Elizabeth of Vermandois, Countess of Leicester

Elizabeth of Vermandois (c. 1085 – 1131) (or Isabel), was a French noblewoman, who by her two marriages was the mother of the 1st Earl of Worcester, the 2nd Earl of Leicester, the 3rd Earl of Surrey, and of Gundred de Warenne, mother of the 4th Earl of Warwick.

It is believed that she was the source of the famous chequered shield of gold and blue (or and azure) adopted at the dawn of the age of heraldry (in England circa 1200–1215) by her brother and originating before the middle of the 12th century,^[1] as did only two other groups of allied English shields, the Mandeville-de Vere "quarterly shields" and the de Clare "chevron shields".^[2]