His mother, Herleva, was the daughter of Fulbert of Falaise ; Fulbert may have been a tanner or embalmer.

He was the son of William the Conqueror's mother Herleva, and Herluin de Conteville.

William was the son of the unmarried Robert I, Duke of Normandy by his mistress Herleva.

William was the illegitimate son of Robert the Magnificent, Duke of Normandy, and Herleva ( or Arlette ), a tanner's daughter.

Herleva ( c. 1003 – c. 1050 ) also known as Herleve, Arlette, Arletta and Arlotte, had three sons-William I of England, who was fathered by Robert I, Duke of Normandy, and Odo of Bayeux and Robert, Count of Mortain, who were both fathered by Herluin de Conteville.

The background of Herleva and the circumstances of William's birth are shrouded in mystery.

Also, the Count of Flanders later accepted Herleva as a proper guardian for his own daughter.

According to one legend, still recounted by tour guides at Falaise, it all started when Robert, the young Duke of Normandy saw Herleva from the roof of his castle tower.

Herleva, legend goes, seeing the Duke on his ramparts above, raised her skirts perhaps a bit more than necessary in order to attract the Duke's eye.

Herleva refused, saying she would only enter the Duke's castle on horseback through the front gate, and not as an ordinary commoner.

In a few days, Herleva, dressed in the finest her father could provide, and sitting on a white horse, rode proudly through the front gate, her head held high.

This gave Herleva a semi-official status as the Duke's mistress.

Herleva later married Herluin de Conteville in 1031.

Another source suggests that Herleva did not marry Herluin until after Robert died because there is no record of Robert ensuing another relationship, whereas Herluin married another woman, Fredesendis, by the time he founded the abbey of Grestain.

According to Robert of Torigni, Herleva was buried at the abbey of Grestain, which was founded by Herluin and their son Robert around 1050.

This would put Herleva in her forties around the time of her death.

However, David C. Douglas suggests that Herleva probably died before Herluin founded the abbey because her name does not appear on the list of benefactors, whereas the name of Herluin's second wife, Fredesendis, does.

Robert was the son of Herluin de Conteville and Herleva of Falaise and brother of Odo of Bayeux.

About 1035, Herluin, as Vicomte of Conteville, along with his wife Herleva and Robert founded Grestain Abbey.

There were several fairly good minor portraits in the play, including William Hansen's impersonation of a stubborn, rather pathetic father, and Katherine Squire's vigorous characterization of a farm mother who brooked no hifalutin' nonsense from her daughter, or anyone else.

King William gave the Abbey independence from its mother church and endowed it generously, including income from 24 parishes, land in every royal burgh and more.

Bernard's mother, Maud, was the daughter of the well-known preacher Frederic William Farrar, and was eighteen years younger than her husband.

Haley's father William Albert Haley was from Kentucky and played the banjo and mandolin, his mother Maude Green originally from Ulverston in England was a technically accomplished keyboardist with classical training.

Pressure by Ann Ming, the mother of 1989 murder victim Julie Hogg — whose killer, William Dunlop, was initially acquitted in 1991 and subsequently confessed — also contributed to the demand for legal change.

:* William Godolphin, Marquess of Blandford ( 1700 – 1731 ), elder son of the 2nd Duchess, predeceased his mother without issue

A Lucy Swift gave birth in 1771 to a baby, also named Lucy, who was christened a daughter of her mother and William Swift, but there is reason to believe the father was really Darwin.

In the spring of 1130, when Eleanor was six, her four-year-old brother William Aigret and their mother died at the castle of Talmont, on Aquitaine's Atlantic coast.

His father died in the winter of 1913, while Edwin was still in England, and in the summer of 1913, Edwin returned to care for his mother, two sisters, and younger brother, as did his brother William.

In August 1687 Count William Nassau de Zuylestein was sent to England, ostensibly to send condolences due to the death of the queen's mother.

His mother was Charlotte, youngest daughter of William Baird of Newbyth.

Sybil was definitely mother of Sybil and Rainald, possibly also of William and Rohese.

John Bruce's original family name was Knight, but on coming of age in 1805 he assumed the name of Bruce: his mother, through whom he inherited the Duffryn estate, was the daughter of William Bruce, high sheriff of Glamorganshire.

William Walton, solicitor for Keats's mother and grandmother, definitely did know and had a duty of care to relay the information to Keats.

Joseph and Charles VI were also descendants of Anna of Bohemia and William of Thuringia, having that blood through their mother, although they were heirs-general of neither line.

An additional claimant emerged, William VI, Prince of Orange who now ruled the Netherlands, and whose mother and wife were descendants of the Prussian royal family and thus also descendants of both daughters of the last Luxembourg heiress.

An image of " the South " was fixed in Mitchell's imagination when at six years old her mother took her on a buggy tour through ruined plantations and " Sherman's sentinels ", the brick and stone chimneys that remained after William Tecumseh Sherman's " March and torch " through Georgia.

According to John of Fordun, whose account is the original source of part at least of William Shakespeare's Macbeth, Malcolm's mother was a niece of Siward, Earl of Northumbria, but an earlier king-list gives her the Gaelic name Suthen.

His father, Noah Sr. ( 1722 – 1813 ), was a descendant of Connecticut Governor John Webster ; his mother Mercy ( née Steele ; 1727 – 1794 ) was a descendant of Governor William Bradford of Plymouth Colony.

* 1631 – Mary of Orange, eldest daughter of Charles I of England and mother of William III of England ( d. 1660 )

She was also the mother of William Randolph Hearst.

Richard Lovelace's mother, Anne Barne ( 1587 – 1633 ), was the daughter of Sir William Barne and the granddaughter of Sir George Barne III ( 1532-d. 1593 ), the Lord Mayor of London and a prominent merchant and public official from London during the reign of Elizabeth I ; and Anne Gerrard, daughter of Sir William Garrard, who was Lord Mayor of London in 1555.

Stephen's mother, Adela of England, was the daughter of William the Conqueror and Matilda of Flanders, famous amongst her contemporaries for her piety, wealth and political talent.

A contemporary depiction of Stephen's family tree, with his mother Adela of Normandy | Adelin at the top, and, left to right, William, Count of Sully | William, Theobald II, Count of Champagne | Theobald and Stephen