Robert II, Count of Dreux


Robert II of Dreux, Count of Dreux and Braine, was the eldest surviving son of Robert I, Count of Dreux, and Agnes de Baudemont, countess of Braine, and a grandson of King Louis VI of France.
He participated in the Third Crusade, at the Siege of Acre and the Battle of Arsuf. He took part in the war in Normandy against the Angevin Kings between 1193 and 1204. Count Robert had seized the castle of Nonancourt from Richard I of England while he was imprisoned in Germany in late 1193. The count also participated in the Albigensian Crusade in 1210. In 1214 he fought alongside King Philip Augustus at the Battle of Bouvines.

Marriages and Children

His first marriage with Mahaut of Burgundy in 1178 ended with separation in 1181 and produced no children. The excuse for the annulment was consanguinity. Mahaut and Robert were both great-great grandchildren of William I, Count of Burgundy and his wife Etiennete and they were both Capetian descendants of Robert II of France.
His second marriage to Yolande de Coucy, the daughter of Raoul I, seigneur de Coucy and Agnès de Hainaut, produced several children:
Count Robert's tomb bore the following inscription, in Medieval Latin hexameters with internal rhyme:
Of which the translation is: "Born from the race of kings, and a devoted guardian of the laws, Robert, Count of Braine, here rests covered, and lies buried by the remains of his mother Agnes."
It is also dated Anno Gracię M. CC. XVIII. die innocentum, that is, "In the Year of Grace 1218, on the Feast of the Holy Innocents."

Ancestry