Ralph de Gael Earl of Norfolk and Suffolk, Lord of Gael

   Another name for Ralph was Raoul de Gaël.

  General Notes:

~Weis' Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America before 1700, 8th Edition, 53:25, he was Seigneur de Gael in Brittany. ¹⁶⁰

  Noted events in his life were:

• Background Information. ¹⁴¹
Ralph de Gael, Earl of Norfolk and Suffolk (East Anglica), Lord of Gael in Bretagne and son and heir to his father. He attested, in the company of other Bretons, a notification at Angers as Ralph son of "Ralph the Englishman." He inherited the Breton barony of Gael from his father which included more than forty parishes. His father's Earldom was granted to him after his father's death by the Crown. It was likely Ralph, the younger, who was with the King at Winchester on 13 Apr 1069 to witness a diploma in favor of St. Denis of Paris, and in the same year as "Earl Ralph," a grant in favor of the bishop of Exeter.

Ralph was involved with Waltheof's, Earl of Northumberland, plot against the king, which was a failure. He and his wife were forced to move back to Brittany, until King William, "the Conqueror" had died. His name appears around 1093 as a witness in a record of a suit between the abbots of Lonlay and St. Florent. In 1096, with his wife accompanying, he went on a Crusade with the Duke of Normandy. He was one of the Breton leaders who took part in the siege of Nicæa.

Ralph de Gael married Emma, daughter of William Fitz Osbern, 1st Earl of Hereford, and they had three sons. First was his son and heir named William, who succeeded his father on the death of his maternal uncle, William de Breteuil, and died shortly after. Second was Ralph, who succeeded his brother in 1110, who gained the honors of Breteuil, which his daughter Amice carried to her husband, Robert, second Earl of Leicester. Their their other son was Alan, who went on the Crusades with his father. The families Breton estates remained with the male descended of the eldest son, Ralph. Both the parents, Ralph and Emma, died sometime during the Crusade.

~Cokayne's Complete Peerage, 2nd Edition, (Norfolk), Vol. IX, pp. 571-575

• Background Information. ⁹⁴⁴
From Master Wace, His Chronicle of the Norman Conquest From the Roman de Rou, Chapter XXIII, "The Roll of the Norman Lords Continued," pp. 225-226, translated by Edgar Taylor, Esq.:

"Next the company of Neel rode Raol de Gael *; he was himself a Breton, and led Bretons' he served for the land which he had, but he held it short time enough; for he forfeited it, as they say.

* footnote 2, "Raol de Gael, lord of Gael or Guader, and Montfort in Brittany, 'Ranols de Gader, le proz,' in Beoit. It does not appear that Raol commanded all the bretons, if that be what Wace meant to say. He is known in English History as Ralf earl of Norfolk, whose estates were forfeited for treason in 1075. From Domesday it would seem that borth he and a former Ralf his father were earls under the Confessor; the father being repeated referred to in Norfolk as 'vetus comes,' the predecessor of 'comes Ralf filius ejus;' both holding lands in succession during Edward's reign. . . . Ralf the elder no doubt married a Breton heiress; from whom her estates passed to the son; an Englishman of Norfolk on the father's side, as described by the old historians, though also of Breton descent and estate."

Ralph married Emma Fitz Osbern of Hereford, daughter of William de Fitz Osbern seigner de Bréteuil, Earl of Hereford and Adelise de Toeni.⁵²⁹ (Emma Fitz Osbern of Hereford was born about 1050.)