The Family Motto and Coat of Arms
Leo de Juda est robur nostrum is the ancient motto of the Warren family clan [1], meaning, The Lion of Judah is Our Strength, a reference to Yah'shua the Messiah or Jesus Christ (Revelation 5:5). While this may not have been, or be, the case for all our ancestors and other living Warrens, it is very definitely true for our own family.
Christ is represented on our coat of arms by the rampant silver lion on a red square background in the upper left-hand corner of the checkered gold and blue shield, known in heraldry as chequey ore and azure. Interestingly, long before we knew anything about our heraldry, blue and gold were - and still are - my favourite colours.
A modern 'supplementary' motto of the Warren Family in Sweden reflects the things that matter to us the most:
Varènne, From Whence We Come
The Warrens originally come from a small village in Normandy, France, called Varènne from which we get the earliest form of our English name, the De Warenne's.
The Varènne River in Normandy
Our name orginally meant a watchman (Ezekiel 33:7) or garden warden though some believe it has the earlier Teutonic meaning of war-like. Both temprements or dispositions are certainly to be found in various combinations in our psychic makeup. A ruined castle and river is all that remains of our baronial origins and name, the former Varènne village now going by the name of Bellencombre with a population of ~600.
Views of modern Bellencombre (Varènne), Normandy, France
Ancient History of the Warrens
The House of Warren (de la Varènne, De Garenne, De Warenne, De Warren, Warren) is an Anglo-Norman comital house that held extensive lands in France, England, Wales, and Ireland. The name is derived from the town and river of Varènne with its castle, Calais (Pays de Caux), a few miles from Dieppe in Normandy.
The ancient family seat in Normandy was Chateau Bellencombre on the banks of the Varènne, to which Duke William of Normandy added Château Mortimer as a reward for the loyal military service of William de Warren, the principal founder of the House.
William de Warrene, created 1st Earl of Warren (France) and Surrey (England) by the King William II, was the maternal second cousin of William I, and received about three hundred lordships in England in recompense for his service at the Battle of Hastings during the Norman Conquest of England. These included lands in Shropshire, Essex, Suffolk, Oxford, Hampshire, Cambridgeshire, Buckinghamshire, Huntingdonshire, Bedfordshire, Norfolk, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, and Sussex in addition to his lands in France. Lord Warren was appointed co-Chief Justice of England when William I was abroad in France. His principal seats were Lewes Castle in Sussex, Castle Acre in Norfolk, Conisbrough Castle in Yorkshire, Château de Bellencombe in Normandy, and Château de Mortemer in Normandy.
Lewes Castle
William married Gundreda, a daughter of William I, and had William de Warren, 2nd Earl of Warren and Surrey. The 2nd Earl married Isabel de Vermandois, daughter of the Count de Vermandois and niece of King Philip of France. The heraldic ams of Warren derive from Vermandois. The 2nd Earl's daughter Ada married Henry, Earl of Huntingdon, eldest son of David, King of Scotland, and had Malcolm and William, both Kings of Scotland.
William de Warren, 3rd Earl of Warren and Surrey fought in the cause of King Stephen de Blois before switching sides to support Geoffrey, Duke of Normandy and his wife Maud, the Empress of the Holy Roman Empire in her claim to the English throne. In 1147 he went on crusade with Louis, King of France, to reclaim Roman lands lost to Moslem conquest and was slain in a Saracen attack at Laodicea. It is said that his heart was brought back to England, and was buried at Lewes Priory. Here ends the paternal line of the 1st House of Warren.
The 3rd Earl's daughter and heiress Isabel de Warren married William the Conqueror's male line descendant Prince William de Blois, the son of King Stephen, known as the Earl of Mortain, Boulogne, Warren and Surrey.
Conisbrough Castle
After the death of Prince William his widow, the 4th Countess of Warren and Surrey, married in 1163 Sir Hameline Plantagenet, Viscount of Touraine, King Henry II's natural half-brother. Viscount Hameline assumed the name, arms, and lands of de Warren jure uxoris, becoming the 5th Earl of Warren and Surrey. Hereby the de Warren inheritance, previously connected by blood and marriage to the royal English House of Normandy, passed to a cadet branch of the English royal House of Plantagenet.
