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Born around 1054 Robert was the eldest son of William the Conqueror and his wife Matilda of Flanders. The events that followed the Battle of Hastings meant that his father was often away from the Duchy and during these times the region was put under the control of Matilda and her teenage son.
Robert was a warm and witty character and proved popular amongst the younger nobility. The older ones, however, soon saw that he was not as reliable a character as his father.
The French King Philip I had seen his authority in the area weakened when William was anointed King and to avoid Norman independence he tried to sow division between Robert and his father.
The son stayed loyal, however, for ten years but in the spring of 1078 he demanded from his father complete control of the duchy. When he failed to get a response he left the royal court and with his supporters tried to capture Rouen. When this failed he fled to Philip who gave him charge of the castle of Gerberoi which was besieged by his father. This led to one of William’s rare defeats in which he was unhorsed and injured in the arm with his life being saved by an Englishmen who gave up his own called Toki.
The pair were reconciled and Robert even led an invasion of Scotland the following year one of the effects of which was the building of a castle on his way back on the Tees which was to evolve into the city of Newcastle.
In 1082 Robert’s unreliability was shown again when he rebelled with the full support of Philip. This time there was to be no reconciliation with his father. In 1087 his father unexpectedly died of his injuries incurred while destroying the town of Mantes. On his deathbed he urged his son William Rufus to hurry to London to claim the English thrown. Robert was fortunate, considering he was still in rebellion against his father in Ponthieu, to be given the Dukedom.
In order to invade England to claim the crown Robert needed money. His young brother Henry had inherited money rather than land from his father so Robert sold him the western third of Normandy for 3,000 crowns.
Curthose’s plans for invasion soon fell through, his alliance with Philip came to nothing the King was getting fat and more interest by now in food than war. Curthose himself preferred to carouse than fight and it was said that he often could not get out of bed in the morning because his courtesans had stolen his clothes in the night while he was drunk.
He reclaimed Western Normandy from Henry by throwing him in jail but when Rufus appeared in Northern Normandy soon released him to fight on his side. When the citizens of Rouen led by the burgher Conan rebelled in support of Rufus the Duke soon slunked off to the other side of the Seine to visit his friend the monk William of Arques. He had to rely on Henry to fight off the rebels which he did in dramatic style capturing Conan and personally throwing him out of a window from the top of the castle tower.
Curthose showed a certain lack of gratitude by then joining forces with Rufus and again turning against Henry who soon found himself besieged in Mont St Michel. The handicap of no natural water source meant that he had to request some from the besiegers and chivalrously Curthose let him get some. Tradition tells how Curthose gave them a barrel of his finest wine. When Rufus complained about this state of affairs the Duke explained that Henry was their only brother and where could they get another one from.
When Rufus was killed in a hunting accident in the New Forest in 1100 the reconciled Henry was at hand to rush to be crowned at Westminster Abbey 3 days later. Robert was still in Italy coming back from the first crusade though as a consolation he did find a new beautiful Italian wife.
Most of the nobles fell in behind Henry who was to finally defeat Curthose at the battle of Tinchbray in 1106. This was to be the climax of Wace’s 16,000 line epic The Roman de Rou and was to see Curthose held prisoner for the next 28 years in England where he eventually died aged eighty a thoroughly discredited man.