Robert POITIERS

   Another name for Robert was Raymond II ANTIOCH.

   General Notes:

BOOKS
The story of the Plantagenets, Vol I, The Conquering Family, Thomas B Costain, Doubleday & Co, Garden City, 1949, p40:
"...[Eleanor] discovered that her uncle Robert, who ruled in Antioch, was a handsome man of impeccable manners and ingratiating address, and very little older than herself. Robert, in fact, had inherited all the bad qualities of his father, the wicked oldrogue of a duke. He and his beautiful niece were in each other's company a great deal. Robert had grandiose ideas and had been hatching a scheme to weld all of the Near East into one strong confederation (with himself at the head, of course),and to aid in working this out he wanted to get his niece free of the good Louis and marry her to the Sultan of Iconium, as the price of that potentate's support. From the reports which were current, Eleanor would have preferred to remain in close relationship with the handsomeRobert to being head wife in the harem of a heathen ruler. At any rate, the gossip about them became so great that it even reached the ears of the fatuous Louis..."

Eleanor of Aquitaine the Mother Queen, Desmond Seward, 1978, Dorset Press, p49:
"...Eleanor's chief diversion was the prince of Antioch himself, her long- lost uncle Raymond of Poitiers, who was still only in his forties.
"Much of Raymond's colourful personality is symbolized by the way in which he acquired his principality. When Bohemond II was slain in battle by the Turks in 1130 his ambitious widow Alice offered to marry her daughter Constance- who was Bohemond's heiress- to a son of the Byzantine emperor. The horrified Latin barons and prelates of Antioch appealed for help to king Fulk of Jerusalem. Fulk decided that Raymond, being of excellent capabilities and ducal birth but landless, would make a suitable prince, and sent secret messengers to him in England at Henry I's court. To avoid being arrested en route by the Sicilian king, who also had designs on Antioch, Raymond travelled to the East in disguise, sometimes as a pedlar, sometimes as a poor pilgrim. When he arrived he revealed himself to Alice and immediately proposed marriage. His proposal was accepted but, while Alice was preparing for her wedding, Raymond- with the convivance of the Latin patriarch- surreptitiously married the nine-year-old princess Constance in the cathedral. He was now ruling prince of Antioch by right and the unfortunate Alice had to depart into obscurity...
"In addition Raymond was tall and good-looking, with great personal magnetism. Sir Steven Runciman says of him: `He was handsom and of immense physical strength, not well educated, but with a high reputation of gallantry and for purity of conduct.' He could bring a war horse to a halt by the grip of his thighs, and was a famous jouster and huntsman. As befitted the son of William IX, he like to have poems and chronicles read to him...
"Unfortunately the immediate liking that sprang up between uncle and niece was so demonstrative that, despite Raymond's reputation for `purity of conduct', there were actually whispers of incest. But we hear of thsi allegation only from a chronicler who wrote forty years later...Admittedly, Eleanor was quite capable of being unfaithful to a husband as monkish and bloodless as Louis. But reliable contemporary writers such as John of Salisbury and Bervase of Canterbury are plainly convinced of her innocence. There is no evidence that she slept with her uncle, and no serious historian now believes the accusation.
"Nonetheless it is undeniable thatthe king was angered by his wife's affection for prince Raymond. The explanation seems to lie in a disagreement over the purpose of the French crusade. Raymond wanted to use such a reinforcement to attack the most dangerous Saracen strongholds,in particular Aleppo; he even hoped to reconquer and restore the lost county of Edessa. He had too few troops of his own and without help there was a possibility that he might be overrun by the Saracens; and if Antioch fell, all Outremer wouldbe in danger. But Louis decided to go on to Jerusalem, and clung to his resolve with all the obstinacy of a weak young man. Perhaps he resented the excessive self assurance of his elegant and possibly patronizing host, and he may have nursed suspicions of Raymons's relations with the Greeks, whom Louis had now grown to hate..."

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1981, Micropaedia, Vol VIII, p339, Raymond III:
"...Count of the crusaders' state of Tripoli...
"Raymond succeeded to the countship after the assassination of his father Raymond II in 1152..."