Lucy of Bolingbroke

Lucy of Bolingbroke or Lucia Thoroldsdottir of Lincoln (died circa 1136) was an Anglo-Norman heiress in central England and, later in life, countess of Chester. Probably related to the old English earls of Mercia, she came to possess extensive lands in Lincolnshire which she passed on to her husbands and sons. She was a notable religious patron, founding or co-founding two small religious houses and endowing several with lands and churches. Ancestry A charter of Crowland Abbey, now thought to be spurious, described Thorold of Bucknall, perhaps the same as her probable father Thorold of Lincoln, as a brother of Godgifu (better known as Lady Godiva), wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia. The same charter contradicted itself on the matter, proceeding to style Godgifu's son (by Leofric), Ælfgar, as Thorold's cognatus (cousin). Another later source, from Coventry Abbey, made Lucy the sister of Earls Edwin and Morcar, Ælfgār's sons, while two other unreliable sources, the Chronicle of Abbot Ingmund of Crowland and the Peterbrough Chronicle also make Lucy the daughter of Earl Ælfgar. Keats-Rohan's explanation for these accounts is that they were ill-informed and were confusing Lucy with her ancestor, William Malet's mother, who was in some manner related to the family of Godgifu. Although there is much confusion about Lucy's ancestry in earlier writings, recent historians tend to believe that she was the daughter of Thorold, sheriff of Lincoln, by a daughter of William Malet (died 1071). She inherited a huge group of estates centred on Spalding in Lincolnshire, probably inherited from both the Lincoln and the Malet family. This group of estates have come to be called the "Honour of Bolingbroke". with an administrative centre at Bolingbroke, Lincolnshire. Marriages The heiress Lucy was married to three different husbands, all of whom died in her lifetime. The first of these was to Ivo Taillebois, a marriage which took place "around 1088". Ivo took over her lands as husband, and seems in addition to have been granted estates and extensive authority in Westmorland and Cumberland. Ivo died in 1094. Ivo Taillebois (probably brother of Ralph Taillebois), a sheriff of Bedfordshire who was dead by 1086, was a prominent administrator throughout the reign of William I and well into that of William II. He appears to have been twice married since he was ancestor of the English family surnamed 'of Lancaster' or Taillebois who descended from the thegn Eldred, alive in 1086.