Part III
A Gallery of Notable Figures
The people in my story most worth knowing, with their dates, what they are remembered for, and how they stand to me. “Direct” = a direct ancestor; “cousin / collateral” = a relative off the direct line; “tradition / context” = a legendary or framing figure.
| Person | Dates | Noted for | Relationship to me |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sir Roger d’Amory | d. 1322 | Favourite of Edward II; fought at Bannockburn; m. Elizabeth de Clare; arms in Tewkesbury Abbey | Family tradition for the name; and now documented kin by marriage twice over: he married Elizabeth de Clare, sister of my ancestress Eleanor de Clare and first cousin of my ancestress Margaret |
| Sir Richard d’Amory | fl. 1300–40 | Steward of the Household to Edward II; the male line ran on through him to the Damer Earls | Family tradition (likely root of the name) |
| Charlemagne | 748–814 | Emperor of the Romans; reached by three wholly independent roads and hundreds of braided ones; his father Pepin the Short stands above him | Direct: 35× great-grandfather |
| Louis the Pious | 778–840 | Emperor, Charlemagne's son; with him and his son Charles the Bald the Carolingian emperors stand wired, no longer note-only | Direct: 34× great-grandfather |
| Lothair I, Holy Roman Emperor | 795–855 | Charlemagne's grandson, emperor of the Middle Kingdom that bore his name, Lotharingia; a second Carolingian emperor in the line beside his grandfather | Direct: 33× great-grandfather |
| Alfonso III the Great of Asturias | c.848–910 | King of Asturias, the mountain kingdom that became León | Direct: 36× great-grandfather |
| Íñigo Arista | d. 851 | Founder-king of Pamplona, the mountain kingdom that became Navarre; a genuine frontier, nothing wired above him | Direct: 39× great-grandfather |
| Kenneth MacAlpin | d. 858 | Reckoned the first King of Scots; the king-lists kept note-only above him | Direct: 34× great-grandfather |
| Henry the Fowler | c.876–936 | King of Germany, founder of the Ottonian dynasty; his son Otto the Great, first Holy Roman Emperor of the new line, is a collateral | Direct: 31× great-grandfather |
| Rhodri Mawr | d. 878 | King of Gwynedd and Wales, who united the country against the Norse | Direct: 32× great-grandfather |
| Cerball mac Dúnlainge | d. 888 | Viking-age King of Osraige, the sagas' Kjarvalr Írakonungr; stands behind Iceland's founding families and the Fitzpatricks alike | Direct: 33× great-grandfather |
| Alfred the Great | d. 899 | King of Wessex; his daughter married into Flanders | Direct: 33× great-grandfather |
| Berengar II, King of Italy | c.900–966 | The last Anscarid king of Italy, deposed by Otto the Great and dying his prisoner at Bamberg | Direct: 30× great-grandfather |
| Rollo | d. c.930 | The Viking who became Normandy; the ducal line above the Conqueror now runs to him | Direct: 30× great-grandfather |
| Sprota | fl. 932 | William Longsword's Breton companion 'in the Danish manner' and the mother of Richard I of Normandy; the ducal line's one named Breton mother | Direct: 29× great-grandmother |
| Hugh Capet | c.939–996 | King of France, founder of the Capetian dynasty that reigned for eight centuries | Direct: 29× great-grandfather |
| Hywel Dda | d. 950 | King of the Britons, the lawgiver of Wales; his law-books ran a country for centuries | Direct: 30× great-grandfather |
| Vladimir the Great | c.958–1015 | Grand Prince of Kiev, who took the Rus into christendom at the Dnieper in 988 | Direct: 29× great-grandfather |
| Robert II 'the Pious' | 972–1031 | King of France, of the Capetian house, son of Hugh Capet | Direct: 28× great-grandfather |
| Yaroslav the Wise | c.978–1054 | Grand Prince of Kiev at its golden height; his daughters married half the kings of Europe | Direct: 28× great-grandfather |
| Sancho III the Great of Navarre | c.992–1035 | Made Pamplona the dominant power of christian Spain; common ancestor of the royal houses of the peninsula | Direct: 31× great-grandfather |
| Eric the Victorious | d. c.995 | King of Sweden, victor of Fýrisvellir; the saga-fathers above him stay unwired | Direct: 30× great-grandfather |
| Brian Boru | d. 1014 | High King of Ireland; Chief of the Dál gCais; broke the Norse power and fell at Clontarf; the O'Briens of Thomond descend from him | Direct: 30× great-grandfather |
