Aumale

Aumale, a town of northern France, in the department of Seine-Inférieure, on the left bank of the Bresle, 47 m. N.E. of Rouen on the Northern railway. Pop. (1906) 1999. The church is an interesting building of the 16th and 17th centuries, and has a portal attributed to Jean Goujon. The town has glass and steel works.

The territory of Aumale (Albemarle, Aubemale, Aumerle; Lat. Alba Marla) in Normandy, a dependency of the archbishopric of Rouen, was granted to Odo of Champagne, brother-in-law of William the Conqueror, who founded the first line of counts of Aumale. Hawise (Hadwide, Havoise or Avoie), countess of Aumale, after the death of her first husband William de Mandeville, earl of Essex (d. 1189), married William des Forts (de Fors, or de Fortz; Lat. de Fortibus), a military adventurer who had been one of the commanders of the fleet under Richard I. during his first crusade. He died in 1195, and his widow married Baldwin de Betun, who became count of Aumale in her right. He died in 1213, and in 1214 William de Fortibus, son of Hawise by her second husband, was confirmed by King John in all his mother’s lands. Meanwhile, however, the territory of Aumale shared the fate of the rest of Normandy, and was annexed to the French crown by King Philip Augustus; but the title of earl of Albemarle, derived from it, continued to be borne in England by William de Fortibus, and was passed on to his heirs (see Albemarle). Aumale itself was conferred by Philip Augustus as an appanage on his son Philip. It was subsequently granted by Louis VIII. to Simon, count of Dammartin, whose daughter, Jeanne, countess of Dammartin, transferred it, together with the countship of Ponthieu, to the house of Castile, by her marriage with Ferdinand III., king of Castile, called the Saint (1238). It then remained in the possession of a branch of her descendants bearing the name of Ponthieu, until it passed to the house of Harcourt on the marriage of Blanche of Ponthieu with John, count of Harcourt (1340). Marie d’Harcourt (d. 1476), heiress of Aumale, married Anthony of Lorraine, count of Vaudémont, and Aumale was created a duchy in the peerage of France for Claude and Francis of Lorraine in 1547. By the marriage of Anne of Lorraine with the duke of Nemours in 1618 the duchy of Aumale passed to the house of Savoy-Nemours. In 1686 Marie Jeanne Baptiste, duchess of Nemours and of Aumale, and wife of Charles Emmanuel II., duke of Savoy, sold Aumale to Louis XIV., who gave it to his natural son, the duke of Maine. After the death of that prince, the dukedom devolved upon his brother, the count of Toulouse, subsequently passing to the latter’s son, the duke of Penthièvre, whose daughter married the duke of Orleans. Since the reign of Louis Philippe, king of the French, the title of duke of Aumale has been borne by a son of the duke of Orleans.