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
Preceded by	Robert I
Succeeded by	Robert III
Preceded by	Agnes de Baudemont
Succeeded by	Robert III
Personal details
Born	1154
Died	December 28, 1218(1218-12-28) (aged 63–64)
Spouse(s)	Mahaut of Burgundy Youlande de Coucy

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.

He participated in the Third Crusade, at the Siege of Acre 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. 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.

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

• Robert III (c. 1185–1234), Count of Dreux and Braine.
• Peter (c. 1190–1250), Duke of Brittany.
• Henry of Dreux (c. 1193–1240) Archbishop of Reims.
• John of Dreux (c. 1198–1239), Count of Vienne and Mâcon.
• 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.

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."

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.