a formal charter under his seal which was confirmed by King Henry III. She was formally invested as suo jure 1st Countess of Lincoln on 27 October 1232, the day after Ranulf's death. She held the Earldom of Lincoln until less than a month later with the consent of the king she likewise gifted the earldom inter vivos to her daughter Margaret de Quincy and her son-in-law John de Lacy, 2nd Earl of Lincoln. They were formally invested by King Henry III as Countess and Earl of Lincoln on 23 November 1232. After his death, his nephew John the Scot (son of his eldest sister Matilda (Maud) of Chester), was formally invested by King Henry III as Earl of Chester on 21 November 1232, which suggests a prior agreement. In popular culture "Ranulf Earl of Chester" is mentioned in the same line as Robin Hood in Piers Plowman, the first definite reference to stories circulating about the latter figure. As an important figure in the reigns of kings Richard I and John, Ranulf appears in novels set in the period. Ranulf de Blondeville is a supporting character in James Goldman's 1979 novel Myself as Witness set in the reign of King John. Goldman's narrator describes Ranulf as the "only living Visigoth" and condemns him for killing many Welshman in his capacity as an Anglo-Norman lord of the Welsh Marches. He is represented as a brutal and aggressive opponent of all things, and people, Welsh. He appears early in Sharon Kay Penman's novel Falls the Shadow, on the life and career of Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, when he promises to personally support Simon's appeal to the king to recognise his right to the impoverished Leicester earldom. Ranulf makes a brief appearance in Lauren Johnson's 2013 novel The Arrow of Sherwood participating in the siege of Nottingham in 1194. Ranulf is mentioned several times over the course of the 1980s television series Robin of Sherwood. Notes References Keith Stringer, 'David, earl of Huntingdon and lord of Garioch (1152–1219)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008. Further reading 1170 births 1232 deaths 12th-century English nobility 13th-century English nobility Anglo-Normans Norman warriors High Sheriffs of Staffordshire High Sheriffs of Shropshire High Sheriffs of Lancashire Earls of Lincoln Christians of the Fifth Crusade Burials at Chester Cathedral Earls of Chester (1121 creation)