Born around 983, Odo II was the son of
Odo I of Blois and
Bertha of Burgundy. He was the first to unite Blois and Champagne under one authority although his career was spent in endless feudal warfare with his neighbors and suzerains, many of whose territories he tried to annex. About 1003/1004 he married
Maud, a daughter of
Richard I of Normandy. After her death in 1005, and as she had no children,
Richard II of Normandy demanded a return of her
dowry: half the county of
Dreux. Odo refused and the two warred over the matter. Finally,
King Robert II, who had married Odo's mother, imposed his arbitration on the contestants in 1007, leaving Odo in possession of the castle Dreux while Richard II kept the remainder of the lands. Odo quickly married,
Ermengarde, Countess of Auvergne, daughter of Robert I of Auvergne and Ermengarde of Provence. Defeated by
Fulk III of Anjou and
Herbert I of Maine at the
Battle of Pontlevoy in July 1016, he quickly tried to overrun the
Touraine. After the death of his cousin
Stephen I in 1019/1020, without heirs he seized Troyes, Meaux and all of Champagne for himself without royal approval. From there he attacked
Ebles, the
archbishop of Reims, and
Theodoric I, Duke of Lorraine. Due to an alliance between the king and the
Emperor Henry II he was forced to relinquish the county of Rheims to the archbishop. He was offered the
crown of Italy by the
Lombard barons, but the offer was quickly retracted in order not to upset relations with the king of France. In 1032, he invaded the
Kingdom of Burgundy on the death of
Rudolph III. He retreated in the face of a coalition of the
Emperor Conrad II and the new king of France,
Henry I. In 1037 he took advantage of Conrad II's absence in Italy to invade the
Duchy of Lorraine, but he died in the rout after being defeated by the forces of
Gothelo I, Duke of Lorraine, in the
Battle of Bar-le-Duc. ==Issue==