Domesday Book records Ranulph Peverel holding Ewelme in Oxfordshire; numerous properties in Essex. 1
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One persistent but unverifiable tradition holds that the earliest William Peverel was the son of William the Conqueror by a Saxon princess, born before his marriage to Matilda of Flanders. And says Ranulph was the husband of that Saxon lady who fathered several half-siblings of her first child. Most would identify this Ranulph as identical to "Wrenoc" (which they claim is the same name as "Gronwy" in Welsh) and a son of Tudor ap Rhys Sais... And the Saxon princess is usually called Maud, daughter of Ingelric; the latter supposedly being a base son of Aethelred the Unready... While Rhys Sais did hold Whittington before the conquest and his son Tudor appears in the Domeday Book as a tenant of lands held under Earl Roger de Montgomery, the chronology connecting that Welsh family to the Peverel's is flawed.
Gronwy ap Tudor ap Rhys Sais (the earliest of that name) would occur c. 1085. No son of his could have either married a granddaughter of Aethelred (born c. 968) nor have appeared in Domesday as a large land owner. If Ranulph Peverel had a Welsh father named either Gronwy or Wrenoc, it had to have been one born nearer 990/995. Ranulph himself should date from c. 1020 since a son credited to him (Payne Peverel) was old enough in 1086 to be mentioned as holding land on that date. And a Saxon lady born c. 1030 could have borne the William Peverel of 1066 who was supposedly fathered by William the Conqueror. The extant pedigrees say Payne had older brothers Hamo and William in addition to the half-brother also named William....
Since neither history nor extant pedigrees offer a chronologically possible ancestry for Ranulph Peverel, our solution is necessarily conjecture. Unlike J.R. Planche, we do not agree the family name is merely a corrupt spelling of the Latin "puerilis" or "child". Rather we think it was the Normanization of the Welsh "Pefr" meaning "radiant, bright". Phonetically, that word is "pever" and is a descriptive nickname sometimes added to Welsh given names. Nor do we find any justification for thinking that "Wrenoc" is another word for "Gronwy". We would trace it to the Welsh word "gwreng" or "one of the common people"....
We suggest that Gronwy ap Tudor Trevor fathered a base son by an unidentified Saxon lady and that whatever birth name that child was given, he was simply called "Y Gwreng" by the noblemen of Wales who considered his mother a "commoner". The son of that child was perhaps called "Pefr" not because he was actually "radiant", but as a means of rehabilitating his reputation; Gronwy Pefr was a character in the Mabinogion tale "Math vab Mathonwy", and while not cast in a hero role, at least he was considered a noble Welshman and not a commoner. The son of this Gronwy was probably referred to as Ranulph Pefr until he was approached by the young Duke of Normandy, William the bastard in 1051. The latter was betrothed to marry a Flanders princess, a connection vital to his standing in Normandy. But in his negotiations with Edward the Confessor regarding his succeeding the childless king as King of England, it was suggested William required a Saxon connection as well. His great aunt Emma had married Aethelred the Unready and now had a granddaughter, Maud. Both a comely and wealthy young lady, William agreed to bear her a son which would be his first-born and whom he would reward handsomely when he became King. But to keep the boy from bearing the bastard stigma he himself wore, William convinced the part-Welsh, part Saxon Ranulph Pefr to marry the pregnant lady and give his name to her child. As evidenced by Ranulph's extensive holdings cited in the Domesday Book, he was well rewarded for this act. Since the Welsh Pefr was not a suitable family name for the first-born child of William Duke of Normandy, it was given a Norman look as Peverel. And while this covering marriage "legitimized" the king's son, persistent rumors continued as to who was really his father. Having no way to be certain, historians are wholly silent on the matter. Nor do they offer any explanation how both Ranulph Peverel and his "son" acquired their extensive lands all across England or why the early Marcher Barons would freely give their daughters in marriage to Peverel men. Our conjecture is offered as one possibility. We doubt that William Peverel went to live in Normandy and returned with the 1066 invasion, but may well have joined Duke William in the battle at Hastings as a "Norman" already in England. 2
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