His last days.
His death. 1118.
Story of his death-bed.
- tinued the line of the Earls of Leicester.[1] His last days
were clouded by domestic troubles;[2] and he is said to have formally perilled his own soul in his zeal for the temporal welfare of his sons. On his death-bed, so the story runs, Archbishop Ralph and other clergy bade him, for his soul's health, to restore whatever lands he had gained unjustly.[3] What then, he asked, should he leave to his sons? "Your old inheritance," answered Ralph, "and whatever you have acquired justly. Give up the rest, or you devote your soul to hell." The fond father answered that he would leave all to them, and would trust to their filial piety to make atonement for his sins.[4] But we are told that Waleran and Robert were too busy increasing by wrong what had been won by wrong to do anything for the soul of their father.[5]
These are the two men who, of secondary importance in the tale of the Conquest and of the reign of the first
- ↑ See N. C. vol. iv. p. 192.
- ↑ I do not quite understand the story in Henry of Huntingdon (8) about another earl depriving Robert of his wife or bride; "Contigit quemdam alium consulem sponsam ei tam factione quam dolosis viribus arripuisse. Unde in senectute sua mente turbatus et angaria obnubilatus, in tenebras mœroris incidit, nec usque ad mortem se lætum vel hilarem sensit." Earl Robert's widow, Elizabeth or Isabel of Crépy or Vermandois, was presently married again to the younger Earl William of Warren. (See Ord. Vit. 686 B, 723 D, 805 D; Will. Gem. viii. 40, 41.) Was there anything irregular or scandalous about the marriage? Count Robert married her in 1096, so that, as he was distinctly old at his death in 1118, she must have been far from young. His children therefore were children of his advanced life, which lessens the difficulty about the child whom his daughter Isabel is said to have borne to King Henry late in his reign. (Will. Gem. viii. 29; cf. 37; and see N. C. vol. v. p. 844.)
- ↑ Hen. Hunt. u. s. "Ut terras quas vi vel arte multis abstulerat, pœnitens redderet, et erratum lacrimis lavaret." Would this extend to English grants from the Conqueror? One might almost suspect that his father thought so.
- ↑ Ib. "Filiis omnia tradam; ipsi pro salute defuncti misericorditer agant."
- ↑ Ib. "Filii ejus magis injuste congregata injuste studuerunt augere quam aliquid pro salute paterna distribuere."
