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 1104 - 1168 (~ 64 years)
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| Name |
Robert de Beaumont |
| Suffix |
2nd Earl of Leicester |
| Born |
ca 1104 |
Leicestershire, England  |
| Gender |
Male |
| Died |
05 Apr 1168 |
Brackley, Northamptonshire, England |
| Buried |
Leicester Abbey, Leicester, Leicestershire, England |
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| Notes |
- Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_de_Beaumont,_2nd_Earl_of_Leicester
The only known contemporary surname applied to him is "Robert son of Count Robert." Henry Knighton, the fourteenth-century chronicler notes him as Robert "Le Bossu" (meaning "Robert the Hunchback" in French). Early genealogists gave him the surname of de Beaumont.
Robert was an English nobleman of Norman-French ancestry. He was the son of Robert de Beaumont, Count of Meulan and 1st Earl of Leicester, and Elizabeth de Vermandois. He was the twin of Waleran de Beaumont. It is not known whether they were identical or fraternal twins, but the fact that they are remarked on by contemporaries as twins indicates that they were probably identical.
The two brothers, Robert and Waleran, were adopted into the royal household shortly after their father's death in June 1118. Robert inherited his father's second titles of Earl of Leicester in England, and his twin brother inherited the French lands and titles . Their lands on either side of the Channel were committed to a group of guardians, led by their stepfather, William, Earl of Warenne or Surrey.
He was literate, which was rare for the times. A surviving treatise on astronomy in the British Library carries a dedication "to Earl Robert of Leicester, that man of affairs and profound learning, most accomplished in matters of law" who can only be this Robert. On his death he left his own psalter to the abbey he founded at Leicester, which was still in its library in the late fifteenth century.
In 1121, royal favor brought Robert the great Norman honors with his marriage to Amice de Montfort, daughter of Raoul II de Montfort, himself a son of Ralph de Gael, Earl of East Anglia. Both families had lost their English inheritances through rebellion in 1075. They had four children:
1. Hawise de Beaumont, who married William Fitz Robert, 2nd Earl of Gloucester and had descendants.
2. Robert de Beaumont, 3rd Earl of Leicester who married Petronilla de Grandmesnil and had descendants.
3. Isabel, who married: Simon de St. Liz, Earl of Huntingdon and had descendants.
4. Margaret, who married Ralph V de Toeni and had descendants through their daughter, Ida de Tosny.
Robert spent a good deal of his time and resources over the next decade integrating the troublesome and independent barons of Breteuil into the greater complex of his estates.
He also held lands throughout the England. In the 1120s and 1130s he tried to manage his estates in Leicestershire. His block of estates were in the central midlands, bounded by Nuneaton, Loughborough, Melton Mowbray and Market Harborough.
In 1135, the twins were present at King Henry's deathbed. Robert's actions in the succession period are unknown, but he clearly supported his brother's decision to join the court of the new king Stephen. During the first two years of the reign Robert is found in Normandy fighting rival claimants for his honor of Breteuil. He added the castle of Pont St-Pierre to his Norman estates in June 1136, and at the end of 1137 Robert and his brother were increasingly caught up in the politics of the court of King Stephen in England.
The outbreak of civil war in England in September 1139 brought Robert into conflict with Earl Robert of Gloucester, the illegitimate son of Henry I and principal sponsor of the Empress Matilda. His port of Wareham and estates in Dorset were seized by Gloucester, but the king awarded Robert the city and castle of Hereford as a bid to establish the earl as his lieutenant in Herefordshire, which was in revolt.
The battle of Lincoln on 2 February 1141 saw the capture and imprisonment of King Stephen. Robert's brother, Count Waleran, valiantly continued the royalist fight in England into the summer, he eventually capitulated to the Empress and crossed back to Normandy to make his peace with the Empress's husband, Geoffrey of Anjou. Robert was in Normandy attempting to stem the Angevin invasion, and negotiated the terms of his brother's surrender. He quit Normandy soon after and his Norman estates from his wife were confiscated and used to reward Norman followers of the Empress.
Robert remained on his estates in England for the remainder of King Stephen's reign. Although he was a nominal supporter of the king, his principal activity between 1141 and 1149 was his private war with Ranulf II, Earl of Chester. Though details are obscure it seems clear enough that he waged a dogged war with his rival that in the end secured him control of northern Leicestershire and the strategic Chester castle of Mountsorrel.
The arrival in England of Duke Henry, son of the Empress Matilda, in January 1153 was a great opportunity for Earl Robert. He was probably in negotiation with Henry in that spring and reached an agreement by which he would defect to him. Duke Henry restored Robert's Norman estates. The duke celebrated his Pentecost court at Leicester in June 1153, and he and the earl were constantly in company till the peace settlement between the duke and the king at Winchester in November 1153. Earl Robert crossed with the Duke to Normandy in January 1154 and resumed his Norman castles and honors. As part of the settlement his claim to be chief steward of England and Normandy was recognized by Henry.
Earl Robert began his career as chief justiciar [modern equivalent of a prime minister] of England probably as soon as Duke Henry succeeded as King Henry II in October 1154. The office gave the earl supervision of the administration and legal process in England whether the king was present or absent in the realm. He filled the office for nearly fourteen years until his death, and earned the respect of the emerging Angevin bureaucracy in England.
He died on 5 April 1168, probably at his Northamptonshire castle of Brackley, for his entrails were buried at the hospital in the town. He was buried to the north of the high altar of the great abbey he had founded {Leicester Abbey], and built. He left a written testament of which his son the third earl was an executor, as we learn in a reference dating to 1174.
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| Person ID |
I36128 |
Master File |
| Last Modified |
22 Sep 2016 |
| Father |
Robert de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Leicester, b. Between 1040-1050, France , d. 05 Jun 1118, Leicestershire, England (Age ~ 68 years) |
| Mother |
Isabel de Vermandois, b. ca 1081, Normandy, France , d. 17 Feb 1131, England (Age ~ 50 years) |
| Family ID |
F14903 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
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