Mowbray, Robert de, earl of Northumbria (d. 1115/1125), magnate, was the son of Roger de Mowbray and nephew of Geoffrey, bishop of Coutances. According to the early twelfthcentury historian Orderic Vitalis, Robert's father, Roger, was from an illustrious Norman family related to the family of Nigel, vicomte of the Cotentin. Roger de Mowbray attended the Council of Lillebone in 1066. Robert de Mowbray's mother's name is unknown. The family may have had its origins in Montbrai which lies 20 miles to the south-east of Coutances in western Normandy. There was a motte still visible in the 1870s, which may indicate the site of the fortified residence of the lords of Mowbray. Early life Robert de Mowbray first comes to notice as one of the companions of William the Conqueror's eldest son, Robert Curthose, during the latter's first quarrel with his father in 1078. He accompanied Curthose into exile in 1078, but it is not known when he returned to favour at the Norman court. He also appears confirming the grant to the abbey of St Evroult of the church of Étouvi made by Richard de Coulonces. In Orderic's description of the donation Mowbray is described as ‘paramount lord’ of this Richard. Although from a wealthy background himself, it is probable that Mowbray benefited greatly from the patronage of his uncle, Bishop Geoffrey. In the plot against William Rufus hatched during Lent 1088 and headed by Odo, bishop of Bayeux, Bishop Geoffrey, and William of St Calais, bishop of Durham (which aimed to reunite the kingdom of England and the duchy of Normandy under Robert Curthose and which broke out into open revolt after Easter), Mowbray joined his uncle in ravaging Bristol, Bath, and all the surrounding area, including the district of Berkeley. The chronicle of John of Worcester calls Mowbray a man skilled in the art of war and he may have been acting as his uncle's military commander during the revolt. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle does not mention what happened to Mowbray after Odo's defeat, but at the trial of Bishop William of Durham in November 1088, recorded in the contemporary Durham tract De injusta vexatione Willelmi episcopi, the bishop asked to be allowed to depart with Robert de Mowbray (called ‘Roger’ in the text) for Normandy. It is not clear whether Mowbray was sent into forced exile along with the bishop or if he, like his uncle, had become reconciled with William Rufus once Bishop Odo, the leader of the revolt, had submitted in Kent. The earldom of Northumbria and the slaying of the king of Scots There is some doubt as to when Robert de Mowbray succeeded Aubrey de Coucy as earl of Northumbria. It has been suggested that Aubrey may have resigned his position after the threat of the Danish invasion in 1085. He appears as a tenant in Domesday Book but notices concerning him in the text suggest that he had recently escheated. The sources imply that William I appointed Mowbray, and thus it is usually argued that the beginning of his tenure of the earldom may be dated to 1086–7. If this is the case, then Mowbray did not immediately take up his office as he was in Normandy between the Conqueror's death (9 September 1087) and the rebellion in England which broke out after Easter 1088—the nuns of Holy Trinity, Caen, cited him as one of those who took advantage of the confusion to plunder their lands. It may be doubted that Mowbray's appointment to Northumbria would have been ratified by William Rufus, given Mowbray's earlier support for Curthose, and perhaps Mowbray's participation in the revolt of 1088 was a result of Rufus refusing to recognize his claim to the earldom. Alternatively, there is evidence to suggest that his uncle, Bishop Geoffrey, exercised comital authority in Northumberland before Robert's appointment. Abbot Stephen's account of the foundation of St Mary's Abbey, York, of 1089, noted that it was
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Bishop Geoffrey who was exercising authority in Northumbria in the first months of 1088, and it may be the case that it was the bishop who succeeded Aubrey de Coucy and that his nephew acquired the earldom between c.1089 and 1091, when William Rufus issued a record of the settlement which he had effected between Mowbray and the bishop of Durham. In this light it seems that Mowbray's killing of Malcolm III, king of Scots, was one of his first acts as earl; and it proved a successful attempt to remove the greatest threat to the untrammelled exercise of his comital authority between the rivers Tyne and Tweed. In May 1091 Malcolm III had invaded Northumbria with a large army, intending to push on further if he met with success. Rufus and Robert Curthose marched north and restored Bishop William to Durham on 11 September. Malcolm met Rufus in Lothian and Robert Curthose and Edgar Ætheling procured a treaty by which Malcolm would obey Rufus as he had obeyed William I, and Rufus would restore the twelve vills which Malcolm had held in England under the Conqueror and would give him 12 marks of gold each year. But the treaty did not last long. In 1093 Rufus summoned Malcolm III to Gloucester and then refused to see him. Consequently Malcolm returned to Scotland, raised an army, and attacked Northumbria. Robert de Mowbray surprised the Scots king, who was slain by Morael, Mowbray's nephew, sheriff