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DE VERE Rohese
Birth:          ABT 1110 of Hedingham, Essex, England
Christening:    Waldon, Essex, England
Death:          AFT 21 Oct 1166 England
Burial:         Chicksands Priory, Bedfordshire, England

Notes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey_de_Vere_II
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohese_de_Vere,_Countess_of_Essex
Rohese de Vere, Countess of Essex (c. 1110 – 1170 or after) was a noblewoman in 
England in the Anglo-Norman and Angevin periods. Married twice, she and her second 
husband founded the Gilbertine monastery of Chicksands in Bedfordshire.
Life[edit]

A daughter of Aubrey de Vere II and Adeliza de Clare, Rohese married twice. Her first 
husband, Geoffrey de Mandeville II, became earl in 1140 and Rohese thereafter was 
styled countess. Earl Geoffrey rebelled against King Stephen late in 1143. Rohese's 
whereabouts during his rebellion are unknown; their eldest son seems to have been 
sent to Devizes, a stronghold of the supporters of the Empress Matilda, while their 
second son may have been sent to the court of the count of Flanders. When Earl 
Geoffrey died an excommunicate rebel in 1144, his widow remarried swiftly.

Her second husband, Payn de Beauchamp, lord of Bedford, had opposed King 
Stephen in the 1130s. The couple founded a double monastery at Chicksands, 
Bedfordshire, for nuns and canons of the Gilbertine Order. They had one son, Simon 
de Beauchamp II. Countess Rohese was widowed a second time in 1155 or early 1156 
and gained the guardianship of her minor son. When he was near his majority, 
Countess Rohese and Simon converted St. Paul's, Bedford, from a house of canons 
secular to one of regular canons and moved them to Newnham, Bedfordshire.[1]

According to the Walden Chronicle, when the countess's eldest son, Geoffrey de 
Mandeville III, earl of Essex, died in 1166, his men decided to take his body for burial 
at Walden Priory in Essex, founded by his father. Countess Rohese was at Chicksands 
Priory when a member of the entourage escorting the earl's body arrived to inform her 
of her son's death. He suggested that she send knights to seize the earl's body for 
burial at Chicksands.[2] The countess rejected that suggestion, but when she later 
attended her son's funeral at Walden, she seized altar goods and other objects that 
her son had donated to Walden and gave them instead to Chicksands.[3]

The countess almost certainly spent the remainder of her life at Chicksands Priory. 
She witnessed a charter of her son Earl William in 1170, the last evidence of her life 
which can be dated, and when she died she was buried in the Chicksands chapter 
house and honored as the priory's foundress.[4]

Rohese, countess of Essex, is sometimes confused with another, contemporary 
'Countess Rohese,' who was the wife of Gilbert de Gant, Earl of Lincoln. The two 
women were first cousins through their mothers.

Children[edit]
Geoffrey III, 2nd Earl of Essex (d. October 1166)
William de Mandeville, 3rd Earl of Essex (d. 1189)
Robert de Mandeville (d. before 1189)
Simon de Beauchamp, lord of Bedford (d. 1206)

While Earl Geoffrey's eldest son Ernulf de Mandeville is sometimes listed as the child 
of Countess Rohese, there is strong evidence that Ernulf was the earl's illegitimate 
son, born before Geoffrey's marriage to Rohese.[5]

Parents
DE VERE Aubrey II (ABT 1082 - 15 May 1141)
DE CLARE Adeliza (ABT 1079 - ABT 1163)

Siblings
DE VERE Juliana (ABT 1108 - 1200)
DE VERE Rohese (ABT 1110 - AFT 21 Oct 1166)
DE VERE Aubrey (ABT 1115 - 26 Dec 1194)
DE VERE Robert (ABT 1124 - 26 Dec 1194)
DE VERE Alice (ABT 1125 - AFT 1185)

Marriage To DE MANDEVILLE Geoffrey (ABT 1092 - 14 Sep 1144) m. Notes Parents DE MANDEVILLE William (ABT 1062 - ABT 1130) DE RIE Margaret (ABT 1075 - ) Children by DE MANDEVILLE Geoffrey ABT 1092 - 14 Sep 1144
DE MANDEVILLE Maud (ABT 1138 - )
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