Robert II, Count of Dreux

Robert II
Count of Dreux and Braine Lord of Fère-en-Tardenois, Pontarcy, Nesle, Longueville, Quincy-en-Tardenois, Savigny, and Baudemont
Count of Dreux
Reign	1184 – 28 December 1218
Predecessor	Robert I
Successor	Robert III
Count of Braine
Reign	24 July 1204 – 28 December 1218
Predecessor	Agnes de Baudemont
Successor	Robert III
Born	1154
Died	28 December 1218 (aged 63–64)
Burial	Braine, église abbatiale de Saint-Ived
Spouse	Mahaut of Burgundy Youlande de Coucy
Issue	Robert III Peter I, Duke of Brittany Henry of Dreux John of Dreux
House	House of Dreux
Father	Robert I
Mother	Agnes 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. In 1214 he fought alongside King Philip Augustus at the Battle of Bouvines.

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 Etiennete and they were both Capetian descendants of Robert II of France.^[4]

His second marriage to Yolande de Coucy (1164–1222) produced several children:^[5]

• Robert III (c. 1185–1234), Count of Dreux and Braine.
• Peter (c. 1190–1250), Duke of Brittany.^[6]
• Henry of Dreux (c. 1193–1240), Archbishop of Reims.^[7]
• John of Dreux (c. 1198–1239), Count of Vienne and Mâcon.^[8]
• Philippa (1192–1242), who married Henry II of Bar.
• Alix of Dreux, married Walter IV of Vienne, Lord of Salins, then married Renard II of Choiseul.^[9]
• Agnes (1195-1258), married Stephen III of Auxonne.

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

Ancestors of Robert II, Count of Dreux

16. Henry I of France               8. Philip I of France                       17. Anne of Kiev               4. Louis VI of France                             18. Floris I, Count of Holland               9. Bertha of Holland                       19. Gertrude of Saxony               2. Robert I of Dreux                                   20. Amadeus II, Count of Savoy               10. Humbert II, Count of Savoy                       21. Joan of Geneva               5. Adelaide of Maurienne                             22. William I, Count of Burgundy               11. Gisela of Burgundy                       23. Etiennete               1. Robert II of Dreux                                         12. Andre de Baudément                       6. Guy de Baudement                             13. Agnes                       3. Agnes de Baudemont, Countess of Braine                                   7. Alix, Dame de Braine

Notes

1. Gislebertus of Mons, Chronicle of Hainaut, Trans. Laura Napran, (Boydell Press, 2005), 110.
2. Nicholson, Robert Lawrence, Joscelyn III and the fall of the crusader states 1134-1199, (Brill, 1973), 184.
3. Power, Daniel, The Norman Frontier in the Twelfth and Early Thirteenth Centuries, (Cambridge University Press, 2008), 271.
4. Histoire des ducs de Bourgogne de la race Capétienne, Vol.3, Ed. Ernest Petit, (Imprimerie Darantiere, 1889), 32.
5. M. A. Pollock, Scotland, England and France After the Loss of Normandy, 1204-1296: Auld Amitie, (Boydell & Brewer, 2015), 92 n29.
6. A History of the Crusades, Vol. 2, ed. Kenneth M. Setton, Robert Lee Wolff and Harry W. Hazard, (University of Wisconsin Press, 1969), 855.
7. A History of the Crusades, Vol. 2, 836.
8. A History of the Crusades, Vol. 2, 841.
9. Evergates, Theodore, Aristocratic women in medieval France, (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 102.

References

• Evergates, Theodore, Aristocratic women in medieval France, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999.
• Gislebertus of Mons, Chronicle of Hainaut, Trans. Laura Napran, Boydell Press, 2005.
• Histoire des ducs de Bourgogne de la race Capétienne, Vol.3, Ed. Ernest Petit, Imprimerie Darantiere, 1889.
• Mémoires de la Société des lettres, sciences et arts de Bar-le-Duc, Vol.2, Ed. Société des lettres, sciences et arts de Bar-le-Duc, Contant Laguerre Imprimeur Editeur, 1903.
• Nicholson, Robert Lawrence, Joscelyn III and the fall of the crusader states 1134-1199, Brill, 1973.