Roger Fitzmiles, 2nd Earl of Hereford

Roger Fitzmiles, 2nd Earl of Hereford († 1155 ) was an Anglo-Norman nobleman and one of the leading supporters of Empress Matilda during the Anarchy in England.

Family and origin

Roger Fitzmiles was from the Pitres family . He was the eldest son of Miles de Gloucester and his wife Sibyl, the daughter and heiress of Bernard de Neufmarché . In 1137, King Stephan Roger and his wife Cecilia confirmed their claims to the inheritance of Cecilia's father, Pain FitzJohn . These included Archenfield in Herefordshire and claims to Arwystli in Wales and the Lacy family lands in the southern Welsh Marches .

Supporter of the Empress and expansion of his territory

During the English Civil War, Roger, like his father, sided with the Empress Mathilda from 1139 onwards. After the death of his father, he became Earl of Hereford in late 1143. Due to the Civil War, he remained a largely independent ruler of his extensive estates, which included Hereford , Gloucester , Herefordshire, the Forest of Dean , Brecknockshire and northern Gwent . Roger supported Robert of Gloucester , the half-brother and leader of the Empress's followers at Tetbury in 1144 and the campaign that followed. At the same time, however, he expanded his influence to neighboring, smaller dominions such as Monmouth and Clifford and occupied Winchcombe . When he and his brother Walter, the Lord of Grosmont and Abergavenny Roger de Berkley , captured the Castellan of Dursley in Gloucestershire in 1146 , a brief, violent feud broke out with Philip FitzRobert, a son of Robert of Gloucester. In this fight for supremacy in northern Gloucestershire, however, Roger was able to prevail.

After the death of Robert of Gloucester in 1147, Roger, who owned the largest estates among the Empress's followers, became the leader of her followers in England. With Robert's eldest son William FitzRobert he concluded a formal friendship and alliance treaty in which they mutually delimited their limits of influence. Although Roger was nominally a vassal of Williams, this contract illustrates Roger's supremacy, as he was supported by other Marcher Lords . Roger also made an agreement with Morgan Owain , the Welsh Lord of Caerleon , whose warriors fought for him as mercenaries, and with Robert de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Leicester . Beaumont and his brother Waleran , the Earl of Worcester, were actually on King Stephen's side, but in order to maintain their possessions in Worcestershire , they arranged with Roger. Through his wife's inheritance, Roger was entitled to the Weobley lordship in Herefordshire. He consolidated these claims through an agreement with his brother-in-law William de Braose , Lord von Radnor and Builth , which was explicitly directed against the claims of Gilbert de Lacy. Through this policy, pressure on smaller barons and alliances with other powerful barons and counts, he used the weakness of the royal central power and in fact established his own territory in the western Central England.

In 1148 Roger received the young Heinrich Plantangenet , Mathilda's eldest son, in the Welsh Marches and then accompanied him to Carlisle , where King David of Scotland knighted Henry in 1149 . After the failure of the subsequent campaign against northern England in the spring of 1149, he escorted him back to Hereford. He then fought with William FitzRobert against the supporters of King Stephen in Devonshire and thwarted an attack by Eustach , Stephen's eldest son, on Devizes , one of the empress's most important bases in England. After Henry's return to Normandy in 1150, the warlike actions subsided. Due to power struggles, the supporters of the empress were divided among themselves, which Stephan tried to exploit in 1152 by attacks on Wallingford and Donnington Castle in Berkshire . Roger defended Wallingford Castle against Stephen's troops for a year until, at his urging, Heinrich Plantagenet finally returned to England in January 1153 and appalled Wallingford . Negotiations subsequently took place between Heinrich and Stephan, which led to the Wallingford Treaty and thus to the end of the Civil War.

Conflict with Henry II and death

When Heinrich became the new king as Heinrich II. After Stephen's death in 1154, Roger found himself in a difficult situation, as Heinrich intended to strengthen the central royal authority again and wanted to reclaim lands assigned under King Stephen. Of all the leading nobles, Roger and his father Miles were the greatest landowner during the Civil War, taking possession of Hereford Castle and Town, the Royal Forest of Dean, and numerous other castles in Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Gwent. In March or April 1154, the king and Roger finally quarreled over possession of Gloucester Castle . Roger angrily left the royal court and raised a large force of his vassals, allies and Welsh mercenaries. Presumably through the mediation of Gilbert Foliot , the Bishop of Hereford , the king reached a compromise with Roger after Roger opened his castles to the king, but was able to keep most of his lands and only the castle of St Briavels and the reign of Weobley to the king had to pass. Roger was therefore able to return to the royal court in late summer, but fell ill in the autumn of 1155. Terminally ill, he retired as a monk to Gloucester Abbey and died there towards the end of the year.

Succession

Roger's marriage to Cecilia, the daughter of Payn Fitzjohn, was childless. His younger brother Walter became his heir, but Heinrich II took the opportunity to break up his territory. He declared the title of Earl of Hereford lapsed and withdrew much of the land that Roger had acquired during the Civil War. Walter only remained the ancestral estates of the Pitres family and the offices of sheriff of Herefordshire and Gloucestershire. He died in Palestine around 1160 without male descendants . His younger brothers Henry, who was presumably killed by Seisyll ap Dyfnwal , the Welsh lord of Upper Gwent, followed in quick succession , and Mahel, who died in a fire in Bronllys Castle around 1165 . Since they did not leave any male descendants, their possessions were divided among his sisters after Mahel's death. The eldest sister Margaret , who had married Humphrey II. De Bohun , received the estates in Herefordshire and Gloucestershire, while Bertha, who had married William de Braose, became heir to Abergavenny and Brecknockshire. Bertha's son William avenged the murder of his uncle Henry de Gloucester in 1175 with the Abergavenny massacre, in which he had Seisyll ap Dyfnwal and his entourage killed during a banquet.

Relationship to the Church

Because of the excommunication of his father by Robert de Bethune, the Bishop of Hereford, Roger fought against the Church and forced the Prior of Llanthony, a friend of the Bishop of Hereford, to resign. After Bethune's death, he got his relative Gilbert Foliot to become the new bishop of Hereford. Because of his ongoing attacks on the church, however, Foliot had to warn Roger three times and finally excommunicate. As atonement, Roger donated the Cistercian Abbey Flaxley Abbey in the Forest of Dean in 1151 , which was presumably located at the place where his father died in an accident. He also gave generous foundations to other abbeys in his sphere of influence, including Brecon, Hereford and Llanthony secunda.

literature

• David Crouch: Roger [Roger fitz Miles], earl of Hereford (d. 1155). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of 2004

Individual evidence

1. ^ Emilie Amt: The accession of Henry II in England. Royal government restored, 1149-1159. Boydell, Woodbridge 1993. ISBN 978-0-85115-348-3 , p. 35
2. ↑ Jim Bradbury: Stephen and Matilda. The civil war of 1139-53. Sutton Pub., Stroud 1998. ISBN 978-0-7509-1872-5 , p. 182
3. ↑ Geraint Roberts: Welsh castles. Y Lolfa, Talybont 2001. ISBN 978-0-86243-550-9 , p. 22
4. ^ John Horace Round: Miles de Gloucester. In: Dictionary of National Biography, Vol. XXI. London 1890, p. 440. Retrieved November 26, 2013 . 

predecessor	Office	successor
Miles de Gloucester	Lord High Constable 1143-1155	Walter de Gloucester
Miles de Gloucester	Earl of Hereford 1143-1155	Title expired