Succeeds his father at Montgomery, 1094;
and his brother at Shrewsbury, 1098.
His wife Agnes of Ponthieu.
Guy Count of Ponthieu. 1053-1100.
Greatness of Robert's possessions. than as the son of Roger. In after times counties and lordships flowed in upon him from various sources and in various quarters. The death of his father gave him the old Norman possessions of the house of Montgomery; the death of his brother gave him the new English possessions of that house, the great earldom of Shrewsbury and all that went with it. We seem to be carried back to past times when we find that Robert of Bellême was married to the daughter of Guy of Ponthieu, the gaoler of Harold, and that, at the accession of William Rufus, Guy had still as many years to reign as the Red King himself. Guy's death at last added Ponthieu to the possessions of the house of Bellême, nominally in the person of Robert's son William Talvas, practically in that of Robert himself. The lord of such lands, master of four and thirty castles,[1] ranked rather with princes than with ordinary nobles; and even now, when Robert held only the inheritance of his mother, the extent and nature of his fiefs gave him a position almost princely. The man alike of Normandy and of France, he could make use of the profitable as well as the dangerous side of a divided allegiance, and it is not
- ↑ Ord. Vit. 708 B. He does not say distinctly at what stage he means.
Geoffrey Gaimar (Chron. Angl. Norm. i. 35) has an elaborate picture of
Robert at his greatest;
"Li quens Robert, cil de Belesme,
Mil chevalers out en son esme;
En Engleterre out treis contez,
Quens de Pontif estait clamez,
Si ert conte de Leneimeis,
D'Esparlon e de Sessuneis;
Sue estait Argenton, Seis,
Roche-Mabilie estait en sa pœs.
En Rom out rues assez.
Il esteit quen de sis contez;
Ço ert le meillur chevaler
Ke l'em séust pur querreier.
Cil vint à son seignur le rei,
Mil chevalers menat od sei."He then goes on to mention his brothers. (See above, p. 37.) Many of the places on this list will come in our story. "Rom," it is hardly needful to say, is only the capital of Normandy, not of the world. But what are the three counties in England? There is Shropshire, and most likely Sussex. What is the third? Yorkshire, on the strength of Tickhill? But Robert had no earldom there.
