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Title: The Reign of William Rufus and the Accession of Henry the First, Volume II (of 2)
Author: Edward Augustus Freeman
Release Date: February 21, 2022 [eBook #67459]
Language: English
Produced by: Carol Brown, MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE REIGN OF WILLIAM RUFUS AND THE ACCESSION OF HENRY THE FIRST, VOLUME II (OF 2) ***
London
HENRY FROWDE
[Illustration: Printer’s Logo]
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE
7 PATERNOSTER ROW
THE
REIGN OF WILLIAM RUFUS
AND THE
ACCESSION OF HENRY THE FIRST.
BY
EDWARD A. FREEMAN, M.A., HON. D.C.L., LL.D.
HONORARY FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOLUME II.
Oxford:
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS.
1882.
[All rights reserved.]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER V.
THE WARS OF SCOTLAND, NORTHUMBERLAND, AND WALES. 1093-1098.
A. D. PAGE
Events of the year 1093; relations between England and Scotland; results of the war of 1093 3-4
Growth of the English power and of the English nation under Rufus; the Scottish kingdom becomes English 4-5
1093 Death of Malcolm; first reign of Donald 5
1094 Reign of Duncan; second reign of Donald 5
1097 Establishment of Eadgar 5
1095 Revolt of Robert of Mowbray 5-5
Affairs of Wales; comparison between Wales and Scotland 6
Effects of the reign on the union of Britain; comparison with Ireland and Normandy 6-8
§ 1. The last year of Malcolm. 1093.
Complaints of Malcolm against William Rufus; effects on Scotland of the restoration of Carlisle; other grounds of offence 8-9
March, 1093 Scottish embassy at Gloucester; Malcolm summoned to Gloucester; Eadgar sent to bring him 9-10
Present favour of Eadgar with William 9-10
August Malcolm sets forth; he stops at Durham 11
August 11 He lays a foundation stone of the abbey; import of the ceremony 11-12
August 24 Malcolm at Gloucester; William refuses to see him; questions between the kings; William observes his safe-conduct 13-14
Malcolm’s last invasion of England; he draws near to Alnwick; history of the place 15-16
English feeling about Malcolm 16
Nov. 13 Malcolm slain by Morel 16-17
Burial of Malcolm at Tynemouth; history of Tynemouth; his translation to Dunfermline 18-19
Local estimate of Malcolm’s death 19
Character of Margaret; Malcolm’s devotion to her; her children and their education 20-22
Margaret’s reforms; Scottish feeling towards them 22-26
Her religious reforms 22-23
She increases the pomp of the court 23-24
English influence in Scotland; English and Norman settlers 24-26
Nov. 27 Death of Margaret; different versions; her burial at Dunfermline; Scottish feeling towards her 26-28
Donald elected king; he drives out the English; meaning of the words 29-30
Margaret’s children driven out; action of the elder Eadgar 30
Eadgyth and Mary brought up at Romsey; Malcolm at Romsey; story of Eadgyth and William Rufus 31-32
Events of 1094; order of Scottish events 32-33
Christmas, Assembly at Gloucester; Duncan claims the Scottish 1093-1094 crown; his Norman education 33-34
1094 He receives the crown from William, and wins the kingdom by the help of Norman and English volunteers 34-35
May, 1094 Revolution in Scotland; the foreigners driven out 35
November Duncan slain and Donald restored 36
1094-1097 Second reign of Donald 36
§ 2. The revolt of Robert of Mowbray. 1095-1096.
Conspiracy against William Rufus; no general support for the plot 37-40
Robert of Mowbray marries Matilda of Laigle 38
His dealings with Earl Hugh and Bishop William; other conspirators; William of Eu 38-39
Designs on behalf of Stephen of Aumale 39-40
Earl Robert plunders the Norwegian ships; the merchants complain to the King; Robert refuses redress 40-41
March 25, Easter assembly at Winchester; Robert summoned, 1095 but refuses to come 41
April 4 Falling stars 41-42
Messages between the King and Robert 42
May 13 Whitsun assembly at Windsor; Robert again refuses to come 42
The King marches against Robert; his rebellion 42-43
The rebels expect help from Normandy 44
The King marches to Nottingham; Anselm’s command in Kent 44-45
Robert’s fortresses; the New Castle, Tynemouth, Bamburgh; taking of the New Castle 46-47
July Siege of Tynemouth; description of the site; taking of Tynemouth 47-48
The castle of Bamburgh; Robert defends it against the King 49-50
Failure of direct attacks; making of the Malvoisin; the King goes away 51-52
Robert entrapped by a false message; he flees to Tynemouth; he is besieged in the monastery, taken, and imprisoned 52-53
Bamburgh defended by Matilda of Laigle 54
November She yields to save her husband’s eyes 54
Later history of Robert and Matilda 54-55
Morel turns King’s evidence 55
1095-1096 Christmas assembly at Windsor; all tenants-in-chief summoned; constitutional importance of the meeting 56-59
January 13 The meeting adjourned to Salisbury; action of the assembly; no general sympathy with the accused 56-59
Bishop William charged with treason and summoned to take his trial; portents foretelling his death 59-61
Dec. 25, His sickness and death 61 1095- Jan. 1, 1096 Debate as to his burial-place; he is buried in the chapter-house 61-62
Sentences of the assembly; Earl Hugh buys his pardon 62-63
January 13 William of Eu appealed by Geoffrey of Baynard, and convicted by battle 63
He is blinded and mutilated; action of Earl Hugh 64-65
Story of Arnulf of Hesdin; his innocence proved by battle 65
He goes to the crusade and dies 66
William of Alderi sentenced to death; the King refuses to spare him 66-67
His pious end 67-68
Last days of William of Eu and of Morel 68-69
§ 3. The Conquest and Revolt of Wales. 1093-1097.
Relations with Wales; character of the Welsh wars of Rufus; effect of the building of castles 69-71
Welsh campaigns of Harold and William Rufus compared 71-72
Immediate failure and lasting success 71
Comparison of the conquest of Wales with the English and Norman conquests; difference of geographical conditions 72-74
Extension of England by conquest and settlement 74
Various elements in Wales; the Flemish settlements; endurance of the Welsh language 74-75
The local nomenclature of Wales contrasted with that of England 75-76
The Welsh castles; contrast with England; the Welsh towns 76-77
Conquests before the accession of Rufus; Robert of Rhuddlan; reigns of Rhys ap Tewdwr and Cedivor 77-78
1091 Saint David’s robbed by pirates 78
1093 Beginning of the conquest of South Wales; legend of the conquest of Glamorgan 79-81
Story of Jestin and Einion; settlement of Robert Fitz-hamon and his knights 80-81
Estimate of the story; elements of truth 81-82
History of Robert Fitz-hamon; his lands, marriage, and settlement at Cardiff 82-83
His works at Gloucester and Tewkesbury; his grants of Welsh churches to English monasteries 84
Distinction between Morganwg and Glamorgan; extent of Glamorgan 85
The lords and their castles 86-87
The South-Welsh churches and monasteries 88-89
Saxon and Flemish settlements in South Wales; foundation of boroughs 88
Conquest of Brecknock; Bernard of Newmarch and his wife Nest 89-91
Easter, Defeat and death of Rhys at Brecknock; effects of 1093 his death 91-92
April 30 Cadwgan harries Dyfed 92
July 1 Norman conquest of Ceredigion and Dyfed 92-93
Tale of Rufus’s threats against Ireland 92-93
Acquisition of Saint David’s; Bishop Wilfrith 94
The Pembrokeshire castles 95
Pembroke castle begun by Arnulf of Montgomery; second building by Gerald of Windsor; his wife Nest 96-97
Earl Hugh in Anglesey; castle of Aberlleiniog 97
Advance of Earl Roger in Powys; castle of Rhyd-y-gors 97
Seeming conquest of Wales; Gower and Caermarthen unsubdued 98
Effect of William’s absence; general revolt under Cadwgan son of Bleddyn 98-100
Invasion of England 100
Deliverance of Anglesey; Aberlleiniog castle broken down 101
Character of the war; action of Cadwgan in Dyfed; Pembroke castle holds out 101-102
Question of a winter campaign; conquest of Kidwelly, Gower, and Caermarthen 102
1099 Alleged West-Saxon settlement in Gower; the Gower castles 103
Pagan of Turberville helps the Welsh 104
North Wales holds out; the Welsh take Montgomery 104-105
Michaelmas, William’s invasion of Wales 105 1095
November 1 He reaches Snowdon; ill-success of the campaign 105
1096 The Welsh take Rhyd-y-gors; revolt of Gwent and Brecknock 106
English feeling towards the war 106-107
Vain attempts to recover Gwent 107
Importance of the castles; the Welsh attack Pembroke; defence of Gerald of Windsor 108-109
1097 Gerald takes the offensive against the Welsh 110
Easter, William’s second campaign; seeming conquest; fresh 1097 revolt under Cadwgan 110-111
June-Aug. 1097 William’s third campaign; his ill-success 111-112
October He determines to build castles 112-113
§ 4. The Establishment of Eadgar in Scotland. 1097-1098.
August, Decree for action in Scotland; the elder Eadgar 1097 commissioned to restore the younger 114
Story of Godwine and Ordgar; the Ætheling Eadgar cleared by battle 114-118
Estimate and importance of the story 117-118
September The two Eadgars march to Scotland; exploits of Robert son of Godwine; defeat and blinding of Donald; later life of Eadmund 118-120
1097-1107 Reign of Eadgar in Scotland 120-123
Eadgar’s gifts to Robert son of Godwine 121
1099-1100 Eadgar and Robert go to the Crusade 121-122
1103 Exploits and martyrdom of Robert son of Godwine; parallels and contrasts 122-123
1107-1124 Reign of Alexander in Scotland; friendship of the Scottish kings for England; Turgot and Eadmer 124
1124-1153 Reign of David in Scotland; English influence in Scotland; the Scottish kings of the second series 125-126
§ 5. The Expedition of Magnus. 1098.
Events of the year 1098; their wide geographical range; Anglesey the centre of the story 126-127
Winter, Schemes of Cadwgan and Gruffydd; they take 1097-1098 wikings from Ireland into pay 127-128
The two Earls Hugh of Chester and Shrewsbury 129
The Earls enter Anglesey; they rebuild the castle of Aberlleiniog 129-130
The Earls bribe the wikings; Cadwgan and Gruffydd flee to Ireland 130-131
Cruelties of the Earls; mutilation and restoration of Cenred 131-132
1093-1103 Reign of Magnus Barefoot in Norway; his surnames 133
He professes friendship for England; his treasure at Lincoln 133-134
Harold son of Harold in his fleet 134-136
Designs of Magnus on Ireland; Irish marriage of his son Sigurd; his voyage among the islands 136
1075-1095 Reign of Godred Crouan in Man and the Sudereys 136-137
1078-1094 His Irish dominion 136-137
His sons Lagman and Harold 137
Rulers of Man sent from Ireland and Norway; civil war in Man 137-138
Legend of Magnus and Saint Olaf 138-140
Magnus seizes the Orkney earls and gives the earldom to his son Sigurd 140
Further voyage of Magnus; he occupies Man; his designs 140-142
He approaches Anglesey; preparations of the earls; the fleet off Aberlleiniog 142-143
Death of Hugh of Shrewsbury; different versions 143-144
Peace between Magnus and Hugh of Chester 145
Anglesey and North Wales subdued by Hugh 145-146
Sigurd’s kingdom in the islands; dealings of Magnus with Scotland 145-146
§ 6. The Establishment of Robert of Bellême in England. 1098.
1098 Effects of the death of Hugh of Shrewsbury; Robert of Bellême buys his earldom and his other possessions; doubtful policy of the grant 147-149
Unique position of Robert in England; effects of his coming; his cruelty and spoliations 149-151
His skill in castle-building; his defences in Shropshire; early history of the Shropshire fortresses 151-152
896-912 First works at the Bridge 152-153
Quatford; Earl Roger’s house and chapel 153-154
Robert of Bellême removes to Bridgenorth and Oldbury 155-158
The group of fortresses 158
Robert builds the castle of Careghova 158
Roger of Bully; his Yorkshire and Nottingham estates 159-160
The castle of Tickhill; use of the names Tickhill and Blyth 160-162
1088 The priory of Blyth founded by Roger of Bully 161
Death of Roger of Bully; his lands granted to Robert of Bellême 162-164
CHAPTER VI.
THE LAST WARS OF WILLIAM RUFUS. 1097-1099.
1097-1100 Character of the last years of William Rufus; his designs on France 165-167
1097-1098 Beginning of the wars between France and Maine 167
Nov. 1097 William crosses the sea 167
Comparison of France and Maine; Philip and Helias; advantage of the kingly dignity 168-170
Lewis son of Philip 170
Jan. 1098 Beginning of the war of Maine 170
§ 1. The Beginning of the French War. 1097-1098.
1092 King Philip; his adulterous marriage with Bertrada of Montfort 171-172
Opposition of Ivo and Hugh of Lyons; excommunication of Philip and Bertrada 173-174
Sons of Philip and Bertrada; she schemes against Lewis 174
Philip invests Lewis with the Vexin 175
1097 William’s grounds of offence; he demands the cession of the Vexin; his demand is refused 175-176
November William crosses to Normandy; excesses of his 11-30 followers in England 176-177
William and Lewis; difficulties of Lewis; fate of the captives on each side 178-179
French traitors; Guy of the Rock; description of Roche Guyon 179-182
Policy of Robert of Meulan; he receives William’s troops; importance and description of Meulan 182-184
Prospects of William; failure of his plans 184-185
The castle of Chaumont-en-Vexin 185-186
1096 The castle of Gisors; its first defences strengthened by Robert of Bellême 186-188
Castles of Trye and Boury 188-189
National feeling in the French Vexin 189-190
Prisoners on both sides; Gilbert of Laigle; Simon of Montfort 190
§ 2. The First War of Maine. 1098.
November, Dates of the French war 191 1097-1098
Jan.-Aug. War of Maine 191 1098
1089 Robert suspects the loyalty of Maine; he asks help of Fulk of Anjou; marriage of Fulk and Bertrada 191-194
1090 Movements in Maine; Hugh son of Azo sent for 194-195
Character of Helias of La Flèche; his descent; his castles; he accepts the succession of Hugh 195-197
1090 Revolt of Maine; Hugh received at Le Mans 197-200
Bishop Howel imprisoned by Helias 197-199
Release of Howel; his dealings with Robert 199-200
Disputes between Hugh and Howel; disputes of Howel with his chapter; he goes to England 201
June 28, 1090 Return of Howel; unpopularity of Hugh 202
February, Helias buys the county of Hugh 202-203 1091
1091-1098 First reign of Helias; peace of the land 203-204
October 17, Translation of Saint Julian 204 1093
November, Visit of Pope Urban to Le Mans 205 1095
1095-1097 Sickness of Howel 205
1095-1096 Helias takes the cross; estimate of his conduct 205-207
Aug. 1096 William in Normandy; danger to Maine; negotiations of Helias with Robert 207
Interview of William and Helias; mutual challenge and defiance 208-210
1096-1097 William delays his attack 210
July 29, Death of Howel; disputed election to the bishopric 210-211 1097
1097-1126 Hildebert Bishop of Le Mans 211-212
Claims of the Norman dukes over the bishopric; anger of Rufus at the election of Hildebert 211-213
Nov. 1097 William in Normandy; his designs on Maine 213
Robert of Bellême attacks Maine; Helias strengthens Dangeul; geographical character of the war 213-214
Jan. 1098 Robert of Bellême invites the King; guerrilla warfare of Helias 214-215
William leaves Maine; Robert of Bellême continues the war; castles held by him 216-219
Nature of the country and of the war; comparison of Maine and England 219-221
Helias defeats Robert at Saônes; cruelty of Robert 221-223
April 28, 1098 Second victory of Helias; he is taken prisoner near Danguel 223-224
Helias surrendered to the king; contrast between William Rufus and Robert of Bellême 224-225
Hildebert and the council at Le Mans 225-226
William at Rouen; a great levy ordered; numbers of the army 226-228
June, The army meets at Alençon; invasion of Maine; 1098 truce with Ralph of Fresnay 228-230
Dealings with the nobles of Maine 230-231
May 5 Fulk of Anjou at Le Mans; he leaves Geoffrey in command 231-232
March of William Rufus; he approaches Le Mans by Coulaines; he ravages Coulaines 232-234
Sally from the city; Rufus goes away; the siege of Le Mans raised 234-236
Ballon betrayed to Rufus; occupied by Robert of Bellême, and besieged by Fulk 235-236
July 20 William relieves Ballon; his treatment of the captive knights 236-237
August Fulk goes back to Le Mans; convention between William and Fulk; Le Mans to be surrendered and Helias set free 237-238
Submission of Le Mans; William’s entry 238-241
William leaves Le Mans; general submission of Maine 241
Meeting of William and Helias at Rouen; the offers of Helias rejected; his defiance 242-243
Helias set free; illustration of the King’s character 244-245
§ 3. The End of the French War. September-December, 1098.
1097-1099 William on the Continent; extent of his conquest in Maine; he begins, but does not finish 245
September He sets forth against France; the sign in the sky 27, 1098 246
He marches to Pontoise; position of the town and castle; Pontoise his furthest point 247-248
Siege of Chaumont; castle not taken 248-249
Alliance between Normandy and Aquitaine; coming of Duke William of Poitiers 249-250
Campaign to the west of Paris; valley of the Maudre; the two Williams march against the Montfort castles 250-252
The castles resist singly; Peter of Maule 252-253
The two Simons of Montfort; the castle of Montfort; successful defence of the younger Simon 253-255
Christmas, William keeps Christmas in Normandy; truce with 1098-1099 France 255
Ill-success of the French war; illustrations of William’s character 256
§ 4. The Gemót of 1099.
April 10, Easter assembly 256 1099
May 19 Whitsun assembly in the new hall at Westminster 257
Buildings of William Rufus; they are reckoned among the national grievances; probable abuses of the law 257-260
Various grievances and natural phænomena 258
The wall round the tower, the bridge, and the hall; growth of the greatness of London; relations of London and Winchester 259-261
Westminster Hall; its two founders; its history 262-263
Object of the hall; personal pride of Rufus; the Whitsun feast; the sword borne by the King of Scots 263-264
Deaths of bishops and abbots; character and acts of Walkelin of Winchester 265-266
April 8, The monks take possession of the new church of 1093 Winchester 266
1097-1098 Walkelin joint regent with Flambard; the King’s demand for money 266-267
Jan. 3, Death of Walkelin 267 1098 Death of Turold of Peterborough and Robert of New Minster 267
Abbot Baldwin of Saint Eadmund’s; rebuilding of the church; the King forbids the dedication 267-269
April 30, Various details of Abbot Baldwin; translation of 1095 Saint Eadmund 268-270
Dec. 29, Death of Abbot Baldwin 270 1097 The bishopric of Durham granted to Randolf Flambard 271
June 5, Consecration of Flambard 271 1099
1099- Character of the appointment; Flambard’s episcopate 271-274 1128 His works at Durham and Norham 272
Later events of the year 1099 274
§ 5. The Second War of Maine. April-September, 1099.
Aug. 1098- Helias withdraws to La Flèche; he strengthens the April, 1099 castles on the Loir 274-276
April, 1099 He attacks the castle held by the King 277
June He marches against Le Mans; battle at Pontlieue; he recovers Le Mans 277-278
The castles still held for the King; the Normans set fire to the city; comparison of Le Mans and York 279-281
Vain operations against the castles; use of the church towers; Robert of Bêlleme strengthens Ballon 281-282
The news brought to William in the New Forest; his ride to the coast 282-284
He crosses to Touques and rides to Bonneville; the castle of Bonneville 284-287
His levy; he marches to Le Mans; Helias flees to Château-du-Loir 287
William passes through Le Mans; he harries southern Maine; Helias burns the castles 288-289
William besieges Mayet; observance of the Truce of God; details of the siege; the siege raised 289-294
The land ravaged, but the campaign left unfinished 294-295
William at Le Mans; his good treatment of the city; he drives out the canons 295-296
Sept. 1099 He goes back to England 296
Hildebert reconciled to the King; the King bids him pull down the towers of Saint Julian’s; question whether the order was carried out 297-300
1099 Revolt in Anglesey; return of Cadwgan and Gruffydd; recovery of Anglesey and Ceredigion by the Welsh 300-301
Nov. 3, The great tide in the Thames 302 1099
December 3 Death of Bishop Osmund of Salisbury 302
CHAPTER VII.
THE LAST DAYS OF WILLIAM RUFUS AND THE ACCESSION OF HENRY. 1100-1102.
1000-1100 End of the eleventh century; changes in Britain and in the world 303-307
Change from Æthelred to William Rufus; contradiction in William’s position; his defeats not counted defeats 307-308
The year 1100; lack of events in its earlier months; comparison with the year 1000; vague expectations, portents, and prophecies 308-310
§ 1. The Last days of William Rufus. January-August, 1100.
The three assemblies of 1099-1100; no record of these assemblies; continental schemes of Rufus 310-311
Return of Robert from the crusade; his marriage with Sibyl of Conversana 311-313
William of Aquitaine; his crusade; he proposes to pledge his duchy to Rufus; preparations for the occupation of Aquitaine 313-314
Alleged designs of Rufus on the Empire 314
May, 1100 Portents; death of Richard son of Robert 315-316
June, July Warlike preparations 317
July 15 Consecration of Gloucester abbey 317
August 1 Visions and prophecies; Abbot Fulchered’s sermon at Gloucester 317-321
August 1 William at Brockenhurst; his companions; Walter Tirel; his history; his gab with the King; illustrative value of the story 321-325
August 2 Last day of William Rufus; various versions of his death; estimate of the received tale 325-327
Versions of Orderic and William of Malmesbury 327-331
Versions which assert a repentance for Rufus 331-332
Version charging Ralph of Aix 333-335
Impression made at the time by the death of Rufus; its abiding memory; local traditions; end and character of Rufus 335-337
Accounts of William’s burial; the genuine story; his popular excommunication; he is buried in the Old Minster without religious rites 338-341
July 31 Portents at William’s death; dream of Abbot Hugh of Clugny 341
August 1 Vision of Anselm’s doorkeeper 341
August 2 News brought to Anselm’s clerk; vision of Count William of Mortain 341-343
§ 2. The First Days of Henry. August 2-November 11, 1100.
Vacancy of the throne; claims of Robert by the treaty of 1091; choice between Robert and Henry; claims of Henry; his speedy election 343-345
August 2 Story of Henry on the day of the King’s death; he hastens to Winchester 345-346
He demands the treasure and is resisted by William of Breteuil; popular feeling for Henry 346-347
August 3 Meeting for the election; division in the assembly; influence of Henry Earl of Warwick; Henry chosen King 347-348
Henry grants the bishopric of Winchester to William Giffard 349
August 5 Henry crowned at Westminster; form of his oath; joy at his accession 349-351
He puts forth his charter; its provisions 352-357
Privilege of the knights and its effects 355-356
Renewal of the Law of Eadward 357
Witnesses to the charter 358
August 5 Appointments to abbeys; Robert of Saint Eadmund’s and Richard of Ely; their later history 359-360
1100-1120 Herlwin Abbot of Glastonbury 360
1100-1117 Faricius Abbot of Abingdon 360
Imprisonment of Flambard 361-362
The King’s inner council 362-363
The news of the King’s death brought to Anselm; his grief 363
Letters to him from his monks and from the King; popular language of Henry’s letter 363-366
Intrigues of the Norman nobles with Robert; renewed anarchy in Normandy 366-367
Sept. Return of Robert to Normandy; his renewed 1100 no-government 367-368
Henry keeps his own fief; war between Henry and Robert 368
Sept. 23. Return of Anselm 368
Helias returns to Le Mans; the King’s garrison holds out in the royal tower 370
Helias calls in Fulk; siege of the tower 370
Courtesies between Helias and the garrison; messages sent to Robert and Henry; surrender of the castle 370-373
1100-1110 Just reign of Helias; his friendship for Henry 373
1109 His second marriage; later history of Maine; descent of the later English kings from Helias 374
Meeting of Anselm and Henry; comparison of the dispute between Anselm and William Rufus and that between Anselm and Henry 374-375
Henry calls on Anselm to do homage; Anselm refuses; change in his views 375-377
Truce till Easter; the Pope to be asked to allow the homage; the spiritual power strengthened through Rufus’ abuse of the temporal power 375-378
The temporalities of the archbishopric provisionally restored 378
Reformation of the court; personal character of Henry; his mistresses and children; story of Ansfrida and her son Richard 379-382
Henry is exhorted to marry; he seeks for Eadgyth daughter of Malcolm; policy of the marriage 382-383
Objections to the marriage; Eadgyth said to have taken the veil 384
Anselm holds an assembly to settle the question; Eadgyth declared free to marry; other versions of the story 384-387
November Marriage of Henry and Eadgyth; she changes her 11, 1100 name to Matilda 387-388
Anselm’s speech at the wedding; objections not wholly silenced 388
1100-1118 Matilda as Queen; her children and character; “Godric and Godgifu” 388-391
Guy of Vienne comes as Legate; his claims not acknowledged 391
Nov. 18 Death of Thomas Archbishop of York 391
1100-1108 Gerard of Hereford Archbishop of York 392
§ 3. Invasion of Robert. January-August, 1101.
Likeness of the years 1088 and 1101; plots to give the crown to Robert; a party in Normandy to give the crown to Henry 392-393
Character of Robert and Eadgar; Robert as crusader; his relapse on his return to Normandy 394
Parties in England and Normandy; Henry’s strict rule distasteful to the nobles 394-395
Plots of Robert of Bellême and others; Duke Robert’s grants to Robert of Bellême 395-396
Christmas Assembly at Westminster 396 1100-1101 Flambard escapes to Normandy; his influence with Robert 396-398
April 21 Easter assembly at Winchester; the questions between Henry and Anselm adjourned; growth of the conspiracy 399
June 9 Whitsun assembly; its popular character; mediation of Anselm; renewed promise of good laws 399-400
The Church and the people for Henry; England united against invasion 401
Importance of the campaign of 1101; last opposition of Normans and English; their fusion under Henry 401-402
July, 1101 Robert and his fleet at Tréport 401-403
Henry’s levée; Anselm and his contingent; the English at Pevensey 403-404
The English fleet sent out; some of the crews desert to Robert 404
July 20 Robert lands at Portchester; comparison with former invasions 405-406
Robert marches on Winchester; Matilda in child-bed in the city; he declines to attack Winchester 406
Estimate of his conduct; personal character of the chivalrous feeling 406-408
Robert marches towards London; the armies meet near Maldon 408-409
Desertion of Robert of Bellême and William of Warren 408-409
July 26 Death of Earl Hugh 410
Anselm’s energy on the King’s side; zeal of the English; exhortations of the King 410-411
Negotiations between Henry and Robert; their personal meeting; they agree on terms 412-413
Treaty of 1101; Robert resigns his claim to England; Henry gives up his Norman possessions, but keeps Domfront; other stipulations 413-414
Michaelmas, Robert goes back; mischief done by his army 415 1101
§ 4. Revolt of Robert of Bellême. 1102.
Continued disloyalty of the Norman nobles; Henry’s plans for breaking their power 415
Flambard in Normandy; his dealings with the see of Lisieux 415-416
Banishment and restoration of Earl William of Warren 416
Other banishments; trial of Ivo of Grantmesnil; his bargain with Robert of Meulan 417-418
1102-1118 Robert of Meulan Earl of Leicester; his death; his ecclesiastical foundations 418-421
Christmas, Assembly at Westminster; danger from Robert of 1101-1102 Bellême; the King watches him 420-421
April 6, Easter assembly at Winchester; Robert of Bellême 1102 summoned, but does not come 421-422
Second summons to Robert; the war begins 422
Robert and his brothers Arnulf and Roger; his acquisition of Ponthieu; his dealings with Wales, Ireland, and Norway 423-424
Condition of Wales; return of Gruffydd and Cadwgan 424
Alliance of Robert of Bellême with the Welsh 425
Arnulf’s dealings with Murtagh; the Irish king’s daughter promised to him 425-426
Henry’s negotiations with Duke Robert; the Duke attacks Robert of Bellême’s fortress of Vignats 426
Treason of Robert of Montfort; defeat of the besiegers; general ravages 427-428
Robert of Bellême strengthens his castles; his works at Bridgenorth 428
The King besieges Arundel; truce with the besieged 428-429
Robert and Arnulf harry Staffordshire 429
Surrender of Arundel 430
Surrender of Tickhill; its later history 431-432
Autumn, Henry’s Shropshire campaign; Robert of Bellême at 1102 Shrewsbury; the three captains at Bridgenorth 432-433
Story of William Pantulf; he joins the King; his services 434-435
Siege of Bridgenorth; division between the nobles and the mass of the army 435-437
Gathering of the mass of the army; they stand by the King 437-438
William Pantulf wins over Jorwerth to the King 439-440
The captains at Bridgenorth agree to surrender 440-441
Arnulf goes to Ireland; Robert asks help of Magnus in vain 442-443
The mercenaries at Bridgenorth refuse to surrender; they are overpowered by the captains and the townsmen 443-444
Surrender of Bridgenorth; the mercenaries march out with the honours of war 444-445
Robert still holds Shrewsbury; his despair 445-446
The King’s march to Shrewsbury; zeal of the English; clearing of the road 446-447
The King refuses terms to Robert; he submits at discretion, and is banished from England 448-449
Joy at Robert’s overthrow; banishment of his brothers; later history of Robert of Bellême 449-450
1103 Death of Magnus 451
1103 Later history of Jorwerth; his trial at Shrewsbury and imprisonment 451-453
Assemblies held in various places under Henry 452
1104-1106 Establishment of Henry’s power; banishment of William of Mortain; his imprisonment and alleged blinding 453
1102-1135 Peace of Henry’s reign; its character; Henry the refounder of the English nation 454-455
1107 The compromise with Anselm 455
1106 Battle of Tinchebrai 456
General character and results of the reigns of William Rufus and Henry 456-457
APPENDIX.
NOTE A. The Accession of William Rufus 459
B. The Beginning of the Rebellion of 1088 465
C. The Share of Bishop William of Saint-Calais in the Rebellion of 1088 469
D. The Deliverance of Worcester in 1088 475
E. The Attempted Landing of the Normans at Pevensey 481
F. The Bishopric of Somerset and the Abbey of Bath 483
G. The Character of William Rufus 490
H. The Ecclesiastical Benefactions of William Rufus 504
I. Chivalry 508
K. The Purchase of the Côtentin by the Ætheling Henry 510
L. The Death of Conan 516
M. The Siege of Courcy 519
N. The Treaty of 1091 522
O. The Siege of Saint Michael’s Mount 528
P. The Adventures of Henry after the Surrender of Saint Michael’s Mount 535
Q. The Homage of Malcolm in 1091 540
R. The Earldom of Carlisle 545
S. The Early Life of Randolf Flambard 551
T. The Official Position of Randolf Flambard 557
U. The alleged Domesday of Randolf Flambard 562
W. The Dealings of William Rufus with vacant Bishoprics and Abbeys 564
X. The Appointment of Herbert Losinga to the See of Thetford 568
Y. The Letters of Anselm 570
Z. Robert Bloet 584
AA. The Mission of Abbot Geronto 588
BB. The Embassies between William Rufus and Malcolm in 1093 590
CC. The Death of Malcolm 592
DD. The Burial of Margaret 596
EE. Eadgyth-Matilda 598
FF. Tynemouth and Bamburgh 603
GG. The Conquest of Glamorgan 613
HH. Godwine of Winchester and his son Robert 615
II. The Expedition of Magnus 618
KK. The Relations between Hildebert and Helias 624
LL. The Surrender of Le Mans to William Rufus 628
MM. The Fortresses of Le Mans 631
NN. The Dates of the Building of Le Mans Cathedral 632
OO. The Interview between William Rufus and Helias 640
PP. The Voyage of William Rufus to Touques 645
QQ. The Siege of Mayet 652
RR. William Rufus and the Towers of Le Mans Cathedral 654
SS. The Death of William Rufus 657
TT. The Burial of William Rufus 676
UU. The Election of Henry the First 680
WW. The Objections to the Marriage of Henry and Matilda 682
XX. The Treaty of 1101 688
ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS.
VOL. II.
p. 19, note 3. This picture of the two natives, most likely churls, carrying the King’s body on the cart, is singularly like the story of Rufus’ own end to which we shall come presently.
p. 27, l. 5. I should not have said “a relic,” as I find that the black cross of Scotland is a relic of great fame, as indeed is almost implied in the story.
p. 27, note 5. See vol. i. p. 167.
p. 28, note 5. Munch (Det Norske Folks Historie, ii. 471-475, for an introduction to which I have to thank Professor Fiske of Cornell University) connects this entry with the account of Magnus’ dealings with Man, spoken of in p. 138, and with every likelihood supposes an earlier expedition of Magnus in 1093, in which he appeared in both Scotland and Man, and which the writers of the Sagas have confounded with his expedition in 1098. We can thus understand the mention of Godred, who was certainly alive in 1093, and certainly dead in 1098. See also Anderson, Preface to Orkneyinga Saga, pp. xxxiii-xxxiv.
p. 31, l. 14. Not “the Breton Count Alan,” at least not the Count of the Bretons, but Alan of Richmond. See p. 602.
p. 49, l. 22, for “south-western” read “north-western.”
p. 62, note 5. Mr. Fowler writes to me that “what is left of William of Saint-Calais is under the floor in the part of the chapter-house still used. W. G. has one of his shoes. They began at the west end in burying the bishops in the chapter-house, and gradually worked eastward, ending with Kellow before the bishop’s seat at the east end. Rites of Durham (Surtees Society ed. p. 47) gives the names as they were ‘ingraven upon stone with the figure of the crosse + annexed to every of their said names,’ i.e. on the chapter-house floor, and between ‘Walcherus’ and ‘Ranulphus comes’.
‘Willielmus Episcopus.’
We found further east ‘Will. Secundus Episcopus’ [that is William of Saint Barbara, bishop from 1143-1152]. Wyatt smashed them all more or less.”
p. 81, note 1. See p. 614.
p. 88, l. 17. See below, p. 103.
p. 93, note 2. I presume this is the same king of whom we shall hear a great deal from p. 137 onwards.
p. 97, l. 2 from bottom. I have been unable to fix the exact site of Rhyd-y-gors; but I believe it is to be looked for in Caermarthenshire.
p. 101, l. 13. I am also unable to fix the exact site of Yspwys.
p. 134, l. 7 from bottom, for “Ulf” read “Wulf,” as in vol. i. p. 14. The English spelling is the better, but I suppose I was carried away by Scandinavian associations.
p. 134, l. 11. Munch (Det Norske Folks Historie, ii. 511) oddly refers to William of Malmesbury as making the companion of Magnus Barefoot, not a younger Harold, but the Magnus whom we have already heard of as our Harold’s son, as I suppose, by Eadgyth Swanneshals. But William of Malmesbury distinctly says Harold, and I can see nothing about it in the places in the Saga of Magnus and the Orkneyinga Saga to which he refers.
p. 136, l. 4 from bottom, for “Cronan” read “Crouan.”
p. 138, note 1. This is placed in the year 1098.
p. 144, l. 1. I know not by what carelessness I contrived, after referring (see p. 131) to Giraldus’ account of the earlier doings of the two Earls in Anglesey, to leave out all mention of his account of Hugh of Shrewsbury’s death, which follows immediately (It. Kamb. ii. 7, vol. vi. p. 129) on the story of the desecration of the church of Llantryfrydog. It agrees on most points very minutely with the narrative of Orderic; but it does not seem to be borrowed from it;
“Accesserant ad insulæ portum ab Orchadum insulis piratæ in navibus longis; quorum adventum ubi comes audivit, statim eis usque in ipsum mare, forti residens equo, animose nimis occurrit. Et ecce navium princeps, cui nomen Magnus, primæ navis in prora cum arcu prostans sagittam direxit. Et quanquam comes a vertice capitis usque ad talum pedis, præter oculos solum, ferro fideliter esset indutus, tamen dextro percussus in lumine, perforato cerebro, in mare corruit moribundus. Quem cum sic corruentem victor ab alto despiceret, superbe in victum et insolenter invectus, dixisse memoratur lingua Danica, ‘Leit loupe,’ quod Latine sonat Sine salire. Et ab hac in posterum hora potestas Anglorum in Monia cessavit.”
The only difference between this story and Orderic’s is that, while Orderic makes Magnus mourn when he learns whom he has slain, Giraldus puts into his mouth two good Teutonic words of triumph, which sound a great deal more natural. On the other hand we cannot accept Giraldus’ account of the immediate result of the encounter as regards Anglesey, which quite contradicts the witness of the Welsh writers. His statement however is true in the long run, as Anglesey was delivered again the next year. See p. 146.
