conspiracy failed, and Eustace wassentenced to forfeit his English fiefs. Subsequently he wasreconciled to the Conqueror, who restored a part of theconfiscated lands.
By his second wife Ida of Lorraine, Eustace became the fatherof Eustace III and of the crusaders Godfrey of Bouillon andBaldwin I, count of Edessa and first king of Jerusalem.
Eustace died in 1093, and was succeeded by his son, EUSTACE III,who went on crusade in 1096, and died about 1125.
Eustace III supported Robert II (Curthose), duke of Normandy, inan attempt (1088) to wrest the English crown from his brotherWilliam II. He accompanied Robert on the first crusade (1096)returning home in 1100.
The Anglo Saxon Chronicles states the following:
This same year (1100) also in autumn came eorl Robert home intoNormandy, and Robert of Flanders, and Eustace eorl of Boulogne,from Jerusalem. As soon as eorl Robert came into Normandy, he wasgladly received by all folk, except in the castles that were setwith king Henry's men, against whom he had many contests andbattles.
At Christmas in 1101, King Henry held his court atWestminster, and at Easter at Winchester; and soon thereafter,the chief men in this land became hostile to the king, bothbecause of their own great disloyalty and also through eorlRobert of Normandy, who was intent upon war with this land. Theking sent ships out to sea then, to the hindering of his brother,but some of them later failed of need, turned from the king andbowed to eorl Robert. Then at summer the king fared out toPevensey with all his army against his brother, and abided hiscoming there; but meanwhile eorl Robert came up at Portsmouthtwelve nights before Lammas. The king with all his army wentagainst them, but the chief men went between them, and reconciledthe brothers on the condition that the king give up all that heheld by force again the eorl in Normandy, and all who in Englandhad been deprived of their land on account of the eorl were tohave it again; also that eorl Eustace have all his father's landhere in this land, and that eorl Robert should have each yearthree thousand marks of silver; and that which- ever of thebrothers outlasted the other be heir to all England and alsoNormandy, unless the dead one had an heir by a legal marriage.And this they fastened then with oaths, twelve of theon eitherside.
On the death of his brother Baldwin (1118), he was elected kingof Jerusalem by the crusaders there, but he had only reachedItaly when he heard that his nephew Baldwin II had been putforward in his place. He retired to the Cluniac priory in St.Peter at Rumilly in the Boulonnais in 1125. On the death ofEustace lll, the county of Boulogne came to his daughter,Matilda, and her husband Stephen, count of Blois, afterwards kingof England, And in 1150 it was given to their son, Eustace IV.
EUSTACE IV (d. 1153) became the heir-apparent to his father'spossessions by the death of an elder brother before 1135.
In 1137 he did homage for Normandy to Louis VII of France, whosesister, Constance, he subsequently married (1140). He was severaltimes used by the king as an opponent to the claims on the duchymade by the counts of Anjou. At a council held in London on April6, 1152, King Stephen induced a small number of the Englishbarons to do homage to Eustace as their future king; butTheobald, Archbishopof Canterbury, refused to crown him. Eustacedied on about August 17, 1153, while engaged in plundering thelands of Bury St. Edmunds.His death made possible a peacefulsettlement between Henry of Anjou (afterward Henry II) andStephen, who made no attempt to designate the throne to hisyounger son, William, earl of Surrey.
The Anglo Saxon Chronicles relates the following:
Then fared Eustace the king's son to France, and took the sisterof the king of France to wife. He believed that he would obtainNormandy thereby, but he prospered little, and quite justly, forhe was an evil man; wherever he came he did more evil than good.He plundered the lands and laid heavy taxes on them; he broughthis wife to England and put her in the castle at Canterbury.
Eustace was knighted in 1147, and in 1151 joined Louis in anabortive raid upon Normandy, which had accepted the title of theempress Matilda, and was now defended by her husband, Geoffrey ofAnjou. At a council held in London on April 6, 1152 Stepheninduced a small number of barons to do homage to Eustace as theirfuture king; but the primate, Theobald, and the other bishopsdeclined to perform the coronation ceremony on the ground thatthe Roman curia had declared against the claim of Eustace, whosedeath in 1153 opened up the possibility of a peaceful settlementbetween Stephen and his rival, the young Henry of Anjou.
The Anglo Saxon Chronicles states:
A good woman she was, but she had little bliss with him. Christwould not have it that he should reign long, and both he and hismother died ( 1152 ) .
See the following for additional information:
Sir James Ramsay, Foundations of England, vol. 1 (1898); J. M. Lappenberg, History of England under the Norman Kings(trans. B. Thorpe, 857); and Freeman's Hist. of the NormanConquest (1867-79).
E. Rigaux, Recherches sur les comptes de Boulogne, Bulletinde la societe academique de Boulogne-sur-mer, vol.(1891-99).
P. Heliot, Histoire de Boulogne et de du Boulonnais(1937).