27th Great-Grandfather Alan fitzFlaald
Alan fitzFlaald was a knight from Brittany who became a close confidant of King Henry I of England – and benefitted greatly from that connection. He is also thought to be the progenitor of the FitzAlan family (who became the Earls of Arundel) and, more controversially, the Scottish Royal House of Stuart, which has been a matter one conjecture for years.
He was born around 1078 in St Malo in Brittany, the son of Flaald (or Flatald) who was Seneschal of Dol-de-Bretagne, a historic settlement overlooking the bay of Mont St Michel. Henry had been besieged in Mont St Michel during his struggle with his brothers, an event which probably occurred in 1091. He is known to have recruited Breton troops at that time and, after his surrender, left the scene via the adjoining regions of Brittany, where Dol is situated. This is a likely explanation for the number of Bretons – including Alan and his father in the military retinue he brought to England after the death of William II.
Alan’s career in England can be traced largely through his presence as a witness to charters granted by the king during his travels in the first decade or more of his reign. Alan appeared in Henry I’s company at least as early as September 1101, probably at a court held in Windsor Castle, when he witnessed important grants to Norwich Cathedral. He appears as a witness is a number of documents in subsequent years, including in Hampshire, Yorkshire, Devon and Shropshire. Within ten years of that first appearance at court, Alan had become an important landowner in Shropshire and elsewhere.
Alan’s rapid ascent to wealth and power was a symptom of troubled times. The abortive revolt in1102 of Robert de Belleme, one of the most prominent figures in the competition for the succession to England and Normandy had torn apart the Anglo-Norman system of governing the Welsh Marchs. Robert was, by all accounts, a piece of work: a contemporary chronicler wrote that he was “grasping and cruel, an implacable persecutor of the Church of God and the poor … unequalled for his iniquity in the whole Christian era.”
With other Breton friends, Alan had been given forfeited lands in Norfolk and Shropshire, including some which had previously belonged to Robert de Belleme himself. The king was determined to insert reliable supporters to counterbalance or replace his network of supporters. Alan received more land as he proved his worth.
Among his lands, Alan acquired Upton Magna, the manor in Shropshire as part of the group of estates that had belonged to earlier sheriffs, where he founded Haughmond Abbey, a medieval Augustinian monastery a few miles from Shrewsbury,
Alan was Sheriff of Shropshire. The word sheriff is a contraction of the term shire reeve. The term, from the Old English word scīrgerefa, designated a royal official responsible for keeping the peace throughout a shire or county on behalf of the king. It is the oldest secular office under the Crown. Formerly the high sheriff was the principal law enforcement officer in the county but over the centuries most of the responsibilities associated with the post have been transferred elsewhere or are now defunct so that its functions are now largely ceremonial.
Alan’s death, when dated at all, is generally said to have been in or by 1114.
Genealogists for years argued over Alan’s connection to the Scottish Stuart family. It was only in the 19th century that the link was finally proved. In a definitive work in 1904, The Scots Peerage, it was proved that “the Stewarts or Stuarts are of Breton origin, descended from a family which held the office of Seneschal or Steward of Dol. That put Alan FitzFlaad in his rightful place in the ancestry of the Scottish royal family.