| Anne of Kiev | c.1030–1075 | Rus princess and Queen of France; signed her name when the French court marked crosses | Direct: 27× great-grandmother |
| Malcolm II, King of Scots | d. 1034 | Victor of Carham, who fixed the Tweed as Scotland's border; Duncan's grandfather | Direct: 29× great-grandfather |
| Ranulf the Moneyer | fl. 1035 | Bought the mill of Vains near Avranches from the abbot of Mont-Saint-Michel in 1035, antecedents unknown; from him the FitzJohns and the Lords Vescy | Direct: 29× great-grandfather |
| Duncan I, King of Scots | d. 1040 | Shakespeare's Duncan: killed not in his bed but in battle against Macbeth near Elgin; Malcolm Canmore's father | Direct: 27× great-grandfather |
| Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, El Cid | c.1043–1099 | The Campeador himself, Castile's national hero; his documented father stands above him per the Historia Roderici, the legend firmly excluded; reached through his daughter Cristina and the kings of Navarre | Direct: 29× great-grandfather |
| Jimena Díaz | c.1046–c.1116 | El Cid's wife, who held Valencia after his death; her documented father stands above her per the Historia Roderici | Direct: 29× great-grandmother |
| Guethenoc, Vicomte de Porhoët | d. 1046 | Vicomte of Thro in Brittany, founder of the house of Porhoët that built Josselin; reached because Alan la Zouche turns out to be Alain 'Ceoche' de Porhoët, brother of a Duke of Brittany | Direct: 27× great-grandfather |
| Waltheof, Earl of Northumbria | c.1050–1076 | The last of the English earls, executed by the Conqueror; venerated at Crowland as a martyr | Direct: 27× great-grandfather |
| Judith of Lens | c.1054–after 1086 | The Conqueror's niece, whose marriage to Waltheof joined the new England to the old | Direct: 27× great-grandmother |
| Siward, Earl of Northumbria | d. 1055 | The old Danish warrior who defeated Macbeth, Shakespeare's 'old Siward'; dressed in full armour to die standing; Waltheof's father | Direct: 28× great-grandfather |
| Gruffudd ap Llywelyn | d. 1063 | The only king ever to rule the whole of Wales | Direct: 29× great-grandfather |
| Walter Giffard | fl. 1066 | Lord of Longueville; named by William of Poitiers at the battle of Hastings | Direct: 26× great-grandfather |
| Eadnoth the Staller | killed 1068 | Officer of the Confessor and of Harold, killed defending Somerset against Harold's own sons; head of one of England's only proven pre-Conquest male lines, the Berkeleys' | Direct: 26× great-grandfather |
| William IX of Aquitaine | 1071–1127 | 'The Troubadour': the first poet of the vernacular whose songs survive, and Eleanor of Aquitaine's grandfather | Direct: 27× great-grandfather |
| Diarmait mac Máel na mBó | d. 1072 | King of Leinster and High King of Ireland 'with opposition', the most powerful ruler in Ireland of his day; sheltered King Harold's fugitive sons after Hastings | Direct: 28× great-grandfather |
| Matilda of Flanders | d. 1083 | Queen of England; her line climbs to Alfred and Charlemagne | Direct: 26× great-grandmother |
| William the Conqueror | d. 1087 | King of England 1066, Duke of Normandy; reached through an acknowledged son of Henry I | Direct: 26× great-grandfather |
| Hugh de Montfort-sur-Risle | d. after 1088 | Brought fifty ships and sixty knights to the invasion of 1066, fought at Hastings, and was one of the men left in charge of England in 1067; Constable and Warden of Dover | Direct: 28× great-grandfather |
| Richard FitzGilbert de Clare | d. c.1090 | Domesday tenant-in-chief of ~170 lordships; joint Justiciar of England; the uncautioned anchor at 1086 | Direct: 25× great-grandfather |
| Fulk V of Anjou, King of Jerusalem | 1092–1143 | Gave Anjou to his son Geoffrey and sailed east to wear the Crusader crown; Henry II's grandfather | Direct: 25× great-grandfather |
| St Margaret of Wessex | d. 1093 | Queen of Scots and saint; granddaughter of Edmund Ironside; brings the old Wessex royal line in a second way | Direct: 26× great-grandmother |
| Gilbert de Gant | d. c. 1095 | Flemish companion of the Conqueror, Domesday tenant-in-chief at Folkingham and refounder of Bardney Abbey; the Welles road runs up through his family | Direct: 27× great-grandfather |
