Note 1335 — Chapter XV · THE NORMAN INVASION AND THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS.[1055] (continued 2)
Reading edition
The connexion between William Malet and Harold is not easy to make out. He is clearly the person described by Guy of Amiens (588) as
“... Quidam partim Normannus et Anglus,
Compater Heraldi.”
(On the reading see M. H. B. 867 D.) The obvious meaning of this would be that William’s mother was an Englishwoman, and that he and Harold had contracted spiritual brotherhood by standing godfathers to the same child. There was a William Malet, whose mother’s name was Hesilia of the family of Crispin (De Genere Crispinorum, Giles, Lanfranc, i. 341), but he died a monk at Bec, and was doubtless a different person. I can make nothing of the pedigrees given by Sir Alexander Malet in his Translation of Wace, pp. 268, 9. Sir Alexander makes out William Malet to be uncle to the Lady Ealdgyth, calling her mother Ælfgifu a sister of William Malet; but I know no authority for this, and, if true, it would not make William “partim Normannus et Anglus.”