of Northumberland, and also the king's godsib or gossip (that is, he had stood together with Malcolm as a baptismal sponsor). The battle took place on St Brice's day, 13 November. Malcolm's son Edward was also killed and his wife, Margaret, died shortly after hearing the news. Gaimar reports that the battle took place at Alnwick and that 3000 men were slain, and he adds that Mowbray killed the king ‘whether it was right or wrong’ (L'estoire des Engleis, lines 6109–10). Orderic Vitalis believed that the Scots were caught unarmed and unawares, possibly because they were travelling under a safe conduct. Rufus and the barons of his court were saddened by the news of Malcolm's death and the whiff of dishonour surrounding the episode may have tarnished Mowbray's reputation at court. The Historia regum Anglorum compiled at Durham saw Malcolm's death as divine punishment for his attacks on Northumbria. Two local people placed Malcolm's body on a cart and buried it at Tynemouth, whence it was translated to Dunfermline during the reign of Alexander I (1107–24). Landed wealth and marriage According to Orderic Vitalis, on the death of Bishop Geoffrey (2 February 1093), Mowbray inherited his 280 manors. Excluding tenements in towns, Domesday Book recorded 265 manors belonging to the bishop, which confirms Orderic's estimate. Bishop Geoffrey has been ranked as the seventh richest baron excluding William I's half-brothers, Odo of Bayeux and Robert de Mortain. The manors were distributed in two main groups, the larger of which was in the west of England and the smaller in the east midlands counties, with one or two estates elsewhere. The inheritance of his uncle's estates, together with the earldom of Northumbria, would have made Robert de Mowbray one of the most powerful barons in William Rufus's kingdom, and may account for the king's harsh treatment of him after the rebellion of 1095. Three months before this rebellion Mowbray married Matilda, daughter of Richer de l'Aigle, whose family had usually supported Duke Robert Curthose against William Rufus in the struggle for the Anglo-Norman realm. Orderic stated that Mowbray's marriage was contracted in order to extend his territories and to forge alliances with the most powerful of his countrymen. Matilda was a niece of Hugh d'Avranches, earl of Chester, and it may be this connection to which Orderic refers.
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Northern politics and rebellion Despite his wealth and connections, Mowbray's position in the north was by no means preeminent. The Historia regum Anglorum attributed to Symeon of Durham records that not long before his death in 1093 Abbot Paul of St Albans had taken possession of the church of St Oswin at Tynemouth with the aid of Mowbray, contrary to the injunctions of the monks of Durham. Paul contracted an illness at Tynemouth and died on the way home, and this was seen as divine retribution for his part in the abstraction of St Cuthbert's property. According to an account of the donation of Tynemouth to St Albans produced at Durham, Mowbray's men, Gumer and Robert Taca, forcibly removed the monk Turchil who was managing the church of St Oswin for the community at Durham. The Durham monks advanced their claim to Tynemouth in a series of spurious documents produced in the twelfth century which claimed that Earl Waltheof, Bishop Walcher of Durham, and Earl Aubrey had granted and confirmed the church of St Oswin to them. The context of Mowbray's action may be a dispute with Bishop William concerning the administration of certain vills in the south of the bishopric over which both claimed jurisdiction. In 1091 Rufus effected a compromise between the two in which, for a payment of £100, Mowbray abandoned his claim to the vills. It thus seems likely that he was also on poor terms with Bishop William and the monks of Durham, and the donation of Tynemouth to the abbey of St Albans may have been an attempt to make redress. The date of this has been debated, but it should perhaps be assigned to the period after the return of Bishop William from exile in 1091 and before the death of Abbot Paul in 1093. It seems that the bishop and the earl were jockeying for a position of authority in the northeast of England: a writ issued on behalf of Rufus ordered Mowbray to restore any land which he had taken from the bishop since the latter's restoration in 1091. In late 1094 or early 1095 Mowbray plundered four canards (large trading vessels) which had sailed from Norway to Northumbria. The merchants demanded reparations from the king and Rufus ordered Mowbray to appear at his court. The earl refused and Rufus was forced to recompense the merchants from his own treasury. Again Mowbray was summoned to court, and again he refused to appear. It is likely that a third summons was issued, the defiance of which rendered Robert a contumacious vassal. Rufus's attitude towards rebels had hardened considerably as he had grown stronger after the failed revolt of 1088 and he refused to grant the earl hostages or safe passage to his court. Having already sent his younger brother Henry into Northumbria, Rufus gathered an army and marched against Mowbray. At the Tyne he besieged and took the novum castrum (‘new castle’) built by Robert Curthose in 1081 and defended in 1095 by Mowbray's unnamed brother. Some