Rotrou, Archbishop of Rouen

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Rotrou or Rothrud (1109 – 27 November 1183 or 1184) was the bishop of Évreux and twenty-fifth archbishop of Rouen, France, from 1165, a year after the death of Archbishop Hugh IV, until his own death. He was the fourth son of Henry de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Warwick, and Margaret, daughter of Geoffrey II of Perche. He was also the chief justiciar and steward of Normandy.

He has a place in the history of the Kingdom of Sicily through his cousin, the queen regent Margaret of Navarre, who was the daughter of Marguerite de l'Aigle, daughter of Julienne, another daughter of Geoffrey of Perche. Margaret wrote him a letter beseeching him to send a relative of theirs to Sicily to assist her in the government. The man Rotrou sent was Stephen du Perche, later archbishop of Palermo. Rotrou also later sent Walter of the Mill, also later an archbishop of Palermo, to Sicily to be a tutor to William II. Rotrou also escorted an embassy of William's to London and back to France with Joanna, daughter of Henry II of England, betrothed to William.

His successor was Gautier de Coutances, the companion of Richard the Lion-Hearted.

[edit] Sources

• Beaumont, Edward T. The Beaumonts in History. AD 850-1850. Oxford.
• Norwich, John Julius. The Kingdom in the Sun 1130-1194. Longman: London, 1970.
• This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.