Stephen, Count of Blois


Stephen Henry, Count of Blois and Count of Chartres, was the son of Theobald III, count of Blois, and Gersent of Le Mans.
In 1089, upon the death of his father, he became the Count of Blois and Chartres, although Theobald had given him the administration of those holdings in 1074. He was the father of Stephen of England.
Count Stephen was one of the leaders of the First Crusade, leading one of the major armies of the Princes and often writing enthusiastic letters to his wife Adela of Normandy about the crusade's progress. Stephen was the head of the army council at the Crusaders' siege of Nicaea in 1097. He returned home in 1098 during the lengthy siege of Antioch, fleeing the battlefield, without having fulfilled his crusading vow to forge a way to Jerusalem. He was pressured by Adela into making a second pilgrimage, and joined the minor crusade of 1101 in the company of others who had also returned home prematurely. In 1102, Stephen was killed at the Second Battle of Ramla at the age of fifty-seven.

Family

Stephen married Adela of Normandy, a daughter of William the Conqueror around 1080 in Chartres. He fathered Adela's children:
  1. William, Count of Sully
  2. Theobald II, Count of Blois
  3. Odo, who died young
  4. Stephen, King of England
  5. Lucia-Mahaut, married Richard d'Avranches, 2nd Earl of Chester. Both drowned on 25 November 1120 in the White Ship disaster.
  6. Agnes, married Hugh III of Le Puiset
  7. Eleanor married Raoul I of Vermandois and had issue; they were divorced in 1142.
  8. Alix married Renaud III of Joigni and had issue
  9. Adelaide, married Milo II of Montlhéry, Viscount of Troyes
  10. Henry, Bishop of Winchester
  11. Humbert, died young
A late 14th century source gives him an illegitimate daughter Emma, wife of Herbert of Winchester and mother of William of York, archbishop of York, but recent research suggests a different parentage for her.