The 5th Lord Warren accompanied his brother, King Henry II on the papally sanctioned conquest of Ireland in 1169 where his signature appears on a number of charters. He had the honour of sword-bearer in the coronations of his nephews King Richard the Lion-Hearted and King John. The 5th Lord Warren was a member of the Privy Council where he is recorded as 'Hameline, Earl of Warren, King Henry's brother'. He was one of the justices of the King's court, a baron of Exchequer, and Sheriff of Sussex and Surrey in 1206. He was one of those who advised his cousin King John to put his seal to Magna Charta at Runneymede and was called 'cognatus regis' because of his kinship to the royal family. He was succeeded by the 6th Earl Warren who married first Maud, daughter of William de Albini, Earl of Arundel, and secondly Maud, daughter of William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke (widow of Hugh Bigod, Earl of Norfolk). By his second wife, the Marshaless of England and Countess of Norfolk and Warren he had John de Warren who succeeded him as the 7th Earl. The Countess of Norfolk and Warren was buried at Tinturn Abbey in Wales but her heart was deposited before the high altar at Lewes Priory.
John de Warren was five years old at his father's death, and was placed under the guardianship of Prince Peter of Savoy, the Queen's brother. In 1247 at about the age of twelve, he was married to the daughter of Hugh de Lusignan, Earl of March and Angoulême and Isabelle d'Angoulême, the widow of King John and the mother of King Henry III. The 7th Earl of Warren and Surrey was, accordingly, maternal half-brother to King Henry III of England, half-brother of Richard, Earl of Cornwall, King of the Romans, half-brother of Queen Joan, wife of King Alexander II of Scotland, and half-brother of Empress Isabella, wife of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, and half-brother of Sir William Marshall, 2nd Earl of Pembroke whose lands in Ireland his offspring would one day inherit. [1]
The Modern Warrens
Our paternal ancestors are therefore of Viking-French stock who came to England with William the Conqueror [3] in 1066, one of our ancestors being married to the sister of William and is how we are linked to that House. Our Norman connections also link us to Southern Italy and Sicilly, north Africa (the coastal regions of modern Tunisia and Libya) and to the Levant coastal region of modern-day Syria. We also have known links to the cathedral town of Reims in north-eastern France.
My own personal crest includes the Crest of Normandy (two lions on a red background, linked to the three lions of England), the Teutonic eagle and cross of Prussia where I have other connections (together representing the Anglo-Prussians), and superimposed on that the crest of the Clan Warren:
Personal crest of Christopher C.M.Warren
My youngest son is named after the Conqueror, hopefully to redeem his ancestor's less than flattering reputation.
William the Conqueror
My father, and his father before him, are from Surrey and both were architects. My father served in the RAF during the Second Word War camoflaging airfields in southern England and my grandfather with the cavalry in Mesopotamia in the First World War fighting the Ottoman Empire. My mother served in the RAF ground transport division and was from Coventry, Midlands, England. The maternal side of the family is Anglo (Saxon)-Irish, our Irish roots being in Derry (Londonderry) in Ulster, Northern Ireland.
The Warren Family flag - the black, white and blue tricolour
symbolises adversity, purity and wisdom - from the 1970's
The altar of Westminster Abbey showing the two parts of the Warren family crest
on the occasion of the funeral of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, 19 Sept.2022
By an interesting historical twist of fate, I immigrated to Norway in 1988 in response to a revelation, returning to the lands of the Vikings, thus completing the Scandinavian circle, as it were, and in 1997 moved to Sweden. Today my seven children live in Norway and Sweden.
Kadesh-biyqah, the Warren Family Home in Sweden
Endnotes
[1] Warren Family History;
[2] Rev. John Watson, The Memoirs of the Ancient Earls of Warren and Surrey, and their Descendants to the Present Time Volumes I & II (London: 1782); Rev. Thomas Warren F.R.S.A.: History of the Warren Family A.D. 912-1902 (Ireland: 1902); Count Raoul de Warren: La Maison de Warren 1138-1964 (Paris: 1964); Wikipedia, House of Warren
[3] Siteseen, William the Conqueror
Further Reading
[1] Halbert's Family Heritage, The World Book of Warrens (USA: 1992)
[2] Section on C.C.M.Warren on the Leadership page
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This page was created on 15 March 2009
Updated on 19 September 2022
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