In the Orkneyinga Saga, c. xxix. (p. 55, Anderson), Magnus “takes a psalter and sings during the battle.” Then, by his order, he and the man from Hálogoland shoot at the same time, and hit “Hugh the Proud,” much as in the other versions. He and “Hugh the Proud” are oddly spoken of as “British chiefs.”
p. 146, l. 17. See below, pp. 442, 623; but the words “and of other parts of North Wales” had better be left out.
p. 153, note 1, for “muentione” read “inuentione.”
p. 174, l. 4, for “from” read “for.”
p. 175, l. 3. I think we must accept this distinct statement as more trustworthy than the flourish of Orderic a few pages later, which I have quoted in p. 178, note 1. The present passage, besides its more distinct character, has the force of a correction.
p. 178, note 3. Suger is a discreet writer, or one might suspect him of exaggeration in his figures both ways. If we take “milites” in the strict sense of knights, the French numbers seem strangely small, and the English strangely large. But any other sense of “miles” would make the French numbers quite incredible.
p. 181, note 1. And by the Loir too; see below, p. 276.
p. 190, l. 9 from bottom, “superinducta” is the favourite epithet for her.
p. 201, note 2. “Fraterculus” is an odd word; but it most likely points to Geoffrey as being one of the “canonici pueri” of whom we hear sometimes (see below, p. 521). “Frater” did not get its special meaning till the rise of the Friars, and we have seen the word “fratres” applied to the canons of Waltham. One might for a moment think that Geoffrey was a brother of the Bishop’s own, but this is forbidden by the account of his kindred which directly follows.
p. 207, note 1. This time, when William and Robert were together at Rouen, can only have been about September, 1096, just after the conference between the brothers spoken of in vol. i. p. 559, and just before Robert set forth on the crusade.
p. 230, last line, for “he” read “we.”
p. 243, note 1. It is rather odd that exactly this same phrase of “callidus senex,” here applied to Robert of Meulan, should be also applied to the old Roger of Beaumont in the story told in vol. i. p. 194. We must remember that our present “callidus senex” had been married, seemingly for the first time, only two years before (see vol. i. p. 551), and that he lived till 1118.
p. 250, l. 8. This is doubtless true, but the specially strange guise, described in the passage of William of Malmesbury referred to in the note, was not put on till William of Aquitaine had come back from the crusade. See above, p. 113.
p. 252, note 2. See above, p. 178, and the correction just above, p. 175.
p. 260, note 3. See at the end of the chapter, p. 302, and note 1.
p. 290, l. 2 from bottom. Yet see the piece of Angevin scandal quoted in p. 609.
p. 312, l. 10, for “both Rogers, the Duke of Apulia and the young Count of Sicily, to be one day the first and all but the most famous of Sicilian kings,” read “both Rogers, the Duke of Apulia and the Count of Sicily, now drawing near to the end of his stirring life.” The elder Roger was still alive, though he did not live long after.
p. 343, l. 1. The abbey of Saint Alban’s was not vacant at this time, see p. 666; and for “thirteen” and “twelve” read “twelve” and “eleven,” see note.
p. 347, note 2. Orderic is rather full on the circumstances of the election than on the election itself; see p. 680.
p. 359, l. 11, for “thirteen” read “eleven.”
p. 360, note 1. It must have been at the same time that Abbot Odo of Chertsey was restored to his abbey. See vol. i. p. 350.
p. 380, note 4. We have had one or two other cases of a church tenant like this Eadric or Godric, giving back his lease by way of a benefaction.
p. 389, l. 18. The imperial dignity of Matilda is greatly enlarged on by the poet of Draco Normannicus, i. 4. Two lines are,
“Suscipit Henricus sponsam, statimque coronat, Hoc insigne decus maxima Roma dedit.”
p. 396, l. 4. See vol. i. p. 184.
p. 413, l. 6 from bottom, for “in a neighbour” read “a neighbour in.”
p. 416, l. 1. I cannot admit the statement of Flambard’s Durham biographer, who puts his restoration at this point. It is not so much that he had no claim to restoration by the general terms of the treaty, for he might have been specially included in it. But his restoration at this time is quite inconsistent with Orderic’s account of his dealings with the bishopric of Lisieux, which cannot be mere confusion or invention.
p. 450, l. 3. After the words “give thanks to the Lord God,” insert “for thou hast now begun to be a free king.”
p. 454, l. 13 from bottom, for “his” read “the King’s.”
p. 472, l. 1. This grant of Northallerton must be the same as the grant mentioned in the charter which I have quoted in p. 535; cf. pp. 299, 508.
p. 487, ll. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. It does not appear that any of the regular assemblies of the year 1101 was held at Windsor. The Whitsun assembly (see p. 399) may have been held there, but it is hardly likely. But the mere confirmation of an earlier grant need not have been made in a regular gemót.
p. 503, l. 13. For “hanc terram” read “hac terra.”
p. 508. Several gifts of Rufus to the Abbey of Gloucester are recorded in the Gloucester Cartulary, i. 68, i. 102, i. 115. This last, which appears again in ii. 293, is a grant to the abbey of the right of catching sturgeons. This cannot have been one of the grants made during his sickness at Gloucester (see vol. i. p. 395), as it is dated from Huntingdon; but in the grant in i. 102, it is expressly said that it was made when the King was “apud Gloucestriam morbo gravi vexatus.” In i. 238, 239, 240, Henry and Stephen confirm gifts of their brother and uncle. The document in ii. 107, which in the index is referred to William Rufus, clearly belongs to the Conqueror, and to the earlier part of his reign, before the death of William Fitz-Osbern in 1071; it refers to the lands of the church of Gloucester which were held by Archbishop Thomas. See N. C. vol. ii. p. 690.
In the Register of Malmesbury (p. 330) there is a singular charter in favour of the Abbey of Malmesbury granted during his stay at Hastings in 1094. It brings in several familiar names great and small, and illustrates the relations between landowners of any kind and the King and his huntsmen;
“Willelmus rex Angliæ O. episcopo et W. Hosato, et C. venatori, et A. falconario, salutem. Sciatis me abbati Godefrido silvas suas ad custodiendum commendasse. Nolo ergo ut aliquis forestarius meus de eis se intromittat. Et Croco venatori præcipio ut de ix. sol. quos super homines suos placitaverat eum et suos clamet quietos. Teste Willelmo episcopo, et F. filio Hamonis, R. capellano, apud Hastinge.”
p. 569, heading, for “Losinga” read “Herbert.”
p. 585, l. 1. It is odd that William of Malmesbury should speak of the all-powerful Roger of Salisbury as “alius quidam episcopus;” for we see from the Chronicle (see p. 587) that it was no other.
p. 592, l. 10, for “þaes” read “þæs.”
p. 600, l. 6 from bottom. I seem in p. 30 to have taken “puellæ nostræ” to mean the nuns; but it would rather seem, both here and in the next page, to mean, other girls sent merely for education, like Eadgyth herself.
p. 605, l. 8 from bottom. I cannot get rid of a lurking notion that this “Aldredi” should be “Alberici.” But I do not know how Alberic could appear with the title of earl in the time of Waltheof.
p. 611, l. 9 from bottom. See M. Paris, ed. Wats, Additamenta, p. 199.
THE REIGN OF WILLIAM RUFUS.
THE WARS OF SCOTLAND, NORTHUMBERLAND, AND WALES.[1]
1093-1098.
[Sidenote: Events of the year 1093.]
[Sidenote: Relations between England and Scotland.]
[Sidenote: War of 1093.]
[Sidenote: Its results.]
[Sidenote: Growth of the English power]
[Sidenote: and of the English nation under William Rufus.]
[Sidenote: The Scottish kingdom becomes English.]
The year of Anselm’s appointment to the archbishopric, that part of the year which passed between the day when the bishop’s staff was forced into his hand and the day when he received consecration from Thomas of Bayeux, was a time full of stirring and memorable events of quite another kind. It was now that some of the events of former years were to bring forth fruit. The relations between England and Scotland were of a kind which might lead to open warfare at any moment.[2] This year the open warfare came. And it was a warfare which was far more important in its direct results than mere plundering inroads on either side of the border commonly were. The direct results of the warfare of this year were in truth the crowning result of causes which had been working for a whole generation. It was a singular irony of fate which made William the Red in some sort a missionary, not only of the political power of the English kingdom, but of the ascendency of the English blood and speech. He began the later position of England as an European power. He extended the boundaries of the kingdom of England within his own island. And, more than this, he gave decisive help to a work which wrought one of the greatest of victories, not so much for England as a power as for the English-speaking folk in their English-speaking character. That he gave kings to Scotland was a small matter; that was done by other rulers of England before and after him. What specially marks his reign is that in his day, and largely by his agency, it was ruled that, of the three elements in Northern Britain, British, English, and Scottish or Irish, the English element should have the upper hand. It was ruled that the kingdom of Scotland, whatever might be its relations towards the kingdom of England, whether separate or united, whether dependent or independent, whether friendly or hostile, should be itself truly an English kingdom, a kingdom which was for some generations more truly English than the southern England itself.
[Sidenote: Summary of Scottish affairs.]
[Sidenote: Death of Malcolm; first reign of Donald. 1093.]
[Sidenote: Reign of Duncan.]
[Sidenote: Second reign of Donald. 1094.]
[Sidenote: Establishment of Eadgar. 1097.]
[Sidenote: Revolt of Robert of Mowbray. 1095.]
The Scottish affairs with which we shall have to deal in the present chapter begin with the controversy between William Rufus and Malcolm which led to the death of Malcolm in his last invasion of England. On this follows that first outburst of the true Scottish nationality which led to the election of Donald, followed by his overthrow and the establishment of Duncan by the power of England. Then, after a short interval, comes the second national uprising, and the restoration of Donald. After a longer interval comes the second overthrow of Donald, and the establishment of the younger Eadgar by the arms of the elder. The question was now decided in favour of the line of Malcolm and Margaret and of the form of English influence which was represented by that line. And between these two last revolutions we may record, as a kind of episode for which it is not easy to find a place in the general run of any other narrative, the revolt and overthrow of the great earl of Northern England which forms at least a poetical sequence to the overthrow of Malcolm. Between the second establishment and the second overthrow of Donald, I propose to tell, in its chronological order, the tale of the slayers of Malcolm, of Earl Robert of Mowbray and his kinsman Morel. There is little doubt that their revolt was connected with movements in Normandy also; but it would have been hard to describe it in a chapter in which Anselm is the chief actor. It comes better in its moral and geographical relation towards the affairs of Scotland.
[Sidenote: Affairs of Wales.]
[Sidenote: Comparison between Wales and Scotland.]
[Sidenote: Disunion in Wales.]
[Sidenote: Effects of the reign on the union of Britain.]
[Sidenote: Its causes.]
[Sidenote: Comparison with Ireland and Normandy.]
But Scotland was not the only land within the four seas of Britain with which the kingdom of England has much to do, especially in the way of fighting, within the few years of this memorable reign. The affairs of Wales are still more constantly coming before our eyes. While the Red King is on the throne, Welsh warfare supplies, year after year, no small part of the events which the chronicler of England has to record. The Welsh history of this time is one of deep interest on many grounds. But it is specially important as giving us an example of a third type of conquest in our own island, a conquest differing widely both from the English Conquest of Britain and from the Norman Conquest of England. Nor do the affairs of Wales fail to supply us with some instructive contrasts as compared with the affairs of Scotland. Scotland and the other dominions of the Scottish king seem throughout this time to act as a whole, at least as regards England. The land is conquered, or it wins back its freedom; it receives foreign influences, or it casts them out; but it seems to do all these things as a whole. The union was perhaps very much on the surface, but the events of this time bring whatever there was of union to the front. The British story, on the other hand, is the story of disunion in its strongest form. Alike in victory and in defeat, all is local and personal; common action on the part of the whole nation seems impossible. The result of English dealings with Wales during these years may be summed up as immediate loss and final success, as defeat in detail leading to substantial conquest. It is to this reign more than to any other that we may trace up the beginning of the chain of events which has gradually welded together England, Scotland, and Wales, into the thoroughly united island of Great Britain. The remote causes begin far earlier; now we begin to enter on the actual story itself. And from that story we may perhaps draw another lesson. Three nations, differing in blood and speech, once parted by bitter enmities, have been worked together into one political whole, while still keeping so much of old diversity as is really healthy, so much as hinders a dull and lifeless uniformity, so much as sometimes kindles to wholesome rivalry in a common cause. But this has been because the facts of geography allowed and almost compelled their union; it has been because the nature of the old enmities was such as did not hinder union. England, Scotland, and Wales, have at various times done one another a good deal of mischief; there has been no time when any one of the three held either of the others in abiding Turkish bondage. But these very facts may teach us that the same result cannot be looked for in a land where the undying laws of nature and the events of past history alike forbid it. Such union cannot be where the boundaries of land and water on the map, where the memory of abiding Turkish bondage in days not long passed by, join to hinder the same process of welding together which has so happily taken place among the three nations of the isle of Britain. William the Red did much for the final union of Britain, because nature favoured that union. He brought Normandy under the same rule as England, but only for the two lands to be again parted asunder, because nature forbad their union. And if it be true that from the rocks of Saint David’s he looked out on the dim outline of distant Ireland, he did well to turn away from the prospect, to bluster and threaten, it may be, but to keep the practical exercise of his warfare and his policy for other lands. He did well to keep it, as far as the island world was concerned, for those lands which, as the event has shown, nature did not forbid to be, in course of ages, fully united with his kingdom.
§ 1. The Last Year of Malcolm. 1093.
[Sidenote: Complaints made by Malcolm.]
[Sidenote: Effects on Scotland of the restoration of Carlisle.]
[Sidenote: Probable wrong to Scotland.]
[Sidenote: Other grounds of offence.]
[Sidenote: Scottish embassy at Gloucester. March, 1093.]
[Sidenote: Malcolm summoned to Gloucester.]
[Sidenote: Eadgar sent to bring him.]
We should be glad of a clearer account than we have of the immediate causes which led to the open breach between William and Malcolm in the year which followed the restoration of Carlisle. It is certain that Malcolm complained through an embassy that the King of the English had failed to carry out the provisions of the treaty made two years before. Nothing is more likely; it was not the manner of William Rufus to carry out his treaties with other princes, any more than his promises to his subjects. Both alike, being parts of his everyday duty, and not lighted up with the rays of chivalrous honour, were reckoned by him under the head of those promises which no man can carry out. But we should be well pleased to know whether the alleged breach of treaty had anything to do with William’s Cumbrian conquest. The strengthening of Carlisle, the annexation of its district, could in no case have been agreeable to the King of Scots. And if, as there seems every reason to believe, the land had been held by its late lord Dolfin as a vassal of the Scottish crown, what William had done was a distinct aggression on the rights of that crown. The superiority of the English crown over both Scotland and Cumberland would in no way justify the act; it would have been a wrong done to the Duke of the Normans if the King of the French had annexed Ponthieu and strengthened Saint Valery against Normandy. But we are not told whether this was the ground of offence, or whether William had failed to carry out any of the clauses of the treaty, those for instance which secured to the King of Scots certain payments and possessions in England.[3] What followed may perhaps suggest that, however much the occupation of Carlisle may have rankled in the mind of Malcolm, the formal ground of complaint was something of this last kind. Whatever were his wrongs, the Scottish king sent to complain of them, and the answer which he received was one which shows that, at this first stage, Rufus was not disposed to slight the complaint. We are not told the exact date of this first Scottish embassy. It may very well have come during the short season of William’s reformation; his seeming readiness to deal reasonably with the matter, as contrasted with his conduct a few months later, may pass as one of the fruits of his temporary penitence, along with the appointment of Anselm and the promise of good laws. He sent an embassy to Scotland, inviting or summoning the Scottish King to Gloucester, and giving hostages for his safety. This looks very much as if the ground of complaint was the refusal of some of the rights which had been promised to Malcolm whenever he came to the English court. The Scottish King agreed to come on these terms. William, in his present frame of mind, was seemingly anxious to do all honour to the prince with whom he was dealing. The Scottish ambassadors were sent back to bring their king, and with them, as the most fitting of mediators, was sent the man who had himself for a moment been a king, the brother-in-law of Malcolm, the favoured guest of William, the Ætheling Eadgar.[4]
[Sidenote: Eadgar in favour with William.]
[Sidenote: His mission to Scotland.]
We last heard of Eadgar somewhat more than a year before, when Robert left England in anger, and Eadgar went with him.[5] This seems to imply that the relations between William and Eadgar were at that moment unfriendly. We have no account of Eadgar’s return to England; but the duty on which he was now sent implies that he was now not only in William’s formal favour, but in his real confidence. He who had lately been Malcolm’s representative in a conference with William now acts as William’s representative in a conference with Malcolm. Eadgar, like his friend Duke Robert, was clearly one of those men who can act better on behalf of others than on behalf of themselves.[6] In his present mission he seems to have acquitted himself to William’s full satisfaction; the King of Scots was persuaded to come to the English court. If his coming did not prove specially lucky either to himself or to the over-lord to whom he came, that was at all events not the fault of Eadgar.
[Sidenote: Meeting at Gloucester. August 24, 1093.]
[Sidenote: Malcolm sets forth. August, 1093.]
While Eadgar was away on his mission to Scotland, he left behind him a busy state of things in England. His embassy came in the midst of the long delays between Anselm’s first nomination and his investiture, enthronement, and consecration. It came in the time when William of Eu was plotting,[7] and when, as we shall presently see, seeming conquest was going on throughout Wales. The place and day for which Malcolm was summoned to the King’s court was Gloucester on the feast of Saint Bartholomew. This can hardly have been a forestalling of the regular Christmas Gemót, for which, by the rule of the last reign, Gloucester was the proper place. But this year, like most years when William Rufus was in England, was a year of meetings. This cannot be the meeting at which Anselm was invested and did homage, for that, as we have seen, was at Winchester.[8] But, if Winchester was near to the New Forest, Gloucester was near to the Forest of Dean, and would on that account not be without its attractions for the Red King.[9] Or it may well be that the presence of the King at Gloucester, both now and earlier in the year, may have been caused by the convenience of that city for assemblies in which action against the Britons might have to be discussed.[10] Malcolm accordingly set forth, “with mickle worship,” in the beginning of August as it would seem, to go to the court of the over-lord by the Severn.
[Sidenote: He stops at Durham.]
[Sidenote: Rebuilding of the abbey.]
[Sidenote: Malcolm lays a foundation stone. August 11, 1093.]
[Sidenote: Much of Malcolm’s dominions in Durham diocese.]
[Sidenote: Import of the ceremony.]
On his way he tarried to take part in a great ecclesiastical ceremony, his share in which was not without a political meaning. The Bishop of Durham, William of Saint-Calais, now again the King’s chief counsellor, already his partisan in the opening strife with Anselm,[11] was ready to begin his great work of rebuilding Saint Cuthberht’s abbey. The church of Ealdhun, which had escaped the flames on the day of Robert of Comines,[12] could not really have been ruinous beyond repair; but, after the fashion of the time, it was doomed to make way for a building, built not only on a vaster scale, but in an improved form of art surpassing every contemporary building.[13] Of the mighty pile which still stands, the glory of the Northern Romanesque, King Malcolm now laid one of the foundation-stones, along with Bishop William and Prior Turgot.[14] The invitation to take part in such a work was clearly meant as a mark of honour and friendship on both sides. But it must surely have meant more. The King of Scots could not on any showing have claimed any authority at Durham. But he was something more than a mere foreign visitor. As ecclesiastical geography was understood at Durham, Malcolm was no stranger there; he was rather quite at home. At York he might have been told that the whole of his dominions owed spiritual allegiance to that metropolis. But the Bishops of Durham, practically the only suffragans of the see of York and suffragans almost on a level with their metropolitan, were at no time specially zealous for the rights of the Northern Primate. But, as they drew the ecclesiastical map, a great part of Malcolm’s dominions, his earldom of Lothian, his Castle of the Maidens, perhaps even lands beyond those borders, all came within their own immediate spiritual charge. To the counsellor of King William Malcolm came as the highest vassal of the English crown; to the Bishop of Durham he came as the highest layman in his own diocese. As such, he was fittingly asked to take a share in a work which concerned the kingdom and the church of which he was one of the chief members. His consent, besides being a mark of friendship alike towards King William and Bishop William, was doubtless taken as an acknowledgement that he belonged to the temporal realm of the one and to the spiritual fold of the other. And if Malcolm had learned any of the subtleties of some of his contemporaries and of some of his successors, he might have comforted himself with the thought that, whatever the laying of the stone implied, it was laid only by the Earl of Lothian and not by the King of Scots.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Malcolm at Gloucester. August 24, 1093.]
[Sidenote: Rufus refuses to see Malcolm.]
[Sidenote: Dispute between the kings.]
[Sidenote: Question of “doing right.”]
[Sidenote: Probable pretensions of Rufus.]
[Sidenote: William in the wrong.]
[Sidenote: William observes his safe-conduct.]
From Durham and its ceremonies Malcolm, Earl and King, went on to the court of the over-lord at Gloucester. He had evidently come disposed to make the best of matters, as William himself had been during his time of sickness and penitence. But now in August Rufus was himself again; he had repented of his repentance; he was more than ever puffed up with pride and with the feeling of his own power. Out of mere insolence, it would seem, in defiance of the advice of his counsellors who wished for peace, he refused to have any speech with, or even to see, the royal vassal and guest who had made such a journey to come to his presence.[15] Whatever passed between the kings must have passed by way of message through third parties. In one account we read generally that Rufus would do nothing of what he had promised to Malcolm.[16] In another version we are told, with all the precision of legal language, that William demanded that Malcolm should “do right” to him by the judgement of the barons of England only, while Malcolm maintained that he was bound by ancient custom to “do right” only on the borders of the two kingdoms, where the kings of Scots were wont to “do right” to the kings of the English, and that by the judgement of the great men of both kingdoms.[17] The meaning of these words is plainly open to dispute, and it has naturally given rise to not a little.[18] Their most natural meaning seems to be that William wished to deal with the kingdom of Scotland as with an ordinary fief. Such a claim would have been against all precedent, and it would be specially dangerous when William Rufus was king and when Randolf Flambard was his minister. On the other hand, Malcolm in no way denies the superiority of the English crown; he stands simply on the ground of ancient custom. He is ready to “do right,” a process clearly to be done by an inferior to a superior; but he will do it only as by ancient custom it was wont to be done. Because a kingdom acknowledged the external superiority of another kingdom, it did not at all follow that its king was bound to submit himself to the judgement of the barons of the superior kingdom. The original commendation had been made, not only by the King of Scots, but by the whole Scottish people,[19] and their king might fairly claim that he should have the advice and help of his own Wise Men in making answer to any charge that was brought against him. This is one of the cases in which the use of technical language, without any full explanation of the circumstances, really makes a matter darker; and we must perhaps be content to leave the exact point at issue unsettled. But it is plain from the English Chronicle that William was in the wrong; he refused to do something for Malcolm which he had promised to do. The obligations of a treaty sat lightly on the Red King; but on one point his honour was pledged. Malcolm had come under a safe-conduct――the sending of hostages, if nothing else, shows it. And a safe-conduct from Rufus might always be trusted. We cannot say that the two kings parted in wrath, seeing they did not meet at all. But Malcolm naturally went away in great wrath, and he left Rufus behind him in great wrath also. He reached his own kingdom in safety; what he did with the hostages we are not told.[20]
[Illustration: Map illustrating the NORTHUMBRIAN CAMPAIGNS A.D. 1093-95. Edwᵈ. Weller For the Delegates of the Clarendon Press.]
[Sidenote: Malcolm’s last invasion of England.]
[Sidenote: He draws near to Alnwick.]
[Sidenote: Alnwick castle.]
[Sidenote: Alnwick and the Percies.]
[Sidenote: The first Percy at Alnwick. 1309.]
[Sidenote: The true Percies.]
[Sidenote: The Vescies at Alnwick.]
[Sidenote: 1174.]
The silly pride shown by William Rufus at Gloucester led to a series of events of the highest importance both as to the relations between England and Scotland, and as to the internal affairs of the northern kingdom. As soon as Malcolm reached Scotland, he gathered together his forces, and began his fifth, and, as it happened, his last, invasion of England. He entered the earldom of Northumberland, and harried after his usual fashion as far as some point which, there is no reason to doubt, was in the near neighbourhood of Alnwick. We may fairly accept the tradition which carries him to the spot known as Malcolm’s Cross, where a commemorative rood once stood, and where the ruins of a Romanesque chapel may still be seen. The spot is on high ground overlooking the river Alne, while on the opposite side of the stream a lower height is crowned by the town of Alnwick, and by such remains of its famous castle as modern innovation has spared. The neighbourhood of that castle, the fame of the historic house which once held it, has caused every place and every act into which the name of Alnwick or of Percy can be dragged to be surrounded by an atmosphere of legend. It needs some little effort to take in the fact that, as the Percies of history have long passed away from Alnwick, so in the days of Malcolm some centuries had to pass before the Percies of history reached Alnwick. It needs some further effort to take in the further fact that the true Percy, the Percy of Domesday, the Percy of Yorkshire, never had anything to do with Alnwick or with Northumberland at all. And it perhaps needs a further effort again to take in the fact that it is by no means clear whether in the days of Malcolm there was any castle of Alnwick in being. One may guess that the site had been fortified at some earlier time; but the known history of Alnwick, castle and abbey, begins with the works of the elder lords of Alnwick, the house of Vescy, in the next century.[21] Of that date a noble gateway has still been spared, which may well have looked on the captivity of the Scottish William in the days of Henry the Second, but which assuredly did not look on the death of Malcolm in the days of the Red King. The height to which Malcolm’s harryings reached may have looked down on some earlier fortress beyond the Alne, or it may simply have looked down on the town of Alnwick, which was doubtless already in being. But whatever was there at that time in the way of artificial defence, there were stout hearts and a wary leader ready to meet the king who was invading England for the fifth time.
[Sidenote: English feeling about Malcolm.]
[Sidenote: Death of Malcolm. November 13, 1093.]
[Sidenote: Malcolm slain by Morel.]
It is certainly strange that in not a few English writers, generally indeed those who are parted from the event by some distance of time and place, the overthrow of the invaders which now followed is told with a certain feeling for the invader and with a certain feeling against those who overthrew him. Malcolm perhaps drew to himself some share of the national and religious halo which gathered round his wife, while there was nothing attractive, either on national or on personal grounds, in the men who at that time stood forth as the champions of England. Yet it must have been the “good men” of two years past[22] who now went forth under the cunning guidance of Earl Robert of Mowbray. By some ambush or other stratagem, that skilful captain led his forces on the Scottish King unawares, under circumstances which are not detailed, but which have led even English writers to speak of the attack as treacherous.[23] Malcolm was killed; and with him died his son and expected heir Eadward. They fell on the day of Saint Brice, ninety-one years after the great slaughter of the Danes which has made that day memorable in the kalendar of England.[24] The actual slayer of Malcolm was his gossip Morel, Earl Robert’s nephew and steward, guardian of the rock and fortress of Bamburgh. From him it would seem that Alnwick, or perhaps rather the dale between Alnwick and Malcolm’s Cross, took the name of Moreldene.[25] Morel was, it was noticed, the gossip, the compater, of Malcolm, as William Malet was of Harold;[26] and it seems almost to be implied, by writers far away from Alnwick, that this spiritual affinity made the slaughter of the invader a crime.
[Sidenote: Burial of Malcolm at Tynemouth.]
[Sidenote: History of Tynemouth.]
[Sidenote: Martyrdom of King Oswine.]
[Sidenote: First church of Tynemouth.]
[Sidenote: Invention of Saint Oswine. March 15, 1065.]
[Sidenote: Tostig begins the new church.]
[Sidenote: Tynemouth granted to Jarrow by Waltheof.]
[Sidenote: Earl Robert grants Tynemouth to Saint Alban’s.]
[Sidenote: Death of Abbot Paul. 1093.]
[Sidenote: Translation of Saint Oswine. August 23, 1103.]
[Sidenote: Malcolm translated to Dunfermline.]
The body of Malcolm, like the bodies of Harold and Waltheof, received a first burial and a later translation. It was first borne to the church of Saint Oswine at Tynemouth, a place which was growing into great reputation under the special favour of Earl Robert. Through his bounty the walls of a new minster were rising within his fortress which crowned the rocky height on the left bank of the mouth of the great Northumbrian river. That fortress and that minster will again play a memorable part in the chequered history of their founder. But the church of Saint Oswine, the martyred King of Deira, did not owe its first origin to Robert of Mowbray or to any other stranger.[27] The body of the sainted king, slain by the practice of the Bretwalda Oswin, was laid in a church which was said to have been first built of wood by the Bretwalda Eadwine, and then rebuilt of stone by the sainted Bretwalda Oswald. The position of Tynemouth marked it out as a special point for attack and defence in the days of the Danish invasions; but, after the havoc which they caused, the holy place had been neglected and forgotten. In the days of Earl Tostig and Bishop Æthelwine the pious care of the Earl’s wife Judith had led to the invention of the martyr’s relics, and to the beginning of a new church. Of that church Tostig laid the foundations in the year of his fall, but men of another speech were to finish it. The unfinished church was granted by Earl Waltheof to the monks of the newly restored house of Jarrow, and his gift was confirmed by the Norman Earl Alberic. A gift to Jarrow proved, as events turned out, to be the same thing as a gift to Durham; but, before the change of foundation at Durham, the monks of Jarrow had removed the relics of Saint Oswine from Tynemouth to their own church. With the reign of Earl Robert a change came. Out of devotion, and at the heavenly bidding, as was believed at Saint Alban’s――out of a quarrel with Bishop William, as was believed at Durham――but at all events out of a feeling for the memory of Oswine which showed that he had learned some reverence for the worthies of the land in which he had settled――Earl Robert deprived the church of Durham of this possession, and refounded Tynemouth as a cell to the distant abbey of Saint Alban. Abbot Paul came in person to take possession, in defiance of all protests on behalf of Durham, where it was believed that his death which soon followed was the punishment of this wrong. Saint Oswine himself was not translated back to Tynemouth till the power of Robert of Mowbray had passed away. But the church on the rock became famous, and it fills a considerable place in the local history of Saint Alban’s. There, in the chosen sanctuary of his conqueror, the body of Malcolm lay for awhile. He was afterwards moved to his own Dunfermline[28], where the pillars of his minster, in their deep channellings, bear witness to an abiding tie, at least of the artistic kind, between the royal abbey of Scotland and the great church of Northern England of which a Scottish king laid the foundation-stone.
[Sidenote: Local estimate of Malcolm’s death.]
But, if English writers in later times, and even men who wrote at the time in distant parts of England, found some flowers to strew on the tomb of the husband of the saintly daughter of the old kingly line, no such feelings were shared by those who had seen Malcolm and his invading host at their own doors. The chronicler who wrote nearest to the spot stops, as he records the death of Malcolm, to mark the judgement of God which cut off the merciless enemy of England. He stops to reckon up all the times that Malcolm had laid waste the fields of Northumberland, and had carried away the folk of Northumberland into bondage.[29] He tells with glee how the invading host utterly vanished; how they were either cut down by the sword of the avenger, or swept away by the floods of Alne, swollen by the winter’s rain beyond its wonted depth and strength.[30] He records the burial at Tynemouth; but he takes care to tell how none of the Scottish host was left to bury the Scottish king, but how the charity of two men of the land bore him on a wain to the place of burial.[31] And he adds the moral, equally applicable to all ambitious kings, that he who had deprived so many of life and goods and freedom now, by God’s just judgement, lost his life and his goods together.[32]
[Sidenote: Character of Margaret.]
[Sidenote: Malcolm’s devotion to her.]
[Sidenote: Margaret’s education of her children.]
[Sidenote: Her sons;]
[Sidenote: David;]
[Sidenote: Eadmund.]
The invading king was dead, and with him the son whom he had designed to wear his crown after him was dead also. The saintly wife of Malcolm and mother of Eadward was soon to follow her husband and her son. Of the true holiness of Margaret, of her zeal, not only for a formal devotion, but for all that is morally right, none can doubt.[33] A woman evidently of great natural gifts and of a cultivation unusual in her time, she deeply impressed all whom she came across, her own husband most of all. To Malcolm his Margaret was indeed a pearl of great price, to be cherished, almost to be worshipped, as already a saint on earth. She taught him to share her devotions, till men wondered at such piety in a man of this world.[34] It is touching to read how the unlettered king loved to look with wonder on the books in which his queen delighted; how those which she delighted in more than others he would cherish and kiss like holy relics, how he would have them adorned with gold and gems, and would then bring them back to his wife in their new splendour, as sacred offerings.[35] Her prayers, her fasts, her never-failing bounty to the poor, stand out in her biography even more conspicuously than her gifts to churches, to distant Iona among them.[36] It is perhaps a rarer merit that the influence of her personal example hindered the slightest approach to foul or profane speech in her presence,[37] and that her careful education of her children handed on her virtues to another generation. For Margaret was not one of those who sought for their own soul’s health in neglecting the most obvious duties of the state of life to which God had called them. In the petty and selfish devotion of her great-uncle she had no share; called to be wife, mother, and queen, it was by doing her duty as wife, mother, and queen that she won her claim to a higher saintship than that of Æthelthryth at Ely or of Eadgyth at Wilton. The witness of Margaret is in her children, children many of whom bore the great and kingly names of her own house. The careful training which the Conqueror gave to his children showed its fruits in his daughters only; the teaching of Margaret lived in her sons as well. Eadward died with his father; but in Eadgar and Alexander and the more renowned David, she gave three kings to Scotland, of whom the two latter were kings indeed, while all three inherited the gentleness and piety of their mother, along with the virtue so rare among the princes of that day, the strictest purity of personal life.[38] David, son-in-law of Waltheof, who gave Scotland worthy heirs to succeed him, surely ranks higher on the roll of royal saints than Eadward, son-in-law of Godwine, who left England to the chances of a disputed succession. One child only of this goodly stock is spoken of as falling away from the bright example of his parent.[39] Yet Eadmund, alone of the children of Margaret, lived to become a cloistered monk; and he was perhaps deemed degenerate only because he fell back on the character of a Scottish patriot of an older type.
[Sidenote: Margaret’s reforms.]
[Sidenote: State of religion in Scotland.]
[Sidenote: Malcolm acts as his wife’s interpreter.]
[Sidenote: She increases the pomp of the Scottish court.]
[Sidenote: Her early associations.]
[Sidenote: Feeling of the Scots.]
Had Margaret confined her cares to bringing up her own children in strict piety and virtue, one of her sons would in all likelihood have mounted his father’s throne immediately after the bloody day of Alnwick. But in Malcolm’s kingdom she came, in her own eyes at least, as the representative of a higher morality, a purer religion, and a more advanced civilization, and she felt specially called on to play the part of a reformer. The ecclesiastical condition of Scotland was by no means perfect, according to the standard which Margaret had brought with her. The Scots still kept Easter at a wrong time; they said mass in some way which at Durham was deemed barbarous;[40] they cared not for the Lord’s day; and they are said to have neglected the most ordinary Christian rules in the matter of marriage. They took to wife, after Jewish models, the widows of their brothers, and even, after old Teutonic models, the widows of their fathers. All these evils, ecclesiastical and moral, Margaret set herself zealously to root out. Councils were gathered to work the needful reforms, and Margaret found her husband an useful interpreter. For the king who had been placed on the Scottish throne by the will of Eadward and the arms of Siward naturally spoke the English tongue as readily as that of his own people.[41] But Margaret was a queen as well as a saint; and she either took a personal pleasure in the pomp of royalty or else she deemed royal state to be wholesome in its effects on the minds of the barbarous people. The King of Scots was taught to show himself in more gorgeous apparel, to ride with a greater and more stately train, than his forefathers had been wont to do. But the righteous queen knew something of the evils which might come of a king’s great and stately following, and she took care that the train of King Malcolm should not, like the train of King William, pass among the fields and households of his people like a blight or a pestilence[42]. That Margaret should innovate in the direction of state and ceremony was not wonderful. Daughter of kings, kinswoman, perhaps daughter, of Cæsars, she had, in her childhood and youth, seen something of many lands. She may have seen the crown of Saint Stephen, still in its freshness, on the brow of a Magyar king, and the crown of Charles and Otto on the brow of an Imperial kinsman. She had assuredly seen King Eadward, King Harold, and King William, in all the glory of the crown to which her husband’s crown owed homage. And we may be sure that the kingly state of Scotland was mean besides that of Germany, of England, and even of Hungary. Margaret might well think it a duty to herself and to her husband to raise him in outward things nearer to a level with his brother kings both of the island and of the mainland. But the policy of such a course, among such a people as the Scots of that age, may well be doubted. A fierce race, hard to control at any time, may well have had no great love for an outward show of kingship, which would be taken, and rightly, as the sign of a growth of the kingly power such as agreed neither with their customs nor with their wishes.
[Sidenote: English influence in Scotland.]
[Sidenote: Scottish feeling towards Margaret.]
[Sidenote: English and Norman settlers.]
[Sidenote: Jealousy of the native Scots.]
