Quick Background
Robert de Lacy, Marquis of Tewkesbury, was born on Terra Magica (a like Shadow to Shadow Earth, where the history is similar, but magic works), at Millbank Manor on the Worcestershire/Gloucestershire border, on June 17th 1700. He was brought up by his father, William, Duke of Worcester - his mother having disappeared when he was a mere toddler - who made sure that his son was well educated, especially in languages and protocol. When he was eighteen Robert went up to King's College, Cambridge to study magic. In 1720, he fought a fatal duel over Elizabeth McCauley, his cousin, and eventually married her in 1722. However, things were not to last, as she died in October 1723, after an accident, although she was survived by their child, Andrew.
Widowed at 23, Robert brought his son up the best he could while still studying for his Masters, a job made all the harder because the boy was small and weak when he was born, and it took him some months to begin to thrive. He stayed at Cambridge until 1730, living in a small town house where he pursued his post graduate studies, as well as brought up the boy, and once qualified, became a competent investigative mage. When Andrew was old enough to go to prep school, Robert began to travel around Europe, during which time he learned several more languages and fell in with a group of alchemists and sorcerers in Paris. He did, however, commute home to see his son by teleport during the school holidays.
As an alchemist, he quickly became very competent, specialising in creating jewels and gold, as well as various potions and elixirs. Shortly before he launched himself on Paris society in around 1735, he believed he had discovered the Elixir of Life: it was this to which he formally attributed the fact that he was still walking around nearly three hundred years later, until Brand finally convinced him of the truth - that he was, in fact, immortal.
Robert ducked out of society in 1775, working on the theory that he had been looking as if he was in his thirties for far too long. During the time he was out of the limelight, he set up a variety of covers and aliases on Terra Magica. He spent a while trying to thwart the plans of Robespierre and some of the other Revolutionaries, and after the Revolution, he was one of the driving forces behind the establishment of the Magical Oversight Council, which was set up to police mages within England and France on Terra Magica.
Later, he put further study into both battle magic and investigative magic, as well as alchemy, and was one of the Duke of Wellington's battle mages in the Peninsula War, and as the years passed, also served his country in the First World War on Terra Magica, and the Second World War on both Terra Magica and Earth Prime.
Brand was the one who finally told Robert who he really was: a member of the Amber Royal family and immortal, although it was Brand's son Kirk who later identified Robert's parents as Delwin of Amber, and Jasra, daughter of Suhuy. Kirk also explained that relations between Delwin and Jasra had deteriorated when she attempted to manipulate Delwin and Sand into falling into her father's hands. At that time, father and daughter wanted their schemes to be detrimental to the Pattern, which led to Delwin cashiering her and no longer allowing her name to be used in his presence.
Robert was not initially inclined to believe Brand regarding his immortality, even refusing the Pattern the first time it was offered to him, although over the years he has been convinced. It took him a long time to pluck up the courage to walk the Pattern, although since he completed the walk, his studies in that areas have have gone far beyond the limits he had dreamed of. He was responsible for editing the Pattern in Rebma when Morgaine first took the throne, and a few weeks later, he drew the Terra Magica Pattern and created the Sable System.
His primary residence is now Sable itself, although he still thinks of Terra Magica as his homeland. For a while he was King of Avon (formerly Amber by Arden), which he was given by King Finndo and his mother, Queen Regent Jasra, but during an extended absence, the Kingdom was lost to the Kolvirii. When he is active Outside, in the Rest of Creation, he makes his home in Huntly, the capital of the Pattern Realm of Murray, which he formed after his return to the Rest of Creation after a long absence some time after the so-called 'Sable War'.
When at home in Sable, he spends his time doing forensic consultancy, and some magical healing, and is on the Faculty of the Sable Mage College, where he teaches Forensic Magic. He has also served with the the army on occasion - mainly on Terra Magica, rather than Sable - and holds the ranks of Mage Colonel and Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Engineers in both lands. In addition he paints, as well as continuing to study alchemy.
As well as Andrew, Robert has a number of other children, both legitimate and illegitimate, and an extensive number of grandchildren. His middle legitimate son is William, whose mother, Annabel Clarke, was a London journalist with whom Robert had a stormy ten year affair. He discovered later that she is the daughter of Eric of Amber and Juno Chanicut, making William Eric's grandson. The affair finished when William was four, and Robert gained custody, brought his son up, and had him legally declared legitimate. William is now married, with a son of his own - James - who acts as regent in Murray if Robert is absent.
Robert is married to Claire Connelly - a mage surgeon of great skill, and Goddess of Healing in the Aurellis system created by his brother-in-law, Roland Helgram. They have been together for more than one hundred and fifty years and still have a very close relationship...mainly due to a discovery early on that they are both, at least to some degree, telepathic by virtue of being both mages and extremely strong minded. Claire is the younger daughter of the late Duke of Celestine, and while she initially believed her mother had died in childbirth, she has since discovered that this was not the case. She has one living sibling, Sian, who is married to Roland.
He has a number of siblings on his mother's side, including Kelric of Haven, Jason of Nuevo Sangre, and Luke Reynard. On his father's side, his known siblings are Michael (to whom he acted as surrogate father), Kaiser Karl of Germany, the newly-discovered Alfred, and - genetically his twin brother - Rupert Delatz, who came into existence with Sable.
Robert and Claire have four living children - the twins, Alison and Cathal; a daughter named Emily and an infant son called Cameron.