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+[[!template id=character name="Robert de Dovre" house="de Dovre" job="Merchant" rank="Gentleman" appage=26 born=1190/07/23 updated=1216/10/13 covenant="Schola Pythagoranis" parens=" " origin="Dover" ethnicity="Norman" religion="Catholic" age=26 ]]
+## Robert de Dovre
+
+When William de Dovre's second son Robert was born in autumn 1190, the successful merchant and Baron of Dover had a clear plan for the future of his family and his business, which were naturally one and the same. His elder son, Henry, would be trained in arms and in political manoeuvring, and would play the knight, make himself useful to those of higher rank, and continue the business he had begun of helping the family to climb the social structure of Kent and England; meanwhile, Robert would be trained in the arts of money - the business of striking a deal and the laws that governed it, and the matter of transporting oneself and one's goods from A to B as rapidly and safely as possible. In so doing, he would provide the resources that Henry would require to promote the family further.
+
+Had the brothers had the temperament of an Angevin, this plan would have failed, but instead - while neither of them seemed particularly attached to the concept of duty in other ways - the brothers grew up with genuine affection for each other and their father. To promote their friendship, William began to have the boys tutored together in archery and sailing; skills at which Robert proved a natural and able to keep up with his elder brother. As Robert came of age, he took to plying the Channel like his father before him, carrying goods from England to Normandy and back again. So it was natural enough that when King John responded to Phillip of France's threat to invade England by sending a raiding expedition against his fleet at Damme, the port of Bruges, Robert and his vessel would be called up as part of Dover's levy.
+
+The opening day of the Battle of Damme was straightforward enough; while the French fleet outnumbered the Angevins more than two to one, the Earl of Salisbury and his commanders knew that with most of their troops off beseiging Ghent, the ships represented more prize than peril. Furthermore, many of the ships were anchored outside the harbour, which was not big enough for all of them. True to form, the English brushed aside fairly weak resistance and seized the outlying vessels, burning those they could not carry away. Each de Dovre son took a cog to add to the family's fleet, with the father taking a yet greater prize - the transport of a French Baron, laden in with supplies for the campaign. The second day, however, was another matter - taking a chance, Salisbury pressed the attack into Damme itself, knowing the French army was making its' return. Still, the English were successful in taking many more ships, and burning many they could not - blocking the harbour with wreckage to such an extent that Phillip II scuttled the remainder of his blocked-in fleet. A great victory for the King.
+
+That, at least, was the high-level viewpoint. Henry and Robert could instead tell you the story of a pell-mell retreat dodging both burning hulks and arrow fire and keeping a step ahead of the returning Frenchmen. Both brothers got out - "more or less" - as Robert tends to say - but at a price. Making the way out with their raiding parties through the jammed harbour entrance, the brothers had to choose between a narrow gap which the French crossbowmen had clearly found the range of and heading straight for the debris of a burning hulk and hoping it would break up before they got there. Henry chose the former, Robert the latter - and ended up having to fend off the remains of a burning barque from drifting into his line of passage. Henry took a crossbow bolt to the leg for his troubles, but the wound did not become infected and healed with time; Robert, on the other hand received substantial burns to the left side of his body while preventing the fire from spreading to his boat. Some of the blistering healed with time but much remains including on the left side of his neck and face, and his left ear in particular was left as a blackened, melted and useless stump which he had cut off ("for all the good it does me, I had better be free of the weight").
+
+For William, the battle proved a near disaster and he resolved to take steps to prevent both heirs being involved in such a situation again. As such, he dispatched Robert with a group of small coastal and river boats to try his hand at growing the family's fortunes along the North Sea coast, assuming such a move ought to keep Robert out of the way of most of the cross-channel skirmishing still going on between the Angevins and the Capetians. Robert has been plying his trade here ever since, working to provide transport services to people with scattered holdings, and acting as a middleman in the wool trade, collecting up smaller shipments to sell on to merchants who would make the journey across the North Sea. It was in the former capacity which Robert first contracted with EdwardOfMilton, who recently proved willing to provide sufficient of a retainer for Robert to dedicate the majority of his riverboats to Edward's service.
~jdamery / ArtibusWiki.git / commitdiff