Margaret moreover was a stranger in Scotland. One can well believe that the native Scots were already beginning to be jealous of English influence in any shape. Before Margaret came, they must have felt that the English element in the triple dominion was growing into greater importance than their own. Lothian was becoming greater than the true Scottish land beyond the Scots’-water. Fife, it may well be, was already becoming as Lothian. Malcolm himself had been placed on the throne by English arms; he had become the man of two kings who were politically English, though they held England as a conquered realm. His five invasions of England must have been quite needful to keep up even Malcolm’s character among his own people. And his English queen, bringing in English ways, trying to turn Scotland into another England, stopping good old Scottish customs and good old Scottish licence, tricking out the King of Albanach in some new devised foreign garb, English, Norman, German, or Hungarian, must have been looked at in her own time, by the Scots of her own day, with very different feelings towards the living queen from those with which they soon learned to look towards the national saint. She came too with her English following, and her English following was only the first wave of many which came to strengthen the English element which was already strong in the land. While Malcolm and Margaret reigned, Scotland, the land which had sheltered Margaret and her house in their days of banishment, stood open to receive, and its king’s court stood open to welcome, every comer from the south. Native Englishmen flying from Norman oppression and Norman plunder,――Normans who thought that their share in the plunder of England was too small――men of both races, of both tongues, of every class and rank among the two races,――all found a settlement across the Scottish border. The King spoke English; the Queen most likely spoke French also; Englishmen and Normans alike seemed civilizing elements among the people whom Margaret had to polish and to convert. Both Normans and English kept Easter at the right time, and neither Normans nor English thought of marrying their step-mothers. Scotland and the court of Scotland were crowded with English and Norman knights, with English and Norman clerks. They got benefices, temporal and spiritual, in the Scottish land. They may have converted; they may have civilized; but conversion and civilization are processes which are not always specially delighted in by those who are to be converted and civilized. Anyhow they were strangers, brought into the land by kingly favour, to flourish, as men would naturally deem, at the cost of the sons of the soil. The national spirit of the Scottish people arose; the jealousy of the strangers established in the land waxed stronger and stronger. It might be in some measure kept down as long as novelty was embodied in the persons of the warrior king and the holy queen. As soon as they were gone, the pent-up torrent burst forth in its full strength.
[Sidenote: The news of Malcolm’s death brought to Margaret. November 17, 1093.]
[Sidenote: English version of her death.]
[Sidenote: Turgot’s version.]
[Sidenote: Her burial at Dunfermline.]
The first to bring the news of the death of her husband and son to the ears of Margaret was another of her sons, the future King Eadgar. As the tale reached Peterborough, Worcester, and Saint Evroul, the Queen, when she heard the tidings, became as one dead at heart; she settled her temporal affairs; she gave gifts to the poor; then she entered the church with her chaplain; she communicated at the mass which he sang; she prayed that her soul might pass away, and her prayer was granted.[43] This is a version which has already received a legendary element. It is not, strictly speaking, miraculous, but is on the way to become so. A person, seemingly in health, is made to die in answer to prayer on the receipt of ill news. The tale, as told by an eye-witness, is different. The Queen had long been expecting death; for half a year she had never mounted a horse, and had but seldom left her bed.[44] On the fourth day after her husband’s death, feeling somewhat stronger, she went into her private oratory; she heard mass, and communicated. Her sickness increased; she was taken back to her bed, holding and kissing a relic known as the Black Cross of Scotland,[45] and waiting for her end. She prayed and repeated the fifty-first psalm,[46] with the cross in her hand. The agony was already near when Eadgar came from the war. She was able to ask after his father and brother. Fearing to distress his mother yet more, Eadgar said that they were well.[47] Margaret conjured him as her son, and by the cross which she had in her hand, to speak the truth. He then told her the grievous tale. She murmured not, nor sinned with her lips.[48] She could even give thanks for her sorrows, sent, as she deemed, to cleanse her from her sins.[49] As one who had just partaken of the holy rite, she began the prayer which follows communion, and, as she prayed, her soul left the world. The deadly paleness passed away from her face, and she lay, red and white, as one sleeping.[50] The place of her death was Edinburgh, the castle of maidens;[51] her body was borne to Dunfermline and buried there, before the altar of the church of the Holy Trinity of her own rearing.[52]
[Sidenote: Scottish feeling towards her.]
[Sidenote: A Scottish king to be chosen.]
[Sidenote: Election of Donald.]
[Sidenote: He drives out the English.]
We read the touching tale with different feelings from those with which it was heard at the moment by Scots who clave to old Scottish ways, good or bad. We have even hints that the funeral of the sainted queen could not go from Edinburgh to Dunfermline without danger. It needed either a miracle or the natural phænomena of the country to enable the body of the English lady to be carried out of one gate of the Castle of the Maidens, while the champions of the old times of Scotland were thundering at another.[53] Such a story may be legendary in its details, but it is clearly no legend, but true tradition, as regards the national feeling of the times which it describes. Scotland, at the time of Malcolm’s death, was still torn by local and dynastic factions;[54] but all parties in the old Scottish realm were agreed on one point. They would have no more innovations from England or from Normandy; they would have no more English or Norman strangers to eat up their land in their own sight. They would have no son of Margaret, no son even of Malcolm, to reign over them; they would again have a king of the true stock of Albanach, who should reign after the old ways of Albanach and none other. The settled English element south of the Scots’-water would be weak against such a movement as this; or indeed it may be that the men of Lothian were no more eager to be reformed after Margaret’s fashion than the men of Scotland and Strathclyde. Such a king as was needed was soon found in the person of Donald Bane, Donald the Red――Scotland had her Rufus as well as England――the brother of the late king and son of that Duncan who had been cut off in his youth in the civil war between his house and the house of Macbeth.[55] He was at once raised to the Scottish crown as the representative of Scottish nationality. His first act was emphatic; “he drave out all the English that ere with the King Malcolm were.”[56]
[Sidenote: Meaning of the words.]
[Sidenote: Margaret’s children driven out.]
[Sidenote: Action of the elder Eadgar.]
[Sidenote: Malcolm’s daughters;]
[Sidenote: Mary;]
[Sidenote: Eadgyth or Matilda;]
[Sidenote: her sojourn at Romsey.]
[Sidenote: Malcolm at Romsey.]
[Sidenote: Her relations with Henry.]
[Sidenote: Tale of Eadgyth and William Rufus.]
This is of course no more to be understood of a general driving out of the settled English inhabitants of Lothian than the massacre of Saint Brice is to be understood of a general slaughter of the settled Danish inhabitants of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire.[57] The driving out was confined to the newly come English, who filled the court of Malcolm and Margaret, and who doubtless kept, or seemed to keep, many a true-born Scot from the favour of his king. For these there was to be no longer a place in the Scottish realm or in the other dominions of its sovereign. They had to go and seek shelter in their own land. The language of our guides suggests that they were mainly English in the strictest sense; though we cannot but fancy that some Normans or other strangers may have crept in among them.[58] One thing is certain; among the English that ere with the King Malcolm were his own children by his English wife held a place. Of his sons Eadmund and Æthelred we cannot speak with certainty; but Eadgar, Alexander, and David, had to flee, and the Scottish story describes their uncle the Ætheling Eadgar as in some way helping their escape. He did it, we are told, by stealth, that he might not kindle any suspicion in the Norman King of England.[59] It is hard to see what Eadgar, who could not have been in Scotland at the time of his sister’s death, could have done for her children till they were at least within the English border, and there is nothing to make us think that Eadgar had in any way lost that full favour with William Rufus which he had enjoyed at the beginning of the year. But the mere use of his name witnesses to the belief that he who could do so little for himself was able to do a good deal for others. In this story he is said to have sheltered his sister’s daughters as well as her sons. More trustworthy accounts say that Eadgyth and Mary had already been sent by their parents to be brought up in the abbey of Romsey, where their aunt Christina was a nun.[60] Mary in time married the younger Eustace of Boulogne, and was the mother of a Queen of the English, that valiant Matilda who strove so well to keep the English crown for her husband Stephen.[61] Eadgyth, in her loftier destiny, will meet us again under the new name which she had to share with her niece and to hand on to an Imperial daughter.[62] The second Queen Matilda of our story, the good Queen Maud of tradition, had been designed to be the bride of the Breton Count Alan.[63] That was not to be her fate; neither was it to be her fate to embrace the holy calling which her aunt Christina strove to force upon her. For the present she remained unprofessed, loathing the veil which her aunt ever and anon put upon her head, to shield her, as she said, from Norman outrage.[64] When Christina’s back was turned, the lively girl tore the veil from her head and trampled on it.[65] Her father too, on some visit to England――could he have turned aside to Romsey before or after his memorable visit to Gloucester?――saw the veil on her head with anger; he had not designed her for that, but for the bridal of Count Alan. It seems plain that her marriage with Henry was a marriage of old affection on both sides, and one version even makes the Ætheling seek for her as his wife in her father’s lifetime. One version, strange indeed, but perhaps the more likely to have some truth in it because of its strangeness, gives her an unlooked-for lover. We are told that, for once, in the person of Eadgyth of Scotland, female charms kindled in the heart of the Red King a passion which in his case might be called virtuous.[66] He came to Romsey with a body of his knights; the wily abbess, dreading his purpose, caused Eadgyth to put on the veil. She then drew the King into the cloister to see her roses and other flowers; but he caught a glimpse of the nuns as they passed by; he saw the veil on the head of Eadgyth, and turned away. She was then twelve years old. Presently her father came; he saw her veiled; he tore the veil from her head, he trampled it under his feet, and took away his daughter. Such a tale must be taken for what it is worth; but the picture of William Rufus contemplating either maidens or roses at least puts him in a light in which we do not meet him elsewhere.
[Sidenote: Christmas, 1093-1094.]
[Sidenote: Events of 1094.]
[Sidenote: Order of Scottish events.]
A series of events now follow which our guides seem to place within the year of Malcolm’s death, but for which room can hardly have been found in the few weeks of it which were still to come. The winter of that year, it will be remembered, was a stirring winter. It saw the consecration of Anselm; it saw the Gemót at Gloucester at which William received the challenge from his brother in Normandy;[67] it saw the first beginnings of fresh disputes between the King and the Archbishop.[68] The next year was the year of William’s second Norman expedition, and it is clear that his absence from England had an influence on the affairs of Scotland, as it undoubtedly had on those of Wales. The election of Donald and the driving out of the English from Scotland may have followed as swiftly on the deaths of Malcolm and Margaret as the election of Harold followed on the death of Eadward or the election of Henry on the death of William Rufus. But we can hardly find room for an English expedition to Scotland, for the establishment of a new king, and for a domestic revolution limiting his powers, between the driving out of the English and the last day of the year. One is inclined to think that the Gemót of Gloucester saw a discussion of the affairs of Scotland as well as of the affairs of Normandy, and that the results of that discussion, direct consequences as they were of the death of Malcolm and the election of Donald, were set down under the year in which the chain of events began, though some of them must, almost in the nature of things, have really happened in the year which followed.
[Sidenote: Gemót of Gloucester. Christmas, 1093-1094.]
[Sidenote: Duncan claims the Scottish crown.]
[Sidenote: Duncan’s Norman education.]
[Sidenote: He receives the crown from William.]
[Sidenote: 1054.]
[Sidenote: 1332.]
[Sidenote: He wins it by the help of Norman and English volunteers. 1094.]
[Sidenote: Second revolution; the foreigners driven out.]
[Sidenote: May? 1094.]
I am inclined therefore to think that it must have been at the Christmas assembly which decreed the war with Robert that a claimant appeared to demand the Scottish crown at the hands of the southern over-lord. This was Duncan, the son of Malcolm and Ingebiorg. He was in truth the eldest of Malcolm’s children, and, though, under the influence of a new set of ideas, it became usual to speak of him as a kind of Ishmael, he was most likely as lawful an heir to the Scottish throne as any of the three kings who were sons of the English saint.[69] In itself the succession of Duncan would have seemed an intermediate course between the succession of Donald and the succession of Margaret’s son Eadgar. But Duncan, given years ago as a hostage to William the Great,[70] had long been a follower of William the Red. He lived in his court, and did him faithful service as his man and his knight. He must have been unknown in Scotland, and his feelings and habits must have been those of a Norman rather than those of a Scot. He represented neither the old Scottish traditions which were embodied in Donald nor yet the new foreign reformation which was embodied in Margaret and her sons. It was no wonder then that no party in his father’s kingdom thought of his claims at his father’s death. But he now came to the King’s court; he set forth the usurpation of his uncle Donald and his own rights; he demanded the crown of his father, and did homage for it to the Monarch of Britain.[71] The event is singularly like the earlier event which had placed Duncan’s own father on the Scottish throne; it is still more like the later event which gave Scotland a momentary king in Edward Balliol. The King’s designs on Normandy hindered him from either marching himself to the help of Duncan or sending any part of the regular forces of his kingdom. But Duncan was allowed to get together a body of volunteers, English and French――doubtless of any nation that he could find――at whose head he marched into Scotland. He overthrew his uncle Donald, and took possession of the throne by the help of his new allies.[72] Details are lacking; the Scots must have been overthrown for a moment by some sudden attack. What follows is instructive. The reign of Duncan, as a king surrounded by a Norman and English following, was but for a moment. But there was clearly no feeling in Scotland against allowing him to reign, if he were willing to reign as a national Scot. The people, startled for a moment, took heart again. A new movement broke forth; the King was surrounded, and the foreigners who accompanied him were this time, not driven out, but slaughtered. He himself escaped with a few only.[73] But, this work once done, the son of Malcolm was not less willingly received than his brother. Donald was not restored; but Duncan was accepted as King of Scots on condition of his allowing no English or French settlers within his realm.[74]
[Sidenote: Death of Duncan and restoration of Donald. November? 1094.]
[Sidenote: Second reign of Donald. 1094-1097.]
We may perhaps suspect that this national movement in Scotland was timed so as to grasp the favourable moment when the King of the English, with the mass of his forces, was beyond the sea. This is more clearly marked in the next revolution, which took place towards the end of the year. While King William was still in Normandy, while the Welsh were in triumphant revolt, a powerful confederacy was formed against Duncan. Donald now leagued himself with Malpeter, the Mormaor of Mærne, the representative of the old party of Macbeth, and also with Eadmund, son of Malcolm and Margaret. This last, their only degenerate son, as he is called, joined with his uncle against his half-brother. He was lured, it is said, by the promise of half the kingdom.[75] Duncan was slain, by treachery, we are told, and Donald began a second reign.[76] This revolution was perhaps among the causes which brought William back from Normandy.[77] But both English and Welsh affairs were in a state which forbade any immediate intervention in Scotland. William had to put up with the insults which he had received, the driving out of his subjects and the slaughter of the king to whom he had given the kingdom. Donald was allowed to reign without disturbance for three years.
§ 2. The Revolt of Robert of Mowbray. 1095-1096.
[Sidenote: Events contemporary with Donald’s second reign.]
The three years of Donald’s second reign were contemporary with much that we have already told, with the whole dispute between William and Anselm, with the preaching of the crusade, with the acquisition of Normandy. They were contemporary with stirring events in Wales which we shall speak of in another section. And they were contemporary with events in England which, as I have said, have a kind of connexion with the fate of Malcolm which makes it seem on the whole most natural to speak of them at this point. We will now therefore go on to the chief English event of the year which followed the second accession of Donald, namely the revolt of Robert Earl of Northumberland.
[Sidenote: Conspiracy against William Rufus.]
[Sidenote: Robert of Mowbray marries Matilda of Laigle.]
[Sidenote: His dealings with the Earl of Chester and the Bishop of Durham.]
[Sidenote: Other conspirators.]
[Sidenote: William of Eu.]
[Sidenote: Conspiracy in favour of Stephen of Aumale.]
It is not the least strange among the strange events of this reign that the only rebellion against William Rufus within his kingdom, after that which immediately followed his accession, was directly occasioned by one of the few good deeds which are recorded of him. The King did a simple act of justice; one of his greatest nobles at once openly rebelled, and the open rebellion of one brought to light the hidden conspiracy of many more. We may be sure that there had long been a good deal of lurking discontent which was waiting for even a slight opportunity to break forth into a flame. The conspiracy was devised among men of the highest rank and power, some of them near of kindred to the King; and the open rebel was certainly the foremost man of his own generation in the kingdom. There were in the days of Rufus grounds enough for discontent and revolt among any class, and there were special grounds which specially touched the men of highest rank. They are said to have been offended by the King’s general harshness, and, above all, by the strictness of his hunting-code.[78] The head and author of the seditious movement was the stern guardian of the northern frontier of the kingdom, Robert of Mowbray Earl of Northumberland. He is said to have been specially puffed up to rebellion by his successes against Malcolm and his Scots.[79] But, great as he deemed himself, he held that he might become greater by a powerful alliance. The gloomy Earl, with whom speech and laughter were so rare, thought to help his projects by taking a wife. He married Matilda of Laigle, the daughter of that Richer who died so worthily beneath the keep of Sainte-Susanne,[80] the sister of that Gilbert whom we have seen foremost in the work of slaughter among the seditious citizens of Rouen.[81] Her mother Judith was the sister of Earl Hugh of Chester; and Robert seems to have entangled his new uncle in his rebellious schemes. One would have thought that Bishop William of Durham had had enough of rebellion. He was now as high in the King’s favour and counsels as any man in the realm. He was, or at least had been, on bad terms with his neighbour Earl Robert;[82] and it is hard to see what can have been his temptation to join in any seditious movement. Yet we know that there were churchmen concerned in the conspiracy;[83] it is certain that Bishop William lost the King’s favour about this time; and there seems little doubt that he was at least suspected of being in league with the Earl. Others concerned are said to have been Philip of Montgomery, son of the late Earl of Shrewsbury,[84] Roger of Lacy, great in Herefordshire and in several other shires,[85] and one nearer to the royal house than all, William of Eu, the late stirrer up of strife between the King and his brother. The object of the conspiracy was said to be to put the King to death, and to give the crown to Stephen of Aumale, the son of Adelaide, whole sister of the Conqueror, by her third husband, Odo Count of Champagne and lord of Holderness.[86]
[Sidenote: No general support for the plot.]
[Sidenote: No ground for Stephen’s claim.]
In short, the two men who had been the first to put castles into the King’s hands in Normandy were now plotting against him in England. Stephen of Aumale was to receive the English crown at the bidding of William of Eu. Such a conspiracy as this must have been merely the device of a few discontented nobles; it could have met with no broad ground of general support among men of any class. No doubt many men of all ranks and of all races would have been well pleased to get rid of William; but there must surely have been few who seriously hoped to set up Stephen of Aumale as his successor. By a solemn treaty only five years old, the reigning Duke of the Normans was marked out as the successor to the English crown.[87] And if that arrangement was held to be set aside by later warfare between the brothers, there was nothing to bar the natural claims of Henry. Neither Norman nor English feeling could have endured that the man who was at once Norman and English should be set aside for a stranger from Champagne. Neither Norman nor English feeling could have endured that all the sons of the Conqueror should be set aside in favour of the son of his sister. Truly men of any rank or any race had good reason to revolt against William Rufus. But this was like the revolt of the Earls in the days of the elder William,[88] a purely personal and selfish revolt, which called forth no sympathy, Norman or English. Still a large party was ready to revolt on any occasion. And the occasion was presently found.
[Sidenote: Earl Robert plunders the Norwegian ships.]
[Sidenote: The merchants complain to the King.]
[Sidenote: Robert refuses redress.]
[Sidenote: He is summoned to the King’s court.]
It was found, as far as Earl Robert was concerned, in a wanton breach of common right and of the law of nations, which it was assumed that the King would treat as an act of defiance against his authority. Four Norwegian trading ships had peacefully anchored in some Northumbrian haven. Earl Robert, his nephew Morel, and their followers, wantonly plundered the ships, and took away their whole cargoes. And the tale is told as if the act of plunder was meant directly as an act of rebellion against the King, whose peace was certainly broken in the most outrageous way.[89] The merchants, despoiled of all that they had, made their way to the King and laid before him their complaint against the Earl of the Northumbrians.[90] Had such an act been done by any of William’s own following, the injured men would most likely have met with no redress. But plunder done by anybody else on his own account was an outrage on the royal authority――one might perhaps say an encroachment on the royal monopoly of oppression――with which the Red King was not minded to put up. William straightway sent the strictest and sternest orders to Earl Robert to restore at once all that had been taken from the Norwegian merchants. The Earl scornfully took no notice. The King then asked the amount of the merchants’ losses, and made it good to them from his own hoard. He then summoned the Earl to his court; but he refused to come.[91]
[Sidenote: Gemót of Winchester. March 25, 1095.]
[Sidenote: The falling stars. April 4.]
[Sidenote: Messages between the King and Robert.]
[Sidenote: Whitsun Gemót. Windsor, May 13, 1095.]
Such is the story which reached the cloister of Saint Evroul, a story altogether likely in itself, and which well fits in with and explains the entries in our own Chronicle. These bring us into the thick of the regular assemblies of this year of assemblies. The gathering at Rockingham dealt wholly with the affairs of Anselm; to the regular Easter assembly at Winchester which so soon followed it, Earl Robert, though specially summoned, refused to come. The King was very wroth against him, and sent word that, if he did not wish to be altogether put out of the King’s peace, he must come to the court to be held at Pentecost.[92] Signs in the heavens seem to have foretold that something was coming. It was now, on the night of the feast of Easter and again ten days later, that a crowd of stars was seen to fall from heaven, not one or two, but so thickly that no man could tell them.[93] If the stars fought against Malcolm on the day of Saint Brice, it was only in their courses, and no chronicler has recorded the fact. But it looks as if this special Easter shower, of which we have elsewhere heard other meanings,[94] was by some at least held to portend the fall of the great earl of the North. The time between Easter and Pentecost, the time so busily occupied in another range of subjects by the coming of Cardinal Walter and the acknowledgement of Pope Urban,[95] was no less busily occupied by an exchange of messages between the King and his undutiful subject. Robert, like Godwine two-and-forty years before, demanded hostages and a safe-conduct, before he would risk himself before the Assembly.[96] This the King refused; Robert, arraigned on a definite charge of open robbery, had no such claim to hostages as Godwine, as King Malcolm, or even as his own neighbour Bishop William. The Whitsun-feast was held; the King was at Windsor――not at Westminster――and all his Witan with him. Anselm was there, to be received into the King’s favour, and to engage to observe the customs of the realm.[97] But the Earl of the Northumbrians was not there.[98] The two accounts fit in perfectly without contradiction or difficulty. One gives us the cause of the special summons of Earl Robert to the Gemót; the other gives us its exact date and form.
[Sidenote: The King’s march.]
[Sidenote: His motives.]
[Sidenote: Robert resists.]
Rufus, thus defied, at once took to arms. It would seem that he did not wholly rely on his mercenaries, but called out the national force of the kingdom.[99] He was again the King of the English, marching at the head of his people. He was marching against the rebel fortresses of the North, as he had once marched against Tunbridge, Pevensey, and Rochester. But these great preparations were not made simply to avenge the wrongs of the Norwegian merchants. Their wrongs were the outward occasion, and that was all. The refusal of Earl Robert to come to the King’s court was the counterpart of the more general refusal of the Norman nobles to come to the Easter Assembly seven years earlier.[100] The King knew, or had good reason to suspect, that there was again a wide-spread conspiracy afloat to deprive him of his crown and life. Of this conspiracy the open disobedience of Earl Robert was simply the first outward sign; the affair of the Norwegian merchants had merely brought matters to a head. Rufus may even have made use of their wrongs as a pretext for proving Robert’s doubtful loyalty. Robert was as yet the only open rebel. When the King drew the sword, he met with no resistance anywhere save where the Earl of the Northumbrians was in possession. Robert’s accomplices remained accomplices and conspirators; they did not dare to risk the chances of open rebellion. The Earl may have thought that the strength which had twice overcome a King of Scots might defy a King of the English also.[101] At all events, Robert of Mowbray withstood the King in arms, and a stirring and varied campaign followed.
[Sidenote: Help expected from Normandy.]
[Sidenote: The King marches to Nottingham.]
[Sidenote: Anselm’s command in Kent.]
It appears however from an incidental notice that Earl Robert and his fellows by no means trusted only to movements within the realm. It is certainly strange that a conspiracy in which William of Eu could be even suspected of taking a part should have found any support in Normandy; yet in those times men changed sides so easily that it is not impossible that he might have been again intriguing with Duke Robert himself. It is still more likely that some intrigue was going on, not with the Norman Duke but with the enemies of Rufus in Normandy as well as in England. It is certain that an invasion of south-eastern England was at this time daily dreaded;[102] and it is perhaps more likely that William of Eu, Stephen of Aumale, and the rest, were planning an expedition at their own risk than that Duke Robert was designing anything with the regular forces of Normandy. The invasion was plainly looked on as a serious danger; but there is no reason to think that it ever took place. The King thought it needful to take special means for guarding the coast. He had gone on his northern march as far as Nottingham, accompanied not only, as we might expect, by many of his nobles, but what we might less have looked for, by both the archbishops and by the Cardinal Bishop of Albano.[103] One might almost think that some special news was brought to the King at this point; for it was now that Anselm, in this his short season of renewed favour with the King, was sent back to guard his city and diocese. He received the trust from the King’s own mouth; he went back to Canterbury, whither a writ from the King followed him bidding him stay in care of the city, ready at any moment, when news should be brought from the threatened havens, at once to gather together horse and foot for the defence of the land.[104] Anselm went back to his metropolis, and there stayed, as we have seen, ready to discharge these unusual duties, which, as the expected invasion never came, did not in the end involve any military action on his part.
[Sidenote: The King draws near to Northumberland.]
[Sidenote: Confession of Gilbert of Clare.]
Meanwhile the King went on, taking with him the Archbishop of York, who at Nottingham was already in his own province and diocese. When the march had gone on somewhat further, when the King and his host were drawing near to the borders of the Northumbrian earldom, that is, we may suppose, when they were near the banks of the Tyne, an incident happened which showed that the enemies of Rufus had other schemes besides those of open warfare either at home or abroad.[105] Gilbert of Clare or of Tunbridge, of whom we have already heard as a rebel in earlier days,[106] and who seems now to be looked on as a traitor in the King’s camp, calls the King aside, and, to his amazement, falls at his feet and craves his pardon for his offences. Let the King promise him forgiveness, and he will do something which shall deliver him from a great danger.[107] Rufus wonders and hesitates, but, after a little debate in his own mind, he promises the pardon that is asked for. Gilbert then warns the King not to enter a certain wood――have we again the tale of the hunting-party as the scene of assassination?[108] He was himself one of a body who had plotted the King’s death, and a party of them were now in the wood ready to slay him. He told the King their number and names;[109] but the story reads as if no immediate action was taken against them. The conspirators are baulked of their prey, and the King’s host marches on to attack the fortresses of the rebel Earl.[110]
[Sidenote: Defence of Robert’s fortresses.]
[Sidenote: The New Castle.]
[Sidenote: Tynemouth.]
[Sidenote: Bamburgh.]
[Sidenote: Taking of the New Castle.]
Robert of Mowbray had made good preparations for defence. The main body of his followers, among them the men highest in rank and most trusted in valour, guarded the great frontier fortress of his earldom, the New Castle which Duke Robert had reared to guard the way to the further north by the old line of the Ælian Bridge.[111] Placed opposite the scene of Walcher’s slaughter at Gateshead,[112] it rose above the Tyne with far more of the usual position of a fortress than would be dreamed by one who merely passes so strangely near to it on the modern railway, or who lights almost by chance on gateway and castle imbedded in the streets of the modern town. The gateway, even the keep as it now stands, are both of later date than the time of our story. But the days of Monkchester were passed; the New Castle was already a place of arms, a strong post standing right in the way of the King’s advance against the rebellious land. Lower down the tidal stream, beyond the relics――they were then still something more than relics――of the great Roman rampart which left its name at Wallknol, at Wallcar, and at Wallsend[113]――fast by the mouth of the estuary whose shores and whose waters are now so thickly set with the works of modern industry――the Earl’s castle of Tynemouth at once sheltered the rising monastery of Saint Oswine and guarded the approach to the river and to all to which the river led. Tynemouth was held by the Earl’s brother; Robert himself, far to the north, kept the great stronghold of all, the old seat of Northumbrian power, which frowns over land and sea from the basaltic rock of Bamburgh. The King’s first attack was lucky; we have no details; but we read that the New Castle was taken, and that all the men that were in it were kept in ward. The choicest men of Earl Robert’s following were thus in the King’s hands; the inland centre of his power was lost; but he and his brother still held out in their fastnesses by the Ocean.
[Sidenote: Siege of Tynemouth.]
[Sidenote: Description of the site.]
[Sidenote: The monastic peninsula.]
[Sidenote: Taking of Tynemouth. July? 1095.]
Tynemouth and Bamburgh both stood long sieges. The strong site of the monastic stronghold enabled it to bear up for two months, while the fortress of Ida remained, as far as any strictly military operation was concerned, untaken during the whole war. Tynemouth, which had so lately seen the burial of Malcolm, had now to endure the assaults of the royal force in the cause of Malcolm’s chief enemy. The holy place of Saint Oswine was strong alike by nature and art. At the mouth of the great Northumbrian river, on that bank of it which lay within Robert’s earldom, two headlands, divided by a small bay, stand forth boldly to meet the waves of the German Ocean. In later times the fortified precinct took in both points. Both came within the wall and ditch which cut off the peninsulas from the mainland. The castle of Tynemouth, strictly so called, covered the southern height immediately above the river. The northern promontory was crowned by the church and the monastic buildings, themselves sheltered by a vast gatehouse, which itself grew into a castle. Such, there is reason to believe, was the arrangement in the days of Malcolm and William. The castle of Robert of Mowbray rose sheer above the estuary, on its left bank. To the north, on the other headland, protected by a smaller fortress, stood the church and monastery which were growing up at his bidding, a tribute paid by the conquerors to the ancient worthies of the land. The peninsula crowned by the monastic stronghold stretches forth into the waters, like a miniature of that which is at once the oldest and the newest Syracuse, since the art of man joined the island of Ortygia to the mainland of Sicily. While the neck is strengthened by works of defence, the rocky headland rises boldly from the waves on two sides. To the south the ground rises more gently above the bay between the two peninsulas, the bay to which the monastery above it gave the name of the Prior’s haven. The town which grew up in after times sprang up directly to the west of the approach to the northern headland; it now spreads itself on all sides save only on the two headlands themselves. The first attack must have been made from the older site of the town; the small fortress, that most likely which guarded the neck of the monastic headland, was taken. The main castle to the south fell at the end of two months, and the Earl’s brother and the knights who defended it shared the fate of the defenders of the New Castle.
[Sidenote: The castle of Bamburgh.]
[Sidenote: The relic of Saint Oswald.]
[Sidenote: The keep.]
[Sidenote: Robert defends Bamburgh against the King.]
And now came the hardest struggle of all, the struggle for the old home of Ida and Bebbe. Bebbanburh, Bamburgh――the royal city of Bernicia, which its founder had fenced first with a hedge and then with a wall or earthwork――the city small but strong, with its steep height approached only by steps[114]――though its main purpose was military and not religious, contained within its walls a sanctuary and a relic as worshipful as aught that was sheltered by Tynemouth or Jarrow or Durham itself. The ancient church of Bamburgh was honoured by the presence of the wonder-working hand of the martyred Bretwalda Oswald. That relic had in earlier days helped, along with the prayers of Aidan, to save Bamburgh from the fires of Penda; we are not told whether it was by the favour of the martyr that the elder Waltheof sheltered himself within the impregnable walls, while his valiant son marched forth to victory. The city, the small city which took in the space only of a few fields, had doubtless by this time given way to the Norman fortress, strengthened by all the arts which the Norman had brought with him. The castle precincts, in their widest extent, clearly cover the whole of the ancient site; at the south-western end they are still approached by steps which doubtless represent those which in the days of the old Northumbrian chronicler were the only means of mounting the height. At Bamburgh, as elsewhere, we are met by the never-failing difficulty which besets the student of the castles of that age. Can any of the work at Bamburgh which bears the impress of Norman art be safely assigned to the eleventh century? Or must we give up all to the twelfth, and believe that no part of the great centre of the building, the keep “huge and square,” was already in being when Robert of Mowbray defied the Red King from his rock? On such a point it is dangerous to be over-positive. The surrounding walls are of all dates down to the basest modern imitations; the chapel which guarded the relic of Saint Oswald, standing apart in the great court with its eastern apse overlooking the sea, was clearly, when perfect, no mean work of the next age. But whatever was the character or the material of the defences of Robert’s day, they were doubtless as strong as any skill within the Northumbrian earldom could make them. There, from the castle raised on the land side on the bulwarks of the rock out of which its walls and bastions grow, rising on the sea side over deep and shifting hills of sand, the eye might take in the long indented coast, the sea dotted with islands of which many play a part in the sacred story of northern England,[115]――Farn and its fellows hard by, hallowed by the abode and death of Saint Cuthberht――Holy Island itself further to the north-west, the landscape bounded in the far distance by the border hills of the two British kingdoms, beyond which Malcolm no longer stood ready to ravage the pastures of Northumberland. Within that ancient fortress, rich with so many earlier associations, the proud and gloomy Earl now kept his ground, adding a new and stirring page to the long history of Bamburgh. His brother and his best knights were the King’s prisoners; but, strong on his rocky height, the Earl of the Northumbrians, heedless of the lesson of seven years earlier, dared to bid defiance to the King of the English and to the whole strength of his kingdom.
[Sidenote: Strength of the position.]
[Sidenote: Direct attacks fail.]
[Sidenote: Making of the Malvoisin.]
[Sidenote: Its effects.]
[Sidenote: Alleged despair of Robert.]
[Sidenote: The castle still not taken.]
And in truth the event proved that the rebellious daring of Robert of Mowbray had better grounds than the daring of those who had held Rochester and Pevensey, Tynemouth and the New Castle, against their sovereign. The well of the purest water, hollowed out on the highest point of the rock, and then, or at some later day, taken in within the massive walls of the huge keep, made Robert safe from all such dangers as threatened the Ætheling Henry when he held out on the rock of Saint Michael.[116] All the power and skill of the Red King was brought to bear upon the ancient stronghold; but all was in vain; the castle of Bebbe was not to be taken by any open attack. William therefore took to slower means of warfare. He made one of those towers which were so often made in such cases, to act as a check on the besieged castle, to form in fact an imperfect kind of blockade. This tower must have stood on the land side, to cut off all hope of help from any friendly quarter. It therefore could not have stood very far from the site of the present village; and in the fields nearly south of the castle some faint traces of earthworks seem not unlikely to mark the site of the tower to which the King gave the significant name of Malvoisin. The new work is described as exercising all the energies of the royal army, and as striking such fear into the hearts of the besieged that many of Robert’s party now forsook him and entered the King’s service. We are even told that the fierce Earl looked out from the height of Bamburgh in all fear and sadness, crying out to his accomplices by name to be mindful of the traitorous oaths which they had sworn to him. The King and his friends were merry as they heard, and none of those who were appealed to, tormented as they were with fear and shame, went back to share the Earl’s waning fortunes. Be this as it may, as far as open force went, Bamburgh and its lord remained unsubdued. To bring either of them under his power, the King and his followers were fain to have recourse to false promises and cruel threats.
[Sidenote: The King goes away.]
The Evil Neighbour of Bamburgh was built; it was well stocked with guards, arms, and victuals. But Bamburgh itself was not taken any the more. William did not in this case, as he did in some of his continental enterprises, throw up the whole undertaking, because he did not succeed in the first or second attack. So to have done would have been pretty much the same as throwing up his crown; it would have been to unteach the great lesson of his reign, and to declare that the Earl of the Northumbrians was stronger than the King of the English. He might turn away in wilfulness from this or that Norman or Cenomannian fortress which he had attacked in wilfulness; but he knew the art of reigning better than to leave Bamburgh in the possession of a rebel earl. The work was to go on; but he was so far tired of it that he left it to be done by others. When the Malvoisin was well strengthened, the King turned away, and appeared no more before Bamburgh during the rest of the campaign.
[Sidenote: Michaelmas, 1095.]
[Sidenote: Robert entrapped by a false message.]
[Sidenote: He flees to Tynemouth.]
[Sidenote: He is besieged in the monastery,]
[Sidenote: taken, and imprisoned.]
