King Robert II of FRANCE, KING

                   King of France from 1031 to 1060, was born 1008, died in 1060 inVitry-aux-Loges (Vitry-en-Brie), buried at St. Denis. He was the Duke ofBurgundy 1015-1031. He is the least-known of all the Capetian Kings; noone wrote about him in his lifetime, and the destruction of the archivesshortly after his time has left a huge blank over this period. All thatis known is that his mother, *Queen Constance, contested his right to thethrone, which she wanted to go to Robert; this resulted in a war betweenthe two brothers, of which little is known. Henry won it by buying thesupport of his vassals, which cost him French Vexin and the totalrenunciation of the duchy of Burgundy in favor of his brother, in 1034.Without the benefit of the coronation it is likely that Henry, whoappears to have been a mediocre man, would have been brushed aside. Butthe anointing brought him respect and won time for, concessions. Managingto remain in power is after all a sign of stability, and despite theobscurity of his reign it saw a strengthening of the dynasty. He wascrowned co-king with his father in 1026. He married (1) Matilda, daughterof Emperor Conrad II, niece of Emperor Henry II. of Germany. The mostinteresting aspect of Henry's life was his attempt to bring about aFranco-Russian alliance by marriage. According to one record he thenmarried (2) Matilda, daughter of Mgve Liudorf of Friesland. After thedeath of his second wife Matilda in 1044, he married, rather late in lifein Riems in 1051, (3) Anne of Kiev, daughter of Yaroslav, the Russianhead of state, and granddaughter of Valdimir I of Kiev, in Russia.  HenryI. died in 1060, having crowned his son, Philip. Philip was only eightyears old at the time of his father's death. One of the young king'suncles, Baldwin, Count of Flanders, became the regent. Anne of Kiev,refused to be regent. Later she was abducted by Raoul of Crepy, livedwith him as his wife and married him when his wife died. Widowed a secondtime, she lost her title as Queen and was henceforth referred to as theQueen Mother. Of Baldwin's regency little is known, although it appearsto have been fairly lacking in incident, but Burgundy, over which Robertruled, took advantage of the situation to assert its independence fromthe French crown; this was to occur frequently in the course of thevarious Burgundian dynasties.