Roger Fitzmiles, 2nd Earl of Hereford

Roger Fitzmiles, 2nd Earl of Hereford, (before 1125 – 1155) was an English noble who played an active and influential part in the wars between Empress Matilda and King Stephen (a civil war known as the Anarchy).

Roger was the son of Miles de Gloucester, 1st Earl of Hereford and Sibyl, daughter of Bernard de Neufmarché. the heiress of Brecon.

In 1136, Roger married Cecilia, daughter of Pain Fitzjohn, In December the next year King Stephen confirmed Cecilia's inheritance of all her father's lands. During the Anarchy Roger acted as an auxiliary to his father's activities, and his consent and support was written into a treaty (1143) between his father and Robert, Earl of Gloucester.

Roger succeeded his father after he had died in a hunting accident on 24 December 1143 while under excommunication by the church in an edict issued by the Bishop of Hereford. Roger, who bore hatred to the church for his father's excommunication, and compelled the prior of Llanthony, as a friend of the Bishop of Hereford, to resign. He even troubled his kinsman, Gilbert Foliot, on his becoming Bishop of Hereford, and was by him, after three warnings, formally excommunicated. Subsequently, however, he founded Flaxley Abbey, a Cistercian house, within the Forest of Dean, possibly on the spot of his father's death.

In the early part of 1144 Robert was at Devizes with the Empress Matilda, and he is again found there with her son in 1149, with whom he marched northwards to Carlisle.

Initially Roger was dominated by Robert, Earl of Gloucester, but gradually the balance of power shifted and when Robert died, Roger became the leader of the Angevin party in England, a point recognised by the terms of a new treaty (1147) between himself and William Fitz Robert (son of Robert) and the 2nd Earl of Gloucester.

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