Robert de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Leicester (1104 – 5 April 1168) was Justiciar of England 1155–1168. The surname "de Beaumont" was given to him by genealogists. The only known contemporary surname applied to him is "Robert son of Count Robert". Henry Knighton, a fourteenth-century chronicler, calls him Robert "Le Bossu" (meaning "Robert the Hunchback" in French). The manuscript Genelogies of the Erles of Lecestre and Chester states that he was "surnamed Boissu", and mentions him by the names Robert Boissu, Robert Beamond and Robert Beaumonde. Early life and education Robert was an English nobleman of Norman-French ancestry. He was the son of Robert de Beaumont, Count of Meulan and 1st Earl of Leicester, and Elizabeth de Vermandois, and the twin brother of Waleran de Beaumont. It is not known whether they were identical or fraternal twins, but the fact that they are remarked on by contemporaries as twins probably indicates that they were identical. The two brothers, Robert and Waleran, were adopted into the royal household shortly after their father's death in June 1118 (upon which Robert inherited his father's second title of Earl of Leicester). Their lands on either side of the Channel were committed to a group of guardians, led by their stepfather, William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey. They accompanied King Henry I to Normandy, to meet with Pope Callixtus II in 1119, when the king incited them to debate philosophy with the cardinals. Both twins were literate, and Abingdon Abbey later claimed to have been Robert's school, but though this is possible, its account is not entirely trustworthy. An early treatise on astronomy (the "Leicester Iudicia") carries a dedication "to Earl Robert of Leicester, that man of affairs and profound learning, most accomplished in matters of law" who can only be this Robert. On his death he left his own psalter to the abbey he founded at Leicester, which was still in its library in the late fifteenth century. The existence of this indicates that like many noblemen of his day, Robert followed the canonical hours in his chapel. Career at the Norman court In 1120 Robert was declared of age and inherited most of his father's lands in England, while his twin brother took the French lands. However, in 1121 royal favor brought to Robert the great Norman Honors of Breteuil and Pacy-sur-Eure, through his marriage to Amice de Gael, daughter of a