| Nest ferch Rhys | fl. 1100 | Princess of Deheubarth, 'the Helen of Wales'; mother of Maurice FitzGerald the Invader; the Welsh royal line enters here | Direct: 24× great-grandmother |
| Owain Gwynedd | c.1100–1170 | Prince of Gwynedd, the first to be styled Prince of Wales | Direct: 26× great-grandfather |
| The Empress Matilda | 1102–1167 | Lady of the English; her war for the crown put her son Henry II on the throne; Henry I's lawful line into this family | Direct: 24× great-grandmother |
| Alfonso VII of León and Castile | 1105–1157 | Crowned 'Emperor of All Spain' at León in 1135 | Direct: 27× great-grandfather |
| Alfonso VII, 'the Emperor' | 1105–1157 | King of Castile and León, crowned Emperor of All Spain at León in 1135; grandfather of the ancestral Berengaria | Direct: 27× great-grandfather |
| Ragemer | d. before 1115 | Domesday tenant of Gilbert de Gant at Well in Lincolnshire in 1086, and founder of the family that took its name from it, the Lords Welles | Direct: 27× great-grandfather |
| Louis VII of France | 1120–1180 | King of France, crusader, first husband of Eleanor of Aquitaine; reached through his daughter Alys | Direct: 26× great-grandfather |
| Alan fitz Flaald | d. c.1120 | Breton knight, sheriff of Shropshire, and progenitor of the House of Stewart: every Stuart monarch descends from his line | Direct: 27× great-grandfather |
| Eleanor of Aquitaine | c.1122–1204 | Queen of France, then Queen of England; the most remarkable woman of the twelfth century | Direct: 25× great-grandmother |
| Juhel de Totnes | d. 1123 | The Breton lord the Conqueror set over Totnes, founder of Totnes priory and later of Barnstaple | Direct: 27× great-grandfather |
| Isabel de Vermandois | d. 1131 | Carried three royal streams at once, Capetian, Carolingian and Kievan, into the English baronage and so to the de Veres | Direct: 25× great-grandmother |
| King Henry I | d. 1135 | King of England, youngest son of the Conqueror; the royal line passes through his acknowledged son Robert of Gloucester | Direct: 25× great-grandfather |
| Petronilla of Aragón | 1136–1173 | Queen of Aragón in her own right, betrothed at one year old; her marriage united Aragón with Barcelona | Direct: 27× great-grandmother |
| Gwenllian ferch Gruffudd ap Cynan | killed 1136 | The warrior princess of Wales, who led her army against the Normans and was beheaded at Kidwelly; the field is still called Maes Gwenllian | Direct: 27× great-grandmother |
| Aubrey de Vere | d. 1141 | Master-Chamberlain of England; slain in a London riot; father of the 1st Earl of Oxford | Direct: via Jane Vere |
| Robert of Gloucester | d. 1147 | Acknowledged son of King Henry I, created Earl of Gloucester; the Empress Matilda's champion | Direct: 25× great-grandfather |
| Ramiro II 'the Monk', King of Aragón | d. 1157 | Taken from his monastery to save the dynasty, he reigned long enough to father Petronilla, then went back | Direct: 28× great-grandfather |
| Alys of France | 1160–c.1220 | Betrothed to Richard the Lionheart for twenty-five years and never married to him; her actual marriage, to the Count of Ponthieu, leads here | Direct: 25× great-grandmother |
| Aoife MacMurrough | fl. 1170 | 'Eva' of Leinster; married Strongbow at Waterford; the Irish royal line enters here | Direct: 24× great-grandmother |
| Alfonso IX of León | 1171–1230 | His Cortes of León of 1188 is reckoned Europe's earliest parliament; in one tree with the Magna Carta barons | Direct: 24× great-grandfather |
| Diarmait Mac Murchada | d. 1171 | King of Leinster, 'Diarmait na nGall'; brought the Normans into Ireland; father of Aoife | Direct: 25× great-grandfather |
| Llywelyn the Great | c.1173–1240 | Prince of Gwynedd, master of native Wales for forty years; his wife Joan was King John's daughter | Direct: 24× great-grandfather |
| Strongbow (Richard de Clare) | d. 1176 | 2nd Earl of Pembroke; led the Norman invasion of Ireland 1170 | Direct: 24× great-grandfather |
| Berengaria of Castile | c.1180–1246 | Queen of Castile in her own right; resigned the crown to her son and ruled beside him for thirty years | Direct: 24× great-grandmother |
