Robert D'Oyly (Oxford)

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Robert D'Oyly (also spelt Robert D'Oyley de Liseaux, Robert Doyley, Robert de Oiley, Robert d'Oilly and Robert D'Oyley and Roberti De Oilgi) was a Norman nobleman who accompanied William the Conqueror on the Norman Conquest, his invasion of England. He was the son of Walter D'Oyly and elder brother to Nigel D'Oyly. He married Ealdgyth, the daughter of Wigod, the Saxon lord of Wallingford. After Wigod's death, William appointed Robert the lord of Wallingford, and ordered him to fortify Wallingford Castle between 1067 and 1071.

Robert owned land in Oakley, Buckinghamshire. The village was valued at £6, and its land consisted of 5¾ hides; with Oakley’s clay soil the total cultivated land would have been around 550 acres (2 km²). Robert, also, held a tenure (or burgage) in Buckingham held by a man of Azor, the son of Tote, who paid sixteen pence annually and to the King, five pence.

The Manor of Iver became part of the possessions of Robert D'Oyley, who held Eureham (as Iver was called in the Domesday Book), for seventeen hides. The land was sufficient for thirty ploughs. It was estimated at £22, it had been exchanged for Padbury, with Robert Clarenbold of the Marsh. The daughter of Robert D'Oyley married Milo Crispin, to whom the Manor of Iver descended.

He later built Oxford Castle. "He was so powerful a man in his time, that no one durst oppose him", says one account.

He was the uncle of Robert Doyley, son of his brother Nigel D'Oyly, who was founder of Osney Priory, Oxford.

He was an ancestor of Henry D'Oyly, one of the major feudal barons of the Magna Carta.

[edit] Reference

• The History and Antiquities of the County of Buckingham, by George Lipscomb, Esq. M.D. - 1847.