William, Count of Sully

William the Simple

William, Count of Sully, also known as William the Simple (c. 1085 – c. 1150) was Count of Blois and Count of Chartres from 1102 to 1107, and jure uxoris Count of Sully. William was the eldest son of Stephen-Henry, Count of Blois and Adela of Normandy, daughter of William the Conqueror. He was the older brother of Theobald II, Count of Champagne, King Stephen of England and Henry, Bishop of Winchester.

In the absence of male issue to Henry I, William was the eldest legitimate male heir of the line of William the Conqueror. He would thus have been the principal rival to Henry's daughter Matilda to inherit the throne after Henry's death. However, he was not considered as a candidate for the English crown. Several historians have taken the view that he was passed over because of mental deficiency; hence his soubriquet "William the Simple". Though widely argued, this has never been clearly substantiated.

William was at first groomed to inherit the comital throne as Count of Blois and Chartres, and was designated count shortly before his father's departure on his second crusade in 1102.^[1] However he was soon removed from wide ranging comital duties by his mother, because of his erratic behaviour. He once assaulted and threatened to kill the Bishop of Chartres over a jurisdictional dispute. So, when her second son Theobald came of age, around 1107, Adela elevated him to the position of count of Blois-Chartres,^[2] and forced William to retire to his wife's lands in Sully.

Family and Children

In 1104, William married Agnes of Sully, the heiress to the lordship of Sully-sur-Loire,^[3] a woman of admirable beauty attached to the court of William's mother. The marriage of William and Agnes was a happy one and several children were born.

Their children included:

1. Margaret (c. 1105–1145). She married Henry, Count of Eu, Lord of Hastings, about 1122.
2. Henry de Sully, Abbot of Fécamp (died 1189)

Notes

1. Crouch, David "The Reign of King Stephen, 1135–1154" p12
2. LoPrete, Kimberly "Adela Countess and Lord" pp216ff
3. Adela of Blois: Familial Alliances and Female Lordship, Kimberly A. LoPrete, Aristocratic Women in Medieval France, ed. Theodore Evergates, (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990), 31.

References

• Crouch, David The Reign of King Stephen; 1135–1154 Harlow:Pearson Education Lmt, 2000 ISBN 0-582-22658-9
• LoPrete, Kimberly Adela Countess and Lord Dublin:Fourcourts Press, 2007 ISBN 978-1-85182-563-9