Robert II
Lord of Fère-en-Tardenois, Pontarcy, Nesle, Longueville, Quincy-en-Tardenois, Savigny, and Baudemont
Count of Dreux
Reign1184 – 28 December 1218
PredecessorRobert I
SuccessorRobert III
Count of Braine
Reign24 July 1204 – 28 December 1218
PredecessorAgnes de Baudemont
SuccessorRobert III
Born1154
Died28 December 1218 (aged 63–64)
Burial
Braine, église abbatiale de Saint-Ived
SpouseMahaut of Burgundy
Yolande de Coucy
IssueRobert III
Peter I, Duke of Brittany
Henry of Dreux
John of Dreux
Philippa of Dreux
Alix of Dreux
Agnes of Dreux
HouseDreux
FatherRobert I
MotherAgnes de Baudemont, Countess of Braine
Arms of the Counts of Dreux

Robert II of Dreux (1154 – 28 December 1218), Count of Dreux and Braine, was the eldest surviving son of Robert I, Count of Dreux, and Agnes de Baudemont, countess of Braine, and a grandson of King Louis VI of France.[1]

He participated in the Third Crusade, at the Siege of Acre[2] and the Battle of Arsuf. He took part in the war in Normandy against the Angevin kings between 1193 and 1204. Count Robert had seized the castle of Nonancourt from Richard I of England while he was imprisoned in Germany in late 1193.[3] The count also participated in the Albigensian Crusade in 1210.[4] In 1214 he fought alongside King Philip Augustus at the Battle of Bouvines.[5]

Marriages and children

His first marriage with Mahaut of Burgundy (1150–1192) in 1178 ended with separation in 1181 and produced no children. The excuse for the annulment was consanguinity. Mahaut and Robert were both great-great-grandchildren of William I, Count of Burgundy and his wife Etiennette and they were both Capetian descendants of Robert II of France.[6]

His second marriage to Yolande de Coucy (1164–1222), the daughter of Ralph I, Lord of Coucy and Agnès de Hainaut,[7] produced several children:[8]

Tomb

Count Robert's tomb bore the following inscription, in Medieval Latin hexameters with internal rhyme:

Stirpe satus rēgum, pius et custōdia lēgum,
Brannę Rōbertus comes hīc requiescit opertus,
Et jacet Agnētis situs ad vestīgia mātris.

Of which the translation is: "Born from the race of kings, and a devoted guardian of the laws, Robert, Count of Braine, here rests covered, and lies buried by the remains of his mother Agnes."

It is also dated Anno Gracię M. CC. XVIII. die innocentum, that is, "In the Year of Grace 1218, on the Feast of the Holy Innocents."

Ancestry

Notes

  1. ^ Gislebertus of Mons 2005, p. 110.
  2. ^ Nicholson 1973, p. 184.
  3. ^ Power 2008, p. 271.
  4. ^ Sumption 1999, p. 122.
  5. ^ Fedorenko 2013, p. 170-171.
  6. ^ Petit 1889, p. 32.
  7. ^ a b Pollock 2015, p. 145.
  8. ^ Pollock 2015, p. 92.
  9. ^ a b Evergates 2007, p. 229.
  10. ^ Setton, Wolff & Hazard 1969, p. 855.
  11. ^ Setton, Wolff & Hazard 1969, p. 836.
  12. ^ Setton, Wolff & Hazard 1969, p. 841.
  13. ^ a b Richard 1983, p. xxviii.
  14. ^ Evergates 1999, p. 102.

References

Preceded byRobert I Count of Dreux 1184–1218 Succeeded byRobert III
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