Adeliza was the (presumed eldest) daughter of William I of England

William I of England

William I , also known as William the Conqueror , was the first Norman King of England from Christmas 1066 until his death. He was also Duke of Normandy from 3 July 1035 until his death, under the name William II...

. There is considerable uncertainty about her life, including dates of birth and death.

Biography

Orderic Vitalis

Orderic Vitalis

Orderic Vitalis was an English chronicler of Norman ancestry who wrote one of the great contemporary chronicles of 11th and 12th century Normandy and Anglo-Norman England. The modern biographer of Henry I of England, C...

, who extended William of Jumièges

William of Jumièges

William of Jumièges was a contemporary of the events of 1066, and one of our earliest writers on the subject of the Norman Conquest. He is himself a "shadowy figure", only known by his dedicatory letter to King William as a monk of Jumièges...

' Gesta Normannorum Ducum

Gesta Normannorum Ducum

Gesta Normannorum Ducum is a chronicle originally created by the monk William of Jumièges just before 1060. In 1070 William I had William of Jumièges extend the work to detail his rights to the throne of England. In later times, Orderic Vitalis and Robert of Torigni Gesta Normannorum Ducum (Deeds...

(Deeds of the Norman Dukes), states that ‘Adelidis', a daughter of William I, was betrothed to Harold Godwinson

Harold Godwinson

Harold Godwinson was the last Anglo-Saxon King of England.It could be argued that Edgar the Atheling, who was proclaimed as king by the witan but never crowned, was really the last Anglo-Saxon king...

 - the Harold II who was killed at the Battle of Hastings

Battle of Hastings

The Battle of Hastings occurred on 14 October 1066 during the Norman conquest of England, between the Norman-French army of Duke William II of Normandy and the English army under King Harold II...

 - and remained single after his death.

However Orderic, in the later books of his Historia Ecclesiastica, also states that she took the veil, but makes her sister Agatha the betrothed of Harold. According to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Orderic places Adeliza as "a virgin under the protection of Roger de Beaumont" which, in the estimation of author Elisabeth van Houts, places her as a nun of St Léger at Préaux, and from this and with reference to the mortuary roll of that convent, deduces that she died prior to 1113.

William of Malmesbury

William of Malmesbury

William of Malmesbury was the foremost English historian of the 12th century. C. Warren Hollister so ranks him among the most talented generation of writers of history since Bede, "a gifted historical scholar and an omnivorous reader, impressively well versed in the literature of classical,...

 mentions that one of William's daughters was betrothed to Harold, but makes him speak of her to William as dead in 1066.

James Planché

James Planche

James Robinson Planché was a British dramatist, antiquary and officer of arms. Over a period of approximately 60 years he wrote, adapted, or collaborated on 176 plays in a wide range of genres including extravaganza, farce, comedy, burletta, melodrama and opera...

 asserts (but gives no authority) that she was born in 1055, was betrothed to Harold in 1062, and was dead by 1066.

Ancestry