Alasia DEL VASTO DI SALUZZO ( -1292)

Individual Events and Attributes

Marriage

	The ruins of Haughmond Abbey, Edmund Fitz Alan d'Arundel's final resting place.		Arundel and Hugh Despenser the Elder before Queen Isabella. From Froissart's Chronicles.

Individual Note 1

Alice of Saluzzo, Countess of Arundel (died 25 September 1292),[1] also known as Alesia di Saluzzo, was an Italian-born noblewoman and an English countess. She was a daughter of Thomas I of Saluzzo, and the wife of Sir Richard Fitzalan, 8th Earl of Arundel. Alice was one of the first Italian women to marry into an English noble family. She assumed the title of Countess of Arundel in 1289.

Alice was born on an unknown date in Saluzzo, today in the Province of Cuneo, Piedmont, Italy. She was the second eldest daughter of Thomas I, 4th Margrave of Saluzzo, and Luigia di Ceva (died 22 August 1291/1293), daughter of Giorgio, Marquis of Ceva[2] and Menzia d'Este.[3] Alice had fifteen siblings. Her father was a very wealthy and cultured nobleman under whose rule, Saluzzo achieved a prosperity, freedom, and greatness it had never known previously.

Sometime before 1285, Alice married Richard Fitzalan, feudal Lord of Clun and Oswestry in the Welsh Marches, the son of John Fitzalan, 7th Earl of Arundel and Isabella Mortimer. Richard would succeed to the title of Earl of Arundel in 1289, thus making Alice the 8th Countess of Arundel. Along with her aunt, Alasia of Saluzzo who married Edmund de Lacy, 2nd Earl of Lincoln in 1247, Alice was one of the first Italian women to marry into an English noble family. Her marriage had been arranged by the late King Henry III's widowed Queen consort Eleanor of Provence.

Richard and Alice's principal residence was Marlborough Castle in Wiltshire, but Richard also held Arundel Castle in Sussex and the castles of Clun and Oswestry in Shropshire. Alice's husband was knighted by King Edward I in 1289, and fought in the Welsh Wars (1288–1294), and later in the Scottish Wars.

The marriage produced four children:[4]

Edmund Fitzalan, 9th Earl of Arundel (1 May 1285- 17 November 1326 by execution), married Alice de Warenne, by whom he had issue.

John Fitzalan, a priest

Alice Fitzalan (died 7 September 1340), married Stephen de Segrave, 3rd Lord Segrave, by whom she had issue.

Margaret Fitzalan, married William le Botiller, by whom she had issue.

Alice died on 25 September 1292 and was buried in Haughmond Abbey, Shropshire. Her husband Richard died in 1302 and was buried alongside Alice. In 1341, provision was made for twelve candles to be burned beside their tombs.[5] The Abbey is now a ruin as the result of a fire during the English Civil War.

Her many descendants included the Dukes of Norfolk, Anne Boleyn, Sir Winston Churchill and Diana, Princess of Wales.

NOTES:

1 Charles Cawley, Medieval Lands, Saluzzo

2 The Complete Peerage, vol.1, p.241

3 Cawley, Medieval Lands, Saluzzo

4 Charles Cawley, Medieval Lands, Earls of Arundel

^ The Complete Peerage, vol.1, page 241²

Individual Note 2

Alasia del Vasto di Saluzzo's aunt, an elder Alasia del Vasto di Saluzzo, also married an Englishman, becoming the wife fo Edmund de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, in 1247. It was suggested by Anthony Richard Wagner that the migration of these Savoyards to England was a result of the marriage in 1236 of Henry III to Eleanore de Provence, whose mother, Beatrix di Savoia, was the daughter of the ruling house and this is corroborated by Douglas Richardson's discovery that the marriage was indeed arranged by Queen Eleanor.

SOURCES:

Anthony Richard Wagner, English Genealogy, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1972), 249, 246.³

Sources