William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey

William de Warenne
Died	1088
Title	1st Earl of Surrey (1st creation)
Tenure	1088
Successor	William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey
Spouse(s)	Gundred, Countess of Surrey a sister of Richard Gouet
Parents	Ranulf I de Warenne Beatrice

William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey, Lord of Lewes, Seigneur de Varennes (died 1088), was a Norman nobleman created Earl of Surrey under William II Rufus. He is among the few who are documented as having fought for William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. At the time of the Domesday Survey, he held extensive lands in 13 counties including the Rape of Lewes in Sussex, now divided between the ceremonial counties of East Sussex and West Sussex.

William was a younger son of Ranulf I de Warenne and his 1st wife Beatrice (whose mother was probably a sister of duchess Gunnor, wife of duke Richard I). Likewise, Orderic Vitalis describes William as Roger's consanguineus, literally "cousin", more generically a term of close kinship, but not typically used to describe brothers, and Roger de Mortimer appears to have been a generation older than William de Warenne, his purported brother. Charters report several earlier men associated with Warenne. A Ranulf de Warenne appears in a charter dated between 1027 and 1035, and in one from about 1050 with a wife Beatrice, while in 1059, Ranulf and wife Emma appear along with their sons Ranulf and William. These occurrences have typically been taken to represent successive wives of a single Ranulf, with Beatrice being the mother of William and hence identical to the Gunnorid niece (Thomas Stapleton, in spite of the 1059 charter explicitly naming Emma as his mother. A reevaluation of the surviving charters led Katherine Keats-Rohan to suggest that, as he appears to have done elsewhere, Robert of Torigny has compressed two generations into one, with a Ranulf (I) and Beatrice being parents of Ranulf (II) de Warenne and of Roger de Mortimer (a Roger son of Ranulf de Warenne appears in a charter dated 1040/1053), and Ranulf (II) and Emma were then parents of Ranulf (III), the heir in Normandy, and William, as attested by the 1059 charter. Associations with Vascœuil led to identification of the Warenne progenitrix with a widow Beatrice, daughter of Tesselin, vicomte of Rouen, appearing there in 1054/60. As Robert of Torigny shows a vicomte of Rouen to have married a niece of Gunnor, this perhaps explains the tradition of a Gunnorid relationship. On Robert's genealogies, see also Eleanor Searle, William was from the hamlet of Varenne, near to Arques-la-Bataille, Duchy of Normandy, now in the canton of Bellencombre, Seine Maritime. At the beginning of Duke William’s reign, Ranulf II was not a major landholder and, as a second son, William de Warenne did not stand to inherit the family’s small estates. During the rebellions of 1052–54, the young William de Warenne proved himself a loyal adherent to the Duke and played a significant part in the Battle of Mortemer for which he was rewarded with lands confiscated from his uncle, Roger of Mortemer, including the Castle of Mortimer and most of the surrounding lands. At about the same time he acquired lands at Bellencombre including the castle which became the center of William de Warenne’s holdings in Normandy

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