Richard d'Avranches, 2nd Earl of Chester (1094 – 25 November 1120) was the son of Hugh d'Avranches, 1st Earl of Chester, and his wife, Ermentrude of Clermont.[1]
He was seven years old when his father, known as Hugh the Fat, died. Due to his age, a stewardship would have ruled until he was old enough. He probably became Earl of Chester in 1107. He married Lucia-Mahaut, daughter of Stephen, Count of Blois and Adela of Normandy,[2] daughter of William the Conqueror.
At the age of twenty, in 1114, Richard was on a military campaign and was styled the Earl of Chester. Together with King Alexander of Scotland, he led an Anglo-Norman army into Gwynedd as part of a three-pronged campaign organised by Henry I of England against Gwynedd, and Gruffudd ap Cynan. Gruffudd, rather than risk battle, satisfied the King with an oath of homage and a suitable fine. The campaign soon fizzled out, and Richard returned to Chester.
The line of the d'Avranches as Earls of Chester failed when Richard, his wife, and his illegitimate half-brother Ottuel, joined the young William Adelin, heir to the English King Henry aboard the doomed White Ship. The captain, unwisely, chose to race out of the harbour.[3] The ship struck a submerged rocky embankment, capsized and sank.[4] Richard, aged twenty-six,[5] his wife Lucia-Mahaut, and half-brother Ottuel all drowned.[6]
The earldom then passed through his father Hugh's sister Maud to Richard's first cousin Ranulph I, in 1121, because Hugh had no other suitable male heirs.