This great earl is characterised as "the wisest of all men betwixt this and Jerusalem in worldly affairs, famous for knowledge, plausible in speech, skillful in craft, discreetly provident, ingeniously subtile, excelling in prudence, profound in council, and of great wisdom." In the latter end of his days he became a monk in the abbey of Preaux, where he died in 1118.
Robert was the leading lay adviser to both William II and Henry I. Although in the course of a long public life he amassed extensive estates in England, Normandy and France, Robert was the nearest thing to a king's minister that contemporary circumstances allowed, the more remarkable as his successors as royal lay advisers -- with the exception of his own son Robert of Leicester, justiciar to Henry II -- tended to come from less exalted ranks of the nobility, men such as the justiciars Ranulf (de) Glanvill(e), Geoffrey FitzPeter, and Hubert de Burgh. Robert's career made a distinctive impression on contemporaries and affords a rare glimpse into how eleventh century politics worked.
The son of a prominent Norman magnate, Roger of Beaumont, and his wife, Adeline, daughter of Waleran, Count of Meulan, Robert made his name by his deeds at his first battle, Hastings. Thereafter, during his father's lifetime, Robert sought his fortune in England. By 1087, he had become one of William I's active curiales and held land in England worth a significant but not spectacular £254. In the early 1080's he had inherited the county of Meulan from his maternal uncle but, despite succeeding to fiefs of Beaumont and Pont Audemer when his father entered the abbey of St. Peter at Préaux (c. 1090), his interests and loyalties remained Anglo-Norman. Unusually, he faithfully supported all of the first three post-Conquest kings. After spending much of 1087-93 in France securing his inheritance, from 1093 he emerged as William Rufus's closest counsellor, playing a prominent role in the dispute with Anselm and the king's French campaigns.
On the sudden death of Rufus in August 1100, Robert smoothly transferred his allegiance to Henry I. For the last eighteen years of his life, Robert appears as the most frequent witness to the new king's charters, a reflection of his influence. By 1107 when, perhaps in reward for his part in Henry's acquisition of Normandy, Robert was given the earldom of Leicester, he had become a major landowner in England as well as northern France, with estates especially extensive in the Midlands. While Roger of Salisbury ran the royal administration, centered upon the Treasury and Exchequer, Robert's influence was in politics, diplomacy and the law. Robert played a crucial role in furthering Henry's cause in Normandy 1103-6 and undermining that of the duke, Robert Curthose, with whom Robert of Meulan had long had strained relations. He continued to be closely involved in the dispute with Archbishop Anselm, his prominence recognised by Pope Paschal II who identified Robert by name for excommunication in 1105. However, Robert was instrumental in securing a compromise with Anselm, finally concluded at Bec in 1106, and in persuading Henry I to stick to the agreement, to moderate church taxes and restore church lands. In 1109, Robert 'with flattery, coaxing and apology' tried to persuade Archbishop Thomas of York to profess obedience to the see of Canterbury, an attempt repeated with Thomas's successor, Thurstan, in 1116.
As a significant Norman lord, wealthy French count and English earl, with experience in public affairs stretching back to the 1060s, Robert was well placed to further his own interests. He established an elaborate, almost quasi-regal administration for his English and continental lands: in England he had his own exchequer, in imitation of the new royal accounting office. At Leicester, he restored the Anglo-Saxon court of portmanmote, a tribunal of twenty-four, to replace trial by combat. He insisted that his twin sons, Waleran and Robert, both of whom were to play leading political roles in the next generation, received good educations. He was tenacious of his own rights and lands. In 1111, in revenge for an attack on Meulan, he ravaged the French king's capital at Paris causing so much damage that Ile de la Cité required extensive rebuilding. Ruthless in manipulating his position and the law to acquire new estates, on his deathbed he characteristically refused to restore any lands he had illegally seized.
Robert's interests in public affairs and desire to influence royal business, although personally enriching, was not solely self-seeking. To Robert was attributed Henry I's less aggressive, less ostentatious and more conciliatory tone of government, notably towards the church and in the delicate handling of the prickly Norman baronage. William of Malmesbury wrote of Robert as 'the persuader of peace, the dissuader of strife . . . urging his lord the king rigourously to enforce the law; and himself not only abiding by existing laws but proposing new ones.' Henry of Huntingdon described him as "the wisest man between this and Jerusalem." Not the least of Robert's achievements may have been to temper Henry's notorious personal brutality. Orderic Vitalis, who may well have met Robert, attributed to him a remarkable political testament delivered to Henry I in 1101. This may stand as a blueprint for effective medieval political management which, even if of the chronicler's invention, suggests what policies contemporaries associated with Robert.
'We . . . to whom the common utility is committed by Divine Providence, ought to seek after the safety of the kingdom and of the Church of God. Let our chief care be to triumph peacefully without the shedding of Christian blood, and so that our faithful people may live in the serenity of peace . . . Speak gently to all your knights; caress them all as a father does his children; soothe them with promises; grant whatever they might request and in this manner cleverly draw all to your favour . . . do not hesitate to make magnificent promises, as is fitting to royal munificence. It is better to give away a small portion of the kingdom than to lose both victory and life to a host of enemies. And when . . . we have come to the end of this business (withstanding the threat of Robert Curthose), we will suggest useful measures for recovering the demesnes usurped by rash deserters in time of war.'
It is worth noting that the 'useful measures' mentioned included accusations of treason, deprivation of patrimonies, and forced exile. As with all successful medieval politicians, Robert of Meulan knew that violence and the threat of violence was the strongest supporter of conciliation.
