Alix, Countess of Eu
Alix d’Eu (died May 1246), daughter of Henry II, Count of Eu, and Matilda, daughter of Hamelin de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, and Isabel de Warenne. Countess of Eu, Lady of Hastings. Alix was the last ruler of the county of Eu from the House of Normandy. Alix inherited Eu and Hastings upon her father’s death in 1191 as her older brothers had both died prematurely.
In 1219, Alix travelled to England apparently under some arrangement with Hubert de Burgh, 1st Earl of Kent, Justicar of England. Their relationship remains a mystery.
In a charter dated February 1233, Alix granted terram de Forz…ex eschæta Guillelmi quondam domini de Forz et comitis Aubemarle to Louis IX, King of France.[1] It is unclear how Alix came to control Forz.
Alix married Raoul I of Lusignan in 1213, resulting in his becoming Count of Eu and Lord of Hastings, de jure uxoris, in 1214. Alix and Raoul had two children:
- Matilda Lusignan (c. 1210 – August 14, 1241), who married Humphrey de Bohun, 2nd Earl of Hereford, 1st Earl of Essex and Constable of England. She was buried at Llanthony, Gloucester.
- Raoul II de Lusignan, Count of Eu.
Alix was interred at La Mothe-Saint-Héray upon her death. The Counts of Eu continued through several generations of the House of Lusignan.
Sources
Pollock, M. A., Scotland, England and France After the Loss of Normandy, 1204-1296, The Boydell Press, Suffolk, 2015
Waters, Edmund C., The Counts of Eu, Sometime Lords of the Honour of Tickhill, The Yorkshire Archaeological and Topographical Journal, No. 9, 1886
Frank Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, Oxford University Press, 3rd Edition, 1971
Neveux, François, A Brief History of the Normans, Translated by Howard Curtis, Constable & Robinson, Ltd., London, 2008