When Rufus left Bamburgh, he went southward; he then went to the war in Wales, and left the garrison of the Malvoisin to keep watch over their besieged neighbour. It may be left to casuists in chivalry to judge whether the knightly king approved of the means which were now taken in order to entrap the besieged earl. The garrison of the New Castle, doubtless not without the knowledge of the garrison of the Malvoisin, sent a false message to Robert, saying that, if he came thither privily, he would be received into the castle. The Earl, naturally well pleased at such a prospect of winning back his lost stronghold, set forth by night for the New Castle at the head of thirty knights. The men from the Malvoisin watched and followed him, and sent to the men of the New Castle to say that he was on the way. Knowing nothing of what was going on, Earl Robert drew near to the New Castle on a Sunday, expecting, it would seem, to be received there with welcome. His hopes were vain; he was taken, and the more part of his followers also were taken, killed, or wounded. The version which goes most into detail says that, when he saw that he was betrayed by the garrison of the New Castle, he fled, with a part at least of his following, to his own monastery at Tynemouth. It is not easy to see how this could be, unless he was able either to win back the small fortress on the neck of the monastic peninsula, or else to climb up from the seaside at some less steep or less strongly defended point of the height. But the tale is so told that there must be at least some kernel of truth in it. We read that the Earl stood something like a siege in his own monastery. He was able, with his small party, to defend himself in it for six days, and to kill and wound many of his assailants. At last, on the sixth day, he himself received a severe wound in the leg; the whole of his followers were taken, some of them also as wounded men. The Earl, himself among the latter, contrived to drag himself to the church of his own rearing, where still lay the body of the Scottish King whom some looked on as his victim. If claims of sanctuary were thought of, they were not allowed, and one who had turned the consecrated precinct into a castle had perhaps little claim to plead such privileges, even within his own foundation. Earl Robert was dragged away from his own church, and was kept in prison to await the King’s pleasure.
[Sidenote: Bamburgh defended by Matilda of Laigle.]
[Sidenote: November, 1095.]
[Sidenote: She yields to save her husband’s eyes.]
[Sidenote: Later history of Robert; two versions.]
[Sidenote: Later history of Matilda; her second marriage and divorce.]
A tale of twenty years back now repeats itself in our story. A strong castle is again defended by a valiant bride. As Norwich, after the revolt and flight of Ralph of Wader, was defended by Emma of Breteuil, so Bamburgh, after the revolt and capture of Robert of Mowbray, was defended by Matilda of Laigle. Married just as the revolt broke out, she had had, we are told, but little taste of joyful or peaceful wedlock; but she was at least zealous in the cause of her husband. She had Morel to her counsellor and captain, and the two held out in the ancient stronghold against all attacks. It was now winter, and King William had come back from Snowdon, not covered with much glory. He felt no mind to renew the siege of Bamburgh in his own person; but he bade that the captive Earl should be taken thither, and led before the walls, with the threat to his wife and nephew that, if the castle was not at once given up, the eyes of its lord should be then and there seared out in their sight. To this threat Matilda and Morel yielded, and the gates of the unconquered fortress were thrown open to the King’s forces. The valiant Countess thus saved her husband’s eyes; but his eyes were all that she could save. Robert was sent back to prison at Windsor, to live in bonds, at least for a season, and in no case to return to the rights and duties of an earl or a husband. But there are two widely different stories as to his later fate. The local history of Saint Alban’s told how one who, however guilty towards others, was at least a benefactor to that house, was allowed to spend his remaining days as a monk within its walls. At Saint Evroul a widely different tale was believed. It was there recorded by the contemporary writer that Robert survived his capture thirty years, but that the whole of that time was passed in hopeless imprisonment. If so, he must have been looked on as dangerous by the calm prudence of Henry no less than by the wrath or the revenge of Rufus. The story indeed runs that his imprisonment was deemed so irrevocable that it was held to amount to a civil death. The once proud Earl of Northumberland was counted to have passed away from among men as much as if the grave had closed over him alongside of Malcolm in his own Tynemouth. By a special permission from Pope Paschal, Matilda was allowed to marry again, as though she had been his widow and not his wife. Nigel of Albini became her second husband; but, after the death of her brother Gilbert of Laigle, he thought he could better himself by marriage in another quarter. His marriage with Matilda was declared void, not on the ground that Robert was alive, but because of some kindred, real or alleged, between Robert and Nigel. The papal dispensation must have been badly drawn, if it did not provide for the lesser irregularity as well as for the greater. Of Matilda we hear no more; Nigel took him another wife of the house of Gournay. Gerard had by that time died on his way to the crusade;[117] his widow Eadgyth had married again, and their son Hugh was lord of Gournay. Their daughter, who inherited the name of Gundrada from her mother’s mother, took the place of the forsaken Matilda, who was thus left in a strange plight, as the widow, so to speak, of two living husbands.
[Sidenote: Morel turns King’s evidence.]
[Sidenote: Christmas Gemót of 1095-1096.]
[Sidenote: Adjourned from Windsor to Salisbury. January 13, 1096.]
Meanwhile her partner in the defence of Bamburgh, Morel, the nephew and steward of the fallen Earl, made his peace with the King by naming all who had any share in the late conspiracy. Not a few men of high rank, clerical and lay, were accused by him.[118] The time of the Midwinter Gemót drew nigh, at which the offenders would regularly be brought for trial. The King’s prisons were full,[119] and he determined that the gaol delivery should be a striking and a solemn one. The Assembly of that Christmas-tide was to be a Mickle Gemót indeed, a Gemót like those which had gathered in King Eadward’s day beneath the walls of London and in King William’s day upon the plain of Salisbury. A summons of special urgency went forth, bidding all men who held any land of the King, if they wished to be deemed worthy of the King’s peace, to come to his court at the appointed time.[120] The call was answered. The appointed place of meeting was Windsor, and there the Assembly came together. But the business to be done needed a longer time than the usual twelve days of Christmas, and the gathering was greater than the royal castle and its courts could hold. The work began at Windsor; but an adjournment was needed, and on the octave of the Epiphany in the opening year we find the King and his Witan at Salisbury.[121] The wide fields which had seen the great review and the great homage in the days of the elder William could alone hold the crowd which came together to share in the great court of doom which was now holden by the younger.
[Sidenote: Constitutional importance of the meeting.]
[Sidenote: Continuance of the old forms.]
[Sidenote: Import of the summons.]
[Sidenote: Tenants-in-chief only summoned.]
[Sidenote: Their great number.]
[Sidenote: Comparison with the Conqueror’s Gemót at Salisbury.]
[Sidenote: Effects of the practice of summons.]
[Sidenote: Action of the Assembly.]
[Sidenote: No general sympathy with the accused.]
The Gemót of this winter, and specially the strict general summons sent forth by the King, are of high constitutional importance. They show how, even under such a king as Rufus, the old constitutional forms went on. They show how great is the error of those who dream that the Norman kingship in England was as thorough a despotism in form as it undoubtedly was in substance. In the eleventh century, as in the sixteenth, the whole future of English history turned on the fact that constitutional forms still went on, that assemblies were still brought together, even if they came together for little more than to register the edicts of the King.[122] So now Rufus himself, when about to make a great display of kingly power, specially summons no small part of the nation to take a share in his acts. On the one hand, the need of the summons shows that, unless at some specially exciting moment, men did not flock eagerly to such gatherings.[123] On the other hand, the fact of the summons shows that kings then knew, that Rufus himself knew, that the gathering of such an assembly was both a sign and a source, not of weakness but of strength, on the part of the kingly power.[124] But in the form of the summons we may see that the assembly, though still large, is gradually narrowing. The summons goes, not to all freemen, not to all land-owners, but only to the King’s tenants-in-chief. These, it must be remembered, were a very large body, including land-owners on every scale, from the greatest to the smallest. And it must be further remembered that in this body a vast majority of the influential members were strangers by birth, but that a great numerical proportion, most likely a numerical majority, were natives. The King’s thegn, who had kept a scrap of his old estate, was as much a member of the court as Earl Hugh of Shrewsbury or Earl Walter of Buckingham, though he was not so likely to be listened to in any debate that might arise as Earl Hugh or Earl Walter was. Still the special summons to the King’s tenants-in-chief marks a change; it marks the growth of the new ideas. The immediate reason was doubtless to be found in the main object for which the Assembly came together. The main work of the earlier Gemót of Salisbury was that all men in the realm, of whatever lord they held, should become the men of the King. William the Great therefore summoned the men of other lords, who had not up to that moment been his own men, who owed obedience to him as head of the kingdom, but who was not bound to him by any more personal tie. He summoned them in order that they might bind themselves to him by that personal tie, that they might become his men as well as his subjects. But the main work of the present Gemót was to sit in judgement on a crowd of offenders, of various ranks and orders, but all of whom were likely to be tenants-in-chief of the King. According to the notions which were coming in, the right court for their trial was the court of their peers, their fellow tenants-in-chief. The King, who could summon whom he would, who sometimes summoned few and sometimes many, this time, for this special purpose, summoned the whole body of his tenants-in-chief, great and small, and summoned no others. But, as every summons tends practically to the exclusion of those who are not summoned, this summons of a particular class marks a stage in the process by which the Assembly shrank up from the crowd which decreed the restoration of Godwine to a House of Lords of the reign of Henry the Eighth.[125] Still the actual gathering, even of the summoned members only, must have been very great. When it came together, the Assembly must have followed the same law as all other assemblies of that age. Practically it decreed as the King willed; only a few of the great men were likely to say anything to guide the King’s will; the mass of the assembly were not likely to do more than to make the King’s acts their own by crying Yea, Yea. We must however remember that they had not the slightest temptation to cry Nay, Nay. The mass of the inhabitants of the land, Norman and English alike, were not likely to have the faintest sympathy with any one who really had a share in the late treason. The only question was whether any were accused who had no share in it. In the case of those who were charged only with conspiracy and not with open revolt, this might easily be. Otherwise the Red King, in the vengeance which he now took, did no more than justice, as justice was deemed in his day. But his justice was far sharper than the justice of the old kings, far sharper than the justice of his father. And the tone in which the story is told implies that men at the time felt that it was so.
[Sidenote: Sickness of the Bishop of Durham.]
[Sidenote: Portents foretelling his death.]
[Sidenote: His work at Durham. 1083. 1093.]
[Sidenote: He is summoned to take his trial.]
[Sidenote: He sickens and dies. December 25, 1095-January 1, 1096.]
[Sidenote: His death-bed.]
[Sidenote: Debate as to his burying-place.]
[Sidenote: He is buried in the chapter-house.]
One of the great men of the realm, who, whether guilty or not, seems to have been at least suspected, died, while the Assembly was in session, before any formal charge had been brought against him. Before the Bishop of Durham came to Windsor, it was known in his own diocese that he had not long to live. One of his knights, Boso by name, had, while lying under a dangerous sickness, been favoured with trances and visions, which told him much that was comforting about the monks of Durham, and much that was fearful about other folk. He saw the old inhabitants of the land, he saw the new French settlers, above all, he saw the priests’ wives――these seem to be looked on as three classes of offenders, gradually increasing in blackness――suffering each a grievous doom.[126] His visions about the Bishop himself might perhaps point to an intermediate destiny; at all events they were understood as implying his speedy death.[127] His work perhaps was done. Thirteen years before he had filled the church of Durham with monks;[128] three years before he had begun the great work of its rebuilding; and, by pressing it on with almost incredible speed, he had carried it on so far as to set an example of unsurpassed grandeur in its own style, an example which his own monks could not follow, but which Randolf Flambard could.[129] William of Saint-Calais came to the Gemót, and was summoned by the King to appear to take his trial.[130] He pleaded sickness as his excuse for not appearing. Rufus declared, with his usual oath, that the excuse was a feigned one.[131] It was however thoroughly real. Bishop William was sick, and sick unto death. He was smitten on the day of the Nativity, and died on the day of the Circumcision.[132] He was comforted in his sickness by the presence and exhortations of several of his brother bishops who had come together for the business of the Assembly. There was Anselm whom he had withstood at Rockingham; there was his own metropolitan Thomas; there was Walkelin of Winchester; there was John of Bath, born, like himself and Anselm, beyond the bounds either of England or of Normandy. These prelates debated concerning the place of his burial. They argued that he who had done such great things for Saint Cuthberht’s abbey should be buried in the place of highest honour within its walls. He himself declined any such place. He would be no party to any breach of Saint Cuthberht’s own rule, which forbade that any man should be buried within his minster.[133] The bishops therefore ruled that he should be buried in the chapter-house, so that his monks, when they came together, should have the tomb of their founder ever before their eyes.[134] So it was; he was borne to Durham, and there laid in the place which the bishops had chosen for him, among the tears and wailings of the brotherhood which he had founded, any one of whom, we are told, would gladly have died for him.[135]
[Sidenote: Sentences of the Gemót.]
[Sidenote: Hugh of Shrewsbury buys his pardon.]
[Sidenote: Roger of Lacy.]
[Sidenote: January 13, 1097.]
[Sidenote: Combat of Geoffrey of Baynard and William of Eu.]
This touching picture of the death which ended the varied life of William of Saint-Calais comes as an episode in the middle of the stern doings of the Gemót of Windsor and Salisbury. The Red King did not bear the sword in vain. Yet, if his justice was sharp towards those whom it did smite, it was certainly somewhat capricious, or at least guided by expediency, with regard to those whom it smote and those whom it failed to smite. Some of the offenders were men of the highest rank, some even, it is implied, of the rank of Earl. But these powerful rebels, ashamed and weakened by the fall of their brother of Northumberland, were now deemed fitting objects of mercy. By the advice of the Wise Men, they were spared a public trial;[136] but some of them were made to pay a heavy price for being left safe in life, limb, and estate. One is mentioned by name. Earl Hugh of Shrewsbury, who was at least suspected of a share in the plot, was dealt with privately by the King as his father had been at Arundel.[137] He bought his restoration to favour at the high price of three thousand pounds.[138] Roger of Lacy lost his lands and was banished, as he would have been in the days of King Eadward, and his possessions were given to his loyal brother Hugh. But heavier penalties, unknown in King Eadward’s days, were in store for others of the conspirators, including one of the loftiest descent. At the adjourned meeting at Salisbury, Geoffrey of Baynard, bearing a name famous in London city, appealed no less a man than William of Eu of treason against the King, of conspiring to slay him, and to give his crown to Stephen of Champagne.[139] The charge was denied, and, as both parties were Frenchmen, the trial was, by the law of the Conqueror, referred to the wager of battle. The judicial combat which followed is memorable in the history of the time, and forms one of the landmarks in our early jurisprudence.
[Sidenote: Defeat of William of Eu.]
[Sidenote: Sentence of mutilation on William of Eu.]
[Sidenote: Urged by Hugh of Chester.]
[Sidenote: Feeling with regard to mutilation.]
On the plain of Salisbury the combatants met, and William of Eu was overthrown.[140] By the laws of the combat his defeat was full evidence of his guilt. But what was to be his punishment? Save the case of the beheading of Waltheof, there was no precedent in the ordinary jurisprudence either of England or of Normandy for any sentence harsher than banishment, forfeiture, and imprisonment.[141] The older English precedents went for banishment and forfeiture. The precedents of Normandy and of Norman rule in England went for imprisonment, such an imprisonment, it might be, as that of Robert of Mowbray. For the course actually taken there was no precedent in either land, unless it were the dealings of Harold the son of Cnut with the Ætheling Ælfred.[142] The punishment decreed was that of bodily mutilation. It is said that this course was proposed by Earl Hugh of Chester, and that on a singular ground. William of Eu was the husband of the Earl’s sister――her name is not mentioned. He had neglected his wife, while he had three children by a mistress.[143] If this was to be ground for the loss of eyes or limbs, the brothers of the Countess Ermentrude would have had a right to demand that the portly person of Earl Hugh should be cut down to a shapeless trunk.[144] Mutilation, it should be remembered, was a familiar punishment, a punishment which in that generation aroused no horror when the persons so dealt with were held to be real criminals.[145] But, with that common inconsistency which reverses the sound rule of smiting the leaders and sparing the commons, mutilation, death, or any heavy punishment, seems always to have aroused horror, or at least amazement, when it was inflicted on any criminal of lofty rank. Such things had been done in the isle of Britain and out of it, but hardly by the solemn sentence of the King of the English at the head of his Witan. But now William of Eu was blinded, and underwent a fouler mutilation as well.[146] His sentence was seemingly carried out at Salisbury, perhaps in sight of the assembly. Are we to infer that any show of indignation was called forth by the bloody sight, when we read directly afterwards that some of the lord of Eu’s fellow-sufferers were taken to London, and were blinded or otherwise mutilated there?[147]
[Sidenote: Story of Arnulf of Hesdin.]
[Sidenote: His innocence proved by battle.]
[Sidenote: He goes to the Crusade,]
[Sidenote: and dies.]
If we may trust a tale to be found in one of those secondary writers who often preserve scraps of truth, another accused man appealed to the wager of battle with better luck than William of Eu. This was Arnulf of Hesdin, a man whose name is familiar enough to us in Domesday, though it does not call up any distinct personal idea like the King’s unlucky kinsman.[148] He is set before us as a man of great bodily stature, brave and active, and in the enjoyment of large possessions, out of which he and his wife Emmeline had made gifts to the abbey of Gloucester.[149] He was charged, unjustly and enviously we are told, with the same crime as the rest.[150] He defended himself by his champion, who proved his lord’s innocence by overthrowing a man of the King’s who was matched against him.[151] But Arnulf was so stirred up with wrath and grief at the unjust charge, that, notwithstanding the King’s entreaties to stay, he threw up all the lands that he held of him, and left England for ever.[152] Before the end of the year, the Crusade offered him worthy occupation elsewhere. He marched with the Christian host as far as Antioch; he there fell sick, and declined all medical help; none should heal him save Him for whose sake he had gone on pilgrimage. Arnulf, professing the opposite doctrine to Asa of Judah, fared no better than that king. Antioch was the last stage reached by the armed pilgrim of Hesdin.[153]
[Sidenote: Confiscation of lands.]
[Sidenote: William of Alderi is condemned to death.]
[Sidenote: The King refuses to spare him.]
[Sidenote: His pious end.]
Arnulf, according to this story, became landless, as far as England was concerned, by his own act. Others underwent the same loss by sentence, it seems, of the Assembly. Count Odo of Champagne and many others lost their lands.[154] In one case only does death seem to have been inflicted. William of Alderi, cousin and steward of William of Eu, was, as the Chronicle tells us, “hanged on rood.”[155] This somewhat startling formula doubtless means nothing but ordinary hanging; but it seemingly marks hanging of any kind as something which was not ordinary. As to the guilt or innocence of William of Alderi we have contradictory accounts. One weighty authority declares him to have been a sharer in the plot.[156] Others class him among many brave and guiltless men who were ruined by the charges brought by Morel and by Geoffrey of Baynard.[157] Guilty or innocent, he was, we are told, a man of high birth, goodly presence, and lofty spirit.[158] He was moreover the King’s gossip, bound to him by the same tie which bound Morel to Malcolm. We thus incidentally learn that there were those whom William Rufus had held at the font, and for whose Christian faith and Christian life he had pledged himself. But the spiritual kindred went for nothing with the Red King. Many of the great men are said to have earnestly begged for the life of William of Alderi, and to have striven to move the King’s greed by a mighty bribe. The Conqueror had refused Harold’s weight in gold as the price of his Christian burial; his son refused three times the weight of William of Alderi, both in gold and in silver, as the price of his life.[159] Why Rufus was so bent on his death does not appear; but nothing could move him. It marks the way in which the King’s will practically ordered everything, even in so great an assembly of the realm as that which had now come together, that William of Alderi was condemned and hanged without any attempt to rescue him, though many believed him to be guiltless, and though powerful men were eager to save him. When hope was gone, he made an ending at once as pious and, according to the ideas of other ages, more manly than the ending of Waltheof. He confessed his sins to Bishop Osmund, and was, seemingly at his own asking, scourged in the new-built minster and the other churches of the city on the waterless hill.[160] Then he gave away his clothes to the poor, and went naked or slightly clad to the place of hanging, staining his limbs with blood by often kneeling on the rough stones.[161] The Bishop and a crowd of people followed him to the place. He then made the most solemn protestations of his innocence. The Bishop sprinkled him with holy water, said the commendatory prayer, and then withdrew.[162] It was not for Osmund of Salisbury, whatever it might have been for Odo of Bayeux or Geoffrey of Coutances, to look on what was next to come. The work of death was then done, and all who beheld wondered that not a groan escaped the victim as death drew near, and not a sigh in the act of dying.[163]
[Sidenote: Last days of William of Eu.]
[Sidenote: End of Morel.]
There was thus a marked difference in the fate of the kinsmen and chief officers of the two leaders, if leaders they both were, in the conspiracy. The steward and cousin of William of Eu was done to death, while his master underwent a fate which to modern ideas seems worse than death. We are not told how long William of Eu lived on in blindness and misery; but his punishment did not involve forfeiture, at all events not corruption of blood; for a few years later we find his son Henry in possession of his county.[164] The steward and nephew of Robert of Mowbray seems to have gained but little by the act which, if it were formally allowed to be loyalty to the King, was likely to be far more commonly looked on as treason to his immediate lord. When he saw that his kinsman and master was condemned to life-long bonds, he left England, and died in banishment, poor and hated of all men.[165]
§ 3. The Conquest and Revolt of Wales.
1093-1097.
[Sidenote: Relations with Wales.]
[Sidenote: Nature of the Welsh wars of Rufus.]
[Sidenote: Territorial advance and military ill-success.]
[Sidenote: Effect of the building of castles.]
These years, so rich in events in Scotland and on the English lands nearest to the Scottish border, were at least equally rich in events on the other border of the English kingdom, towards the lands which were still held by the remnant of our British predecessors. Wars with the Welsh may be looked for, as a matter of course, in every reign during this period; but in the reign of William Rufus such wars form a special feature, and the position which they hold is a little singular. It is plain from the records of the time, it is still plainer from the results, that this reign was a time of great and lasting advance at the cost of the Britons. It was the time when large parts of Wales were more or less fully brought under the authority of the English crown. It is still more distinctly the time when Norman adventurers, subjects of the English crown, carved out for themselves, as its vassals, possessions and lordships within the British land. Yet the first impression which we draw from the writers who record the British warfare of this reign is that it was a time of ill success on the English side, especially in those campaigns in which the King himself took a part. The Chronicler records an expedition, and he sends up a wail at its ill luck. Nothing came of it; horses and men not a few were lost; the Welsh escaped to their moors and mountains where no man might come at them. One chief is put to flight in a battle, but the others go on doing mischief all the same.[166] The same story comes almost every year; one would think that the warfare of the Red King with the Welsh was a warfare than which none was ever more bootless. And a historian who aspires to more of critical and philosophical insight sums up the whole British warfare of the reign as a distinct case of failure.[167] Yet it is clear from the result that it was not so. And one passage in the Chronicle seems to give us the key to the whole matter. “When the King saw that he could there further nothing of his will, he came back into this land, and took rede that he might let make castles on the borders.”[168] An expedition which seemed mere failure, in which many men and horses were lost, while the Welsh escaped to moors and mountains with hardly any loss at all, was really successful in the long run, if it led to the building of a border castle. The Britons fled unhurt to their mountains; but while they lurked in the fastnesses where none might come at them, the most valuable part of their land was taken from them bit by bit. When they came down again from the mountains, they found a castle built, they found so much land as the castle could protect changed into a settlement of strangers. The lands might be harried; the castle might at some favourable moment be broken down; but it was sure to spring up again and again to do its work. The lasting possession of the fertile land had passed away to the invaders; the moors and mountains alone were left to the sons of the soil.
[Sidenote: Welsh campaigns of Harold and of William Rufus.]
[Sidenote: Use of horses.]
[Sidenote: Immediate defeat and lasting success.]
[Sidenote: Different objects of Harold and Rufus.]
The mention of these Welsh wars naturally carries us back to the thought of the great Welsh campaign of a generation earlier. We see how true, from one point of view, was the saying of the next century that none since Harold had known how to deal with the Welsh as Harold had known.[169] As a matter of military success, the failures of William Rufus stand out in marked contrast to the victories of Harold. The Red King had no pillars to set up to mark where he had overcome the Briton in open fight.[170] A single word helps us to at least one part of the cause. Harold, in his victorious campaign, must have undergone some loss of men, but he underwent no loss of horses. He found that the English tactics were not suited for British warfare, and he made his housecarls turn themselves into light-armed Welshmen.[171] But the Norman tactics were still less suited for British warfare than the English. There were places in the moors and mountains which the mailed housecarl might reach, if with difficulty, but which the mounted knight could not reach at all. But William Rufus does not seem to have suited his tactics to the country as Harold had done; the mention of horses suggests that he repeated the old mistake of Ralph the Timid in a worse shape.[172] As a matter of fighting then, Rufus failed where Harold had succeeded; but as a matter of enduring conquest, the failures of Rufus did more than the successes of Harold. Harold indeed had no general schemes of Welsh conquest. He overthrew the Welsh; but, except in the districts which were definitely ceded to England,[173] he made no attempt to occupy Wales. He gave back the land whose people he had overcome to princes of their own blood, bound to him simply by their oath of homage.[174] But wherever Rufus or his lords planted a castle, there was at once a piece of Welsh soil occupied, and a centre made ready for occupying more. The object of Harold in short was simply the defence of England; the object of William Rufus was the conquest of Wales.
[Sidenote: Comparison of the conquest of Wales with the English and Norman Conquests.]
[Sidenote: Geographical conditions of the conquest.]
[Sidenote: Extension of England by conquest and settlement.]
[Sidenote: Various elements in Wales.]
[Sidenote: The Flemings.]
[Sidenote: Endurance of the Welsh language.]
The conquest which now began, that which we may call either the English or the Norman Conquest of Wales, differed widely both from the English Conquest of Britain and from the Norman Conquest of England. It wrought far less change than the landing at Ebbsfleet; it wrought far more change than the landing at Pevensey. The Briton of those lands which in the Red King’s day were still British was gradually conquered; he was gradually brought under English rule and English law; but he was neither exterminated nor enslaved nor wholly assimilated. He still abides in his ancient land, still speaking his ancient tongue. The English or Norman Conquest of Wales was not a national migration, like the English Conquest of Britain. Nor was it a conquest wrought under the guise of an elaborate legal fiction, like the Norman Conquest of England. William Rufus did not ask the people of Wales to receive him as their own lawful king; he did not give himself out to all mankind as the true heir of Gruffydd the son of Llywelyn, defrauded of his rights by perjured usurpers. Europe had passed the stage at which a conquest of the earlier kind was possible; and there was in this case no excuse or opportunity for a conquest of the later kind. William Rufus was not a man to seek, like his father, to justify his acts by legal fictions; nor had he the same room for devising them as his father had. He had doubtless, with the crown of the Old-English kings, inherited their claims to Imperial supremacy over the whole island; he called himself “Monarch of Britain” no less than the kings who had gone before him.[175] But that monarchy gave him no claim to bring the lands of his subordinate princes under his immediate rule. If an invasion of Wales needed any justification in the eyes of William Rufus and his barons, that justification would take the shape of reprisals. We may be sure that there was no moment when the men on the border, either on the English or the Welsh side, could not have brought some complaint against the other side which might have been deemed to justify reprisals by a more scrupulous prince than the Red King. But for men like the Norman adventurers of his day it was enough that a land adjoining to the land which they had made their own lay open to be conquered. Therein lay another great difference between this conquest and either of the other two conquests with which we have compared it, in the fact that the land to be won lay adjoining to the land which was already won. The Angles and Saxons wholly forsook their old homes beyond the sea, and, if the Normans in England did not in the same way wholly forsake theirs, the sea at least rolled between the old home and the new. But the Norman whose lot was cast on the Welsh frontier of England had nothing to do but to press on from the point where he already was. He had simply to add on the next field to his own field, subject to such resistance as the actual occupiers of the next field might be able to make. From this geographical cause, while the Norman Conquest of England was in no sense an extension of Normandy, the English or Norman Conquest of Wales was in every sense an extension of England. The Normans in England did not bring Normandy with them; they had from the very beginning to put on more or less fully the character of Englishmen, and to live according to English law. But the Norman who from England went on into Wales had no thought of putting on the character of a Welshman or of living according to Welsh law. Wherever he settled, he most truly carried England with him, such as England had been made through his own coming. But then for a long time he settled only here and there in the British land. Where he did settle, the speech, the laws, the national life, of the Briton passed away in such sort as the speech, the laws, the national life, of the Englishman never at any moment passed away from England. But alongside of these conquered districts there long remained independent districts, where the natives under their native princes still bade defiance to the invaders. England had already an uniform aspect; it was the old England with certain changes; its laws were the laws of King Eadward with the amendments of King William. Wales, for a long while after the time with which we are now dealing, was as far from uniformity as any land east of the Hadriatic. Here was the castle of the Norman lord, with his following, Norman, English, Flemish, anything but British. Here was the newly-founded town, with its free burghers, again Norman, English, Flemish, anything but British. Here again was a whole district from which the Briton had passed away as thoroughly as he had passed away from Kent or Norfolk, but which the Norman had not taken into his own hands. He had found that it suited his purpose to leave it in the hands of the hardy and industrious Fleming, the last wave of Low-Dutch occupation in the isle of Britain. And alongside of all, there was the still independent Briton, still keeping his moors and mountains, still ready to pour down from them upon the richer lands which had been his fathers’, but which had passed into the stranger’s grasp. Those days have long passed away; for three centuries and more Briton and Englishmen have been willing members of a common state, willing subjects of a common sovereign. But the memory of those days has not passed away; it abides in the most living of all witnesses. England has for ages spoken a single tongue, her own ancient speech, modified by the coming of the conquerors of eight hundred years ago. But in Wales the speech of her conquerors, the speech of England, is still only making its way, slowly and fitfully, against the abiding resistance of that stubborn British tongue which has survived three conquests.[176]
[Sidenote: Local nomenclature of Wales.]
[Sidenote: Contrast with that of England.]
[Sidenote: Teutonic and French names.]
[Sidenote: Places bearing two names.]
The results of this state of things, where so many contending elements so long stood side by side, are still to be seen on the face of the British land. The local nomenclature of Wales tells a wholly different tale from that of England. In England the nomenclature is everywhere essentially Teutonic; we might say that it is everywhere essentially English; for the names given by the Danes form one class along with those given by the Angles and Saxons, as opposed either to Celtic survivals or to Romance intruders. Both these two last classes are in England mere exceptions to the general law of Teutonic nomenclature. But in Wales, while the great majority of the names are Celtic, the Teutonic names are somewhat more than exceptions. In some districts, as I have already said, they are the all but invariable rule. French names, too, though not very common, are, I think, less rare than in England. Nothing is more common than for a place to bear different names, according as English or Welsh is spoken. And these names sometimes translate one another, and sometimes do not. All this is natural in a land where distinct and hostile races so long dwelled side by side, each one a thorn in the side of the others. It marks a kind of conquest different alike from the conquest where the conquered vanish from the soil and from the conquest where they swallow up their conquerors.
[Sidenote: The Welsh castles.]
[Sidenote: Lack of castles in England.]
[Sidenote: Houses in England.]
[Sidenote: Border castles.]
[Sidenote: The Welsh towns.]
There is again a visible feature, one so characteristic of the scenery of Wales as to be all but a natural feature, which arises out of the nature of the conquest with which we have now to deal. The traveller who comes back, I will not say from the land of the Grey Leagues, but from that nearer land of Maine with which our tale will soon have so much to do, to one of the hilly districts of England, feels something missing in the landscape, or in the memories called up by the landscape. On the isolated hill, on the bluff which ends the long ridge, he comes instinctively to look for the shattered castle or for the lines which show that the castle once stood there. It is one of the special signs of what English history has been, one of the signs which should make us thankful that it has been what it has been, that in England those bluffs, those island hills, on which the castle or its traces can still be seen, are in truth few and far between. After all that we hear of castles and castle-builders, the castle was, at any moment of English history save the nineteen years of anarchy, a rare thing in England compared to what it was in other lands. Save where there was a town to protect or to keep in obedience, save where there was some special post of military strength that needed to be guarded, the lord of an English lordship, in whichever host his forefather had fought on Senlac, found that a simple manor, sheltered perhaps by some slight defence, served his purpose as well as the threatening tower. On all the borderlands it was otherwise; the pele-tower of the north is but the Norman keep on a miniature scale. And, above all, Wales is, as every one knows, pre-eminently the land of castles. Through those districts with which we are specially concerned, castles, great and small, or the ruins or traces of such castles, meet us at every step. It was needful to strengthen every height, to guard every pass, while the moors and mountains, the Asturias or the Tzernagora of the Cymry, still remained unsubdued. The castles are in truth the leading architectural features of the country; the churches, mostly small and plain, might themselves, with their fortified towers, almost count as castles. The towns, almost always of English foundation, were mostly small; they were military colonies rather than seats of commerce. As Wales had no immemorial cities like Exeter and Lincoln, so she had no towns which sprang up into greatness in later times, like Bristol, Norwich, and Coventry. Every memorial of former days which we see in the British land reminds us how long warfare remained the daily business alike of the men of that land and of the strangers who had made their way into it at the sword’s point.
[Sidenote: Advance before the accession of Rufus.]
[Sidenote: Robert of Rhuddlan.]
[Sidenote: Rhys ap Tewdwr.]
[Sidenote: Saint David’s robbed by pirates. 1091.]
We have seen that neither the days of Eadward nor the days of the elder William were days of peace along the Welsh border. The English frontier had advanced during both reigns. Rhuddlan,[177] Montgomery,[178] Cardiff,[179] had become border fortresses of England. An indefinite tract of North Wales was held by Robert of Rhuddlan;[180] Radnor was an English possession;[181] the followers of Earl Roger of Montgomery had harried as far as the peninsula of Dyfed.[182] The whole land seems to have made some kind of submission to William the Great at the time when he made his pilgrimage to Saint David’s, and set free so many of his captive subjects.[183] But real conquest does not seem to have gone very far beyond the border fortresses, as within the march of the Marquess of Rhuddlan it did not go very far from the coast. In the days of the rebellion we have seen that the hearts of the Cymry rose again, and that they again ventured on offensive warfare with no small effect. They and their Scandinavian allies had broken the power and taken away the life of the man who had so long kept their northern tribes in awe. In that work we have seen that Rhys ap Tewdwr, the King of Deheubarth, whose dominions took in the greater part of South Wales, had a hand.[184] Under him Cedivor seems to have been the vassal prince of Dyfed. The reign of Cedivor ended in a time of misfortune, ominous of greater misfortunes to come. The shrine of Saint David was robbed. The holy bishop Sulien died, and presently his church and city, the holy place of Saint David, were again sacked by the pagans of the isles.[185] Is this simply a traditional way of speaking of Scandinavian invaders, or were there still any wild wikings who avowedly clave to the faith of Odin? Then Cedivor himself died, and his sons revolted against their over-lord Rhys, but were again overthrown.[186] This was the year of the Red King’s siege of Saint Michael’s Mount, the year of his journey to the North; and one account hints that the movements in Wales as well as in Scotland had a share in bringing him back from the mainland.[187] But it is not till two years later that Welsh warfare began to put on enough of importance for its details to be recorded by English writers.
[Illustration: Map illustrating the WELSH WARS OF HENRY AND WILLIAM RUFUS. Edwᵈ. Weller For the Delegates of the Clarendon Press.]
[Sidenote: Beginning of the Conquest of South Wales. 1093.]
[Sidenote: Legend of the conquest of Glamorgan.]
It seems to have been in the year of Anselm’s appointment, the year of Malcolm’s death, that the conquest of South Wales began in earnest. It seems now to have been for the first time taken up by the King as part of the affairs of his kingdom. But the geography of the campaign shows that a gradual advance must have already begun along the south coast. Our public entries are concerned only with the land stretching nearly due west, from the mountains of Brecknock and Abergavenny to the Land’s End of Saint David’s. This leaves out the sea-land which, with the bold curve of its coast, projects to the south, the land of Morganwg or Glamorgan. Yet it may be taken as a matter of course that this land was not left to be won later than inland Brecheiniog and far distant Dyfed. The unlucky thing is that, while the conquest of Brecheiniog and Dyfed is recorded in notices which, though meagre enough, are fully trustworthy as far as they go, the conquest of Morganwg, strangely left out in all authentic records, has become the subject of an elaborate romance which has stepped into the empty place of the missing history. The romance is, as usual, the invention of pedigree-makers, working, after their manner, to exalt the glory and increase the antiquity of this and that local family. This is perhaps the meanest of the many forms of falsehood against which the historian has to strive; but it is also one of the strongest and most abiding, and one which is specially strong and abiding on the northern coast of the Bristol Channel.[188]
[Sidenote: Story of Jestin and Einion.]
[Sidenote: Story of Robert Fitz-hamon and his knights.]
[Sidenote: Einion recalls Robert.]
[Sidenote: Division of Glamorgan.]
[Sidenote: Share kept by the children of Jestin.]
