Robert, Count of Eu

Robert, Count of Eu and Lord of Hastings (d. between 1091 and 1093), son of William I, Count of Eu, and his wife Lesceline. Count of Eu and Lord of Hastings. Robert assumed the countship of Eu after the rebellion of his brother William Busac.

When Henry I, King of France, sent his army, under command of his brother Odo, to Normandy in 1054, he was met by the army of William, then the Duke of Normandy. William’s forces were under the command of Robert and Walter Giffard, Lord of Longueville. The Battle of Mortemer was decisive in defeating the French, resulting in what has been described as a blood-bath. Odo escaped and Henry promptly withdrew his forces.

Robert commanded 60 ships in the fleet supporting the landing of William in England and the Norman conquest of England. Around 1068, William awarded to Robert the Hastings Castle and the adjacent territories previously owned by Onfroy du Tilleul, the nephew of Hugh de Grandmesnil, a proven companion of William the Conqueror. According to the Domesday Book, Robert and his son William each possessed lands in separate counties. The sum of the annual income generated by the lands of the two men amounted to about 690 pounds sterling.

In 1069 he was charged by the king to support Robert, Count of Mortain, to monitor the Danes, whose fleet moored in the mouth of the Humber, while the latter was to repress the revolt initiated by Eadric the Wild the west. When the Danes left their sanctuary to plunder the neighborhood, the two commanders and their army fell upon them unexpectedly, crushing them, and forcing them to flee by sea.

After the death of William, the Robert followed the party of Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy. Rejected by his softness and debauchery, he turned, along with several other Norman lords, towards the king William II the Red, from whom he received several garrisons for his castles. During the attempted intervention of the English king in Normandy in February 1091, he was one of his supporters. He died after this episode and his son William II assumed the countship of the county.

...
Wikipedia