Background
Robert was the son of Walter D'Oyly and elder brother to Nigel D'Oyly. D'Oyly is a Norman French name, from the place name Ouilly of the Calvados département in Normandy. 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. It is believed he may have become the third High Sheriff of Berkshire around this time. He was made Baron Hocknorton.
D'Oyly was a sworn brother-in-arms of Roger d'Ivry. The Domesday Book records that by 1086 D'Oyly and d'Ivry held a number of manors either partitioned between the two of them or administered in common.
His brother Nigel's son was Robert Doyley, the founder of Osney Priory, Oxford. He was also an ancestor of Henry D'Oyly, one of the major feudal barons of the Magna Carta.
"He was so powerful a man in his time, that no one durst oppose him", says one account. At Abingdon he was remembered as "a despoiler of churches and the poor until his miraculous conversion ". The latter was during the economic decline that Oxford experienced between 1066 and 1086 however it is noted that Robert's own properties suffered as much waste in this period.
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