I speculate that Orwen or one of her servants may have been a trained midwife and assisted with Henry’s birth.

To clarify the article, St Mary’s Abbey was constructed under Count Alan Rufus for his old friend Stephen of Whitby, and officially inaugurated by King William II in January or February of 1088, in the presence of senior members of the royal court.

Count Alan designed the occasion as an act of repentance for Norman destruction in the North. Apparently this didn’t go down well with the most egregious perpetrators, because at Easter they rebelled en masse, beginning a civil war lasting several months.

A defensive blockade of the ports and the comprehensive defeat by the English navy of an advance force from Normandy prevented invasion.

Over the next two years, William II and Count Alan retaliated by undermining Normandy’s government in a variety of clever ways. By the time they landed a large English army in February 1091, the people of the Duchy welcomed them with open arms.

King Philip I of France, alarmed at the ease with which Normandy was falling into English control, called in the French Pope, Odo of Chatillon (Urban II of First Crusade notoriety), to negotiate a compromise.

Counties granted to William II were extensive and prosperous, and included Aumale, where Alan had his farming and forestry property of Richemont, which the castle in North Yorkshire may be named after.

A few years after Alan’s death in 1093, William II attempted a second invasion of Normandy, but failed.

The strategies employed by Henry I in the lead up to Tinchebray in 1106 resemble those of William II and Count Alan. Henry had cultivated good relations with Duke Alan IV “Fergant” of Brittany, who led an army in his support.

Henry is said to have been born in Selby, South Yorkshire in 1068. Alan Rufus may have provided some comfort to Queen Matilda around this time, for within a few months she was urging King William I to grant Alan the lands of the rebel Earl Edwin.

Orwen, Alan’s own wet-nurse, arrived in England soon after the Battle of Hastings,