The legend pieces itself on to that point of the genuine history when the sons of Cedivor were defeated by Rhys ap Tewdwr. A brother of Cedivor, Einion by name, who had been in the service of either the elder or the younger William, and had served the King in his continental wars, now flees to another enemy of Rhys, Jestin son of Gwrgan, described as prince of Gwent and Morganwg.[189] Jestin promises his daughter to Einion with an ample estate, if he can obtain help from England against the common enemy Rhys. This, it is supposed, Einion’s friendship with the King and his knights will enable him to do. Nor was Jestin’s hope disappointed. No less a man than Robert Fitz-hamon hearkened to the invitation of Einion; he set out at the head of a company of twelve knights and their followers to give help to the prince of Morganwg. Their joint forces overcame Rhys in a battle on the borders of Brecheiniog, and Rhys himself, flying from the field, was taken and beheaded. His kinsmen and followers seem to have been killed or dispersed, and we are told that Robert Fitz-hamon and his companions, being well paid for their services by Jestin, went away towards London. Then Einion demands his reward; but Jestin says that he will not give either his daughter or his land to a traitor. Then Einion persuades Robert and his companions to come back, and take Jestin’s dominions for themselves. They are of course in no way unwilling; and they are joined by some of Jestin’s Welsh enemies. Jestin is driven out, and his land is partitioned. The rough mountain land is assigned to Einion and his Welsh companions, and Einion also marries Nest the daughter of Jestin. Robert Fitz-hamon and his twelve knights divide the fertile vale of Glamorgan among them. Each man establishes himself in a lordship and castle, and all do homage to Robert as lord of Glamorgan, holding his chief seat in his castle of Cardiff. But, while the traitor Einion obtains so sorry a portion, a son of Jestin is admitted to a share in the rich vale, and is allowed to hand on his lordship to his descendants. Another of the family, a grandson of Jestin, Gruffydd son of Rhydderch, refuses to submit, withstands the invaders in arms, contrives to defend Caerleon, and to hand on to his son Caradoc a principality in Gwent, seemingly east of the Usk.
[Sidenote: Estimate of the story.]
[Sidenote: Elements of truth.]
[Sidenote: Settlement of Robert Fitz-hamon at Cardiff.]
[Sidenote: Legendary names in the list.]
[Sidenote: Question of Jestin’s descendants.]
Now how much of this story is to be believed? Jestin is a most shadowy being, of whom personally nothing is recorded. But there is evidence enough for the existence of his descendants, and for their retention of an important lordship in Glamorgan.[190] This may make us inclined to put some faith in the account of the transactions between Jestin, Einion, and Robert Fitz-hamon. The general outline of the tale is perfectly possible, except the very unlikely story that Robert or any other Norman, when once standing in arms on British or any other ground, simply marched out again after receiving a fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work. That Robert Fitz-hamon did conquer Glamorgan and establish himself at Cardiff cannot be doubted. The settlement of some of his followers is equally historical; but the list of them as given in the legend is untrustworthy, as containing names of families which did not appear in the district till later. That the Normans were invited by a Welsh prince to help him against his enemies, and that they then took his lands to themselves, is quite possible, though the story rests on no certain evidence. That the Norman invaders took the valuable land, the fertile vale, to themselves, and left the rugged mountains to the Britons, is doubtless a true description of the general result, though it is not likely to have been caused by any formal division. The only thing to suggest such a division is the portion which was kept by the descendants of Jestin. But such an anomaly as this last might be accounted for in various ways. The defeat and death of Rhys in Brecheiniog is beyond doubt, and it is not unlikely that Robert Fitz-hamon may have had a hand in it; but at all events the date is utterly wrong.[191] The most unlikely part of the story is that which describes a grandson of Jestin as founding a principality in that part of Gwent which had already long been an English possession. This story might almost seem to be a confusion with an event of earlier times. We are tempted to think that the Caradoc son of Gruffydd and grandson of Rhydderch, who now settles himself in Gwent, is a mythical repetition of the Caradoc son of Gruffydd and grandson of Rhydderch who destroyed King Eadward’s hunting-seat at Portskewet.[192]
[Sidenote: Robert Fitz-hamon;]
[Sidenote: other notices of him.]
[Sidenote: He holds the lands of Brihtric.]
[Sidenote: He marries Earl Roger’s daughter.]
[Sidenote: Marriage of his daughter to Robert of Gloucester.]
[Sidenote: His works at Gloucester and Tewkesbury.]
[Sidenote: Grant of Welsh churches to English monasteries.]
[Sidenote: Conquest of Glamorgan.]
[Sidenote: Building of castles.]
Robert Fitz-hamon, conqueror of Glamorgan――for of his right to that title there is no doubt――has his place in the history of this reign and of the early years of the next. We have already heard of him as one of the few faithful among the Normans in England at the time of the great rebellion against the present King.[193] Son or grandson of the famous rebel of Val-ès-dunes,[194] he had an elder brother of his father’s name, who appears, with the title of Dapifer, among the land-owners of eastern England.[195] He had himself, at one time in the present reign, received those lands which had once been Brihtric’s, which had then been Queen Matilda’s, and which had been afterwards held or claimed by the Ætheling Henry.[196] These made him great in the shires of Gloucester and Somerset, shires from which he might look with a longing eye towards the lands beyond the Severn and the Severn sea. To these, it appears, was added the honour of Gloucester, or rather the lands of Brihtric were made into an honour of Gloucester for his benefit.[197] He married a daughter of Earl Roger, Sibyl by name,[198] and so had the privilege of being brother-in-law to Robert of Bellême. His daughter Mabel, heiress of her uncle as well as of her father,[199] became, as we have often had occasion to notice, the wife of King Henry’s son Robert, with whom Gloucester became an earldom. He founded the abbey of Tewkesbury, one of the line of great religious houses along the Severn, where his work may still be seen in the vast pillars and mysterious front of his still surviving minster.[200] To the older abbey of Gloucester he was a bountiful benefactor. And the nature of his gifts to these two favoured houses would be almost enough of itself to enable us to set down Robert Fitz-hamon as conqueror of Glamorgan. Gloucester and Tewkesbury were enriched at the cost of the churches of Glamorgan, proof enough that he who could thus enrich them had won great possessions in Glamorgan. The holy places of the Briton, Llantwit and Llancarfan, with a crowd of churches of lesser note, supplied the conqueror with an easy means of being bountiful with no cost to himself.[201] So again the mere fact that a man who held such a position as that of Robert Fitz-hamon, one who, though not an earl, ranked by possessions and connexions alongside of earls, plays so small a part as he does in the recorded history of the reign, might almost of itself suggest that he was busy on some enterprise of his own, such as that which legend assigns to him. When the mound by the swift and shallow Taff was crowned by the shell-keep of Cardiff, the progress of invasion was not likely to tarry. The fertile lowlands from the mouth of the Taff to the mouth of the Neath were a natural accession to the lowlands of Gwent which were already won. They were won; they were guarded by a crowd of castles. And the winning of the land, the building of the castles, events about which the genuine local history is strangely silent, were, there is not the slightest reason to doubt, the work of Robert Fitz-hamon and of the men who shared with him in that work.
[Sidenote: Distinction between Morganwg and Glamorgan.]
[Sidenote: Extent of Glamorgan.]
[Sidenote: Cardiff castle.]
[Sidenote: Bishopric of Llandaff.]
[Sidenote: William of London.]
[Sidenote: Kidwelly and Ogmore.]
[Sidenote: Richard Siward.]
[Sidenote: Pagan of Turberville at Coyty.]
[Sidenote: Aberafan held by the children of Jestin.]
In strict geographical accuracy the names Morganwg and Glamorgan do not answer to one another.[202] Morganwg in the wider sense is said to have taken in a vast district from the Severn to the Towy, while Glamorgan, said to be called from a prince named Morgan in the tenth century, was less than the present county, taking in only the vale. The distinction between the two was preserved in the style of the lords of “Morgania and Glamorgania.” But the country with which we have now to deal may be practically looked on as answering to the present county, somewhat cut short to the west and somewhat lengthened to the east. It takes in the present Monmouthshire between Usk and Rhymny; it does not take in the peninsula of Gower. This last, with the town of Swansea on its isthmus, still forms no part of the diocese of Glamorgan or Llandaff; it marks its formerly distinct character by still belonging to the diocese of Saint David’s. Within this district Robert Fitz-hamon and his successors the Earls of Gloucester held a position like that of the Earl of Chester or the Bishop of Durham. Without bearing their lofty titles, the Lord of Glamorgan practically held, like them, a vassal principality of the crown. Like the other lords marchers, he held most of the powers of kingship within his lordship, and the position of his lordship enabled him to carry out those powers more thoroughly than most of his fellows.[203] The chief seat of the lord was at Cardiff on the Taff, where the castle had been, as we have seen, founded in the Conqueror’s day.[204] A little higher up the river was the seat of the bishopric of Glamorgan at Llandaff, with its church, most unlike Le Mans or Durham, nestling by the river at the foot of the hill. Under the chief lord settled several lesser lords, tenants-in-chief, we may almost venture to call them, within Glamorgan, who founded castles and families, and under whom the land was again divided among a crowd of smaller tenants. Some of these lesser lords held within their own lordships powers almost equal to those of the lord of Glamorgan himself. First perhaps among them was the house founded by William of London, better known under the French form of Londres.[205] The name suggests some thoughts. Who was a William of London in the days of William Rufus? A Norman doubtless, but hardly a Norman of any very lofty rank in his own land. May we follow the analogy of the great bearer of the same name in the next age, and see in him the son of a Rouen citizen settled in London in the very first days of the Conquest, or even in the days of the Confessor? The house of London spread beyond the bounds of Glamorgan; their chief seat was at Kidwelly; but within the lordship of Fitz-hamon the square keep of Ogmore and the fortified priory of Ewenny, one of the most precious specimens of the Norman minster on the smallest scale, still remain as memorials of their presence. But the name of Siward――its first bearer appears in the legend as Richard Siward――bespeaks English or Danish descent, and we are tempted to see in the colonist of Glamorgan a son or grandson of Thurkill of Warwick.[206] Pagan of Turberville held Coyty, married a Welsh heiress, and became the founder of a house whose feelings became British rather than Norman or English. Aberafan, the fortress at the mouth of the Glamorgan Avon, remained in the hands of the descendants of Jestin, the only native line which, like such Englishmen as Thurkill, Eadward of Salisbury, Coleswegen and Ælfred of Lincoln, abode on its own ground on equal terms with the conquerors. They alone shared the fertile plain with the strangers; the rest of their countrymen, even those who held acknowledged lands and lordships, were confined to the barren hills.[207]
[Sidenote: The lords and their castles.]
[Sidenote: The South-Welsh churches.]
These few families have each something in their name and history which entitles them to special notice. A few others were of really equal eminence from the first, and the legend, to make up the full tale of twelve peers, adds on several names of later date. These great lords, and a crowd of smaller land-owners as well, built each man his castle; in Glamorgan the peaceful manor-house, soon to become the rule in England, seems to have been the reform of a much later day. The castles with which we are to deal are of course for the most part castles of the older and simpler type; it was not till long after the times with which we are dealing that Caerphilly, with its mighty gateway-towers, its princely hall, its lake wrought by the hand of man, became the proudest of South-Welsh fortresses, the peer of Caernarvon itself. Caerphilly lies indeed beyond our immediate range, in the land still left to the natives, parted off by hills from Cardiff and from the rich plain which the conquerors kept for themselves. Not a few others of the famous castles of the district belong to times far too late for us. From the castles the churches also caught a military air, and kept it during the whole time of mediæval architecture. The fortified towers of Glamorgan have the military character less strongly marked than the towers of Pembrokeshire; but it is marked quite strongly enough to strike the English visitor as something altogether in harmony with the endless traces of castles which meet him at every step. He sees at once that a state of things which in England existed only during the first years of the Conquest, or which more truly, unless during the nineteen years of anarchy, never existed at all, went on in the half conquered British land for ages.
[Sidenote: Saxon settlements in South-Wales.]
[Sidenote: The Flemings in Pembrokeshire.]
[Sidenote: Foundation of boroughs.]
The leaders in the settlement were of course mainly Norman. It has been acutely remarked that they mostly came, as followers of Robert Fitz-hamon most naturally would come, from the old lands of Brihtric in Gloucestershire and Somerset. They doubtless brought with them an English following, a strictly Saxon invasion of South Wales. Among the Teutonic settlers in this district, it is not easy to distinguish the Saxon from the Fleming. It must always be remembered that, while the Flemish settlement in Pembrokeshire is matter of history, the Flemish settlements in Gower and Glamorgan are merely matters of inference.[208] The English and Flemish settlers were doubtless the chief inhabitants of the boroughs which now began to arise under the shadow of the castles. Cardiff, Kenfig, Aberafan, and Neath, arose on the coast or on the rivers from which some of them took their names. Cowbridge and Llantrissant lay in the inland part of the vale; the last, a borough mainly British, was the only one which held at all a commanding site among the hills. In later times these towns sank into insignificance――Kenfig indeed well nigh perished under heaps of sand. But some of them have in later times been called up to a new life by the wonderful development of mineral wealth which has changed the barren hills which were left to the Briton into one of the busiest regions of our whole island.
[Sidenote: Ecclesiastical affairs.]
[Sidenote: Llandaff.]
[Sidenote: Ewenny.]
[Sidenote: Cistercian foundations.]
[Sidenote: Neath. 1130.]
[Sidenote: Margam. 1147.]
In ecclesiastical matters the conquest of this district was for awhile chiefly marked, as has been mentioned, by the spoliation of the ancient British foundations, to the behoof of the conqueror’s favourite monasteries at Gloucester and Tewkesbury. The bishopric of Llandaff or Glamorgan kept its place, though it never became, either in the extent of its possessions or in the fabric of its church, at all the peer of Saint David’s. Ewenny arose, if not in the very first days of the conquest, yet within the first or second generation. The Cistercian movement reached this district early. The abbey of Neath arose in King Henry’s time, under the patronage of Earl Robert;[209] and in the last year of his life, while the anarchy still raged, the same earl, the most renowned of the lords of Glamorgan, found means to found the more famous abbey of Margam.[210]
[Sidenote: Conquest of Brecknock.]
[Sidenote: Bernard Newmarch.]
[Sidenote: The castle of Brecknock.]
[Sidenote: Bernard’s gifts to Battle Abbey.]
[Sidenote: His wife Nest.]
[Sidenote: Defeat and death of Rhys at Brecknock. 1093.]
[Sidenote: End of “the kingdom of the Britons.”]
[Sidenote: Effect of the death of Rhys.]
[Sidenote: Cadwgan harries Dyfed. April 30, 1093.]
[Sidenote: Norman conquest of Ceredigion and Dyfed. July 1, 1093.]
The conquest of Glamorgan thus stands out as an event which is altogether unrecorded in authentic history, but of which it is not hard to put together a picture from its results. Other parts of the conquest of South Wales are more clearly entered in both British and English annals. The mountain land of Brecheiniog must have been occupied early in the reign of Rufus, if not earlier still. Its conqueror, Bernard of Neufmarché, better known in the English form of Newmarch, has already figured in our story;[211] and he was clearly in possession when William Rufus lay sick and penitent at Gloucester. His followers are then spoken of as the French who inhabited Brecheiniog. By that time then the upper valley of the Usk, from Abergavenny westward, must have been already subdued. The rich land of the holy King Brychan, with his twenty-four sainted daughters――the church where the worship of one of them turned the people of the land into frenzies which offended the soberer devotion of the Norman[212]――the rivers full of fish, the lake of marvels, the whole pleasant valley cut off by its hills from the extremes of heat and cold[213]――all had passed away from British rule. Bernard had doubtless by this time reared on the hill of Aberhonwy at least some rude forerunner of the castle of Brecknock, the fragments of which still stand, facing the southern mountains, alongside of the massive church of his own priory, the church which he made his far-off offering to Saint Martin of the Place of Battle.[214] We know not whether Bernard had by this time striven to confirm his power on British soil by a marriage which connected him with the noblest blood, alike British and English. His wife Nest united the blood of Gruffydd with the blood of Ælfgar. We are not told the name or race of her father;[215] but her mother was Nest the daughter of Gruffydd and Ealdgyth, the stepdaughter of Harold, the half-sister of his twin wanderers, the granddaughter of Ælfgar and his perhaps Norman Ælfgifu.[216] Nest thus came on the spindle-side from Godgifu the mirror of English matronhood; but the woman who shamelessly avowed to King Henry that her son was not the son of her husband Bernard hardly walked in the steps of her renowned ancestress.[217] During that memorable Lent, while King William lay sick at Gloucester, the new lord of Brecknock found it needful to gather his strength to withstand an attack from the people whom he had despoiled. The Britons came together under Rhys the son of Tewdwr, the king of whom we have often heard, and who must have been at this time the most powerful prince of South Wales.[218] He invaded the invaders; and in the very Easter week, while matters were busy between William and Anselm on the one hand, between William and Malcolm on the other hand, a battle took place near Brecknock. There Rhys was killed, by the help, according to the Glamorgan legend, of Robert Fitz-hamon. According to the same legend, Rhys did not fall in open fight, but as a prisoner to whom quarter was refused. Another account describes him as being slain by the treachery of his own men. His death was marked as an epoch in the history of Wales. With him, the native historian writes, fell the kingdom of the Britons, a phrase which an English writer seems to have misunderstood as meaning that after him no Welsh prince bore the kingly title.[219] The overthrow of Rhys led to great movements in other parts of South Wales. We can hardly doubt that, whether Robert Fitz-hamon had a hand in the fight at Brecknock or not, his settlement in Glamorgan was at any rate already begun. But the fall of Rhys laid the lands to the south-west, the lands of Ceredigion and Dyfed, open to invasion; and two sets of invaders were equally ready to make the most of the chance which was now laid open to them. The British enemy came first. Cadwgan son of Bleddyn, who had once before driven Rhys from his throne,[220] seized the moment of his death to carry a wasting inroad into Dyfed.[221] He was presently followed by invaders who were to do something more than make a wasting inroad. “About the kalends of July the French for the first time held Dyfed and Ceredigion, and set castles in them, and thence occupied the whole land.”[222]
[Sidenote: Pembrokeshire.]
[Sidenote: Tale of Rufus’ threats against Ireland.]
These words of the British annalist mark a most important stage in the occupation of his country. The campaign of this summer completed the conquest of South Wales, so far as a land could be said to be conquered which was always revolting, and where native chiefs still kept, sometimes by their own strength, sometimes by formal acknowledgement, such parts of the land as the invaders could not or did not care to occupy. But it was now that a land was planted with castles which is still pre-eminently the land of castles; it was now that a land was brought under the power of those who bore rule in England which was itself to become a new England beyond the line of the Briton. Ceredigion, the land of Cardigan, the vale of Teifi with its still abiding beavers,[223] the sites of the castles of Aberystwyth and Cilgerran, of the abbey of Strata Florida and the priory of Saint Dogmael, were added to the dominion of the conquerors. Thence they pressed on to the extreme south-western land, and added Dyfed by a new name to the possessions of the English crown. A tale has been told how the Red King himself made his way to the most western point of all, to the headland of Saint David’s; there, from the treeless rocks, he looked over the sea to the land beyond, which may now and then be seen on a cloudless evening. Then he boasted that, lord as he was of Britain, he would be lord of Ireland too, how he would gather round that headland the fleets of his whole kingdom, and would make of them a bridge by which he might pass over and win the great island for himself. The tale goes on to tell how, when the threatening words were brought to King Murtagh,[224] he asked whether the King of the English had added to his threat the words, “If God will?”[225] The Red King had not used the formula which he hated to hear even from the lips of others,[226] and the Irish prince at once answered that he did not fear the coming of one who meant to come only in his own strength, and not in that of the Most High.[227]
[Sidenote: Acquisition of Saint David’s.]
[Sidenote: Bishop Wilfrith.]
[Sidenote: Milford Haven.]
[Sidenote: The Pembrokeshire castles.]
The tale is eminently characteristic of William Rufus; yet it sounds somewhat like an echo of the real visit and the real schemes of the great William translated into the boastful language of his son. The Conqueror did visit Saint David’s;[228] he did plan the conquest of Ireland;[229] but it is not likely that he threw the expression of his designs into such a shape as that which William Rufus would have been likely enough to choose. The younger William may have made his way to Saint David’s; but it is not easy to find a time for his coming, either in this year or in any other. But, whether through his coming or not, Saint David’s itself passed under the obedience of the conquerors. We presently find its bishop, a bishop spoken of as a Briton, but bearing the English name of Wilfrith, acting in their full confidence.[230] But the holy place, deep in its hollow, was left to be guarded by its own holiness. No castle of king or earl or sheriff invaded its precincts; the home of its bishop did not, as at Llandaff, take the form of a castle looking down upon the minster, but that of a peaceful palace resting by its side. The conquerors pressed on, through the land of Cemaes and Emlyn and by the hills of Preseleu, till they reached the south-western land, the land of creeks and peninsulas, where the tides of Ocean rise and fall beneath the walls of far inland towns and fortresses. In those waters the wandering wiking had seen the likeness of his own fiords, and he had left his mark here and there on a holm, a gard, a thorp, a ford, some of them bearing names which seem to go back to the gods of Scandinavian heathendom.[231] The Norman won the land, to hand it over in the next reign to the Flemish settlers, who rooted out whatever traces of the Cymry Northmen and Normans had left. Two of the chief towns, Pembroke and Tenby, kept their British names in corrupt forms.[232] Milford and Haverford would seem to have been already named by the Northmen. On every tempting point overlooking the inland waters, sometimes on points overlooking the Ocean itself, castles arose, some of which grew into the very stateliest of their own class. Tenby, Haverfordwest――Manorbeer, birthplace of Giraldus[233]――Caerau, connected with so many famous names of later date[234]――and a crowd of castles of lesser note, witness the means by which the conquerors knew how to hold down the land which they had won.
[Sidenote: Pembroke Castle.]
[Sidenote: Pembrokeshire buildings.]
[Sidenote: The castle begun by Arnulf of Montgomery.]
[Sidenote: Second building of Gerald of Windsor. 1105.]
At the head of all stands the great fortress which gave its name to a town, a shire, and a long line of earls, and in our own time to a great workshop of the naval strength of the land. Pen bro, the head of the sealand, grew into Pembroke, with its vast castle rising on a peninsula above two arms of the inland sea――with its stately hall looking down on the waters――with the deep cave underneath its walls, with the huge mass of the round tower――with the one hill-side covered by the houses and churches of the town, the other crowned by the long line of the priory of Monkton, with its stern square tower and its now roofless choir. The character of military strength and simplicity, which is stamped in a lesser measure on the churches and houses of Glamorgan, comes out in all its fulness in the churches and houses of Pembrokeshire. Of all this the days of which we are speaking saw the beginnings, but only the beginnings. On the tongue of land between the two creeks a fortress was raised by Arnulf of Montgomery, son of Roger and Mabel, a man of whom we have already heard and shall hear again. But his defences were as yet small and feeble as compared with what was to follow; the first castle of Pembroke was a mere earthwork with a palisade.[235] Arnulf placed his work under the care of a valiant knight named Gerald of Windsor, who afterwards was the beginner of a castle of greater strength on the same spot.[236] In after times he married a wife of the noblest British blood, yet another Nest, the daughter of Rhys son of Tewdwr, and grandchild through her mother of that Rhiwallon who had received a kingdom at the hands of Harold.[237] Before her marriage she was the mother of one of the sons of King Henry, though assuredly not of the great Earl of Gloucester.[238] In later days, through another marriage, she became the grandmother of Giraldus Cambrensis.
[Sidenote: Hugh of Chester in Anglesey.]
[Sidenote: Castle of Aberlleiniog.]
[Sidenote: Advance of Earl Roger in Powys.]
[Sidenote: Castle of Rhyd-y-gors.]
The course of events in North Wales during these years is less easy to mark with exact dates. But it is plain that the death of Robert of Rhuddlan had been only a momentary triumph for the Cymry, and that it had not given any real check to the Norman power. Earl Hugh of Chester, strong on the border of the continental Britons, still held a hand no less firm on their island kinsfolk. He even pressed on into Anglesey, and there built a castle, most likely at Aberlleiniog on the eastern coast of the island, a spot of which we shall have to speak again more fully in recording a memorable day later in our story. Earl Roger meanwhile, from his capital at Shrewsbury and his strong outpost at his new British Montgomery,[239] pushed on his dominion into Powys. The King at least approved, if he did not at this stage help in the work; the castle of Rhyd-y-gors was built at the royal order by William son of Baldwin.[240]
[Sidenote: Seeming conquest of Wales.]
[Sidenote: Gower and Caermarthen unsubdued.]
[Sidenote: 1093-1094.]
[Sidenote: Effects of William’s absence.]
[Sidenote: Revolt of the Welsh. 1094.]
The conquest of Wales was thus, to all appearance, nearly complete. The two great earls were going on with their old work in the north, while in the south the tide of conquest was advancing with such speed as it had never advanced before. In the south-east Gwent and Morganwg seemed to be firmly held, while in the south-west the torrent of Norman invasion had rushed by a single burst from the hill of Brecknock to the furthest coast of Dyfed. In the south at least the only independent region left was that which lies between the conquest of Robert Fitz-hamon and the conquest of Arnulf of Montgomery. Gower, with its caves, its sands, its long ridge, where the name of Arthur has made spoil of a monument of unrecorded times――with its Worm’s Head looking out in defiance at the conquered land beyond the bay――the whole range too of coast with its sandy estuaries, from the mouth by Llwchr to the mouth by Laugharne――Kidwelly also, not yet crowned by the gem of South-Welsh castles――Caermarthen and the whole vale of Towy――were still unsubdued. Otherwise the Britons might truly say with their chronicler that on the death of Rhys their kingdom passed away from them. So things slept while Anselm received his archbishopric, while Malcolm pressed on to die at Alnwick, while King William was kept by the winds at Hastings. But when the king was beyond the sea, when he and the great men of England were busy with Norman affairs――when Argentan bowed to Robert and Philip and when the brother of the conqueror of Pembroke was a prisoner[241]――when the great Earl, the father of both of them, had died with the cowl on his head at Shrewsbury――then the Britons deemed that the hour of deliverance was come. The English Chronicler, though he does not at this stage help us to the names of British men or of British places, paints the general picture in his strongest colours; “The Welshmen gathered themselves together, and on the French that were in Wales or the nighest parts and had ere taken away their lands, they upheaved war, and castles they broke and men they offslew, and as their host waxed, they todealed themselves into more. With some of those deals fought Hugh Earl of Shropshire and put them to flight. And none the less the others all this year never left off from none evil that they might do.”[242]
[Sidenote: Cadwgan son of Bleddyn.]
[Sidenote: Divisions of the Welsh.]
[Sidenote: General revolt of Wales.]
[Sidenote: Invasion of England.]
[Sidenote: Deliverance of Anglesey.]
[Sidenote: Aberlleiniog castle broken down.]
In this version the Norman or English champion stands clearly forth. We see that Earl Hugh had sharp work upon his hands from the moment that he stepped into his father’s earldom. The British writers give us a clearer sight of the geographical extent of the movement, and they help us to the name of its chief leader. This was Cadwgan son of Bleddyn, whom we last heard of as harrying Dyfed, and who even now seems at least as anxious to make Dyfed a land subject to Gwynedd as to drive Normans, English, or Flemings, out of either. Thus the Britons were, as ever, in the words of the Chronicler, todealed; they were divided into local and dynastic parties. Yet, as he puts it, even this division, if it did not give strength, at least delayed subjection. If Earl Hugh or any other leader of a regular force was able to overthrow one deal, another deal was ready all the same to do as much evil as before. But it was in Gwynedd and under Cadwgan that the work began. The Britons could not bear the yoke of the French; they rose, they broke down the castles, and, as men commonly do in such cases, they did by the invaders as the invaders had done by them. It is not very wonderful if, in their hour of victory, they revenged the reavings and slaughters done on them by the French with new reavings and slaughters done on the French themselves.[243] And, as our Chronicler hints, it was not only on the French within Wales, but on those also in the nighest parts that they rose. By this time the whole land had risen; South-Welsh and West-Welsh――that is now no longer the men of the peninsula of Cornwall, but the men of the peninsula of Dyfed――were in arms no less than the men of Gwynedd. Gruffydd and Cadwgan burst into the neighbouring shires, Cheshire, Shropshire, and Herefordshire; they burned towns, carried off plunder, and slew Frenchmen and Englishmen alike.[244] The Saxon, the old enemy, had not become less an enemy, because he had, through his own conquest, become an accomplice in the invasions of his conquerors. Gwynedd was now free; the deliverers crossed into Anglesey; they broke down the castle at Aberlleiniog or elsewhere, and put an end for a while to the foreign dominion in the island.[245]
[Sidenote: Action of Cadwgan in Dyfed.]
[Sidenote: Pembroke holds out.]
The Britons now seemed to have altogether undone the work of the invaders. It was now time for vigorous action on the other side. The French――Hugh of Chester, Hugh of Shrewsbury, or any other――entered Gwynedd with a regular force; but if one deal was put to flight, another, under Cadwgan himself, claims to have overcome the invaders at Yspwys.[246] The path was now open for a march of the Britons to the south. Late in the year a general attack was made on all the castles throughout Ceredigion and Dyfed. Two only held out; Gerald of Windsor successfully defended Pembroke; William the son of Baldwin successfully defended Rhyd-y-gors.[247] But the warfare of Cadwgan was waged in the interest of Gwynedd, not in that of Dyfed. By a harsh, though possibly prudent policy, he enforced a migration somewhat in the style of an Eastern despot. The men and the cattle of Ceredigion and Dyfed――we must take so general a statement with those deductions which the laws of possibility imply――were transported to the safer region, and south-western Wales was made, so far as Cadwgan could make it, a wilderness.[248] Gerald, in his castle among the creeks, was left to lord it over whom he might find, and to feed himself and his followers how he might, in the wasted land. As far as we can see, Gwent, Morganwg, and Brecheiniog, remained in the hands of the conquerors. The rest of the British land, from the isthmus of Gower to the furthest point of Mona, was either free or a wilderness.
[Sidenote: Question of a winter campaign.]
[Sidenote: December 28,1094-January, 1095.]
[Sidenote: Conquest of Kidwelly, Gower, and Caermarthen.]
[Sidenote: 1099.]
[Sidenote: Swansea Castle.]
[Sidenote: The castles of Gower.]
[Sidenote: Alleged West-Saxon settlement of Gower.]
It is almost past belief that William Rufus could have found time for a winter campaign against the Welsh in the few weeks, or rather days, which passed between his return from Normandy at the end of December and his interview with Anselm at Gillingham in the middle of January.[249] But there was plenty of fighting in the course of the year in Wales and elsewhere. The Britons seem to have kept their independence in the newly liberated districts, while the Norman conquerors of Glamorgan made a successful attack on the intermediate lands which had not yet been subdued. “The French laid waste Gower, Kidwelly, and the vale of Towy;” and we are further told that those lands, as well as Dyfed and Ceredigion, remained waste.[250] But if Normans laid waste, they did not simply lay waste, like the Welsh. What they found it expedient to lay waste for a season they meant to put in order some day for their own advantage. This was no doubt the time when William of London established himself at Kidwelly, and made the first beginnings of castle, church, borough, and haven.[251] It was now too that the way was at least opened for the work of colonization which made Gower a Teutonic land. According to an authority to which we turn with a certain doubt, the actual settlement dates from five years later. Castles were built, Abertawy or Swansea guarding its own bay and the approach to the peninsula, Aberllwchr guarding the sandy estuary between the peninsula and the opposite coast to the north, Oystermouth, Penrice, Llanrhidian, on points within the peninsula itself.[252] And in this version the settlement is made, not by Flemings, according to the common tradition, but by West-Saxons brought across the channel from Somerset.[253] It is certain, as has been already said, that there is not the same historical evidence for Flemings in Gower which there is for Flemings in Pembrokeshire. But it is perhaps less important to fix the exact origin of each Teutonic settlement along this coast than to insist on the fact that, as compared with the native Cymry, any two branches of the Nether-Dutch stock, whether Flemish or Saxon, came to very much the same thing.
[Sidenote: Pagan of Turberville joins the Welsh.]
Along with this territorial advance on the part of the invaders, we hear, from the same somewhat doubtful quarter, of a movement among the invaders themselves which turned to the advantage of the natives. It is characteristic of the outwardly legal nature of the Norman Conquest of England that it gave no opportunity for a character not very rare in less regular invasions, the invading chief who finds it to his interest to separate himself from his own fellows and to place himself at the head of those whom he has helped to subdue. In the conquests both of Wales and of Ireland there was room for such a part to be played, and the story sets before us one of the Norman conquerors of Glamorgan as playing it with some effect. The lord of Coyty, Pagan of Turberville, married to a wife of the house of Jestin, took the side of his wife’s countrymen, and, we are told, went so far as to attack Cardiff on their behalf. The result, it is said, was a confirmation of the ancient laws of Wales on the part of the lord of Glamorgan. This, it is added, led many to transfer their dwellings from the disturbed parts of the country to the more settled lands under his rule.[254]
[Sidenote: North Wales keeps its independence.]
[Sidenote: Autumn, 1095.]
[Sidenote: The Welsh take Montgomery.]
[Sidenote: William’s invasion of Wales. Michaelmas, 1095.]
[Sidenote: He reaches Snowdon. November 1.]
[Sidenote: Ill-success of the campaign.]
Meanwhile in the northern parts of Wales the Britons still kept the independence that they had won by the struggle of the last year. They had got the better of the local powers on their own borders, and the King, busied with the peaceful opposition of Anselm and the armed opposition of Robert of Mowbray, had little time to spare from councils and sieges within his kingdom. At last, towards autumn, while the siege of Bamburgh was going on, after he had himself turned away from it, and left the Evil Neighbour to do its work, William heard a piece of news from the British border which at once stirred him to action. One of the great fortresses of the march had fallen. In vain had Earl Roger made his nest on the rock to which he gave the name of his own Norman home.[255] Montgomery, Tre Baldwin, was in the hands of the Britons, and all Earl Hugh’s men within it were slain.[256] William was wroth at the tidings, and he at once called out the fyrd of his realm, so much of it as was not needed for the lingering leaguer-work in Northumberland.[257] Soon after Michaelmas he entered Wales at the head of his host. He divided it into parties, and caused them to go thoroughly through the land. At last, by the feast of All-hallows, the whole army met together by Snowdon. If merely marching through a country could subdue it, William Rufus had now done a good deal towards the conquest of Gwynedd. But William Rufus was not Harold; the master of continental chivalry could not bring himself to copy Harold’s homely tactics. While the royal army scoured the dales, the Welsh betook them to the moors and mountains where no man might come at them.[258] Harold had found out the way to come at them; but the Red King knew it not. All that he could do was to go homeward, when he saw that he there in the winter might do no more.[259] The British annalists, with good right, rejoice as they tell how God their people sheltered in the strong places of their land, and how the King and his host went away empty, having taken nothing.[260]
[Sidenote: 1096.]
[Sidenote: The Welsh gain Rhyd-y-gors. 1096.]
[Sidenote: Revolt of Gwent and Brecknock.]
[Sidenote: English feeling towards the war.]
[Sidenote: Vain attempt to recover Gwent.]
The next year saw the bloody Gemót at Salisbury; it saw Europe pour forth its forces for the deliverance of Eastern Christendom; it saw the Red King become master of the Norman duchy. Among such cares, William had no time, perhaps he felt no strong call, for another Welsh campaign, either in winter or summer. But the lords of the marches could not be thus idle; with them the only choice was to invade or to be invaded. The year seems to have begun with another gain on the part of the Britons. William son of Baldwin, who had kept the castle of Rhyd-y-gors safe through all perils up to this time, now died. His spirit did not abide in his garrison; they left the castle empty, a prey to the enemy.[261] The spirit of the Britons, even in the lands which seemed most thoroughly subdued, now rose. Within the bounds of the present Glamorgan the favourable composition of the last year seems to have kept men quiet; but the lands to the east, parts of which had been so long under English rule, were now encouraged to strike another blow for independence. The natives were in arms along the whole line of the Usk; Brecheiniog, Gwent, and Gwenllwg, the land between Usk and Wye and the land between Usk and Rhymny, threw off, as their own writers say, the yoke of the French.[262] The marchers had now to act in earnest. Our own Chronicler says mournfully how “the head men that this land held ofttimes sent the fyrd into Wales, and many men with that sorely harassed, and man there sped not, but man-marring and fee-spilling.”[263] We see that the old duty of every man to fight for the land when called on had come to awaken some of the feelings which attach to a conscription. Men were, we may believe, ready for a campaign in Normandy or Maine, where plunder was to be had, and where there was most likely still some satisfaction felt in fighting against French-speaking enemies, even under French-speaking captains. To drive back Malcolm would come home to every man’s heart as a national duty; to dispose of Malcolm’s crown under the leadership of an English Ætheling might call up long-forgotten feelings of national pride. But who could be tempted by the prospect of a march to Snowdon, even in the fairest weather? What interest had the men of perhaps far-off English shires in rivetting the dominion of a Norman lord on the men of Brecknock or Pembroke? No doubt every Englishman was ready to drive back the Briton from Shropshire and Herefordshire; but it was an irksome and bootless work to go and attack him in his own land, a land from which even conquerors could draw so little gain. Even to win back Gwent, the conquest of Harold, was an enterprise which would lead mainly to man-marring and fee-spilling. Into Gwent however they were marched; but nothing was done; the land was not subdued; the army was even attacked on its retreat, and after great slaughter put to flight.[264] A second greater attempt came to nothing more. The grandsons of Cadwgan, Gruffydd and Ivor, attacked this army too on its return, and cut it also off at Aberllech.[265]
[Sidenote: Effects of the castle-building.]
[Sidenote: Pembroke castle holds out.]
[Sidenote: The Welsh attack Pembroke. 1096.]
