I, King Robert II of France, born in 972, was appointed King in 987. The whole of France was ruthlessly looking for a secure rule, and pressured me into thinking about who would reign after me. They, especially my family, the house of Capet, from which I was the second ruling, had all feared my death, and loss of the throne of France. My father Hugh, was heavily wrought by such fears, and to make matters even more stressing had a desire to retake Spain, and wanted me of all people, to be the one to do it.
To immediately secure the throne's place under the house of Capet, my father, Hugh, went out and found me a wife. The daughter of Berengar of Ivera, whose name was Rozala, later deeming her self Susannah This was only in 995, I was merely a lad of twenty-three years old, and she, was nearly fifty, married twice and and had three children. Of course, my father's concerns were not whom I was married to, but rather who would have have the thrown in place of me.
My father died only a year after my marriage to Susanna, but at least his throne was secure under my reign and I was not going to disappoint him. I was not truly in love with the former Rozala, she had little to offer me. I repudiated her, and sent her to live in Flanders. She lived there till 1003, the year of her death. Till then, she was constantly trifling over the money she received from me. I had controlled her dowry, realizing her spending was a bit flippant; another reason for the divorce.
I sent myself to marry my cousin, Bertha. She was a widow, and so had been married before as Rozala had been. She had several children from her first marriage, and all were potential candidates from the thrown, but unlike my father I wasn't interested in security as I was with love. By 1,000 A.D. she had not given me any Children and at this the Pope Gregory would stand the marriage no longer, and excommunicated me from the Church. After negotiations with Gregory's successor Sylvester II, the marriage was annulled, and I was left a Bacholer once again.
My third and final marriage was to Constance of Arles, in the year 1001. With her I had seven children all born from our first years of marriage up to the year 1011. Of all these Children it was Henry the I, that would reign after my death in 1031. Constance was a wicked, and vile woman, or so my friend Beauvais was trying to convince me. He told me to divorce, and so I tried, but it wasn't till after Constance command knights to kill him, that I really realized how ill-tempered a woman she was. I went to Rome with my former wife Bertha to seek permission for divorce from Constance, and to remarry Bertha, my true love, who had never done anything to hurt me, expect not bare children. I had children, and had secured the throne of France for my father, now I wanted to return once again to the true love I had shared with my cousin.
I tried divorcing Constance, but the Church would not permit it. At the end of one trial, to come to terms with my desires for annulling the marriage, and the queens to keep it, Constance took her staff, and plucked the eye out of her confessor. He had something that hurt her emotionally, and she would not back away without out first wounding the man, exhibiting the ends of her potential rage.
There was a small dispute before my death between who would reign next, in my place. I wanted my son Henry to rule, and Constance wanted Robert to rule. Hugh Magnus, another son of mine was appointed co-king in 1017, but that was not a permit place for him, and he knew this well. My will would not give way, and I continued to want Henry to be sovereign ruler. Constance would not have this, and so told her sons to ransack the town of Burgundy, which I had become duke of. At hearing of this treachery, I listened to their arrangements and we agreed that Henry would be king, and Robert would reign duke.
I did not divorce Constance, and yet my love for Bertha did not fade away either. I died in 1031, and Constance in 1034, Constance buried next to me at Saint-Denis Basilica, a cathedral in Paris.
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