Ralph the Staller is thought by historians to have been born in Norfolk to a Breton father and English mother.

Bretons had been in England since at least Edward the Elder’s time. Indeed, King Alfred had specifically decreed that Bretons were welcome in England.

There’s no direct evidence for what I’m about to say, unless one counts all those occurrences of the name “Alfred” in Brittany when our Alfred was not yet king, but one can speculate that the Bretons lent Alfred aid against the Vikings.

Certainly his grandson Æthelstan aided the Breton refugees in England to retake their country from the Loire Vikings.

So Ralph the Staller was a significant landowner in both England and Brittany (where he was Lord of Gaël and Montfort). When his Breton overlord, Count Eudon, elder maternal first cousin to Edward the Confessor, threw his weight behind Duke William’s invasion, Ralph’s family were obliged to help.

Ralph the Staller himself was made Earl of East Anglia after the Battle of Hastings. When he died in 1069, his son Ralph junior was made Earl of Norfolk.

However, many of the Staller’s lands were given to Eudon’s son Alan Rufus, who was famous for his military prowess at Hastings and elsewhere. After Ralph de Gaël rebelled in 1075, he went to Denmark and brought a fleet of 200 ships to attack England but this failed.

Subsequently (1076) Ralph joined his Norman wife Emma de Breteuil in Brittany, where he joined Eudon’s rebellion against Duke Regent Hoël (Eudon’s brother-in-law). King William came to Hoël’s aid (and perhaps to catch Ralph) but instead the Bretons united against the foreigner and William had to beat a hasty retreat.

Ralph and Emma died on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but their family prospered. Some have claimed that their descendants include King Henry IV of France.