[Sidenote: Resistance of Gerald of Windsor.]
[Sidenote: His devices.]
[Sidenote: His dealings with Bishop Wilfrith.]
[Sidenote: Offensive action of Gerald.]
[Sidenote: 1097.]
The British chronicler here makes a comment which fully explains the final issue of these wars. The Normans or English, whichever we are to call the hosts of England under the Red King, had thus for three years met with nothing but defeat. Yet they had in truth won the land. “The folk stayed in their homes, trusting fearlessly, though the castles were yet whole, and the castlemen in them.”[266] The fortresses might be hemmed in for a moment; but, as long as they stood whole with the castlemen in them, the newly won freedom of the open country was liable to be upset at any moment. In Gwent and Brecheiniog at least the natives might for the moment stay fearlessly in their homes; they might at some favourable point surprise and cut to pieces the armies that were sent against them; they might withdraw to moors and mountains when the invading force was too strong for them; but, as long as the castles stood firm, the real grasp of the stranger on the land was not loosened. How long a castle could stand out we see by the example of this very year’s campaign. All the castles of Dyfed and Ceredigion had been destroyed two years before, save Pembroke and Rhyd-y-gors; and Rhyd-y-gors was now in the hands of the Britons. Pembroke, the castle of earth and wood, the outpost cut off from all help, still stood through the whole of these two years, the one representative of Norman dominion in the whole region of which it had become the head. No wonder that the Britons, victorious everywhere else, resolved on one great attack on this still unconquered stronghold of the enemy. A host led by several chieftains of the house of Cadwgan, Uhtred son of Edwin,――one whom we should rather have looked for in Northumberland,――and Howel son of Goronwy, set forth and fought against Pembroke. Gerald of Windsor was hard pressed. One night, fifteen of his knights, despairing of resistance, made their escape from the castle in a boat. Their esquires were more faithful, and Gerald at once gave them the arms of knighthood, and also granted――or professed to grant to them――the fiefs of their recreant lords.[267] We read too how Gerald, to hide his real plight from the enemy, betook himself to some of those simple devices of which we hear in so many times and places. He had four swine in the castle; he cut them in pieces, and threw them over to the besiegers.[268] The next day he wrote or caused letters to be written sealed with his seal, saying that there was no need to trouble Earl Arnulf――he is made to bear the title――for any help for four months to come. These letters he took care should be found near a neighbouring house of Bishop Wilfrith of Saint David’s, as if they had been lost by their bearer.[269] They were read out in the Welsh army. The Britons, we are told, having no mind for a four months’ siege, marched away.[270] They claim to have marched away without loss, with much booty, especially with all the cattle belonging to the castle.[271] But the castle was not taken; it stood there to do its work; and early in the next year Gerald was harrying in his turn as far as the borders of Saint David’s.[272] Friendship for the Bishop perhaps kept him from harrying the holy soil of Dewisland itself.
[Sidenote: Easter, 1097.]
[Sidenote: William’s second Welsh campaign.]
[Sidenote: Seeming conquest.]
[Sidenote: Fresh revolt.]
[Sidenote: Cadwgan.]
[Sidenote: William’s third campaign. June-August, 1097.]
[Sidenote: The King’s ill-success.]
[Sidenote: He determines to build castles. October, 1097.]
This year, the King, as he had done two years before, deemed the affairs of Wales to call for his own presence, and for a greater effort on his part than ever. He had come back from taking possession of the mortgaged land of Normandy; he had held the Easter Assembly at Windsor somewhat after the regular time.[273] At that Assembly Welsh affairs must have formed a subject of discussion, as the King presently set out for Wales with a great host. This was the time when the knights sent by the Archbishop were deemed so unfit for their duty.[274] The King’s coming appears to have led to a seeming, perhaps a pretended, submission. Led by native guides, he passed through the whole country,[275] and he clearly believed that he had brought Wales to a state of peace. So he deemed when he came back to hold the Whitsun Assembly, the assembly in which Anselm for the first time that year craved leave to go to the Pope.[276] But he was called back by a fresh revolt. The Welsh, in the emphatic phrase of our Chronicler, “bowed from the King.”[277] They had once bowed to him; now they bowed from him; they cast away his authority; perhaps they formally defied him in the strict feudal sense; certainly they defied him in the more general sense which that word has now come to bear. And now, for the first time in these wars, the English Chronicler gives us the name of a Welsh leader, a name which from British sources has long been familiar to us. “They chose them many elders of themselves; one of them was Cadwgan hight, that of them the worthiest was; he was brother’s son of Gruffydd the King.”[278] The name of the great prince who had ruled all Wales, who had won the battle by the Severn,[279] who had put Earl Ralph to flight[280] and burned Hereford town and minster,[281] the prince whom it needed all the strength and all the arts of Harold to overthrow, was still famous even among Englishmen. The nephew of Gruffydd had this time too to dread no such tactics as had worn down his uncle on his own soil. King William set forth with a host of horse as well as of foot, vowing to put to death every male of the rebel nation.[282] Again the pomp and pride of Norman chivalry was shivered against the natural defences of the land which was so rashly attacked. The Britons seem, by their own account, to have made the war a religious one; perhaps, like the Irish king, they deemed that higher powers would fight for them against the blasphemer. Strengthened by prayers, fastings, and other pious exercises, the Welsh took to their woods and rocks and mountains, while the Red King’s host marched and rode bootlessly through the valleys and plains.[283] “Mickle he lost in men and in horses, and eke in many other things.”[284] This state of things went on from midsummer to August.[285] Then the King came back to hold two assemblies at unusual times, in the second of which he and Anselm met for the last time.[286] And now it was that he took that wise resolution which I have quoted above.[287] As invasions by mounted knights led to nothing but losing both the knights and their horses, he would build castles on the borders. This Harold, who knew so much better than William Rufus how to carry on a Welsh campaign, had not done. But then the objects of Harold and the objects of William Rufus were not the same.
[Sidenote: Action of Robert of Bellême. 1098-1102.]
We should have been well pleased to know what was the immediate result of the resolve for the building of the border-castles. What were the fortresses which were built, as surely some must have been built, in obedience to it? This is the last entry which connects Rufus personally with Welsh affairs. But we can hardly help connecting this resolve with the building, a little time later, of several fortresses in the lands threatened by the Welsh, specially of one, the greatest of them all. In the next year one part of the British land becomes the scene of a series of events of far-reaching interest and importance, but also of a local interest quite as great in its own way. We shall then see that, if the Red King did not do much in the way of building border-castles himself, much was done by others, of course with his approval, most likely by his order. Our next year’s tale brings Robert of Bellême to the Welsh border, and, where he was lord, castle-building went on with all vigour.
[Sidenote: Affairs of Scotland.]
But before we enter on a branch of our story which touches all parts of the British islands, and many lands beyond the British islands, it may be well to take up the thread of our Scottish narrative at a point where the affairs of Scotland and those of Wales seem again to be brought into some measure of connexion. The year which saw that wise resolution of the Red King with regard to the Welsh castles, a resolution which really meant the final union of Wales with the English realm, saw also the end of those revolutions whose final result was, not the union of Scotland with the English realm――that was not to come about till long after, and by other means――but the extension of English influence within the kingdom of Scotland till it might be looked on as in truth a second English realm.
§ 4. The Establishment of Eadgar in Scotland.
1097-1098.
[Sidenote: Decree for action in Scotland. August, 1097.]
[Sidenote: Designs of the Ætheling Eadgar.]
It must have been at one of the later assemblies of the year which we have now reached, most likely at the August gathering,[288] that the resolution was taken for vigorous action in Scotland. The King himself had had enough of Welsh warfare; he must have been already looking forward to those French and Cenomannian campaigns which form the main feature of the next year; he was in the middle of his final dispute with Anselm. But William Rufus seems always to have been well pleased to set others in motion, even on enterprises in which he did not share himself. So he gladly hearkened to the proposals of the Ætheling Eadgar for an expedition into Scotland. Its object was to overthrow the usurper Donald, as the chosen of Dunfermline was deemed at Winchester, to restore the line of Malcolm and Margaret, and to bring the Scottish kingdom once more into its due obedience to the over-lord in England.
[Sidenote: Relations between Eadgar and the King.]
[Sidenote: Story of Godwine and Ordgar.]
Our last certain notice of Eadgar sets him before us as enjoying the fullest confidence on the part of the reigning King, as sent by him on the important errand of negotiating with Malcolm and bringing him to William’s court at Gloucester.[289] One hardly knows what to make of the tale which describes him as awakening a certain amount of suspicion in the King’s mind later in the same year;[290] but that, either before or after this time, he was in some such danger appears from another tale in the details of which there may or may not be a legendary element, but which undoubtedly brings before us real persons and a real state of things. To this tale I have already referred elsewhere, as having that kind of interest which belongs to every story in which we see any one of those who are recorded in the Great Survey as mere names stand forth as a living man, playing his part in the world of living men. However obscure the man, however small his deeds, there is always an interest in finding any part of the dry bones of Domesday clothed with flesh and blood. And the interest becomes higher when the man thus called forth out of darkness is a man of native English birth, and the father of one whom England may well be glad to reckon among her worthies.[291]
[Sidenote: Eadgar accused by Ordgar.]
[Sidenote: The ordeal and the battle.]
[Sidenote: Godwine volunteers to fight for Eadgar.]
[Sidenote: Notices of him in Domesday.]
[Sidenote: Duel of Godwine and Ordgar.]
[Sidenote: Victory of Godwine, and acquittal of Eadgar.]
The story runs then that a knight of English birth, Ordgar by name, seeking favour with the King, brought a charge against the English Ætheling. He told William that Eadgar, trusting to his own descent from ancient kings, was seeking to deprive the reigning king of his crown. William hearkened to the accuser, and some grievous doom――would it have been the doom of William of Eu?――was in store for Eadgar, if his guilt――his ambition or patriotism――could be proved. But how was the charge to be proved or disproved? By Old-English law the appeal to the judgement of God in doubtful cases was by the ordeal; and, as between Englishman and Englishman, this rule had not been changed by the laws of the Conqueror.[292] But we can well believe that Englishmen who were admitted to a place in the Red King’s court had largely put on the ideas and feelings of Normans. They would doubtless look down on the ancient practice of their fathers, and they would be more inclined to follow the fashion of their Norman companions in better liking the more chivalrous test of the wager of battle. It seems in the present story to be taken for granted that the trial will be by wager of battle. But who will do battle for Eadgar, when the royal favour is so clearly shown on behalf of Eadgar’s accuser? The Ætheling was sad at heart, forsaken, as it seemed, of all men. But at last one stepped forward who was ready to dare the risk on behalf of a man to whom he was bound by a double tie. As an Englishman he was stirred to come to the help of the descendant of the ancient kings, and he was further bound to Eadgar by the special tie which binds a man to his lord. He was a knight of noble English descent, known as Godwine of Winchester. We know him in Domesday as a tenant of the Ætheling for lands in Hertfordshire, and the Survey further suggests that he may have had a private grudge against the opposite champion. There were lands in Oxfordshire which were held by an Ordgar, and which had been held by a Godwine. The matter is to be decided by the hand-to-hand fight of the two English knights. For they so far cleave to the customs of their fathers that they fight on foot and deal handstrokes with their swords. Ordgar comes forth in splendid armour, surrounded by a crowd of courtiers.[293] Godwine has nothing to trust to but his sword and his good cause. But there was at least no attempt made to hinder a fair fight――so to do would have been altogether foreign to the spirit of the chivalrous king. The herald and the umpire do their duty;[294] the knights take their oath to forbear the use of all weapons but those which were needed in the knightly duel. A long and hard fight follows, the ups and downs of which are described with Homeric minuteness. Ordgar at last, sorely wounded, is pressed to the ground, with the foot of the victorious Godwine upon him.[295] As a last resource, he strives, but in vain, to stab Godwine with a knife which, in breach of his oath, he had treacherously hidden in his boot.[296] Godwine snatches the knife from him; Ordgar confesses the falsehood of his charge, and presently dies of his wounds.[297] Godwine now becomes an object of universal honour, and receives from the King the lands of the slain Ordgar, while Eadgar rises higher than ever in the King’s favour.
[Sidenote: Its general truth.]
[Sidenote: Englishmen under Rufus.]
[Sidenote: Robert son of Godwine.]
I see no reason to doubt the main outline of this story, which rests on the evidence of undesigned coincidences. Men of no special renown, about whom there was no temptation to invent fables, are made to act in a way which exactly agrees with what we know from the surest of witnesses to have been their real position. Without pledging ourselves to the details of the combat, which have a slightly legendary sound, we may surely believe that we have here the record of a real wager of battle, like those which happened at no great distance of time in the cases of William of Eu and Arnulf of Hesdin. We may surely believe that Eadgar was wrongfully accused, and that Godwine cleared his lord in the duel. We see then that in the Red King’s day there was nothing to hinder men of Old-English birth, exceptionally lucky men doubtless, from holding an honourable rank and a high place in royal favour. But we learn also, as we might expect to find, that such Englishmen found that it suited their purposes to adopt Norman fashions. Of Godwine we hear no more; but his son, as I have noticed elsewhere, bears, according to a very common rule, the Norman name of Robert.[298] Had we chanced to hear of him without hearing the name of his father, we might not have known that the hero and martyr was a man of our own blood.
[Sidenote: The Eadgars march to Scotland. September, 1097.]
[Sidenote: The comet.]
We now follow the Ætheling to a warfare in which Robert the son of Godwine is his companion. Eadgar set out about Michaelmas to place his nephew and namesake on the Scottish throne. He had a bright comet and a shower of falling stars to light him on his way.[299] But Donald was hardly of importance enough for the heavenly powers to foretell his fall; the shining and departure of the comet was rather understood to mark the approaching day when Anselm, the light of England, turned away from our land and left darkness behind him.[300] The force of the Ætheling seems to have been of much the same kind as the force which Duncan had led on the same errand three years before. He went with the King’s approval and support, but certainly without the King’s personal help, perhaps without any part of the royal army.[301] That army, as we have lately seen, was just then coming together for another errand.[302]
[Sidenote: Vision of the younger Eadgar.]
[Sidenote: Exploits of Robert son of Godwine.]
[Sidenote: Defeat and blinding of Donald.]
[Sidenote: Fate of Eadmund;]
[Sidenote: he becomes a monk at Montacute.]
The host then marched northward. On the way, we are told, the younger Eadgar was honoured by a vision of Saint Cuthberht, who bade him take his banner from the abbey at Durham――the abbey now without a bishop――and he should have victory in the battle.[303] The banner was borne before the army; the fight in which it was unfurled was long and hard; but the valour of the men who fought under its folds was not to be withstood. Without binding ourselves to details which may well be legendary, we may believe that Robert son of Godwine was foremost in the fight, and that the victory in which Donald was the second time overthrown was largely owing to his personal prowess.[304] Little mercy was shown to the vanquished; Donald spent the rest of his days blinded and a prisoner;[305] his confederate Eadmund lived to become somewhat of a saint. He put on the garb of Clugny in the priory of Montacute, at the foot of that hill of Saint Michael where the castle of Robert of Mortain now covered the spot which had beheld the finding of England’s Holy Cross.[306] But as that house did not arise till some years later, at the bidding of Count William the son of Robert,[307] we may gather that Eadmund spent the intermediate time in some harsher captivity. When he died, he was buried, at his own request, in chains, as a sign of penitence for his share in his half-brother’s death.[308]
[Sidenote: Eadgar King of Scots.]
[Sidenote: Character of the year 1098.]
[Sidenote: Eadgar’s gifts to Durham and to Robert son of Godwine.]
[Sidenote: Action of Eadgar, Robert, and Randolf Flambard; after 1099.]
The younger Eadgar now reigned over Scotland as the sworn liegeman of King William of England.[309] The elder Eadgar went back to England, to end there a year of heavy time, a year of evil weather, a year in which men could neither till the earth nor gather in its tilth, and when the folk was utterly bowed down by unrighteous gelds.[310] His valiant comrade abode for a while in the dominions of the Scottish King. Eadgar was grateful to all who had helped him in heaven or in earth. The battle had been won by Saint Cuthberht and Robert son of Godwine. Saint Cuthberht, in the person of the monks of his abbey, received the lands of Coldingham, the seat in ancient times of a house of nuns famous in the days of Danish warfare.[311] A little later――for it was when Durham had again a bishop――he received, in the person of his own successor, the greater gift of the town of Berwick.[312] Robert, by the leave of his own sovereign, received a fief in the same land of Lothian, and began the building of a castle. But, while King Eadgar went to do service to his over-lord in England, the bishop――it was already Randolf Flambard――and the barons of the bishopric, whom Robert’s fortress seems in some way to have offended, attacked it and made its lord a prisoner.[313] King Eadgar came back with letters from his over-lord, ordering the release of their common subject. The Bishop and his barons obeyed; but the King of Scots withdrew his gift of Berwick from the bishopric, as a punishment for the wrong done to the man to whom he owed his crown.[314]
[Sidenote: Eadgar and Robert go to the Crusade.]
[Sidenote: Robert in Palestine.]
[Sidenote: 1103.]
[Sidenote: His exploits and death.]
[Sidenote: Modern parallels and contrasts.]
[Sidenote: Robert of Saint Alban’s.]
Robert the son of Godwine was presently called to a nobler work. His lord the Ætheling went to the Holy War. Eadgar was not one of those who marched first of all with the two Roberts of Normandy and Flanders. He was one of that second party who set forth about the time of the siege of Antioch, and joined the Norman Duke in his ignoble retreat at Laodikeia.[315] Robert the son of Godwine, if he stayed in Britain long enough to have any dealings with Flambard in his character of Bishop of Durham, must have set out later still. He could have had no share in the leaguer of Nikaia or of Antioch; most likely he had no share in the rescue of the Holy City. He could hardly have reached Syria till Jerusalem was again a Christian kingdom under its second king. Godfrey, the mirror of Christian knighthood, was gone. His successor was his less worthy brother Baldwin, he who had told the dream of his calling to Dame Isabel in the hall of Conches.[316] But there was still work to be done; the land which had been won had to be defended. King Baldwin was besieged in Rama by the misbelievers.[317] The King, attended by five knights only, made a sally to cut his way through the besiegers. The valiant Englishman rode in front of him, cutting down the infidels on each side with his sword. As Robert pressed too fiercely on, his sword fell from his hand; he stooped to grasp it again; he was overpowered by numbers, and was carried off a prisoner.[318] He was led to the Egyptian Babylon; he was offered his choice of death or apostasy; he clave to his faith; placed as a mark in the market-place, like the East-Anglian Eadmund, he died beneath the arrows of his merciless captors.[319] Such men could England, even in her darkest day, send forth for the relief and defence of Christendom in the Eastern world. Such men she could send forth even in the days of our fathers, to draw the sword for right in the haven of Pylos or beneath the akropolis of Athens. Now the men who go forth from England to the same quarter of the world seem to share more of the spirit of another Robert who, a century later, went forth from the same shire as the son of Godwine on another errand. In our own story we come across no renegade or traitor save the single name of Hugh of Jaugy.[320] But in the course of the twelfth century we see the forerunners of a class of men whose names stain the annals of our own time. The glory of Robert son of Godwine is balanced by the shame of Robert of Saint Alban’s, English by birth and blood, the apostate Templar who joined the host of Saladin and mocked the last agonies of the defenders of the Holy City.[321] Of the earlier Robert our century has seen the true successors in the honoured names of Gordon and Church and Hastings. Of the later Robert it has seen the successor in the Englishman who sells his soul and his sword to keep down the yoke of the barbarian on the necks of his Christian brethren. It has seen him in the Greek who sells his soul and his glib tongue to argue in the councils of Europe against the deliverance of his own people.
[Sidenote: Reign of Eadgar in Scotland. 1097-1107.]
[Sidenote: Alexander. 1107-1124.]
[Sidenote: Friendship of the Scottish kings for England.]
[Sidenote: Turgot and Eadmer.]
[Sidenote: Effects of the reign of David. 1124-1153.]
[Sidenote: His English position;]
[Sidenote: his earldoms.]
[Sidenote: His invasion of England.]
[Sidenote: The Scottish kings of the second series.]
[Sidenote: The English or Norman candidates for the Scottish crown.]
With the accession of Eadgar to the Scottish crown the direct connexion between English and Scottish affairs comes to an end, as far as concerns the period with which we have immediately to do. Eadgar reigned in peace, as far as his own kingdom was concerned, for ten years, earning the doubtful praise of being in all things like to his remote uncle the Confessor.[322] At his death the Scottish dominions were divided between his two more energetic brothers. Alexander took the kingdom; David, by a revival of an ancient custom,[323] held as an appanage that part of Strathclyde or Cumberland which still belonged to the Scottish crown. Both princes maintained strict friendship with England, and both sought wives in England. Alexander married a natural daughter of King Henry, Sibyl by name;[324] the wife of David was, more significantly, the widowed daughter of Waltheof.[325] Alexander had to strive against revolts in the North,[326] and his reign marks a great period in the ecclesiastical history of Scotland. It is the time in which we meet with the familiar names of Turgot and Eadmer, the one as bishop, the other as bishop-elect, of the first see in Scotland.[327] The influence of the reign of Eadgar told wholly in favour of the process by which Scotland was becoming an English kingdom. The reign of Alexander told perhaps less directly in favour of things specially English,[328] but it worked strongly towards the more general object of bringing Scotland into the common circle of western Christendom. The succession of David reunited the Scottish dominions, and his vigorous rule of twenty-nine years brought to perfection all that his parents had begun. That famous prince was bound to England by every tie of descent, habit, and affinity. Brother of her Queen, uncle of her Imperial Lady,[329] David was an English earl in a stricter sense than any king of Scots who had gone before him. He was not only Earl of Lothian, which was becoming fast incorporated with Scotland――or more truly was fast incorporating Scotland with itself――nor yet only of Northumberland and Cumberland, with which the same process might easily have been carried out.[330] He was Earl also of distant and isolated Huntingdon, an earldom which could not be held except on the same terms as its fellows of Leicester or Warwick. Under David, the great reformer, the great civilizer, but at the same time the king who made the earlier life of Scotland a thing of the past, all that was English, all that was Norman, was welcomed in the land which was now truly a northern England. If David, like his father, appeared as an invader of England, if, in so doing, he made England feel that he had subjects who were still far from being either English or Norman,[331] he did so only as a benevolent mediator in the affairs of England, as the champion of the claims of one of his nieces against the claims of the other. With the three sons of Malcolm and Margaret begins the line of those whom we may call the second series of Scottish kings, those who still came in the direct line of old Scottish royalty, but under whom Scotland was a disciple of England, and on the whole friendly to England. They stand distinguished alike from the purely Celtic kings who went before them, and from the kings, Norman or English as we may choose to call them by natural descent, who were politically more hostile to England than the old Malcolms and Kenneths. Eadgar and Alexander died childless; the later kings were all of the stock of David. Of that stock――and thereby of the stock of Waltheof and Siward and their forefathers of whatever species――came that motley group who in after days wrangled for David’s crown. Bruce, Balliol, Hastings, Comyn, all came by female descent of the line of David and Matilda. In every other aspect all of them were simply English nobles of the time. It is an odd destiny by which, according as they supported or withstood the rights of their own prince over the kingdom which they claimed, some of them have won the name of Scottish traitors and others the name of Scottish patriots.
[Sidenote: Events of the year 1098.]
[Sidenote: Their wide geographical range.]
[Sidenote: Magnus of Norway.]
[Sidenote: Anglesey the centre of the story.]
[Sidenote: The Earls of Shrewsbury.]
The events of the year which followed the last revolution in Scotland amount to a general stirring of all the lands which could in ordinary times have any influence on the affairs of England. We shall see in the next chapter that it was the busiest of times in the Gaulish mainland, where the designs of Rufus, now undisputed master of Normandy, spread far beyond anything that had been dreamed of by any earlier holder of the Norman duchy. For warfare or for alliance, the range of our story during this most stirring year stretches from the fiords of Norway to the gorges of the Pyrenees. In the present section we have to look to the northern side of this tangled drama, and to take the specially British aspect of it as our centre. A mighty undertaking, which moved the whole of north-western Europe, which touched England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and the smaller islands which lie between and around them, comes home to us mainly as it touches that one among those islands which might almost pass for a part of the mainland of southern Britain. The great warfare of Magnus of Norway mainly concerns our story so far as it almost casually became a part of warfare in Wales, and specially of warfare in Anglesey. And, as regards England itself, the most important aspect of a movement which stirred every northern land was that it indirectly lifted one man who was already great beyond endurance in Normandy and its border lands into a place of greatness even less endurable in England and its border lands. We have to tell a tale spreading over many lands and seas, a tale full of personal pictures and personal exploits. To Englishmen of the last years of the eleventh century and the first years of the twelfth, its most practical aspect was that it took away Earl Hugh of Shrewsbury and set his brother Robert in his place.
[Sidenote: The winter of 1097.]
[Sidenote: The war of Anglesey. 1098.]
[Sidenote: Schemes of Cadwgan and Gruffydd.]
[Sidenote: The Welsh take wikings from Ireland into pay.]
We must now look back to the moment, late in the last year, when the Welsh seemed to have completely won back their freedom, except in Glamorgan and at the single point covered by the unconquered fortress of Pembroke.[332] It is startling to find in our next notice that the Britons, without any mention of any fresh loss, are beginning to stand on the defensive, and to seek out as it were a last shelter. The war is now shifted to a quarter of which we have hitherto heard less than of some other parts of Wales, and it becomes connected with movements in other parts of the world which carry us back a generation. The island off the north-west corner of Wales, that Mona or Mevania to which half-forgotten English conquests had given the name of Anglesey,[333] became now, as in the days of Roman invasion, the chief――at the time it may have seemed the last――stronghold of British resistance. The island, parted from the British mainland by the narrow strait――the Hellespont――of Menai, lying within sight of the fortress of Robert of Rhuddlan at Dwyganwy, seems for the last four years to have been left untouched by any Norman invader. But now we read that the princes of Gwynedd, Cadwgan son of Bleddyn, their worthiest elder, and Gruffydd the slayer of Robert, with the general assent of the Britons of the north, agree in council, as one of their own chroniclers puts it, to save Mona.[334] This form of words seems to imply less trust in their own resources than we might have looked for in the elders of the Britons after their late successes. If Mona needed to be saved, one would think that they must already have found that there was little real chance of saving Gwynedd or Dyfed. And the way by which they sought to save Mona was hardly a wise one, though it was one which might have been defended by many precedents. Just as Gruffydd had done ten years before, they took into their pay a fleet of pirates from Ireland, wikings doubtless from the Scandinavian settlements, whom one Welsh writer, perhaps more from habit than as meaning his words to be taken in their full force, speaks of as heathens.[335] With these allies, and with the main body of their own forces, the British leaders withdrew into Anglesey.
[Sidenote: The two Earls Hugh, of Chester and Shrewsbury.]
[Sidenote: Rebuilding of the castle of Aberlleiniog.]
[Sidenote: Traces of the castle.]
[Sidenote: The earls bribe the wikings.]
The news of this alliance was thought serious enough to call for vigorous action on the part of the two earls of the border. Both now bore the same name. Hugh of Avranches still ruled at Chester――we last heard of him as counselling the cruel punishment of William of Eu; Hugh of Montgomery was drawing near to the end of his short dominion over Shropshire. The Scandinavian writers couple the two Hughs together, and they distinguish the elder by the well-earned surname of Hugh the Fat, and the younger by that of Hugh the Proud.[336] They gathered their forces, Norman and English, and crossed over to Anglesey. The first step towards the occupation of the island was the usual Norman means, the building of a castle. In this case they had not to build for the first time, but to build up afresh what the Welsh had destroyed in the moment of victory. It will be remembered that, four years before, the Britons in their great revolt had won back Anglesey and broken down the castle.[337] There seems no reason to doubt that the site of the old work was the site of the new, and that that site marks at once the landing-place of the two earls and the scene of the fall of one of them. It lies on the eastern side of the island, quite free from the strait, and nearly due west from the scene of the Marquess Robert’s death at Dwyganwy.[338] It lies about half way between the priory of Penmon――the head of Mona――parts of whose simple and venerable church must be nearly contemporary with our times,[339] and the great fortress of later days at Beaumaris, the head of the island shire. A small expanse of flat and marshy ground marks the spot where the small stream of Lleiniog, mere brook as it is, makes its independent way into the sea. On its left bank the careful enquirer will find, what he will certainly not see at a glance, a castle-mound with its ditches, now, after the usual senseless and provoking fashion, masked with trees. But he who makes his way within will find, not only the mound, but the square tower crowning it, though he will hardly deem this last to be a work of the two earls. In front of the castle, immediately above the sea, a slight natural height seems to have been improved by art into a smaller mound. The earthworks at least the earls doubtless found ready to their hand, whether they had been thrown up in the earlier invasion of the island, or whether the invaders had then taken advantage of mounds thrown up by men of earlier times. Here we have beyond doubt the remains of the castle of Aberlleiniog, the castle which Hugh the Fat and Hugh the Proud designed to hold Anglesey in check.[340] But it was not only to the craft of the engineer that the two Hughs trusted. The earls of the Red King’s day had learned to practise the special arts of their master. The wikings were bribed with the gold of England to betray the cause of their British allies, and they gave the earls valuable help in making good their entrance into Anglesey.[341]
[Sidenote: Cadwgan and Gruffydd flee to Ireland.]
[Sidenote: Cruel treatment of the Welsh captives.]
[Sidenote: Desecration of the church of Saint Tyfrydog.]
[Sidenote: Mutilation of Cenred.]
[Sidenote: Restoration of his speech.]
It was in strange contrast with the vigour which for several years had been shown by the Welsh leaders, and with the success which had commonly waited on their arms, but quite in harmony with their last action of all, when Cadwgan and Gruffydd, seeing the turn which things had taken, threw up the common cause altogether and fled to Ireland to secure their own safety.[342] Anglesey was now left to the mercy of the two earls. The character for gentleness which Hugh of Shrewsbury bears, and which he may have deserved in the government of his own earldom, brought no lessening of suffering to British enemies. Wherever the two Hughs marched, men were slaughtered, or were, in modern eyes at least, worse than slaughtered. They were blinded, deprived of hands and feet, or made to undergo the other mutilations usual at the time.[343] In some cases at least the earls trampled on every privilege of holy places and holy persons. It may be deemed a lesser matter that one of them caused his hounds to pass a night in the church of Saint Tyfrydog, and found them all mad in the morning.[344] The privileges of the Church could not shelter even her human and priestly servants. One special victim was an aged priest, who is said to have taken a leading part in the war by the advice which he gave to the Welsh. His name Cenred bespeaks English birth; the form of the name is Mercian; if he had passed from the earldom of either Hugh to the side of the Welsh, he would naturally be looked on as a traitor, and his treason would explain the excessive harshness with which he was treated. The old man was dragged out of a church; besides more shameful suffering, one eye was torn out, and his tongue was also cut out.[345] This last form of mutilation seems to have been confined to himself, and it may have been meant as specially befitting one who had used that dangerous member to give counsel to the enemy. And now, according to our story, happened one of those signs and wonders which were at the time naturally deemed miraculous, but for which modern times have supplied, if not an explanation, at least a parallel. Cenred fared like the victims of Gelimer of old, like the victims of Djezzar in modern times; three days after the loss of his tongue, his speech came back to him.[346] Four days later again, so men deemed at Worcester, came vengeance on one at least of the two earls for the cruel deed which they had wrought on him.[347]
[Sidenote: Expedition of Magnus Barefoot.]
[Sidenote: Character of his reign. 1093-1103.]
[Sidenote: His surnames.]
[Sidenote: 1093-1098.]
[Sidenote: He professes friendship for England.]
[Sidenote: His treasure at Lincoln.]
If wikings from Ireland had betrayed the cause of the Britons, a far mightier wiking was now afloat, if not to give help to the Britons, at least to act as a minister of wrath upon their enemies. The tale of Stamfordbridge seems to come over again on the western, instead of the eastern, side of the British islands. For a grandson of Harold Hardrada shows himself at the head of a power almost equalling that of his grandfather; he brings a grandson of Godwine in his train, he overcomes two Mercian earls, and finds his own doom, not indeed in Yorkshire, but in Ireland. But the enterprise which recalls so many points in the enterprise of two-and-thirty years earlier was not in any strict sense an invasion of England. Magnus, the son of that peaceful Olaf of whom we have heard in the Conqueror’s day,[348] now reigned in Norway in the spirit of his grandfather rather than in that of his father. He bore various surnames, as the Tall and the Lover-of-Strife; but his name has gone down in history with the special epithet of Magnus Barefoot――more strictly it would seem Bare-leg――a name which is said to have been given to him as one of the results of the enterprise of which we have now to speak. After showing himself for five years as a mighty warrior in his own peninsula, Magnus set forth to bring more western lands under his obedience. Against England he professed to have no designs, and the little that we casually hear of him in connexion with England seems to imply friendly relations. His son Sigurd, afterwards famous as the Crusader, was the child of an English captive. Her name of Thora witnesses to her Scandinavian descent;[349] but her captivity could not have been the work of the arms of Magnus. Either now or at some later time, he entrusted a great treasure, twenty thousand pounds of silver, to the keeping of a rich citizen of Lincoln,[350] a sign of the high place which was still held by the city of the Danish Lawmen, and of the connexion which its citizens still kept up with the kingdoms of the North.[351]
[Sidenote: Harold son of Harold in his fleet.]
But, peaceful as might be the professions of Magnus toward England, there was one in his fleet whose presence could not fail to call up thoughts of deeds which had been done, or which might again be done, on English ground. We learn from one of the most casual of notices that Magnus had with him a man who, if the course of things had gone otherwise a generation earlier, might then himself have been the wearer of the English crown, who would at least have stood nearer to it than either the Ætheling of the blood of Cerdic or the Ætheling of the blood of Rolf. It could hardly have been without an object that the grandson of Harold the son of Sigurd brought with him the son of Harold the son of Godwine. Strange indeed was the fate of the twin sons of the doubly widowed Ealdgyth.[352] Each flashes across our sight for a moment, and only for a moment. Ulf we have seen the prisoner of the Conqueror; we have seen him sent forth by the Conqueror’s son to go in freedom and honour, but to go we know not whither.[353] And now, for once in the course of a life which must have been a chequered one, we hear the name of his brother. Some ship in the fleet of Magnus bore, as its guest or as its captain, Harold the son of Harold King of the English.[354] Whence he came, whither he went, before and after that one voyage to the shores of Britain, we know not. Grandson of Godwine, grandson of Ælfgar, begotten, but not born, to the kingship of England, the child of the widow did not see the light in the City of the Legions till his father had found his cairn upon the rocks of Hastings, perhaps his tomb before the altar at Waltham. What friendly hand saved him, when his brother came into the Conqueror’s power, we know not, any more than we know the later fortunes of his mother. But now the younger Harold came, the guest of one whose grandfather had felt the might, as his father had felt the mild-heartedness, of the elder Harold.[355] His voyage brought him not near to either the most glorious or the most mournful memories of his father. The fleet of Magnus kept aloof alike from the shores of Yorkshire and from the shores of Sussex. But the younger Harold came to look for a moment on the land where his mother had dwelled as a queen, and which his father had filled with the trophies of his conquest.[356] He came to see the British shores lined with English warriors, but to see them under the rule of the Norman leaders who had divided between them so great a part of the earldom of his mother’s house, and the elder of whom reigned as all but a king in the city of his own birth. Son and nephew of the three who died on Senlac, he saw from the Norwegian ship the fall of the son of the man who led the charge which first broke down the English palisade upon that hill of doom.[357] And then, his name once spoken, he passes away into utter darkness. Of Ulf, the knight of the Norman duke, of Harold the comrade of the Norwegian king, we have no tale to tell save that they were such.
[Sidenote: Magnus’ designs on Ireland.]
[Sidenote: His alleged Irish marriage.]
[Sidenote: Irish marriage of his son Sigurd.]
[Sidenote: His voyage among the islands.]
[Sidenote: Dominion of Godred Cronan.]
[Sidenote: 1075-1091.]
[Sidenote: 1078.]
[Sidenote: Godred driven out of Dublin. 1094.]
[Sidenote: His death.]
[Sidenote: 1095.]
[Sidenote: His sons, Lagman and Harold.]
[Sidenote: Donald sent by Murtagh to the Sudereys.]
[Sidenote: Ingemund sent by Magnus.]
[Sidenote: Civil war in Man.]
