Nigel d'Aubigny

Nigel d'Aubigny (Neel d'Aubigny or Nigel de Albini, died 1129), was a Norman Lord and English baron who was the son of Roger d’Aubigny and Amice or Avice. His father was an avid supporter of Henry I of England, and his brother William d'Aubigny Pincerna was the king's Butler and father of the 1st Earl of Arundel. Nigel was born at Thirsk Castle in Thirsk, North Yorkshire, Kingdom of England. He was the founder of the noble House of Mowbray.

Life

He is described as "one of the most favoured of Henry’s 'new men'".^[1] While he entered the king's service as a household knight and brother of the king's butler, William d'Aubigny, in the years following the Battle of Tinchebrai in 1106 Nigel was rewarded by Henry with marriage to an heiress who brought him lordship in Normandy and with the lands of several men, primarily that of Robert de Stuteville.^[2] The Mowbray honour became one of the wealthiest estates in Norman England. From 1107 to about 1118, Nigel served as a royal official in Yorkshire and Northumberland. In the last decade of his life he was frequently traveling with Henry I, most likely as one of the king's trusted military and administrative advisors He died in Normandy, possibly at the abbey of Bec.^[3]

Family

He married twice. His first marriage was in 1107 to Matilda de L'Aigle, daughter of Richer, lord of L'Aigle, who had divorced the disgraced and imprisoned Robert de Mowbray, Earl of Northumbria. She brought to the marriage with Nigel her ex-husband's lordship of Montbray (Mowbray) in western Normandy. Following a decade of childless marriage and her powerful brother's death, Nigel divorced her and in 1118 remarried to Gundred de Gournay (died 1155), daughter of Gerard de Gournay. They had one son, Roger.

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