AUMALE, a town of northern France, in the department of Seine-Inf erieure, on the left bank of the Bresle, 47m. N.E. of Rouen. 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 in Normandy was granted to Odo of Champagne, brother-in-law of William the Conqueror, who founded the first line of counts of Aumale. Hawise, countess of Aumale, after the death of her first husband William de Mande ville, earl of Essex (d. 1189), was married to William de Forz, one of the commanders of the fleet under Richard I. during his cru sade. He died in 1195, and his widow married Baldwin de Bethune, who became count of Aumale in her right. He died in 1213, and in 1214 William de Forz, son of Hawise by her second husband, was confirmed by King John in all his mother's lands. The territory of Aumale shared the fate of the rest of Normandy and was an nexed to the French crown by King Philip Augustus; but the title of count of Aumale, derived from it, continued to be borne in England by William de Forz, and was passed on to his heirs in the form Albemarle (q.v.). 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, transferred it, together with the countship of Ponthieu, to the house of Castile, by her marriage with Ferdinand III. of Castile (1238). It 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 (134o). Marie d'Harcourt (d. 1476), heiress of Aumale, married Anthony of Lorraine, count of Vaudemont, and Aumale was created a duchy in the peerage of France for Claude and Francis of Lorraine in By the mar riage 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. From him the dukedom devolved upon his brother, the count of Toulouse, and passed to the latter's son, the duke of Penthievre, 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.