Robert VII, Lord of Béthune
Robert VII de Béthune († November 1248 in Sardinia ) was a French nobleman of Artois native to the house Béthune. He was a younger son of Guillaume II Sire de Béthune († 1214 ) and Mathilde de Dendermonde.
Since his older brother Daniel († 1226 ) was considered the father's heir, Robert had to hope for no greater heritage, was therefore knight in the wake of Count Ferrand of Flanders. The house Bethune belonged to the most influential nobility of Artois, a former Flemish fief, which had to be after changeful action to the son of Isabella of Hainault, the French crown prince Louis VIII, abdicated but. Count Baldwin IX. of Flanders this had once recognized in the Treaty of Peronne ( 1198 ), but pursued his son in law, Count Ferrand, a policy for the recovery of Artois, which he opposed the French royal house. The tension between these powers, the house Béthune positioned on both sides. While his father and his brother were loyal to their French lords, Robert chose the side of the Counts of Flanders.
In 1213, Robert accompanied the Count Ferrand in exile in England after King Philip II Augustus was invaded in Flanders. That same year, he led, together with the Earl of Salisbury by a successful attack on the French fleet in the harbor of Damme, which an imminent invasion of England could be defeated. In the following year he took part in the decisive battle in part Bouvines (27 July 1214), however, in the bear king Philip II Augustus the victory and Count Ferrand could capture. Robert himself was taken prisoner at the battle of a generic knight, but this was immediately released him after he had promised him an order based ransom. Narrated was this story from an anonymous chronicler who was standing in Robert's services and 1220-1223 a Chronicle of the French kings wrote ( Chroniques des rois de France and the Dukes of Normandy ).
In 1226 Daniel de Bethune died without children of their own, which Robert inherited the family estate at Béthune, Richebourg and Dendermonde, and the hereditary office of advocate of the church and abbey of Saint -Vaast of Arras. Obviously, he had approached in the following years of the French crown, because in 1236 he is named as a guarantor of the Treaty of Peronne, he recognized thus. Previously, already Count Ferrand of Flanders, the crown had submitted in its entirety, after he was released from his prison in 1227.
From his marriage with Elizabeth de Morialmez Robert had a daughter and heiress, Matilda († 1264 ), who in 1246 with Gui de Dampierre († 1305) was married, a member of the Flemish Count House of Dampierre. In 1248, Robert decided to participate in the Crusade of King Louis IX. from France to Egypt ( Sixth Crusade ). On his passage to Cyprus, he fell ill during a stopover in Sardinia and died, his body was transferred to Arras and buried there.
Da Gui de Dampierre had risen in 1251 to the Count of Flanders, the Bethune - heritage was joined by Mathilde with the Flemish county. Her son, Count Robert III. ( Robert de Béthune called ), Béthune, however, came in 1312 to the French crown from.
The Bethune family sat in a side line to this day, descended from Robert's younger brother Guillaume de Béthune, Lord of Meulebeeke.
Coat of arms
The one on the sixth Crusade ( 1248 ) conducted crest.