| Melendo Lampader | d. 1181 | Alcalde of the Mozarabs of Toledo from 1166, who signed his documents in Arabic two generations after the city fell to Castile; the deepest Iberian floor, reached by the Blount road through the Toledo magistrates | Direct: 24× great-grandfather |
| Donal Mór O'Brien | d. 1194 | The last King of North Munster; founded the cathedral on the Rock of Cashel; married Órlaith, daughter of Diarmait of Leinster | Direct: 25× great-grandfather |
| St Ferdinand III of Castile and León | c.1199–1252 | United the two Spanish crowns, took Córdoba and Seville; canonised 1671; a third saint in the direct line | Direct: 23× great-grandfather |
| Theobald Walter, 1st Chief Butler of Ireland | d. 1205 | Founder of the Butlers of Ormond; his brother Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury, ran England and raised the Lionheart's ransom | Direct: 25× great-grandfather |
| William Marshal | d. 1219 | 1st Earl of Pembroke; 'the greatest knight that ever lived'; Regent of England; reissued Magna Carta | Direct: 23× great-grandfather |
| Robert FitzWalter | d. 1235 | Leader of the barons who forced Magna Carta, 'Marshal of the Army of God'; one of nine sureties in the direct line | Direct: 22× great-grandfather |
| Edward I 'Longshanks' | 1239–1307 | King of England, the Plantagenets; reached by his daughter Elizabeth and the Butler Earls of Ormond, while the descent from his grandson Edward III stays disproven | Direct: 22× great-grandfather |
| Eleanor of Castile | c.1241–1290 | Queen of England; the Eleanor Crosses, Charing Cross among them, mark where her body rested; her castle and lion sit on Lady Bardolf's seal | Direct: 22× great-grandmother |
| Gilbert de Clare, the Red Earl | 1243–1295 | Earl of Gloucester and Hertford, the mightiest baron of his day | Direct: 21× great-grandfather |
| Joan of Acre | 1272–1307 | Edward I's daughter, born on crusade at Acre; married Gilbert the Red Earl; a second daughter of Edward I in the direct line | Direct: 21× great-grandmother |
| Eleanor de Clare | 1292–1337 | Eldest of the three Clare sisters, wife of Hugh Despenser the Younger; through her the Raleigh road runs to Edward I | Direct: 20× great-grandmother |
| Elizabeth de Clare | 1295–1360 | Foundress of Clare College, Cambridge; married Roger d'Amory; sister of my ancestress Eleanor de Clare | My ancestress's sister (and the exact link to the d'Amory legend) |
| Sir John de Grey, 1st Lord Grey of Rotherfield | 1300–1359 | A founder Knight of the Garter in 1348 and Steward of Edward III's household: the family's one real founder knight, where the family histories had wrongly claimed a Damory | Direct: 19× great-grandfather |
| Margaret de Clare | d. 1333 | Barred Queen Isabella from Leeds Castle 1321; reputedly the first woman jailed in the Tower | Direct: 19× great-grandmother |
| Sir Henry Green of Drayton | 1347–1399 | Richard II's councillor, the Green of Bushy, Bagot and Green, executed at Bristol in 1399; his wife Maud Mauduit was heiress of Warminster | Direct: 18× great-grandfather |
| Owain Glyndŵr | c.1359–c.1415 | The last Welshman to hold the title Prince of Wales, leader of the great revolt of 1400; reached through his daughter Alys, who married a border knight in secret while her father was a hunted rebel | Direct: 18× great-grandfather |
| Richard de Vere, 11th Earl of Oxford | 1385–1417 | Commander at Agincourt, K.G.; tomb at Earls Colne | Direct: via Jane Vere |
| Fernán Pérez de Ayala | d. c. 1385 | Señor de Ayala in Álava, granted the Encartaciones by Pedro the Cruel in 1351, author of his own family's Libro del linaje; buried at Quejana. His son, the chronicler and Chancellor Pero López de Ayala, is the family's uncle on this roll | Direct: 19× great-grandfather |
| Sir John Hawkwood | d. 1394 | The condottiere: captain of the White Company and of Florence, buried in the Duomo under Uccello's fresco; reached through his daughter Antiocha and the Coggeshalls of Codham | Direct: 18× great-grandfather |
| Sir Walter Blount | d. 1403 | John of Gaunt's standard-bearer, killed at Shrewsbury wearing the king's arms, Shakespeare's Blunt; his wife Sancha de Ayala came from Toledo in Constance of Castile's household | Direct: 17× great-grandfather |
| Thomas, Lord Camoys | d. 1421 | Commander of the left wing at Agincourt; the second Agincourt ancestor | Direct: via Elizabeth Trussell |
