A previously unnoticed granddaughter of King Harold II

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For some years, researchers had noted a peculiar epitaph for one William D'Eyncourt, preserved in Lincoln cathedral records, attesting that the aforesaid William was regia styrpe progenitus (of royal stock) and was raised in the court of King William II Rufus

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Edith Swannesha (aka Edeva the fair, aka Edeva the Rich) owned over 100 properties in 1065, making her one of England's leading landowners. Why? Remember that this was before her husband Harold became king. If she was an heiress, then her father and/or mother were of high rank, so who were they?

Harold's second marriage, to Edith the sister of Edwin and Morcar, was strategic, so perhaps his first marriage also was.

Fairly obscure relatives of King Edward the Confessor had similar sized holdings, so perhaps Edeva was related to Edward? Then, Edward's death would have made her expendable. Moreover, her being related to Edward's mother, Emma of Normandy, would have been inconvenient while Harold was purging Norman and Breton influence from England. This would explain why she was set aside after Harold became King.

Suppose Edeva was a niece of Edward's. Edward was a first cousin of Duke William's father Robert and (through Emma's elder sister Hawise) of Alan's father Eozen (which incidentally made Eozen a potential claimant to the vacated throne, had he chosen to contest it).

Then Edeva and Alan would have been second cousins, at least partly explaining why Alan Rufus acquired 109 of her properties and why both he and his brother Alan Niger took Gunhilda under their wings. It's possible that their familial love was mistaken for the romantic sort by Anselm when he wrote those two letters. The later realisation of the magnitude of his error would explain why the Archbishop removed his copies of those two letters from his otherwise quite thorough personal archive.

Anselm's letters did assert that Gunhilda said she was no longer a virgin; perhaps this caused him to jump to the conclusion that Alan was responsible, when instead he may have been protecting her from further humiliations.

Alan's character is well attested both explicitly and tacitly by numerous witnesses, including Prior Stephen of Whitby, Queen Matilda, William de St Calais the Bishop of Durham, the Conqueror's sister Countess Adelaide of Aumale and Kings William I and William II, all of whom regarded him highly.

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To wit:

Adelaide's properties in both Normandy and England were adjacent to Alan's.

Queen Matilda recommended that Edwin's and Morcar's lands in Yorkshire be granted to Alan. This was the occasion when William named Alan his "nephew", thus placing him in line for the throne.

In 1083, King William put Alan in charge of the royal army besieging the indomitable castle of Sainte Suzanne in Maine.

During the Domesday Survey in 1086, Alan accompanied the King on inspections. Two of the leading Survey Commissioners, Archbishop Thomas of York and Bishop William de St Calais of Durham, were tenants of Alan's; one of St Calais's scribes wrote most of the Great Domesday Book.

Many years later, Stephen of Whitby wrote that, when oppressed by William de Percy, he and his monks were fortunate to have made the acquaintance of such a friend as Count Alan. Alan gave Stephen the church of St Olave in York, and persuaded the Conqueror to come up to give it a royal charter as a way of apologising to York for the harm he'd done when quashing the northern rebellions.

In early 1088, William II brought the whole royal court and all the bishops to York to found Alan's magnificent St Mary's Abbey. It was right after this that Alan's rival Bishop Odo of Bayeux plotted the King's overthrow. Most of the magnates supported Odo. Alan advised the King to promise fairer laws, so the English rallied behind the King and defeated some of the rebels themselves, while Alan and Thomas the Archbishop of York mopped up the rebellion in the North. Alan then marched south, defeating rebels as he went, then joined the royal army to pursue Odo. Finally, Odo's HQ at Rochester Castle was besieged and taken. Odo was sentenced to permanent exile, but Alan requested that the other conspirators, young and old, be forgiven.

St Calais had abandoned the King William II's army during the rebellion and holed up in Durham Castle, so after the dust settled, the King sent Alan with his aunt Countess Adelaide's (third) husband Count Odo of Champagne and Earl Roger of Montgomery's son Roger of Poitou to arrest St Calais. Walter d'Aincourt accompanied them and bore the royal writ: further evidence of Walter's royal connection being Norman.

At the trial in Salisbury Castle, Alan told the King that he had deplored St Calais's actions, but had sympathy for the man himself. When the King began to badger witnesses, Alan told him to respect freedom of conscience, otherwise Alan would believe himself obliged to cease all service to the King. After 3 months of deliberations, the King decided to let Alan escort St Calais to Southampton to take ship to exile in Normandy.

Incidentally, St Calais became, with Bishop Odo, one of Duke Robert's leading counsellors. In 1091, William II invaded Normandy, presumably with Alan's support, defeated his brother Duke Robert, and brought St Calais back to England, restoring him as Bishop of Durham.

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Alan was also an innovator: both Richmond Castle and St Mary's Abbey were architecturally many years ahead of their time. On his lands, he abolished the Danelaw. Boston in Lincolnshire he made into England's second port, spending his own money to encourage trade.