Referring to his activities in the rebellion against Henry I of 1110-1112, the chronicler Orderic Vitalis, in Book XI of his Historia Ecclesiastica, calls Robert "grasping and cruel, an implacable persecutor of the Church of God and the poor ... unequalled for his iniquity in the whole Christian era", as well as "the tyrant who had disturbed the land and was preparing to add still worse crimes to his many offences of plundering and burning".
[2] In 1070 after the death of his great-uncle Yves Bishop of Séez his parents brought him to Bellême, which at that time became his mother's inheritance, and as the oldest surviving son it would eventually be his.
[11] When William Rufus blockaded the town and built two counter-castles, the garrison began negotiating for surrender under honourable terms, being allowed to keep their lands and serve the king.
[11] This Rufus refused; he was furious and had initially wanted the traitors hanged 'or by some other form of execution utterly removed from the face of the earth.
[14] One thing more they shared in common was the extreme resentment by Odo, Bishop of Bayeux who, banished from England, had returned to Normandy ahead of Henry and Robert.
[6] On hearing his son was imprisoned Roger de Montgomery, Earl of Shrewsbury immediately went to Normandy and put all his castles in a state of readiness against the duke.
[18] At this point the duke lost interest in attempting to capture any more of Robert de Bellême's castles, he dissolved the forces and returned to Rouen.
[27] Robert had also acquired the countship of Ponthieu jure uxoris and the honour of Tickhill; all of which combined made him the wealthiest magnate in both England and Normandy.
[32] This invasion, however, which aimed to depose Henry I, ended bloodlessly in the Treaty of Alton which called for amnesty for the participants but allowed traitors to be punished.
[33] It quickly became evident that Henry I had no intentions of abiding by the treaty of Alton; 'Soothe them with promises' advised Robert Count of Meulan just before the battle, then they can be 'driven into exile'.
[37] With Normandy now under Henry's rule, Robert de Bellême submitted and was allowed to retain his Norman fiefs and his office as viscount of the Hiémois.
[39] In the rebellion of 1110–12 barons on the frontier of Normandy were disgruntled over Henry's policies and especially his attempt to take custody of William Clito, son of Robert Curthose.
Orderic calls Robert "Grasping and cruel, an implacable persecutor of the Church of God and the poor... unequalled for his iniquity in the whole Christian era.
"[44] To quote David C. Douglas, "Ordericus, if credulous, was neither malicious nor a liar; and these accounts concerned people of whom he had special knowledge" [referring to the Bellême-Montgomery family][45] but he may have been strongly biased against Robert de Bellême and his treatment of that magnate belies a moral interpretation of his actions.
Southern could well apply to Robert de Bellême as well: "His life was given over to military designs, and to the raising of money to make them possible; for everything that did not minister to those ends he showed a supreme contempt".
[47] According to William Hunt in the Dictionary of National Biography, various stories of his brutality were circulated after his death, possibly inspiring the legend of Robert the Devil, a sadistically cruel Norman knight fathered by Satan himself.
Robert de Bellême also appears as the protagonist, 'Bellême the Norman Warrior', in a fictionalized account of his life by Roy Stedall-Humphryes, 'Kindle Direct Publishing' 2012.