| Margaret FitzGerald, Countess of Ormond | d. 1542 | 'The Great Countess'; daughter of the Great Earl of Kildare; the FitzGerald and Butler doors meet in her marriage | Direct: 14× great-grandmother |
| Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford | 1550–1604 | The Shakespeare-authorship candidate; first cousin of my ancestor Jane Vere | Cousin |
| Edmund Spenser | c.1552–1599 | Poet of The Faerie Queene; seated at Kilcolman, Co. Cork | Brother of my 10× great-grandmother |
| Robert Freke | d. 1592 | Auditor of the Exchequer under Henry VIII & Elizabeth I | Direct: 11× great-grandfather |
| Dr Henry Jones, Bishop of Meath | 1605–1682 | Cromwellian scoutmaster-general; gave the Book of Kells to Trinity College | Direct: via the Piers baronets |
| Adam Loftus | d. 1605 | Archbishop of Dublin, Lord Chancellor, first Provost of Trinity; built Rathfarnham Castle | Direct: via Gertrude Berkeley |
| Dr George Ryves | d. 1613 | Warden of New College and one of the King James Bible translators | Cousin |
| Ambrose Wright | 1617–1689 | Earliest Suffolk yeoman ancestor, of Lawshall | Direct: 8× great-grandfather |
| John Travers | d. 1618 | Settler at Ballynamona; m. the poet Spenser’s sister | Direct: 10× great-grandfather |
| Col. Richard Townsend | 1618–1692 | Cromwellian officer; commanded at Knocknanuss; founder of the Castletownshend Townsends | Direct: 8× great-grandfather |
| Elizabeth Freke | 1641–1714 | The celebrated diarist of Rathbarry | Cousin (collateral) |
| Sir Robert Travers | d. 1647 | Knighted 1625; MP Clonakilty; killed at Knocknanuss | Direct: 9× great-grandfather |
| Francis Bernard | d. 1659 | Settler who bought Castle Mahon (1639); ancestor of the Earls of Bandon | Direct: 9× great-grandfather |
| Francis Beamish | d. 1679 | Garrisoned Kilmalooda in 1641; of the Elizabethan Beamish | Direct: 8× great-grandfather |
| Jane Lane | d. 1689 | Carried the fugitive Charles II from Bentley to Bristol after Worcester, 1651; pensioned and honoured at the Restoration | Claimed kin: sister of the man my Lanes said was theirs (unproven, see Ch. 12) |
| Simon White | Mayor 1696 | Mayor of Limerick; head of the White line | Direct: 8× great-grandfather |
| William Beamish & Co. | 1760–1828 | Founded Beamish & Crawford, long Ireland’s largest brewery | Cousin branch |
| Rev. Hugh Brady Huleatt | 1783–1867 | Rector of Ballyvaughan; source of the “Hugh Brady” name | Direct: 4× great-grandfather |
| Rev. William Hickey, "Martin Doyle" | 1787 - 1875 | Celebrated agricultural writer and improver (DIB); brother of Anne Hickey | Direct connection: 4× great-uncle |
| Ambrose Lane | c. 1791–1853 | Soldier, then judge and executive councillor, Prince Edward Island | Direct: brother of Anne Hamilton Lane |
| Joseph Damer, Earl of Dorchester | d. 1798 | Earl of Dorchester (title extinct 1808); documented male-line d’Amory | Tradition (same kindred) |
| Earls of Bandon | 1800 → | Created Earls of Bandon; share Francis Bernard as ancestor | Cousins |
| Hugh Brady White | 1847–1884 | Army surgeon; died of cholera at Madras | Direct: 2× great-grandfather |
| Carin Göring (née Fock) | 1888–1931 | First wife of Hermann Göring; of the brewing Beamishes | Very distant collateral |
| Diana, Princess of Wales | 1961–1997 | Linked through the Spenser/Althorp tradition; see Chapter 14 | Family tradition (not proven) |
| Justin Trudeau | b. 1971 | Prime Minister of Canada 2015–25; descends from the Bernards of Castle Mahon | Cousin: via the Bernards (Ch. 6) |
| Elizabeth Hastings & Sir John Donne | fl. 1470s | Kneel opposite each other in Memling's Donne Triptych, National Gallery | Direct: via Elizabeth Trussell |
| Bridget Raleigh | fl. 1500s | Married Sir William Kingsmill; her line carries the Despenser and Clare blood down to the Kingsmills of Ballybeg, anchored by a will of 1509 | Direct: 11× great-grandmother |
This gallery opens with the two d'Amory figures the family surname has always pointed at, then runs in time from the deepest crown to the present. Many of the figures below the d'Amorys arrived with the deep ancestry proven in July 2026; their full stories are in Chapters 18 to 24 of the living edition. It is kept current on the website; the printed 2026 book holds its own roll.