ROBERT DE MOWBRAY

'Robert de Mowbray' (d. 1125), a Norman, was the earl of Northumbria from 1086, when Aubrey de Coucy's lands and titles were redistributed, until 1095 when he was deposed for rebelling against William Rufus, King of England. He was the nephew of Geoffrey de Montbray, bishop of Coutances.
He and Geoffrey sided with Robert, duke of Normandy, in the Rebellion of 1088 against William Rufus, but they were pardoned at the close of the rebellion. In 1091 Mowbray defeated Malcolm III of Scotland of Scotland, who had invaded England, and in 1093 surprised and slew this king near Alnwick; soon after this event he succeeded to his uncle's large estates.
In 1095 he led a rebellion which had for its object the transference of the crown from the sons of the Conqueror to Stephen of Aumale. Rufus marched against the earl in person, and Mowbray shut himself up in Bamborough Castle. He refused to come to William's ''Curia Regis'', the thrice-annual court where decisions were made and delivered to the great lords, and William subsequently led an army against him and defeated him. He was captured by treachery, escaped, and was captured again.
The earl was dispossessed and imprisoned for life. Fellow conspirators, William of Eu and William of Aldrie, received harsher punishment.
After Robert's downfall , the ancient earldom of the Anglo-Saxons was left vacant for quite some time. It was not really filled again until the time of the Percys in the fourteenth century.

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References

References

★ Edward Augustus Freeman, ''William Rufus'', especially Appendices C. C. F. F. (Oxford, 1882).

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