Compatiens, mitis cum pateretur erat.
Noluit esse suis dominus, studuit pater esse,
Semper in adversis murus et arma suis.”
He speaks of him again in the letter “de Contemptu Mundi” (p. 299), where he gives a glowing description of the splendour of his court, and speaks of him as “ipse quasi pater et deus omnium æstimatus,” and as “justitiarius totius Angliæ et ab omnibus summe formidatus.” He then goes on to quote him as an example, like so many others, of the uncertainty of earthly prosperity. He tells how he was troubled before his death by law-suits brought by some inferior justiciar, and then records his death at Woodstock. He adds, “Fuit autem Robertus præsul mitis et humilis, multos erigens, nullum deprimens, pater orphanorum, deliciæ suorum.” Further on (p. 305) we learn that Robert Bloet had a son named Simon, who was born before he was Bishop, but whom he made Dean of Lincoln while he was very young. Simon’s prosperity and unhappy end are also among the instances which are to lead to “contemptus mundi.” He is thus brought in;
“Decanum nostrum Simonem non prætereo, qui filius Roberti præsulis nostri fuit; quem genuerat dum cancellarius Willelmi magni regis esset. Qui, ut decebat, regaliter nutritus, et adhuc impubis decanus noster effectus, in summam regis amicitiam et curiales dignitates mox provectus est.”
We may be sure that it was the existence of this son which caused Bishop Robert to be reproached with looseness of life. Yet Simon may very likely have been born in lawful wedlock, though it is hardly safe to assume with Mr. Dimock that he certainly was. But, when Robert had once become an object of monastic dislike, stories grew as usual; it was found out that his tomb in Lincoln minster was haunted. So says the so-called Bromton (X Scriptt. 988), who is copied by Knighton (2364);
“Episcopatum Lincolniensem, per mortem sancti Remigii vacantem, Roberto cognomento Bloet cancellario suo, viro quidem libidinoso, dedit, qui prædictam ecclesiæ dedicationem Lincolniensis postea segniter explevit. Hic demum apud Wodestoke a latere regis recedens obiit et exenteratus est, cujus viscera apud monasterium de Eynesham quod ipse fundaverit, cetera apud Lincolniam sunt humata, ubi satis constabat loci custodes nocturnis umbris esse agitatos, quousque ille locus missis et eleemosynis piaretur.”
The reputation which Bishop Robert left behind him at Lincoln we learn from Giraldus and John of Schalby in the seventh volume of Dimock’s Giraldus. Giraldus himself (p. 31) brings him in as “prudentia et probitate conspicuus.” He records his gifts to his church, and his doubling the number of its prebends. From a Lincoln point of view, he highly approves of the translation of the monks of Stow to Eynsham; but he seems not to like the separation of Ely from the diocese of Lincoln (see N. C. vol. v. p. 229), and he speaks of Robert’s “inconsiderata largitio” and “alia sui deliramenta” in charging his see with the gift of a mantle of sable, worth a hundred pounds, to the King. John of Schalby (195) copies Giraldus, but abridges him, and leaves out some of his epithets both of praise and blame.
The death of Bishop Robert in 1123 is recorded by several of our writers, but there is no account so graphic as that in our own tongue. The King is riding in his deerfold at Woodstock with the two bishops, Robert of Lincoln and Roger of Salisbury, on either side of him. The three ride and talk. The Bishop of Lincoln suddenly sinks, and says to the King, “Lord King, I die (Laferd kyng, ic swelte).” The King gets down from his horse, lifts him in his arms, and has him carried into the house, where he soon dies (“Se king alihte dune of his hors, and alehte hine betweox his earmes, and let hine beran ham to his inne, and wearð þa sone dead”). Does this “inne” mean the King’s own house at Woodstock, or any separate quarters of the Bishop, like the “hospitium” of Anselm at Gloucester and elsewhere?
There is something odd in the Bishop’s last words being given in English. The King knew that tongue, and the Bishop may very likely have done so; but we can hardly fancy that they spoke it to one another.