Saer de Quincy, the son of Robert de Quincy and Orabilis of Leuchars, was raised largely in Scotland. His absence from English records for the first decades of his life has led some modern historians and genealogists to confuse him with his uncle, Saer II, who took part in the rebellion of Henry the Young King in 1173, when the future Earl of Winchester can have been no more than a toddler. Saer II's line ended without direct heirs, and his nephew and namesake would eventually inherit his estate, uniting his primary Scottish holdings with the family's Northamptonshire patrimony, and possibly some lands in France.