Guillaume II Talvas de Bellême

Biography

Guillaume II Talvas directed the ground of Bellême after the assassination by revenge on his brother Robert Ier de Bellême by Gauthier de Sordains. Robert had made hang the father and the brothers of Gauthier after their capture in a battle. Its reputation was that of a cruel, impious and tyrannical man who had human only face: “ worse than his/her brothers in all, his cruelty opened out so far among its descendants ”, “ bear in timid cruelty but like a hare ”. According to the chronicler of the time Guillaume de Jumièges, Guillaume Talvas, dissatisfied with his first wife, made it strangle by two brigands on the way of the church in the presence of all the people. It remaria soon with Haberge de Beaumont, girl of Raoul V of Beaumont, Viscount of the Maine. Without decorating his weddings and having invited Guillaume Giroie, lord of Montreuil-l' Clay, Échauffour and Saint-Céneri towards which it had great obligations to have helped it in several circumstances, it accepted it and treated it with benevolence several days before making it stop secretly. Before leaving for a shooting party, it gives the order to burst the eyes to him, to cut the nose and the ears and the émasculer in front of the people of Alençon which was gathered. Made indignant by this act, brothers of Guillaume Giroie, Raoul known as Evil Crowned , Robert, and their allies were avenged some by devastating, plundering and setting fire to its grounds then by besieging its castle by defying it to leave and to fight.

It is his/her own son, Arnulphe, which, being disputed with him, made it throw outside, condemning it to a life of wandering and exile. The catch of all the richnesses and the grounds of his/her father by Arnulphe, whose chroniclers wrote that “ if the cruelty of Guillaume Talvas were large, impiété of his/her son the master key of good far ”, made him hardly profited because he was strangled in his sleep.

The continuation of the events is not very clear. It seems that Guillaume asked the Count d' Anjou to intervene to recover his lost places. It accepted; Alençon and Domfront revolted then against the Norman ones. The duke of Normandy Guillaume Bastard the undertook a military campaign to subdue the rebels and to take the control of the seigniory of Bellême. The military offensive was a success. According to Vital Orderic, after years of wandering, the Famille of Montgommery ends up collecting Talvas and his/her daughter Mabile in exchange of what Talvas offered this one in marriage to Roger II of Montgommery, Viscount of the Hiémois. It seems rather than this marriage was imposed by Guillaume the Bastard one so that the seigniory enters the orbit of the duchy, Roger de Montgommery being a close relation of the duke, and a distant cousin.

Family and descent

Wife :

Hildeburge three children:
Haberge de Beaumont, girl of Raoul V of Beaumont, Viscount of the Maine

Children with his first wife

Arnulphe (or Arnoul) which, having force his/her father to exile itself, this last, always according to Guillaume de Jumièges, will make it strangle in his bed.
Mabile de Bellême, called Empoisonneuse which married Roger II of Montgomery, count of Shrewsbury in 1074.
Olivier de Mesle, which having been suspecté of the meutre of his/her Arnulphe brother, will be made monk with the Abbaye Notre-Dame of the Nozzle.

See too

Source

Guillaume de Jumièges, Orderic Vital, Robert de Torigni, History of Norman the , v. 1070, ED. François Guizot, Caen, Mancel, 1826

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