authors believed that Tynemouth is referred to in the sources, but there is no evidence of a castle next to the church there at this date and the inability of Mowbray to defend his position there later in the campaign seems to confirm this. In addition, Rufus issued three charters regarding Tynemouth in favour of the monks of St Albans and, it has been argued, it seems unlikely that he would have issued these while trying to reduce the site. Bypassing Newcastle, Rufus attacked and captured the small castle erected by William de Merlay at Morpeth. Here, according to the sources, Mowbray's best knights were captured. In August the king pushed on to Bamburgh where Mowbray had taken his stand. A charter issued by Edgar, future king of Scots, granting estates in Lothian to the monks of St Cuthbert was issued ‘in the year in which King William II built a new castle at Bamburgh against Earl Robert’ (Lawrie, 13). Outside the fortification, Rufus erected the siege castle mentioned in Edgar's charter which he called Malveisin or Yfel nehhbur (‘bad neighbour’) . During the siege, however, Rufus had to return
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south in order to make a foray into Wales. In the meantime, Mowbray left Bamburgh, possibly as the result of a trick. According to the chronicle of John of Worcester, Mowbray was offered Newcastle, and so set off with thirty knights. This may have been a ruse to lure him away from Bamburgh, and when he was observed by the garrison of the Malveisin they pursued him and warned the custodians of Newcastle. As a result Mowbray was forced to take refuge in Tynemouth, possibly defended only by the ramparts of the settlement. He was able to resist for a time but on the sixth day of the siege he was wounded in the leg and forced to flee to the church of St Oswin. The king's soldiers dragged him from his sanctuary and put him into custody. The historians of the church of St Cuthbert saw this as divine punishment for Mowbray's abstraction of Tynemouth church from the monks of Durham. The earl was paraded before Bamburgh and Rufus threatened to put out his eyes if his wife, Matilda, and his nephew, Sheriff Morael, did not surrender the fortress. They duly handed over Bamburgh to the king. Imprisonment and death After the rebellion of 1095 Mowbray forfeited his estates and spent the next twenty or thirty years in prison. Initially after his capture he was taken to Windsor and imprisoned in the castle. His nephew Morael purchased his own freedom by disclosing the names of other conspirators, who were subsequently punished. According to Orderic Vitalis, Morael died in exile, an impoverished and reviled figure. Mowbray's wife was granted an annulment of her marriage by Pope Paschal II (r. 1099–1118) and she became the wife of Nigel d'Aubigny, one of Henry I's close associates. According to Orderic, Nigel treated her well until the death of her brother Gilbert de l'Aigle, when he repudiated her, ostensibly on the grounds that she had been his cousin's wife, but more probably because she had failed to bear him any children. Nigel d'Aubigny then married Gundreda, sister of Hugh de Gournai. Mowbray was childless and the estates he had held were broken up, some being used to reward those who had remained loyal to Rufus. The king did not appoint another earl to Northumbria, retaining control of the lands himself, and indeed they must have been a valuable asset in the struggle with his brother for control over Normandy. The Mowbray honour created for Nigel d'Aubigny bore little relation to the conglomeration of lands held by Bishop Geoffrey and his nephew. Orderic Vitalis painted a thumb-nail sketch of Robert de Mowbray's character. He was distinguished by his great wealth and power, and his audacity and military daring caused him to hold his fellow nobles in contempt and to refuse to obey his superiors. He was heavily built, tall, and strong, had a dark complexion and was covered in hair. He was, by nature, daring and crafty and his features melancholy and harsh. He brooded and scarcely ever smiled when he was speaking. According to a St Albans source, Mowbray became a monk before he died and was buried in the abbey, at the spot where St Symeon's Chapel was later built. The year of his death may be either 1115 or 1125, as the sources variously suggest that he was held prisoner for twenty or thirty years. William M. Aird Sources Symeon of Durham, Opera · John of Worcester, Chron. · ASC, s.a. 1087, 1093, 1095 · Ordericus Vitalis, Eccl. hist. · Reg. RAN, vols. 1–2 · R. C. van Caenegem, ed., English lawsuits from William I to Richard I, 2 vols., SeldS, 106–7 (1990–91) · L'estoire des Engleis by Geffrei
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Gaimar, ed. A. Bell, Anglo-Norman Texts, 14–16 (1960) · J. Le Patourel, ‘Geoffrey of Montbray, bishop of Coutances, 1049–93’, EngHR, 59 (1944), 129–61 · H. S. Offler, ed., Durham episcopal charters, 1071–1152, SurtS, 179 (1968) · F. Barlow, William Rufus (1983) · VCH Northumberland, vol. 8 · Paris, Chron. · A. C. Lawrie, ed., Early Scottish charters prior to AD 1153 (1905) Wealth at death est. over £750 p.a.: W. J. Corbett, Cambridge medieval history, vol. 5, pp. 510–11 © Oxford University Press 2004–8 All rights reserved: see legal notice
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