This paper is concerned with an heiress, Isabelle of Warenne (c.1130–c.1203), a tombstone, a chronicle and various clusters of charters, which between them throw light on the Warenne view of the past. The heiress Isabelle of Warenne was born in the 1130s as the great-granddaughter of William I of Warenne (d.1088), the family's Norman ancestor and his Flemish wife Gundrada. Isabella succeeded her father William III of Warenne after his death in the Holy Land in 1147 or 1148. Around this time she was married by King Stephen (1135–54) to his second son William of Blois, a lad of about 13 years old, who became the fourth earl of Warenne, but died in 1159. In 1164 Isabelle remarried. Her new husband was Hamelin of Anjou, the illegitimate half brother of King Henry II (1154–89). Hamelin, fifth earl of Warenne died in 1202 and, well into her seventies, Isabelle followed him probably a year later in 1203. During Isabelle's long life three sources were produced that shed light on the Warenne family's perceptions of the past. The oldest of them is the tombstone of Isabelle's great-grandmother Gundrada (d.1085), which was refashioned in the mid-twelfth century. Of the same period dates the Warenne Chronicle, an incomplete historical narrative known as the so-called ‘Hyde’ Chronicle. Covering the period from 1035 until 1120, the text of the unique manuscript breaks off abruptly.