See Peter Bartrum, https://cadair.aber.ac.uk/dspace/bitstream/handle/2160/5378/malpas.... (September 24, 2018; Anne Brannen, curator) -- called "Miles," or "soldier," in the Welsh Genealogies.

Please see Darrell Wolcott: The "Malpas" Family in Cheshire; http://www.ancientwalesstudies.org/id152.html. (Steven Ferry, April 19, 2020.)

Said to have been the son of Gruffudd ap Owain. Wife unknown. 3 sons: William ll, Ralph, David.

notes

Note from Curator:

Several versions of his ancestry exist.

• Darrell Wolcott, historian of ancient Wales [http://www.ancientwalesstudies.org/id152.html], places him as the son of Gruffyd ap Owain ap Iago ap Idwal Foel. He ascribes the name "Belward" as a nickname given for valor to William's ancestor Owain: "During the late 10th century wars for control of Gwynedd between the sons and grandsons of Idwal Foel, Iago ap Idwal Foel had been expelled from Gwynedd in 974 by his nephew Hywel ap Ieuaf. Iago took his sons, Custinnen and Owain, and fled to Chester. Iago was nearing age 60 and his sons were then about 22 and 14 respectively. They were received by Leofwine I, Earl of Mercia, to whom Iago gave his oath of fealty, preferring that his sons grow up to fight real enemies rather than their own kin. But in 980 after Iago died [4], young Custinnen had come of full age for Welsh kingship; he forsook the safety of Mercia and joined up with the viking Godfrey Haroldsson to ravage Llyn and Anglesey. His cousin, Gwynedd king Hywel ap Ieuaf, met the raiders in battle and killed Custinnen. [5] Back in Chester, the young orphaned Owain ap Iago had become a ward of the Earl of Mercia. When Leofwine I died and was succeeded as Earl by Leofwine II, Owain was about 30 and serving as a captain in his army. He was given a Saxon lady for his wife, together with a small manor in Holt. These were probably rewards for being a such a loyal ward of the Earl, and indeed he and his descendants were long remembered as "le bel ward" (the nice ward). His grandson, William, is often cited in pedigrees as William le Belward as though that were his surname."
• Alfred Suckling in The History and Antiquities of the County of Suffolk, Volume 1 (1846, p. 180) positions William as the son of John le Belward who became Lord of Malpas by marriage to Letitia, daughter and heiress of Robert Fitz-Hugh, Baron of Malpas. Suckling says the Belward family "came over with the Conqueror"; his account of the following generations is quite confusing and contradictory.
• John Burke, in The Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Females" (1883, pp. 72-75) provides a similar account to that of Suckling regarding the acquisition of the barony of Malpas by marriage to Lettice (Letitia) but has her married to a Richard de Belward (rather than a John).

The wife of William is not known. He likely had a son William de Malpas II. As to his children, there is also great confusion. Clearly, several significant lineages sprang from this line--Egertons, Cholmondeleys--but the listings of his sons are different in each account. Whether David de Malpas, Robert de Malpas, and Richard de Malpas were sons of William de Malpas I or II is debatable. We have positioned them as sons of William II. The wife of William II has long been named as a daughter of a Hugh, associated with either Hugh de Kevelioc of Chester or Hugh "Lupus" d'Avranches. While some name a supposed daughter of Hugh de Kevelioc (Beatrix) as his wife, Wolcott argues convincingly that she was more likely Tanglust (aka Tanghurst), illegitimate daughter of Hugh "Lupus" d'Avranches, Earl of Chester.

comments

Last updated Dec 2015

From http://cybergata.com/roots/6971.htm

• Birth: circa 1129
• Malpas, Cheshire, United Kingdom
• Death: 1144 (11-19)
• Malpas, Cheshire, United Kingdom
• Immediate Family:
• Son of John or Richard le Belward and Letitia FitzRobert of Malpas
• married Mabella Fitz Hugh of Malpas This conflicts with Wolcott (cited above) which we are following in the Geni tree.

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additional data

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John Burke, The portrait gallery of distinguished females, Vol. I, 1833, pp. 72-75

It has been considered deserving of remark, that the two great Cheshire families of Cholmondeley and Egerton, are descended from the same common ancestor, William le Belward, who was Baron of Malpas, in that county, under the Norman Earls Palatine. Robert, the son of Hugh, Baron of Malpas, dying without male issue, the barony of Malpas, with the lordship of Cholmondeley, or Calmundelei—the name of which lordship has been written twenty-five several ways—devolved on his only daughter and heir, Lettice, married to Richard le Belward; whose son (or grandson) William le Belward, married Beatrix, daughter of Hugh Kiviliock, the fifth Earl of Chester. He was, in right of his mother, Baron of Malpas. He left three sons :—1. David de Malpas, ancestor of the Egertons, from whom the Earls of Bridgwater and Wilton descended ;-~ 2. Robert, who, having, by gift of his father, the lordship of Cholmondelev, settled there, and assumed the local name, which has been continued in his descendants ;—3. Richard. The eleventh in descent from Robert, the second son of William le Belward, was Sir Hugh Cholmondeley, of Cholmondeley, who was knighted in 1588, the memorable year of the Spanish Armada. He performed many eminent services, for which he was specially and honourably distinguished by Queen Elizabeth. His lady had a great contest with George Holford, Esq., of Newborough, respecting the lands that descended to her by the death of her father, Christopher Holford, Esq. The suit, after it had continued more than forty yeais, was through the mediation of friends, composed; and, on the partition, Lady Cholmondeley obtained the manors of Holford and Bulkeiey, and other large possessions. In her widowhood, she resided at Holford, which she rebuilt and enlarged. For her spirited conduct in the suit alluded to, she was styled, by James I., " The Bold Lady of Cheshire." Of the five sons of Sir Hugh Cholmondeley, Robert, the eldest, was created a Baronet, by James I. in 1611; by Charles I. in 1628, Viscount Cholmondeley, of Kellis, in Ireland; "and afterwards, in consideration of his special service, in raising several companies of foot in Cheshire, in older to the quenching those rebellious flames which began to appear, anno 1642, and sending many other to the king, then at Shrewsbury (which stood him in high stead in that memorable battle of Kineton, happening soon after); as also raising other forces for defending the city of Chester, at the first siege thereof by his Majesty's adversaries in that county, and courageous adventure in the fight at Tilston Heath; together with his great sufferings, by the plunder of his goods, and firing his houses," was, in the

• Camden, in his Treatise on Surnames, quotes, from ancient roll belonging to Sir William Brcreton, of Brereton, Knt., the following curious example, respecting the variety and alterations of names in this family: "Not long after the conquest, William Belward, Lord of the moiety of Malpas, had two aons, Dan David, of Malpas, surnamed Le Clerke, and Richard. Dan David had William, his eldest son, surnamed De Malpas; his second son was named Philip Gogh, one of the issue of whose eldest sons took the name of Egerton; a third son took the name of Golborne; and one of his Sons the name of Goodman. Richard, the other son of the aforesaid William Belward, had three sons, who took also divers names; viz., Thomas de Cotgrave; William de Overton; and Richard Little, who had two sons; the one named Ken Clarke, and the other John Richardson. Herein you may note alterations of names in respect of habitation, in Egerton, Cotgrave, Overton. In respect of colour, in Gogh, that is. Red; in respect of quality, in him that waa called Goodman; in respect of stature, in Richard Little; in respect of learning in Ken Clarke; in respect of the father's Christian name, in Richardson; all descending from William Belward. And verily, the gentlemen of those so different names in Cheshire, would not easily be induced to believe they were descended from one house, if it were not warranted by so ancient a proof....