One version of our tale speaks of Ireland as the main object of the expedition of Magnus, as it certainly was the object of his last expedition some years later. He had, it is said, married the daughter of an Irish king, but his father-in-law had failed to carry out the marriage-contract.[358] There is nothing of this in the Norwegian account, which speaks only of a later marriage between Sigurd son of Magnus and a daughter of King Murtagh.[359] But it seems clear from a comparison of the various accounts that Magnus did, at some stage of the present voyage, make an attack on Ireland; it seems reasonable therefore to suppose that Irish enterprise formed part of his scheme from the beginning.[360] Our own narrative is more concerned with his course along the shores of our own island, in which however he seems to have barely touched Britain itself, in either its Scottish or its English regions. His exploits lay among the smaller islands of the British seas, most of which had at that moment more to do with Ireland than with either England or Scotland. It is not easy to call up from among many conflicting statements an exact picture of the state of things at the time. In the interval between the expedition of Harold Hardrada and the expedition of his grandson, Godred the son of Harold, surnamed Cronan, he whom we have heard of at Stamford bridge,[361] had raised up a considerable dominion of which Man was the centre. He ruled over Dublin and the greater part of Leinster, and over the Sudereys or Hebrides; and, if the chronicle of his own island may be believed, he drove the Scots to a singular treaty, the object of which must have been to hinder Scotland from becoming a naval power.[362] We may guess that some of the piratical adventurers of whom we have heard once or twice in our Welsh notices, as for instance in the story of Robert of Rhuddlan and again in the tale which we have just told, were in truth subjects of Godred. But the dominion of Godred was one of those powers which seem as it were casually founded, and which seldom long outlive the reign of their founder. His Irish dominion did not last even so long as his own life. After seventeen years of possession, he was driven out of Dublin by Murtagh, and in the next year he died, leaving three sons, Lagman, Harold, and Olaf, of whom Lagman succeeded to his island dominion. In the Manx version of the tale, Lagman, disturbed by a rebellion of his brother Harold, took a frightful revenge by inflicting on him the usual cruel mutilations. Then, smitten with remorse, he made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem and died there.[363] The chief men of the Sudereys, hearing of his death, asked King Murtagh for a ruler during the minority of Olaf. This would almost look as if Murtagh had not only driven Godred out of Ireland, but had established some kind of supremacy over Man itself. But the ruler sent, Donald by name, proved a tyrant, and was driven out.[364] Then we are told that Magnus himself sent one Ingemund to take the crown of the Isles, that the chief men came together in Lewis to make him king but that his outrages on their wives and daughters made them change their purpose. Instead of crowning him, they burned him in his house, and slew all his followers with fire and sword.[365] Directly after, we read of a civil war in the isle of Man itself, in which the leaders of both parties were killed.[366] The Norwegian story tells us nothing of all this; it conceives Godred as still living at the time of the expedition of Magnus, and Lagman as acting under his father.[367] The Manx version, though confused in its chronology and mixed up with some legendary details, gives the more intelligible story of the two. We see a time of confusion in Man, Ireland, and the Sudereys, which the Norwegian King tries to turn to his own advantage. The slaughter of his candidate for the island crown might have been looked on as ground for war by princes more scrupulous in such matters than Magnus Barefoot.
[Sidenote: Signs and wonders.]
[Sidenote: Legend of Magnus and Saint Olaf.]
[Sidenote: His fleet.]
A King of the Northmen could hardly set out on a great enterprise without signs and wonders; but the signs and wonders which marked the expedition of Magnus are of a different kind from those which marked the expedition of Harold Hardrada. Or rather, one of the two elements which we see in the tale of Harold had, in the thirty years which had passed, waxed strong enough to drive out the other. In the days of Harold the omens and visions still savour of the old times of Scandinavian heathendom. Saint Olaf indeed appears in his character of a Christian martyr, to remind us that we are reading the deeds of baptized men; but the general tone is that of the worshippers of Thor and Odin.[368] But the tale which is now told of Magnus is a mere piece of every-day mediæval hagiology. It reminds us of some of the tales which are told of William the Great and of others.[369] Magnus, great-nephew of Saint Olaf, is seized with an irreverent longing to test the truth of the boast that the body of his martyred kinsman had not seen corruption. The body, first buried in a sandhill near Nidaros or Trondhjem, was soon, like those of our own Harold and Waltheof, translated to a worthier place in the great church of Nidaros. Its incorruption had been already proved, and in their new place the holy remains wrought wonders of healing and deliverance.[370] But now, heedless of the remonstrances of the bishop and his clergy, Magnus bade that the shrine should be opened, that he might see whether it was even as the tale went. He saw and believed; and he not only believed but trembled. He rushed out of the church, smitten with sudden fear. In the night the martyr appeared to him and gave him his choice of two forms of punishment. He must either lose his kingdom and his life within thirty days, or else he must set forth from Norway and never see the land again. Magnus gathered together his wise men; he told them the vision, and by their advice, he chose the second alternative, by far the less terrible to a king of the seas.[371] He set forth, but it was on an errand of conquest, at the head of a fleet of a hundred and sixty ships, a number far less than that of the mighty armada which had come together at the bidding of his grandfather.[372]
[Sidenote: Magnus at Orkney.]
[Sidenote: He seizes the earls.]
[Sidenote: He gives the earldom to Sigurd.]
[Sidenote: Magnus among the Sudereys;]
[Sidenote: in Cantire;]
[Sidenote: his dealings with Galloway.]
[Sidenote: His fruitless design on Ireland.]
[Sidenote: He occupies Man.]
[Sidenote: His designs.]
The teller of this tale has either misplaced the date of the real or supposed vision, or else he has mixed up the present voyage of Magnus with a later one. Magnus certainly saw Norway again after that one of his expeditions which alone directly touches English history. He first sailed to the Orkneys, where the brother earls, the sons of Thorfinn and Ingebiorg, the half-brothers of Duncan of Scotland, still reigned.[373] Their reign now ended. On what ground we are not told, Paul and Erling, the allies of his grandfather, were dealt with by Magnus as enemies. They were made prisoners, and were sent to Norway, where they afterwards died.[374] His own young son Sigurd was established in the rule of the earldom, with a council to advise him.[375] Magnus then sailed among the Sudereys, plundering, burning, and slaying. His minstrels and sagamen boast of his doings in this way in the islands of Lewis, Uist, Skye, Mull, and Islay. But he spared――the new faith of the Northmen prevailed thus far――the holy island of Saint Columba, all whose inhabitants were freely received to his peace.[376] The only part of the isle of Britain itself which he seems to have touched was the long peninsula of Cantire, which might pass rather for another island than for part of the mainland, and which in truth formed a part of the insular realm. Thence, we are told, he plundered such parts of the Irish and Scottish coasts as lay within reach.[377] We read also in other versions that he made the men of Galloway become hewers of wood for fortresses to be raised, perhaps along their own shores.[378] We read too that at this stage he designed a more deliberately planned attack on Ireland, but that he shrank from carrying it out when he saw how strongly the Irish coasts were guarded.[379] His next point was Man, which one narrator of his exploits strangely describes him as finding forsaken, and as peopling with inhabitants, from what quarter we are not told.[380] The local chronicler tells us, doubtless with far greater truth, that he landed on the island of Saint Patrick,――Holm Peel, the place of the famous castle and cathedral church――that he was pleased with the land, and built fortresses therein, meaning――so at least it was believed in Man――to make the island his own dwelling-place.[381] Man, once established as the seat of a great Northern empire, would certainly have been a standing menace to all the regions and races of the British islands. But the dominion of Magnus over Man was not handed on to any successor of his own house, and during the few years which he still lived, he did not make Man the centre of his power.
[Sidenote: Version of Orderic.]
[Sidenote: He approaches Anglesey.]
[Sidenote: Preparations for resistance.]
[Sidenote: The fleet off Aberlleiniog.]
We now come near to that point in the expedition which brings it immediately within the range of our present history. The writer who gives us most detail deems the exploits of Magnus so great that he lashes himself up to his highest flight of classical rhetoric. He paints the Norwegian king as the conqueror of the Kyklades――not those Kyklades of the Ægæan which his grandfather may well enough have visited, but the other Kyklades in the great sea, lying as it were outside the world.[382] To match this unlooked-for definition of the Western islands, the winds which filled the sails of Magnus are honoured with unusual names; and, by a sad relapse into paganism Amphitritê seems to be called up as a special guardian of the English shore.[383] Of the two islands which bore the name of Mevania, both of which had obeyed the Bretwalda Eadwine, Magnus was already master of one; he now drew near to the other. We are told that he sent a small part of his fleet, consisting of six ships, to some unnamed point of the more strictly English shore, bearing a red shield as a sign that their purposes were peaceful.[384] But the people of Britain of all races seem to have put little faith in the peaceful purposes of the Northmen. A vast host, French and English, presently came together from all parts of the dominions of the two Mercian earls. The meeting-place is said to have been at Dwyganwy on the peninsula opposite Anglesey, the scene of the fall of Robert of Rhuddlan.[385] But there can be no doubt that the scene of the tale which we have to tell lies on the opposite shore of Anglesey, and seemingly hard by the newly restored castle of Aberlleiniog. Most likely the sea then came in further over the low and marshy ground, and nearer to the castle-mound, than it does now. Both the earls were on the spot; the younger Hugh of Shrewsbury had been the first to come, and he had had to wait some days for his allies. At last the Norwegian ships were seen at sea near the coast, and the inhabitants were running to and fro for fear. By this time the forces of Hugh of Chester must have come up; but it is Hugh of Shrewsbury, the younger and more active of the pair, who plays the chief part in the story. He mounted his horse, and rode backwards and forwards along the shore, bringing his followers together, lest the invaders should land and overcome them piecemeal.[386] In his zeal he rode so near to the water as to come within reach of the advancing tide and within bow-shot of the Norwegian ships. Two archers on the ship of King Magnus spied him out, and took aim. His body was so well guarded by his coat of mail that it was his face only that supplied a mark for the archers. Of these one was King Magnus himself; the other was a warrior from Halagoland, the most northern part of the strictly Norwegian shore. The arrow shot by the King’s comrade struck and turned aside from the nose-piece of the Earl’s helmet. The shaft sent by the King’s own hand went yet more truly to its mark; it pierced the eye of Hugh and went through his head. Hugh the Proud sank, and perished amid the advancing waves.[387] He died by a stroke like that by which the elder Harold fell on Senlac; and we could almost wish that it had been the hand of the younger Harold that sent the shaft.
[Sidenote: Norwegian and Welsh versions.]
[Sidenote: Peace between Magnus and Hugh of Chester.]
[Sidenote: Burial of Hugh of Shrewsbury.]
That shaft was, according to the monk of Saint Evroul, sent by the hand of Magnus, but by the special instigation of the devil. To the minstrels of Norway the death of Earl Hugh seemed a worthy exploit. They sang, not of a single shot, but of a fierce battle, in which the Norwegian king, lord of the islands, met the Welsh earls[388] face to face. They told how the arrows rattled on the coats of mail, and how the King’s own arrow overthrew Earl Hugh the Proud by the waters of Anglesey.[389] The British chronicler too tells us, if not of the fierce struggle described by the Northern poet, yet of arrows shot on both sides, alike from the ships and by the defenders of the land.[390] All agree that it was by the royal hand that the Earl fell. But it is only from Saint Evroul that we hear that Magnus shot Hugh unwittingly, and that he mourned when he knew who it was whom he had slain. It is added that he at once made full peace with the surviving Earl Hugh of Chester, declaring that he had no hostile purposes against England, but that he only wished to wage war with Ireland, and to assert his dominion over the islands.[391] The body of Earl Hugh of Shrewsbury was sought for with pains by Normans and English, and was found at last, as the tide went back.[392] The only gentle one among the sons of Mabel[393]――gentle, we may easily believe, to all but the Britons, perhaps cruel to them only under the evil influence of his elder namesake――was mourned by all, and was buried the seventeenth day after his death in the cloister of his father’s abbey at Shrewsbury.[394]
[Sidenote: Designs of Magnus on Anglesey.]
[Sidenote: Anglesey and North Wales subdued by Hugh.]
The words which we have just seen put into the mouth of Magnus are words of doubtful meaning, and they might imply a claim to Anglesey, as well as to the other islands. That Magnus came thither with purposes of conquest we may set down as certain; it is less clear whether those purposes were carried out, even for a moment. In Norway it was believed that the overthrow of Earl Hugh put the King of the Northmen in possession of Anglesey, which is strangely spoken of as a third of the British land.[395] In Man it was said that Magnus, having slain one earl and put another to flight, occupied Anglesey, but that he was persuaded by the Welsh, on the payment of a heavy ransom, to leave the island and sail back to Man.[396] Certain it is that, if Magnus took any real possession of Anglesey, it was a momentary possession indeed. According to the British chroniclers, he sailed away at once, so that his coming and the death of one of the earls did not really hinder the joint work of the two. For a moment Anglesey, and with it seemingly the greater part of North Wales, was brought more thoroughly than ever under Norman or English rule. The phrase by which the Welsh writer sets forth the result has a strange sound; but it does not badly describe the final work of these endless wars. The French, he says, made the people become Saxons.[397] But for the present this work was done only for a moment. In the course of the next year, Anglesey was again, neither in French nor in Saxon, but in British hands.[398]
[Sidenote: Sigurd’s kingdom.]
[Sidenote: Occupation of Cantire.]
[Sidenote: Dealings of Magnus with Scotland.]
We shall hear again of Magnus in the revolutions both of Anglesey and of other parts of North Wales. For the present, satisfied with the glory of having carried the Norwegian arms further south in the British islands than any of his predecessors had done,[399] he seems to have sailed, first to Man and then to Ireland. There he made a truce with Murtagh, and, at a later time, he married the daughter of the Irish king to his own son Sigurd. This youth was now entrusted with the rule of all the Orkneys and Hebrides, and that with the kingly title.[400] Of his kingdom Cantire formed a part; the peninsula had been formally taken possession of by the Norwegian king. This was done by a symbolic rite, which well expressed the dominion of a king of the seas over the land. Magnus was drawn in a ship across the isthmus which joins Cantire to the mainland. The occupation of Cantire was, according to the Norwegian writer, the result of a treaty with Malcolm King of Scots;[401] but the expedition of Magnus took place during the reign of Eadgar. Magnus then went back to Norway, to receive his surname from the dress of the islanders, the use of which he and his followers brought into their own land. He then occupied himself for a while with Scandinavian affairs, till his restless spirit again brought him within the range of our story.
§ 6. The establishment of Robert of Bellême in England. 1098.
[Sidenote: Effects of the death of Hugh of Shrewsbury.]
[Sidenote: Robert of Bellême Earl of Shrewsbury. 1098.]
[Sidenote: He buys his brother’s possessions.]
[Sidenote: Extent of his estates.]
[Sidenote: Doubtful policy of the grant.]
[Sidenote: Position of Robert on the continent.]
Of the two earls who had crossed over to Anglesey to meet with such singular ups and downs of fortune, it was the elder who came back alive. Hugh of Chester, Hugh the Fat, had still to rule for a few years longer till he died a monk at Saint Werburh’s. But the short-lived reign of Hugh the Proud at Shrewsbury and Arundel had come to an end, and his death led to important changes in all those parts of England with which he had had to deal, but above all in his own earldom on the Welsh border. A large part of that district, a district the most important of all in a military point of view, passed under the rule of the man who was at once the most merciless of oppressors and the most skilful of military engineers. The Red King and his minister had now an opportunity of carrying out their doctrines with regard to the redemption of lands on a grand scale. The King was doubtless ready to be the heir of Earl Hugh, as of all other men; but, as in the case of other men, he was willing to allow the next kinsman to redeem the inheritance, if he offered a becoming price. So now, when Robert of Bellême claimed the earldom and lands of his deceased brother, he obtained a grant of them on a payment of three thousand pounds.[402] This was nearly half the sum for which William Rufus had made himself master of all Normandy; but it was perhaps not too great a price to pay for the great earldom of Shropshire with its endless castles and lordships, for Arundel and Chichester and the other South-Saxon lands of Roger of Montgomery, and for the rest of his possessions scattered over many English shires. Robert of Bellême, specially so called as the son of his mother, but who was no less Robert of Montgomery as the son of his father, and who now became no less Robert of Arundel and of Shrewsbury, thus joined together in his own person three inheritances, any one of which alone might have set him among princes. One might doubt whether William the Conqueror would have been tempted by any price to allow the accumulation of such vast powers in the hands of one man, and that a man whose homage was not due to himself only. But with William the Red the services and the payments of Robert of Bellême together outweighed any thought of the policy which might have led him rather to bestow the vacant earldom and other lands on some other among the sons of Earl Roger. Robert was now at the height of his power and his fame――such fame as his was――beyond the sea. We shall read in the next chapter of his doings in Maine this very year, the doings of which he now received the reward. To the Norman heritage of his father, to the marchlands which he had inherited from his mother, to the lands which mother and son had snatched from so many Norman and Cenomannian holders, Robert now added all that his father had received from the Conqueror’s grant among the conquered English, and all that his father had won for himself among the half-conquered Welsh.
[Sidenote: His new position in England.]
[Sidenote: Comparison with the Counts of Mortain.]
[Sidenote: Comparison of Robert of Bellême and Hugh of Chester.]
[Sidenote: Unique position of Robert.]
The establishment of Robert of Bellême in England marks an epoch in our story. Though we have already so often heard of him, not only in continental affairs but in the affairs of our own island, he had not yet, as far as we can see, held any English possessions at all; certainly he had none which put him on a level with the great Norman land-owners. From this time he is something more than merely one among them; he at once begins to play the part of the foremost among them, foremost alike in power and in ambition. His namesake, Robert of Mortain and of Cornwall, had held as great a number of English acres, and his death had handed over the vast heritage to his son. But neither of the Counts of Mortain had any personal gifts which could win for them the personal position which was held by Robert of Bellême. The father was sluggish; the son was turbulent; neither of them was the peer of the great captain and engineer who was now to lord it over the British march. Nor did the nature and position of his estates give to the grandson of Herleva the same advantages which belonged to the son of Mabel. The one was, bating the title of Earl, as great in Cornwall as the other was in Shropshire; but the lord of Cornwall might, if he chose, sleep idly, while the lord of Shropshire was driven to constant action against a restless enemy. Each had a great position in Sussex; but the position of the lord of Arundel and Chichester was practically higher than that of the lord of Pevensey. The vast scattered possessions held by the Count of Mortain throughout England added more to his wealth than to his political power. Earl Hugh of Chester was in his own earldom even greater than Robert was in his; but Earl Hugh was growing old, and ambitious as he was, he seems to have kept his ambition within certain geographical bounds, in those regions of Normandy and of Britain which destiny seemed to have set before him. There can be no doubt that, at this moment, Robert of Bellême held a position in England which he shared with no rival in the island, and which was backed by a power beyond sea which put him rather on a level with sovereign dukes and counts than with ordinary nobles.
[Sidenote: Effects of his coming.]
[Sidenote: Robert a stranger in England.]
[Sidenote: Cruelty of the new earl.]
[Sidenote: His spoliations.]
To the men of the borderland, of whatever race, the change of masters was a frightful one. To the settled inhabitants, Norman and English, it must have been like yet another foreign conquest. The change is marked in the change of name; the surname of the new lord comes from the lands of his mother which lay beyond the bounds either of England or of Normandy. Hugh of Montgomery is exchanged for Robert of Bellême. The new master from the march of Normandy and Maine must, twenty-nine years after the conquest of Shropshire, have seemed a stranger, not only to Englishmen, but to Normans of the first settlement, still more so to men who were of Norman parentage but of English birth. In its personal aspect the change of lords must have been a matter of shuddering. The rule of Earl Roger had been tolerable; the four years of Earl Hugh we have seen spoken of as a reign of special mildness, at least for his own people. But now they had a lord of another kind. English and Welsh, we are told, had smiled at the tales of the deeds of Robert in other lands; they listened to them as to the song of the bard or the gleeman, deeming that, if such things were done, they were at least done far away from themselves. But now they found in their own persons that those tales were true, when, in the strong words of a writer of those times, they were flayed alive by the iron claws of Earl Robert.[403] The Earl himself, great as he was in power and wealth, was only puffed up by what he had to hanker after yet more. He spared no man, of whatever race or order, whose lands lay conveniently to his hand, nor did he scruple to take away from the saints themselves what the men of the elder time had given to them.[404]
[Sidenote: His skill in castle-building.]
[Sidenote: His defence of Shropshire.]
[Sidenote: 1094.]
[Sidenote: Early history of the Shropshire fortresses.]
[Sidenote: 896.]
[Sidenote: Æthelflæd fortifies Bridge (north). 912.]
But Robert of Bellême was something more than an ordinary plunderer; he was a man of genius in his way; whatever he either inherited or seized on was sure to be strengthened by the best engineering skill of his time.[405] In the gradual work of planting both England and Normandy with castles he had no small share; and his skill is nowhere more to be admired than in the way in which he adapted his designs to the varying circumstances of different places. He built at Bridgenorth and he built at Gisors; there is little that is alike in the two fortresses, because there is little that is alike in the position of the two points which those fortresses severally had to defend. The former, Robert of Bellême’s great creation on English ground, held a most important place in the defences of the middle course of the Severn. The Welsh wars of this reign had brought that whole line of country into renewed importance. If the power of England under her Norman masters was stretching further and further over the British lands, that very advance laid the English lands more and more open to passing and occasional British ravages. The experience of such warfare within the English border was quite fresh. When Robert of Bellême took his earldom, four years only had passed since Shropshire and Herefordshire had been laid waste,[406] just as in the old days when Gruffydd smote the Saxon at Rhyd-y-Groes.[407] The new Earl of Shropshire therefore found it needful to strengthen the whole line of defences of the Severn. Strong as was the capital of his earldom on its peninsular height, it was well to have, in the rear of Shrewsbury, another great fortress on a lower point of the river, a point whose importance is witnessed by its name; it is emphatically the Bridge. The whole region had been carefully fortified, perhaps in earlier days still, certainly in the days when the Dane as well as the Briton had to be guarded against. In the last campaign of Ælfred, the Danes, finding it expedient to leave the neighbourhood of London, had marched across the whole breadth of England from Thames to Severn, and had wrought a work beside that river at Quatbridge.[408] Sixteen years later, the victorious Lady, the guardian of the Mercian land, had timbered the burh at Bridge. At a somewhat lower point, the enemy against whom Ælfred and his daughter had to strive has left his memory in the name of Danesford. The Bridge was the site of the chosen stronghold of Robert of Bellême. But when his discerning eye marked the spot for a great military centre, he did but do afresh what had been already done by the native guardian of England. The fortress of Robert of Bellême was but a calling into fresh being, a strengthening with new works, of the older fortress of Æthelflæd.[409]
[Illustration: Map illustrating the SHROPSHIRE CAMPAIGN. A.D. 1102. Edwᵈ. Weller For the Delegates of the Clarendon Press.]
[Sidenote: Older mound of Quatford.]
[Sidenote: Quatford Castle.]
[Sidenote: Earl Roger’s house.]
[Sidenote: His chapel.]
It is somewhat singular that in the line of defence traced by Robert’s father so commanding a site as that of the Bridge did not hold the first place. The strong place of Roger of Montgomery lies between three and four miles lower down the river. There, on the left, the English, side of the Severn, we meet with the first――first to one going up the stream――of our present group of fortresses. A bold height, of no very great positive elevation, marks the position of the church and mound of Quatford, standing side by side, as is so often seen both in our own island and beyond sea. The mound is a natural height rising close above the river, ditched and scarped as was needed, but raised only slightly above its original height. This elder fortification, the dwelling-place of some English thegn of the old time, seems to have given way, either before or after the coming of the Norman, to a stronghold a little way further up the river, which still bears the name of Quatford Castle. A sandstone hill, standing isolated, near to the river but not immediately on its banks, was, like the smaller and older post, improved and raised into a castle mound, perhaps by Earl Roger himself, perhaps by some earlier holder. There the Survey records his new house and his borough; and we may fairly see his work in the well which still remains bored deep in the heart of the rock.[410] In the days of King Eadward the lordship of Eardington had been held by Saint Mildburh of Wenlock. But, if Earl Roger, who passes for the refounder of that house,[411] did any wrong to its patroness, he may be held to have atoned for it by the collegiate chapel which he raised at Quatford. It was founded at the request of his wife, not the proud and cruel Mabel, but her pious and gentle successor Adeliza. A pleasing legend is told of the origin of the chapel and of the house, a legend which, if it contains any kernel of truth, points to Earl Roger as having been the first to occupy Quatford Castle as a dwelling, and which may account for the restoration of the far more tempting site of the old fortress of the Lady being left to be the work of his son.[412]
[Sidenote: Robert of Bellême removes to Bridge (north).]
[Sidenote: Oldbury.]
[Sidenote: Oldbury and Bridgenorth.]
The new rule now began, and the home of Roger and Adeliza was forsaken by Earl Robert for the far stronger point higher up the river, and on the opposite, the right or Welsh bank.[413] Here, in contrast to the mere fords at other points, to Quatford itself and to the Danesford above it, stood the bridge which still forms so marked a feature, and which had given the spot its name. Bridge then, the stronghold of Æthelflæd, became the stronghold of Robert of Bellême; and now, perhaps from its position with regard to his father’s dwelling at Quatford, it came to be specially distinguished as Bridgenorth. A steep cliff overhangs the river at a point where the opposite ground is high, where the stream is far wider than it again becomes lower down, and where the channel is divided by an island, such as those by which the Danes loved to anchor, whether in the Seine or in the Severn. And, as the Danes are recorded to have wrought a work in clear distinction from the burh which the Lady afterwards timbered, we are tempted to see that work in a mound not far from the bridge, and on the same side as the river, but not rising immediately above the river’s banks. A natural height has been ditched, scarped, and raised to a level somewhat lower than that of the cliff immediately above the stream, the cliff which was chosen for the fortress, first of the Lady and then of the rebel Earl. It is plainly in opposition to this last that the place had, before the time of Domesday, received the name of Oldbury, which is still borne by the parish in which it stands.[414] The cliff itself, the site of the castle and town of Bridgenorth, has a peninsular shape so strongly marked that it is hard to believe that the river runs on one side of it only, and that Bridgenorth and Oldbury are divided, not by a stream, but by a dry valley, in those days doubtless not dry, but marshy. The sites of the older and the newer fortress still look on one another, though the older has again become only a grassy mound, while the younger grew into a fortress, parish, and town, and still remains a parliamentary borough.
[Sidenote: Bridgenorth castle;]
[Sidenote: Robert’s keep.]
[Sidenote: The churches and town of Bridgenorth.]
[Sidenote: The group of fortresses.]
[Sidenote: Burf Castle.]
The position of the great fortress of the oppressor is a noble one. The mere height of the cliff at Bridgenorth is so much lower than many of the surrounding hills of that lovely region that it makes less show than might have been looked for in the general view. But, as we stand close under it on the other side of the river, we feel that Bridgenorth needs only buildings of equal majesty on its height to make it rank with Lincoln, with Le Mans, almost with Laon itself. But against the proud minsters of those cities Bridgenorth has nothing to set in its general view save two church towers, one of them modern, whose ugliness is not relieved by the fact that it represents the castle church, the college of Bridgenorth, transferred thither by Robert of Bellême, when he moved castle, church, and everything from their older home at Quatford. But Bridgenorth still keeps one object of surpassing interest in our present story, that which is of a truth the very cradle and kernel of the place, the shattered keep of Robert of Bellême. There we have the good luck which we enjoy but seldom in examining the military remains of this age, the strongholds of the men of the Conquest and their immediate successors. Most commonly we light on little more than the mere site, or the works of earlier or of later times; it is only now and then that we actually see, in however imperfect a state, some piece of genuine masonry belonging to the time with which we are dealing. This satisfaction we have in no small measure at Bridgenorth. There is the square keep of the terrible founder of the fortress, broken down, riven asunder by some explosion in the warfare of later times――what is left of it driven to overhang its base like the tower of Caerphilly or the Muro Torto of Rome――but still keeping its main and distinctive features, still showing, in its flat pilasters, its double-splayed windows,[415] the traces of its double-sloped roof with the deep gutter,[416] what that stern, hard, tower was when the Devil of Bellême first called it into being. We can just trace the gateway which the keep commanded between the inner and outer courts of the castle, and we can see the ruins of the advanced building which sheltered the actual entrance of the keep itself. The square tower, so characteristic of Norman military work, is after all so rare in this its earlier form that every such fragment as this of Bridgenorth calls for most attentive study. Here we see the highest advances in the art of defence, as practised by the man whose name makes us shudder through almost every page of our story. At Bridgenorth nature had done almost everything. The tall and steep cliff called for nothing to be done in the way of mounds and ditches. It was enough to fence in the height――that the Lady had doubtless done after the fashion of her age――and to raise the keep――the distinctive feature of Earl Robert’s age――as the last shelter in case of attack from the land side. We can trace the inner and outer courts, the latter containing the unsightly church which represents the college within the castle. The other church stands nearly on a level with the castle, parted from the castle hill by a dip which takes the form of a steep road――Cartway is the name it still keeps――leading down from the town to the river. Few stronger or more striking sites of its own scale could have been found. The Castle by the Bridge is not a mountain fortress; far higher hills than the hill of Bridgenorth or the hill of Quatford come within the general view. But the stronghold of Æthelflæd and Robert served better than any loftier point could have done for its own immediate work. No other point could have served so well to guard the most important point of the river, and to shelter the older borders of England against any desperate attempt of the Britons to carry their endless warfare far within her later borders. The whole group, Bridgenorth, Oldbury, the two Quatfords, are a succession of strongholds which form a whole. All are within sight of one another, though it might be hard to find a point which directly commands all four at once. A little further inland, on the Quatford side of the river, a broad hill, fenced in by a slight earthwork, and known as Burf Castle, commands the widest and most striking view of all, the round back of the Wrekin, the sharp rise and fall of the Titterstone, with a boundless view over the lower country to the north-east. This is undoubtedly the site of an early stronghold, which may have played its part in the days of the Lady or in the old time before her. But there is no sign that it entered into the military reckoning of Roger of Montgomery or of Robert of Bellême.
[Sidenote: Robert builds the castle of Careghova.]
[Sidenote: His Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire estates.]
[Sidenote: Roger of Bully.]
[Sidenote: His Yorkshire estates.]
[Sidenote: Position of Tickhill.]
[Sidenote: The castle.]
The great engineering works at Bridgenorth seem to have occupied the mind of Earl Robert during the whole of the few remaining years of his English career. We shall find that they were not fully finished four years later. At the same time, while he fenced in Bridgenorth in the rear of the capital of his earldom, he raised another stronghold in advance of it, within the later Welsh border, at Careghova, immediately on Offa’s Dyke.[417] And he was at the same time extending his possessions in a more peaceful region, where no inroads of Britons or Northmen were to be feared. On the borders of Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire stood a chief seat of one who, in the extent of his possessions, ranked as one of the foremost men in England. This was Roger of Bully, who took his name from a Norman lordship in the land of Braye, lying west of what was to be the New Castle of King Henry, on the high ground which overlooks the forest of Saint-Saen, the home of the faithful Helias. The name of Roger of Bully――the spellings of the name are endless――is less commonly mentioned in our tale than we might have looked for. He was a great land-owner in Yorkshire; he was one of the greatest land-owners in Nottinghamshire, and he held considerable estates in other parts of England. He had supplanted two English earls in their special homes; he sat by the hearth of Eadwine and by the hearth of Waltheof; in another spot, the holdings of ten English thegns had been rolled together into a single lordship to enrich the fortunate stranger.[418] Among his Yorkshire estates he held the exceptionally favoured lands of Sprotburgh and Barnburgh, which had remained untouched in the general harrying of Northumberland.[419] He seems to have won the special favour of the greatest ladies of the Conqueror’s court; if he held the hall of Hallam, the hall of Waltheof, it was by the gift of Waltheof’s widow Judith;[420] and an estate which he held in distant Devonshire is set down as the gift of Queen Matilda herself.[421] Yet this man, who holds so great a place in the Survey, plays no visible part in history; he lives only in the record of Domesday and in his still abiding work in a minster and a castle of his own rearing. Just within the borders of Yorkshire, at no great distance from the shires both of Nottingham and Lincoln, Roger had occupied an English dwelling-place, entered in the Survey as Dadesley, but which afterwards grew into greater note by the name of Tickhill.[422] Like many other dwelling-places of English lords, Dadesley or Tickhill must have been chosen simply as a convenient centre for the estates of its owner. It is no natural stronghold; the post seems to have no special military advantages; it crowns no steep, it commands no river, it bars the entrance to no valley. A low hill of sandstone was improved by art into one of the usual mounds, and it had been in King Eadward’s day the possession of Ælfsige and Siward. The mound, as in other places, was in after time taught to bear a polygonal keep, and its sides were themselves strengthened by masonry. The keep, of which the foundations only are left, was of later date than the days with which we are concerned. And we may fully believe that parts at least of the circuit wall of the castle, and still more, that the elder parts of the gatehouse, with a face of ornaments and sculptures which almost remind us of the work of the great Emperor’s day at Lorsch, are due to the taste, such as it was, of the first Norman lord of Tickhill.
[Sidenote: The priory of Blyth, founded 1088.]
[Sidenote: Name of Blyth and Tickhill used indiscriminately.]
[Sidenote: Death of Roger of Bully.]
[Sidenote: The lands of Roger of Bully granted to Robert of Bellême.]
[Sidenote: Impolicy of the grant.]
[Sidenote: Greatness of Robert of Bellême.]
The nomenclature of the lands of Roger of Bully has been singularly shifting. Dadesley gave way to Tickhill. But Tickhill is not the only name borne by Roger’s stronghold. It not uncommonly takes the name of a more certain memorial of him which lies only a few miles off, but within the bounds of another shire. In the year of the first rebellion of the Red King’s reign, Roger of Bully had founded a monastery dependent on the abbey of the Holy Trinity at Rouen. It was reared on a point of his possessions known as Blyth, lying within the borders of Nottinghamshire, and near a river which joins the old historic stream of the Idle.[423] The nave of Roger’s church still stands; there is no mistaking the distinguishing marks of the earliest Norman style, even in a building whose loftiness and narrowness have more in common with later forms of art.[424] Blyth became at least as famous as Tickhill. The castle, with the honour of which it formed the head, is called by both names, and we shall find as we go on that the same incident in our story is placed by some of our authorities at Blyth and by others at Tickhill.[425] Roger, founder of both castle and monastery, seems to have died about the time when Robert of Bellême was strengthening himself at Bridgenorth and Careghova. His lands went at once to swell the possessions of the terrible Earl. On some plea of kindred, Robert demanded them of the King. William was as ready to grant him the lands of Blyth and Hallam as he had been to grant him the earldom of Shropshire and the other possessions of his father. But he was no more inclined than he was then to grant anything without a consideration. Earl Robert was allowed to redeem the heritage of his kinsman, but to redeem it only on payment of a great sum.[426] We may again doubt whether William the Great would have allowed such a redemption, even in the days when he had fallen into covetousness and greediness he loved withal. With the Conqueror neither greediness nor anything else ever came before policy. He whose policy it had been to separate Norman and English estates in the second generation, who had taken care that no son of his own chosen friend should hold Breteuil and Hereford in a single hand,[427] would surely never have allowed any one man to have reached the gigantic height of wealth and power which was now reached by Robert of Bellême. The gathering together of such vast possessions in Normandy and England in the hands of one who had some pretensions to rank as a prince beyond the bounds of Normandy and England almost amounted to a direct challenge to their owner to dispute the great lesson of Rochester, and to see whether there was not at least one subject in England whom the King of England could not control.
That question had yet to be tried, and to be tried in the person of the new lord of Tickhill. But it was not raised during the short remnant of the days of William the Red. The two powers of evil contrived to pull together in friendly guise as long as the days of unlaw and unright lasted. And the longer those days lasted, the blacker and the bitterer they grew. The greater the power and wealth which was gathered together in the hands of Robert of Bellême, the greater, we are told, was the pride and cruelty of that son of Belial.[428] He may by this time have grown weary of oppression in the familiar scenes of his evil deeds on both sides of the sea. The death of Robert of Bully opened to him a new and wide human hunting-ground in Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire. But his hold on all that he had within our island was fated to be short. We are drawing near to the end of the reign and the life of William Rufus, and, when the reign and life of William Rufus were over, the English power of Robert of Bellême did not last long.
But before we come to the last days of the Red King in his island kingdom, we must again cross the sea, to follow the warlike campaigns of his latest days, to trace out the wide-reaching schemes of dominion which filled his restless soul, his fitful energy in beginning enterprises, his strange waywardness in leaving them half done. And now will come the living contrast between unright, as embodied in William Rufus, and right, as embodied this time, not in a man of the church and the cloister, but in a man of his own order, a layman, a prince, a soldier. We have had one chapter where the main interest has gathered round Anselm of Aosta; we are now coming to another in which the main interest will gather round Helias of La Flèche.
THE LAST WARS OF WILLIAM RUFUS.[429]
1097-1099.
[Sidenote: Character of the last years of Rufus. 1097-1100.]
[Sidenote: Little to record at home, and much abroad.]
[Sidenote: Temper and schemes of Rufus.]
[Sidenote: His designs on France.]
