Crawford (No. 1.) family genealogy

A Branch of the Earls of Richmond

Arms: Gu. a fesse erm.

The house of Crawford (a branch of the Earls of Richmond) is descended from the ancient and princely line of Brittany or Bretagne. The leader of the famous 6,000 Britons from Aquileia, who retreated through all the breadth of Italy and length of France, despite the Emperor Theodosius, was Cynan Meriadog, Prince of Powys, cousin of Helen, wife of Mac Sin Wledig, the Emperor Maximus, whom he accompanied with his own retainers on that fatal expedition to Italy, A.D. 388. This Cynan or Conan, “the most ancient Christian King in Europe,” married Darerea, daughter of Calphurnius, his cousin, and sister of St. Patrick, was confirmed in the sovereignty of Bretagne by Maximus, and died, A.D. 421. From Conan descended the Breton Counts and Dukes terminating in the 15th century in Anne of Brittany, wife of Charles VIII. and Louis XII. of France. Geoffrey, Count of Rennes and Duke of Brittany (ob. 1008), married Havoise, daughter of Richard, first Duke of Normandy, by whom he had Alan III., Duke of Brittany (ob. 1040), married to Bertha (daughter of Alan Cagnart, Count of Cornnaille), whose brother Hoël the V. or Endo became Duke of Brittany (ob. 1084) and married Havoise, daughter of Alan IIΙ., by whom he had Conan III. (ob. 1148), whose daughter Bertha married Alan Niger (ob. 1165) fourth Earl of Richmond. Eudo or Odo, Count of Penthierre, second son of Geoffrey, Duke of Brittany, married Agnes, daughter of Alan Cagnart, Count of Cornnaille, and had Alan the Red and Alan the Black, both Earls of Richmond, Brian (ancestor of the Counts Chateaubriand), Bardolph of Ravenswath (progenitor of the families of Askew, Cliburn, and Fitzhugh), to whom “Askew was given by his brother Alan, Earl of Richmond, after 1086.” (See Gale and Whittaker’s Hist. of Richmond). Geoffrey Botterel first, and Etienne, Count of Penthierre (ob. 1138), who by Harvise, heiress of the Count de Guincamp, had Alan Niger (or “The Savage”), ob. 1165, fourth Earl of Richmond, who married in 1137 Bertha, daughter of Conan IV. (le Gros), Duke of Brittany, and had by her Conan V. (le Petit, ob. 1171), Brian (progenitor of the Lords of Bedale), Guy (ancestor of the house of LeStrange), and Reginald, from whom descended the Crawfords of Crawford. The family of La Zouche of Ashby are also admitted by genealogists to be descended from the Earle of Brittany, but how, is not yet precisely known, as Burke acknowledges that “the early generations of the Earls of Richmond are very conflicting.”