Stephen of Aumale


Stephen of Aumale was count of Aumale from before 1089 to 1127, and lord of Holderness.
Stephen was the only son of Count Odo of Champagne and Adelaide of Normandy, countess of Aumale, daughter of Duke Robert I of Normandy. Via his mother, Stephen was therefore the nephew of William the Conqueror and first cousin to Robert Curthose and Kings William II and Henry I of England. Stephen succeeded his mother as count before 1089.
In the 1095 conspiracy against William II, the objective of the rebels was to place Stephen on the English throne. The leaders of the conspiracy were Robert de Mowbray and Count William II of Eu. After the failure of the rebellion, Stephen was apparently not put on trial himself, perhaps because he was out of the king's reach in Normandy. Stephen's father Odo Count of Champagne lost his English lands for his complicity in this attempt to place his son on the throne.
In 1096 Stephen joined the First Crusade as part of the army of his cousin Robert Curthose, duke of Normandy. Following the death of William II, in 1102 Stephen was given back his father's confiscated lands in England and became lord of Holderness in Yorkshire. He sided with Henry in his war against Robert in 1104, but in 1118, when Robert's son William Clito rebelled against Henry, Stephen supported William, together with Count Baldwin VII of Flanders. He finally submitted to Henry I in 1119.
Stephen married Hawise, daughter of Ranulph de Mortimer, lord of Wigmore and St. Victor-en-Caux, and Mélisende. Their children were :