(William of Poitiers, p. 85; on this message see Norman Conquest, iii. 682).
Godwine returned from exile in September 1052. The archbishop did not dare to await his restoration to power, and in company with Ulf, bishop of Dorchester, armed himself, and made haste to escape. As he and Ulf and their followers rode through the streets of London, they slew and wounded many men; they burst through the east gate, rode to Walton-on-the-Naze in Essex, and finding an old unseaworthy ship there, they embarked in her and sailed to Normandy. In his hasty flight Robert left his pall behind him, and, as the English chronicler adds, ‘all Christendom here in this land even as God willed for that before he had taken that worship as God willed not’ (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ann. 1052, Peterborough). On the 15th the witan outlawed him for the mischief that he had made between the king and the earl. To the period of his archbishopric is to be referred the story that he brought an accusation against the king's mother Emma [q. v.], and that she cleared herself by the ordeal of hot iron (Annales Wintonienses, ii. 21 sq.), but the story is unhistorical. Robert went to Rome to lay his complaint before the pope, who gave him letters reinstating him in his see, but he did not regain possession of it. His deposition and the transference of his office to Stigand [q. v.] were made one of the leading pretexts for the invasion of England by William the Conqueror (Henry of Huntingdon, p. 199; Norman Conquest, iii. 284). On his return from Rome he went to Jumièges, where he died, and was buried near the high altar of the abbey church. His death apparently took place soon after his journey to Rome (Gesta Pontificum, p. 35; Gervase of Canterbury, ii. 262; Annales Wintonienses, ii. 25); Bishop Stubbs, however, places his death in 1070 (Registrum Sacrum, p. 20), the year of Stigand's deposition and of the consecration of Lanfranc [q. v.] Two fine Anglo-Saxon manuscripts in the public library at Rouen, entitled ‘Benedictionarius Roberti Archiepiscopi’ and ‘Missale Roberti Archiepiscopi Cantuariensis,’ are believed to have belonged to him, and to have been brought over from England by him in his flight (Archæologia, xxix. 18, 134–6).
[Anglo-Saxon Chron. ed. Plummer; Vita Eadwardi ap. Lives of Edward the Confessor; William of Malmesbury's Gesta Pontiff. and Gesta Regum, Gervase of Canterbury, Henry of Huntingdon, Ann. Winton. ap. Annales Monastici, ed. Luard (these six Rolls Ser.); Gallia Christiana, vol. xi.; Will. of Poitiers, ed. Giles; Freeman's Norman Conquest.]
ROBERT the Staller (fl. 1060), otherwise known as Robert the son of ‘Wimarc,’ derived the latter appellation from his mother, whom William of Poitiers describes as ‘nobilis mulier,’ and whose name suggests Breton origin. He acted as ‘staller’ at the court of Edward the Confessor (Cod. Dipl. Nos. 771, 822, 828, 859, 871, 904, 956, 1338). If he is the ‘Rodbertus regis consanguineus’ who was one of the witnesses to the Waltham Abbey charter, he must have had some claim to kinship with Edward. This is rendered probable by the biographer's description of him (Vita Eadwardi, p. 431) as ‘regalis palatii stabilitor, et ejusdem Regis propinquus,’ standing by the deathbed of Edward. Mr. Freeman queried the ‘propinquus,’ but apparently without cause. Another of these charters mentions Robert's name in a way that implies he was sheriff of Essex. In addition to his other estates Edward granted him the prebend of an outlawed canon of Shrewsbury, which he presented to his son-in-law (Domesday, i. 252 b).
On William's landing in England, Robert, who is described as a native of Normandy, but residing in England, sent to William ‘domino suo et consanguineo,’ says William of Poitiers, warning that Harold was marching south flushed with victory, and that he had better await him behind entrenchments (Norman Conquest, iii. 415–18). The rest of our knowledge of him comes from ‘Domesday,’ which shows us that he was sheriff of Essex under William (Domesday, ii. 98), but dead before the survey (1086). Freeman, in his appendix on ‘Robert and Swegen of Essex’ (Norman Conquest, vol. iv.), has analysed the entries relating to each in ‘Domesday,’ and shown that Robert, while losing some of the estates he had held before the Conquest, obtained fresh ones, especially in Essex. Swegen, his son and heir, succeeded him as sheriff, but lost the appointment before the survey (Domesday, ii. 2 b). He raised a castle at Rayleigh, of which the earthworks remain, and made a vineyard and a park there (ib. p. 43 b). His son and successor, Robert, known like him as ‘De Essex,’ was father of Henry de Essex the constable, who forfeited the family estates for treason in 1163. They then vested in the crown as ‘the honour of Rayleigh.’
[Vita Eadwardi (Rolls Ser.); William of Poitiers; Domesday Book; Kemble's Codex Diplomaticus; Freeman's Norman Conquest.]
ROBERT d'Oilgi, d'Oilly, or d'Oyly (d. 1090?), Norman baron, was probably a native of Ouilly-le-Vicomte, near Lisieux, and, with his brothers Nigel and Gilbert,