The latter years of the reign of the Red King, beginning from the departure of Anselm, are far richer in foreign than in domestic events. Even within the isle of Britain we have, as we have already seen, chiefly to deal with the lands which lie beyond the actual English kingdom. Scotland has received a king at the bidding of the over-lord in England. A deep plan has been laid for the better subjugation of the seemingly unconquerable Welsh. A Norwegian king has slain an earl of England in strife on the shore of a Welsh island. But within England itself the greatest event which we have had to record has been the immediate result of that distant strife in the succession to an English earldom. When Robert of Bellême became the most powerful subject in England, it was undoubtedly an event of no small importance both at the moment and in its results. It added perceptibly to the evils even of the reign of unlaw. Still it was not in itself an event on the same scale as the rebellion of Odo or the rebellion of Robert of Mowbray, or as the beginning or the ending of the dealings between Anselm and the King. And the same character of the time goes on to the end. There is in England itself nothing to record besides the great architectural works of the King, a few ecclesiastical deaths and appointments, and those natural portents and phænomena which are characteristic of the whole time, and which come thicker upon us as we draw nearer to the end. Beyond sea, on the other hand, this time of less than three years is the most stirring time of the whole reign. King of England, over-lord of Scotland, not in form Duke of the Normans, but master of Normandy as his brother never was, the Red King goes on to greater schemes. Rufus seems to have been always puffed up by success, but never cast down by bad luck. His personal failure in Wales was really a marked contrast to the success of Eadgar in Scotland. But Rufus seems to have had the happy gift of plucking out of all states of things whatever tended to gratify his pride, and of forgetting all that looked the other way. He, or others in his name, had set up a king at Dunfermline. This was enough to make him put out of sight all thought that he had in his own person marched to Snowdon and taken nothing by his march. He felt himself more than ever Monarch of Britain, King of kings within his own island. We can believe that it rankled in his soul that, outside that island, he was less than a king. The lord of Normandy had in any case a formal over-lord in the French King, and William Rufus was lord of Normandy only by an anomalous and temporary title. He held the duchy only as a merchant holds a pledge. We can well understand how such a man would chafe at the thought that he had anywhere even a nominal superior. Such an one as William deemed himself was dishonoured by being, even in the most nominal way, the man of such an one as Philip. And the noblest way of escaping from the acknowledgement of a superior was by himself taking that superior’s place. The Monarch of Britain would be also Monarch of Gaul, of so much at least of Gaul as in any sense admitted the over-lordship of Paris. The lord of Winchester and Rouen would be lord of Paris also. William wished for a war with France, and a war with France could at any moment be had. The eternal question of the Vexin stood always awaiting its solution.
[Sidenote: Wars with France and Maine.]
[Sidenote: Beginning of war. 1097-1098.]
[Sidenote: William crosses the sea.]
But a war with France was not the only war which William Rufus had now to wage on the Gaulish mainland. He had to strive against a noble city, a valiant people, ruled by a prince worthy of his city and his people. Besides striving with France and Philip, he had to strive against Maine, he had to strive against Helias. The war with France was doubtless the object with which he crossed the sea; but mischief had long been brewing in the troublesome land to the south of Normandy, and about the time when the French war began, the standing Cenomannian difficulty grew into open war also. William had thus two wars to wage at once. These two wars, with France and with Maine, are told in our narratives as if they were altogether distinct, and had no bearing on one another. Yet the two were going on at the same time at no great distance from one another, and some of the chief actors on one side were flitting to and fro between the two. It is hard to say in which region the first actual fighting took place. In both it must have begun in the winter after Anselm had gone on one errand into Burgundy and Eadgar on another into Scotland. It was then that King William crossed the sea also, with the object doubtless of making war on France. The Cenomannian war was thrown in as something incidental. The war with Maine has in itself, as a tale, by far the greater charm of the two. But it is needless to say that far higher interests were, or might have been, at stake in the war with France. Of the wide-reaching schemes of William Rufus, and of their remarkable position among those things which might have been but which were not, I have spoken at some length elsewhere.[430] But it is only in its latest stage that the war showed even any likelihood of growing beyond the scale of a border struggle. It was, in profession at least, a war for the Vexin, and it was in the Vexin that it was mainly waged.
[Sidenote: Comparison of the two wars.]
[Sidenote: Comparative position of France and Maine.]
[Sidenote: Helias and Philip.]
[Sidenote: Advantage of the kingly dignity.]
The result of the war was widely different in the two cases. We may sum it up by saying that Maine was subdued and that France was not. Maine was at least held to be subdued. In the first Cenomannian war the capital was taken; the prince was made a prisoner; so much of the land as was really attacked was subdued. In the second war the capital was taken and the prince was driven out. But against France no real advantage at all seems to have been gained. To modern ideas this difference may seem no wonderful result of the difference between the invasion of a county and the invasion of a kingdom. But in the eleventh century the resources of Maine could not have been very greatly inferior to the resources of France. In one sense indeed the resources of Maine were by far the greater of the two, inasmuch as Helias reigned at Le Mans and Philip reigned at Paris. But in truth the comparison between a county and a kingdom is not a fair one. The France of those days was not a kingdom; it was simply that small part of a great kingdom which was held to obey――which under Philip certainly did not obey――the nominal king of the whole. The king was simply that one among the princes of the kingdom who always claimed, and who sometimes received, the homage of the others. We must never underrate the vast moral advantage which the king drew from his kingly dignity;[431] but, on the other hand, we must not be thereby led to overrate the material strength of the king’s actual dominion. Supposing that the resources of Maine and of France had been positively equal, if Helias had the advantage over Philip that the one was Helias and that the other was Philip, this advantage was far more than counterbalanced by the fact that Philip was a king while Helias was only a count. That he was a count of doubtful title, always threatened by a neighbour more powerful than himself, was of course a further incidental disadvantage; but the essential difference is inherent in the position of the two princes and their dominions. The king, even though the king was Philip, was a king, and men had scruples about personally attacking one who was at once their own lord on earth and the anointed of the Lord of Heaven. William Rufus doubtless had no such scruples about that or about any matter; but such scruples had been felt by his father; they were to be felt in times to come by Henry of Le Mans and of Anjou, of Normandy and of England.[432] Such scruples would not be felt by Normans withstanding French aggression on their own land; we may remember how a lance from the Côtentin had laid Philip’s father on the ground at Val-ès-dunes.[433] They would not be felt by native Englishmen, to whom Normandy, France, and Maine, were all alike foreign and hostile lands. But we may suspect that there was many a knight in William’s host who, when he went forth to invade the lands of the lord of his lord in an utterly unprovoked quarrel, did not go forth with quite so light a heart as that with which he went forth to win back for his lord a land of which his lord had some shadow of ground for professing that he had been robbed by one of his own men.
[Sidenote: Lewis son of Philip.]
Maine then was, in a sense, conquered; France was not conquered in any sense. Le Mans was taken; Paris was hardly threatened. And this, we may believe, was at least partly owing to the fact that Le Mans was only the city of a count, while Paris was the city of a king. Both lands had a champion in whom we may feel a personal interest. While we follow the steps of an old acquaintance in Count Helias, we gladly watch the beginnings of a new acquaintance, not indeed in King Philip himself, but in his gallant son the Lord Lewis.[434] He has his special biographer, and we only wish that the minute detail in which we can read his actions in dealing with the immediate vassals of the French duchy had been extended to the greater though shorter strife which he had to wage against the sovereign of Normandy and England.
[Sidenote: Beginning of the war of Maine. January, 1098.]
It is not easy to tell the story of these two wars in exact chronological order. The early part of the French war is told without any dates, while we know when the actual fighting began in Maine. This was in the January which followed William’s crossing to the continent, the January of the year in which Earl Hugh was killed in Anglesey. Whether there was any fighting on the French border earlier than that we cannot tell. For a later stage of the French war we have dates, and its dated stage clearly follows the end of the first Cenomannian war. If we go back to the causes of the two struggles, it is equally hard to find the beginning. In both cases there was a standing quarrel, which might have broken out into war at any time. But the French war has a certain right to precedence, inasmuch as it was doubtless rather to attack France than to attack Maine that William Rufus crossed the sea. It may therefore be our best course, first to trace out the earlier undated part of the French war down to the point where there is a clear break in the story. We may then follow the fortunes of Le Mans and Maine, till we reach the later dated part of the French war which followed their first momentary conquest.
§ 1. The Beginnings of the French War.
[Sidenote: King Philip;]
[Sidenote: his adulterous marriage with Bertrada of Montfort.]
[Sidenote: He puts away his first wife.]
[Sidenote: Philip and Bertrada;]
[Sidenote: their alleged marriage by Odo. 1092.]
Of Philip King of the French, the fourth king of the house of Paris, we have often heard already, and from what we have heard we shall hardly expect him to take any leading part either in war or in council. He is chiefly memorable for his adulterous marriage with Bertrada of Montfort, the wife of Fulk Rechin of Anjou. He had got rid of his first wife, the daughter of Count Florence of Friesland and step-daughter of that Count Robert of Flanders who bore the Frisian name. The mother of his son Lewis and his daughter Constance was put away by Philip on some plea of kindred, and was shut up in the castle of Montreuil.[435] Some years later Bertrada became her successor. Of her and Fulk we shall hear again in our Cenomannian story; she was in some sort given to Fulk as the price of Cenomannian bondage. But, as Fulk had at least one wife living, the validity of the marriage might have been fairly called in question. If the scandal of the time may be trusted, Bertrada, wearying of Fulk, and fearing that he might deal by her as he had dealt by others, offered herself to King Philip to supply the place which he had made vacant.[436] She won his heart, so far as he had any, and she seems to have been the only thing that he really cared for. But she who had been a countess at Angers would not be less than queen at Paris, and a ceremony of marriage was gone through. More than one prelate was charged with the uncanonical deed. The version which most concerns us is that which tells how, when no prelate in France would thus profane the sacraments of the Church, the King looked beyond the border, and found one less scrupulous in the person of the Bishop of Bayeux. The churches of Mantes, it is said, were Odo’s reward for his thus pandering to the misdeeds of his royal neighbour.[437]
[Sidenote: Scandal occasioned by the marriage.]
[Sidenote: Opposition of Ivo and Hugh of Lyons.]
[Sidenote: Excommunication of Philip and Bertrada.]
Much scandal and searching of heart followed on the pretended marriage, scandal which spread throughout all France, throughout all Gaul, throughout all Christendom. The famous Bishop Ivo of Chartres protested in many letters to the King and others.[438] If a council of the prelates of France, gathered by the King’s authority at Rheims, was inclined to deal gently with the royal sinner, there were higher ecclesiastical powers who were more unbending. Archbishop Hugh of Lyons, Primate of all the Gauls, no subject of Parisian dukes or kings, but a prince of that Imperial Burgundy which knew no king but Cæsar, gathered an assembly which spoke in another voice. The friend of Anselm, the friend of Urban, called together the bishops of the Gauls at Autun, and their voice denounced the offence which the bishops of France alone had been inclined to pass over.[439] Higher powers still spoke at Piacenza and at Clermont. Philip and Bertrada were excommunicated often and absolved now and then. None would eat at their table; the dogs were said to refuse the morsels which fell from it. Wherever they went, the public exercise of Christian worship stopped, though, by a somewhat inconsistent indulgence, they were allowed to have a low mass said before them in a private chapel.[440] It would seem as though, in spiritual as well as in temporal things, subjects were to suffer from the crimes of kings, while the kings themselves went unscathed. But when Philip and Bertrada left any town, the bells at once struck out. Then, with allusion no doubt to the supposed power of the bells to chase away thunder and pestilence, the King would say to his companion, “Do you hear, my beauty, how they drive us away?”[441] For fifteen years, allowing perhaps for occasional times of reconciliation, the King of the French never wore his crown or his kingly robes or appeared in royal state at any public ceremony.[442]
[Sidenote: Sons of Philip and Bertrada.]
[Sidenote: Bertrada’s schemes against Lewis.]
[Sidenote: Philip invests Lewis with the Vexin. 1092.]
By this second marriage or adultery, which was held to be in no way done away by the death of the lawful Queen in prison,[443] Philip had two sons, Philip and Florus. Bertrada wished to be the mother of a king, and in after times the lawful heir Lewis was said to have been the object of not a few plots on the part of his step-mother, if even step-mother she is to be called. But at this stage Philip seems to have kept sense enough to see the merits of his son, and to place full trust in him. By the consent of his realm, he made Lewis the immediate ruler and defender of the exposed frontier of the royal dominions. He granted him in fief the towns of Mantes and Pontoise, and the whole French Vexin.[444] But Lewis was made more than this. Practically, whether by any formal act or not, Lewis became the ruler of France, so far as France just then had any ruler. Philip, scorned and loathed of all men, with the curses of the Church hurled over and over again against him, withdrew from ruling, fighting, or anything else but his own pleasures, and threw the whole burthen of the government and defence of his kingdom on the shoulders of his young and gallant son.
[Sidenote: Question of the Vexin.]
[Sidenote: Grounds of offence on the part of Rufus.]
[Sidenote: William demands the French Vexin. 1097.]
We are not told at what exact moment the old question of the Vexin was again first stirred. Philip was not likely to stir it, neither was Robert; William Rufus might not care to stir it while he was lord only of part of Normandy, and not of the whole. But when all Normandy became his, the old dispute naturally came up again in his mind. He would not have been William Rufus if he had not sought to win all that his father had held, all that his father had claimed, and among the rest the place where his father found his death-wound. The special acts of authority exercised by Philip in the Vexin, the grant of the land as his son’s fief, the grant of the churches of Mantes, the churches which were rebuilding out of his father’s dying gifts, to his own rebellious uncle Odo, would be likely to stir him up still more to put forward his old claim. At last, after reflecting, we are told, on the wars and the fate of his father in that region, he sent, in the year of the departure of Anselm, solemnly to demand the cession of the whole Vexin, specially naming the towns and fortresses of Pontoise, Chaumont, and Mantes.[445] Of these Mantes and Chaumont were in the strictest sense border fortresses; Pontoise――the bridge on the Oise, as its name implies――lies far nearer the heart of the King’s territory; Pontoise in an enemy’s hand would indeed be a standing menace to Paris. The demands of the Red King almost amounted to a demand for the surrender of the independence of the French kingdom.
[Illustration: Map illustrating the FRENCH CAMPAIGN. A.D. 1098. Edwᵈ. Weller For the Delegates of the Clarendon Press.]
[Sidenote: The demand is refused.]
[Sidenote: William crosses to Normandy. November 11-30, 1097.]
[Sidenote: Excesses of the King’s followers.]
[Sidenote: Silence of English writers as to the French war.]
It is needless to say that the demand was refused. Lewis and his counsellors declined to give up the Vexin or any of its fortresses.[446] King William accordingly crossed the sea to assert his rights, and the French campaign possibly began before the end of the year. It is wonderful, when we remember that it is chiefly from our own writers that we get the details of William Rufus’ Norman campaigns, how little they tell us about his French campaigns. Of the war of Maine to which we shall presently come they tell us little enough. Still the name of Maine does appear in their pages, while the name of France at this stage does not. We learn indeed that in the November of this year the King crossed into Normandy, but with what object we are not told.[447] What we are told is eminently characteristic of the Red King and his reign. As so often happened, his crossing was delayed by the weather; meanwhile his immediate followers carried out to the full that licence which the King’s immediate followers were wont to allow themselves till Henry and Anselm found sharp means to check them.[448] “His hired in the shires there they lay the most harm did that ever hired or here in frithland should do.”[449] If the army at large is meant, the expression is a strange one. The hired is the King’s household, taking in doubtless household troops in personal attendance on the King, like the old housecarls, but not surely the whole force, national or mercenary. But it was the King’s household whose excesses were specially complained of; and this casual outburst of bitterness is a speaking comment on the general pictures of their misdoings which we have already come across.[450] But it is only of damage done in England by the King’s household that our Chronicler tells us anything. Of warlike exploits on the other side of the Channel neither he nor any other English writer tells us at this stage a single word.[451]
[Sidenote: William and Lewis.]
[Sidenote: Chief men on William’s side.]
[Sidenote: Difficulties of Lewis.]
[Sidenote: Fate of the captives on each side.]
If from the silence of our own writers we turn to our chief authority on the French side, we shall find a vivid general picture of the war, but hardly any account of particular events. We get indeed one of the most striking of personal contrasts. Though the war which was now waged by Rufus was in every sense a war waged against France, yet it could hardly be called a war personally waged against the nominal ruler of France. It was a war for the Vexin, waged against the lord of the Vexin, and, in its first stages at least, mainly confined to the Vexin. The struggle between William and Lewis, as it is set forth by the biographer of the French prince, was an unequal one. William had his old weapons at command――the wealth of England, the traitors whom that wealth could bribe, the mercenaries whom that wealth could hire.[452] He had his own experience in war; he had his veteran troops and their veteran commanders. Next under the King, comparatively young in years, but first of all in daring as in wickedness, was Robert of Bellême. Then came the King’s brother Henry, and the well-known names of Count William of Evreux, Earl Hugh of Chester, and the old Earl Walter of Buckingham.[453] These were formidable foes for an untried youth like Lewis; the aged warrior who was old on the day of Senlac must have been a strange contrast indeed to the gallant lad on whom the fortune of France now rested. Lewis had, we are told, neither men nor money nor allies; he had to pick up all where and how he could. Whenever, often by running to and fro as far as the borders of Berry or Auvergne or Burgundy, he had got together three hundred, or perhaps five hundred, knights, he met King William of England marching against him with ten thousand.[454] Here was little room for pitched battles; Lewis could not risk a meeting with such an enemy in the open field. He had often to retire, sometimes openly to fly.[455] And the different state of the hoards of the two princes showed itself in an effect on their military operations which is characteristic of the time. When warriors on the English side――we must use the language of our French informant――fell into French hands, the price of their ransom was speedily paid. When French warriors were made prisoners by the forces of Rufus, there was no money to ransom them. They had to languish in bonds with only one hope of deliverance. Those only were set free who were willing to become the men of the King of England and to bind themselves by oath to fight against their own natural lord.[456]
[Sidenote: French traitors.]
[Sidenote: Guy of the Rock.]
[Sidenote: Norman possessions beyond the Epte.]
[Sidenote: Roche Guyon.]
[Sidenote: The castle bored in the rock.]
[Sidenote: Guy submits to Rufus.]
Some then at least of the native subjects of the French crown, who had no conflicting engagements to plead, did not scruple, in the extremities in which they found themselves, to take service on behalf of the invader against their own lord. It is therefore the less wonderful if another class of men, whose interests and whose duties were more doubtful, deemed, when they had to choose between two lords, that Rufus was the lord to be chosen. Others again were found of baser mould, who simply took the money of the Red King, and for its sake turned against their own people on behalf of strangers. Among these one is specially marked, one who by his geographical position was called on to be among the foremost champions of France against Norman invasion. This was one of the lords who commanded the fortresses on the Seine, a man whose possessions lay close to the Norman border, Guy of the Rock, the Rock which has taken its name from him and which still is known as La Roche Guyon.[457] The position of his chief stronghold made his adhesion of no small importance. The stream of Epte, flowing during a great part of its course through a deep valley, seems designed by nature to part Normandy and France; but, as we have seen, the frontier was ever disputed, and here and there the Norman held small portions of territory on the left bank of the river. One of these Norman holdings on the French side lies by the small village of Gasny, where the boundary, surviving in that of the modern department, is still marked at some distance up the opposite hill. A slight further ascent brings the traveller in sight of one of the noblest bends of the Seine, where the great river, with all its islands, runs immediately below a long line of chalk hills, with their white spurs jutting out in endless fantastic shapes. The windings of the Seine have in fact left at this point little more than a narrow isthmus between itself and its lowlier tributary. Just within the French territory at this point, and commanding this important sweep of the great French river, lay the domains of the lord of the Rock. The ridge on which the traveller stands ends in a bluff to the south-east. There, where the hills open for another tributary of the Seine, close by the island of Lavancourt, stood Guy’s now vanished fortress of Vetheuil. But, as we now gaze, by far the most prominent object in the whole curved line of the hill, placed like the imperial seat in the centre of an ancient amphitheatre, rising over the church, the more modern castle, the town, and the airy bridge which modern art has thrown across the river, soar the relics of the fortress which still bears Guy’s name. A spur of the hill is crowned by a small keep, with a round tower attached to a square mass within its compass. But in the days of the Red King, the Guy’s Cliff of the Vexin, now the site of a castle so preeminently visible, was specially known as the site of the stronghold that was invisible. The lords of the rock had, like the Kenite of old, literally made their nest in the rock itself. The chalk is to this day habitually bored to make houses, churches,[458] any kind of excavation that may be needed. In days before our time this custom had been applied to a more dangerous use; the plundering chiefs of the rock had scooped themselves out a castle in its side. More than one of the chambers remain――comfortless to our eyes, but perhaps not more comfortless than the chambers within many a tower of timber or masonry――whence these troglodyte barons looked out to mark the craft upon the Seine, and to exact, by a custom which lingered on till late times, a toll from every passer by. Guy of the Rock now submitted to the island king, and his submission supplied a new fetter to pen up the king of the mainland within his havenless realm. At the very entrance of the French territory on this side, Guy’s Rock, Vetheuil, and all that is implied in the possession of Vetheuil and of the Rock, passed from the obedience of the lord of Paris to the obedience of the lord of Winchester and Rouen.
[Sidenote: Policy of Robert of Meulan.]
[Sidenote: He receives William’s troops.]
[Sidenote: Importance of the position of Meulan.]
[Sidenote: Description of Meulan.]
While Guy thus sold to the invader the very entrance-gate of the French kingdom, the Red King found another ally in a far more famous man who held a position of at least equal importance higher up the Seine. At the head of the nobles who held lands of both kings stood the acknowledged master of all subtle policy, Count Robert of Meulan. We have been so long familiar with his name, whether as the youthful warrior of Senlac or as the experienced counsellor of the Red King, that we may have almost forgotten that the title by which we call him is French, and that he was as great a lord in France as he was in England or in Normandy. We find it hard to think of him as one of those who had thus to choose between two lords, and that he might conceiveably have chosen the cause of Philip――or rather of Lewis――against William. We cannot fancy that he took long to decide. He may have argued that William, lord both of Normandy and of England, had two parts in him, while Philip of France had only one. He received the troops of the Red King into his castles, and his adhesion was held to have been of special help to his undertaking. He opened, we are told, a clear path for the English into France.[459] The words sound as if they belonged to the fourteenth, fifteenth, or sixteenth century rather than to the last years of the eleventh. And they are clothed with a strange significance when we remember that the man who now opened a way into France for the combined host of Normandy and England was the same man who, two-and-thirty years before, had opened a way into the very heart of England for the combined host of Normandy and France.[460] But in a geographical point of view the expression is fully justified. In a war between the lord of Rouen and the lord of Paris, no man’s friendship could be more valuable to either side than the friendship of the Count of Meulan. A man weaker in fight and less wary in council than the Achitophel of his day might, if he kept the Seine barred as the lord of Meulan could bar it, have gone far to hold the balance between the contending kings. As at Mantes, as at Rouen, as at Paris itself, the islands so characteristic of the Seine are at Meulan also brought into play for purposes of habitation and defence. Meulan indeed is, what neither Paris nor Rouen is, at once a hill-fortress and a river-fortress. At a point of the river lying between Mantes, the seat of the Conqueror’s death-wound, and Poissy, the spot where he went to crave help of his lord before the day of Val-ès-dunes, a hill which the surrounding valleys gird as with a natural fosse rises from the right bank of the river. A group of islands is formed at this spot by the branches of the winding stream, fit places for the landing of the forefathers of the Normans in their pirate days. The spot was seized on for defence. A castle arose on the side of the hill, with a town at its foot sloping swiftly down to the river. There a bridge of some antiquity joins the right bank to a central island, which is joined again to the left bank by another bridge. The island, once strongly fortified, still keeps the significant name of the Fort. The bridge which joins the island to the left bank of the river, where lies the suburb known as Les Mureaux, was, at least in later times, defended by a tower bearing the name of La Sangle. A considerable extent of the outer walls of the castle may be traced, and a specially diligent inquirer may thread his way to a small fragment of the castle itself, and may there mark work of a somewhat later date than the time with which we have to do. It is more easy to trace out a large part of the defences of the Fort, and to mark the churches, surviving and desecrated, one of which, high on the hill side, also belongs, like so many others, to the age next following. As in so many other places, so at Meulan, we cannot lay our hand on anything which we can positively affirm to be the work of its most famous lord. But we can well see that the strength of the spot, a spot which in later times played no small part in the wars of the League, was well understood in the days of our story, and that so important a position was strengthened by all the art of the time. When Count Robert received the forces of Normandy and England on the height and in the island of Meulan, he did indeed open a way for those forces into the heart of France. It was a way which might have been expected to lead them straight to the city which then, as ever, might be deemed to be more than the heart of France, to be France itself.
[Sidenote: William’s prospects.]
Count Robert was doubtless guided, then and always, by policy. Many of his neighbours who found themselves in the like case followed his lead. They could not serve two masters; so they made up their minds to serve the master who was strongest either to reward or to punish, him whose purse was the deeper and whose spirit was the fiercer.[461] Altogether the odds seemed frightfully against the French side. Rufus might indeed have small chances of carrying out his grand scheme of uniting Paris――perhaps Poitiers and Bourdeaux――under the same lord as Winchester and Rouen; but things at least looked as if the conquest of the disputed lands was about to advance the Norman frontier most dangerously near to the French capital. Above all, when the Seine was barred both at Roche Guyon and at Meulan, we ask how things stood in the border town which lay between them, the town which was one of the special subjects of William’s demands on Philip. How fared it at Mantes when the stream both above and below was in the hands of the enemy? To this question we get no answer; but we see that, in any case, the King of the French was more closely shut up than ever in the central prison-house of his nominal realm.
[Sidenote: Failure of William’s plans.]
[Sidenote: Pontoise and Chaumont not taken.]
[Sidenote: Castle of Chaumont.]
But, small as seemed young Lewis’s means of defence, weakened as he further was by treason among his own or his father’s vassals, the resistance made by the French to the Norman or English invasion was valiant, stubborn, and, we may add, successful. William Rufus was much further from conquering France than Henry the Fifth, or even than Edward the Third, was in after times. With all his wealth, all his forces, he could not conquer the land; he could not even take the fortresses to which he specially laid claim. He could not conquer the Vexin; he could not take either Pontoise or Chaumont. While we hear nothing of Mantes, we know that both these two last-named fortresses successfully withstood his attacks. Of the three fortresses which were the special objects of the war, one, that of Chaumont, became in some sort its centre. The Chaumont with which we have to deal is still distinguished from other places of the same name as Chaumont-en-Vexin. It stands about five miles east of the Epte, at the point where the frontier stream of Rolf is joined by the smaller stream of the Troesne, and makes a marked turn in its course from nearly due south to south-west. The region is a hilly one, though it contains no heights of any remarkable elevation. The Bald Mount itself, which――unluckily for the inquirer――is bald no longer, is a wide-spreading hill crowned with a mound which stands out prominently to the eye on every side. The line of the wall which it supported may still be easily traced, and in a few places it is actually standing. On the steep north-eastern side of the hill the small town of Chaumont nestles at its foot, while the stately church of the later days of French architecture soars above the town as the castle again soars above the church. Of the part played in the war by this stronghold we shall hear a little later.
[Sidenote: The castle of Gisors.]
[Sidenote: Its first defences. 1096.]
[Sidenote: Strengthened by Robert of Bellême.]
[Sidenote: Gisors under Henry the Second.]
[Sidenote: Present appearance of Gisors.]
The height of Chaumont commands a vast prospect on all sides; the eye stretches far away over the friendly land to the south, towards the hills bordering on the Seine; but the special rival of Chaumont, the fortress at the junction of the Epte and Troesne, is shut out from sight by a near range of hills which follow the line of the smaller stream. Where the two rivers join, the Epte, like the greater Seine, divides to form a group of islands at the foot of a low hill on the right, the Norman, bank. Here stands the town and fortress of Gisors, the chief bulwark of Normandy towards the north-eastern corner of the Vexin. Once a dependency of the neighbouring Neauflé, whose mound and square tower form a prominent object in the landscape, Gisors had now become a stronghold indeed. It had been first fenced in about two years before by Pagan of Gisors, a man of whom we shall hear in the course of the war.[462] Somewhat later William gave orders that the border post should be made into a fortress of the greatest possible strength, and he committed the work to the most skilful engineer at his command. All the craft and subtlety of the Devil of Bellême were employed to make Gisors a stronghold which might shelter the eastern frontier of Normandy against all enemies. As far as one can see, the islands in the Epte and the hill which rises above them near to the right bank of the main river were united in one common plan of defence. The town itself, taking in the islands, was walled, either now or at a later time, and defended with a ditch throughout those parts of its circuit which were neither sheltered by the river nor by the castle hill. In the great defences of this last we see the fruit of the engineering skill of Robert of Bellême, and we better learn what in those days was deemed a specially strong fortress. On all sides save that where town and castle join, the hill is girded by a deep ditch, and on the north, the side which lies away from both town and river, the ditch is doubled, and the chief entrance on this side is defended by an outpost between the two. The ditch fences in a vast walled space, in the middle of which art has improved nature by piling up a vast artificial mound crowned by a shell keep. The earthworks are most likely older than either Robert of Bellême or Pagan of Gisors. The outer wall and the shell keep may well be part of Robert’s design, if they are not actually his work; but the towers which now rise so proudly over Gisors, not only the round tower, precious in local legend, but the vast octagon on one side of the keep which bears the name of the martyr of Canterbury, must all be of later date than our time. A graceful chapel within the keep, where the visitor is told with special emphasis that Saint Thomas once said mass, has thus much to show in favour of the legend that it is clearly a work of Henry the Second’s days. His days were stirring days at Gisors as well as the days of Rufus, and a hundred years of sieges had brought new improvements into the art of fortification. All in short that strikes the eye as the traveller draws near to Gisors, the castle towers, no less than the strange and striking outline of one of the stateliest of those churches which boasted no bishop or abbot at their head, belongs to later days than those of the Red King’s campaign of Chaumont. Of the defences of the town below little can now be traced, and that part of the defences of the castle on which the historian looks with the deepest interest is carefully hidden from distant view. The tower of Saint Thomas and its lower fellow both seem to rise from the midst of a wood――a wood artificially planted, seemingly for the express purpose of robbing Gisors of its characteristic feature, of shutting out from sight the mighty motte and keep which Robert of Bellême made ready at the Red King’s bidding to be the strongest bulwark of the Norman land.
[Sidenote: Castle of Trye.]
[Sidenote: Primæval and later antiquities.]
Near as Gisors stands to Chaumont, another fortress barred the way between them. The road between the two towns passes through Trye――distinguished from its neighbour Trye-la-Ville as Trye-Château――which appears in our story along with Chaumont as one of the French fortresses which Gisors was specially meant to keep in check. Yet Trye must have been itself specially meant as an outpost against Gisors. Close by Gisors is one of the points where the Norman frontier overlaps the Epte; so that Trye, lying between two and three miles from Gisors, is yet nearer than Gisors to the actual frontier. Trye does not lie, like Chaumont, hidden behind the hills; it stands boldly in the teeth of the enemy, clearly seen from the hill of Gisors, and barring the main road between Gisors and Chaumont, a road which led over level ground and neither over hill nor swamp. Otherwise the site has not, like Gisors and Chaumont, any marked advantages of ground, nor, at present at least, are any earthworks visible. In our time, though a gate and a tower of later date than our story recall the days of the military importance of Trye, the attractions of the spot are chiefly of other kinds. Between Trye and Chaumont a cromlech, known as the Three Stones, calls up the thought of days and men which were as mysterious in the time of Rufus as they are now. More than one fragment of mediæval architecture may be lighted on by the way, and Trye itself stands conspicuous for the singular and beautiful Romanesque work――again too late for our immediate time――to be found both in its ecclesiastical and its secular buildings.
[Sidenote: Castle of Boury.]
[Sidenote: National feeling in the French Vexin.]
[Sidenote: Prisoners on both sides.]
[Sidenote: Gilbert of Laigle.]
[Sidenote: Simon of Montfort.]
Chaumont and Trye may practically be looked on as one piece of defence. A third fortress, that of Boury,[463] lay further apart to the south-west, hidden from Gisors, like Chaumont, by another line of hills. All three castles seem to have remained unsubdued through the whole war. The valour of the French resistance is dwelled on with pleasure by our Norman or English guide. Did the monk of Saint Evroul, the young scholar of the Severn side, remember that, after all, his father belonged neither to the land of his birth nor to the land of his adoption, but was in truth a Frenchman from Orleans?[464] The French Vexin was inhabited by a valiant race, in whom, if we are not pressing too far the words of our story, a distinct feeling of French nationality was strong. They were ready to run all risks――it is not said for their King, but for the defence of their country, for the glory of their nation, for the honour of the French name.[465] Valiant men, mercenaries it would seem――but who was to pay them?――from all parts of Gaul, or at least of France, pressed to their help, and a brave and successful defence was made. Prisoners on both sides underwent the two different fates which were already spoken of. The name on the Norman side which is best known to us is that of the fierce Gilbert of Laigle; with him we hear of the former lord and fortifier of Gisors.[466] Among the captives on the French side the national historian records one who bore a far loftier name, but one which at that moment was hardly a name of honour. Two of the long line of Simons of the French Montfort are heard of in the course of our story, father and son, father and brother of her who in our authorities appears commonly as the woman from Anjou, but who on the Strong Mount of her fathers may have been deemed a Queen of the French. One Simon is now spoken of as a prisoner; both are found somewhat later fighting stoutly in the cause of France. We have heard that the Red King let none free who would not undertake to fight on his side. Are we to infer that a forefather of our own deliverer had learned the lesson of Harold, that an extorted oath is of no strength?
§ 2. The First War of Maine.
1098.
[Sidenote: Dates of the French war. November, 1097――September, 1098.]
[Sidenote: War of Maine. January――August, 1098.]
[Sidenote: History of Maine. 1089-1098.]
These events on the French side, of which thus far we have but a vague account, would seem to have happened during the first half of the year with which we are dealing. But all that we can say for certain is that they happened between the November of one year and the September of the next. Of the struggle which was going on at the same time in Maine, the dates are far more clear. It began in January and it was deemed to be over in August. But its immediate occasion arose the year before, and its general causes go much further back. Fully to understand the war of William and Helias, more truly the war of Helias and Robert of Bellême, we must trace out the events of several years. While we have been following the fates of England, Normandy, Scotland, and Wales, much of high interest has been going on in Maine which had no connexion with the affairs of any part of Britain, and which had but little influence on Norman affairs either. But now that England and Normandy have again a common ruler, the affairs of England, or at least the affairs of her King, have again a close connexion with the affairs of Maine. We have now therefore to take up the tale of that noble city and county from the days when we had to tell of Duke Robert’s campaign before Ballon and Saint Cenery.[467]
[Sidenote: Robert suspects the loyalty of Maine. 1089.]
[Sidenote: He asks help of Fulk of Anjou.]
[Sidenote: Fulk asks for Bertrada of Montfort.]
[Sidenote: Bertrada brought up by Heloise.]
[Sidenote: William of Evreux’s bargain about his niece.]
The submission of Maine to the Norman Duke which then took place lasted only till the next favourable opportunity for asserting the old independence of the city and county. No great time after he had taken possession, Robert began to suspect the loyalty of his Cenomannian subjects. A strange story follows, which connects itself in a way yet stranger with the tale of the royal household of France which we have lately been telling. Robert, it seems, was sick at the moment when he, or some one else for him, thought it needful to take action against impending revolt in Maine. He sent messengers and gifts to Count Fulk of Anjou, the famous Rechin, praying him to come to him.[468] Fulk, it will be remembered, claimed the over-lordship of Maine, and Robert himself had, long before, at the peace of Blanchelande, done a formal homage to Fulk for the county.[469] The Angevin Count was supposed to have influence with the people of Maine, influence which might be enough to hinder them from revolting. That influence Robert now prayed Fulk to use. The Angevin agreed on one condition, namely that the Norman would use his own influence in quite another quarter, for quite another purpose. Fulk wanted a wife. As the story is told us, he is said to have had two living wives already; but that seems not to have been the case.[470] His first wife, the daughter of a lord of Beaugency, died, leaving a daughter. He then married Ermengarde of Bourbon――a description not to become royal for some ages――the mother of his son Geoffrey Martel. Her he put away on the usual plea of kindred, and now it was that he appeared as the wooer of that Bertrada of whom we have already spoken of in her later character. The daughter of Simon of Montfort was the niece of Count William of Evreux, through her mother Agnes, Count William’s sister. Her mother would seem to have been dead, and she was brought up in her uncle’s house, under the schooling of Countess Heloise.[471] The Count of Anjou, no longer young, driven to strange devices as to his shoes,[472] and burthened with a former wife whose divorce might be called in question, felt that he was hardly likely to win favour as a lover in the eyes either of Bertrada herself or of her guardians. But the Rechin was skilful at a bargain. He would engage to keep Maine in the Duke’s obedience, if the Duke would get him the damsel of Montfort to wife.[473] Robert set off for Evreux in person, and pleaded Fulk’s cause with Count William. The Count of Evreux was duly shocked, and set forth the obvious objections to the marriage. But he too was open to a bargain; he would get over his scruples if the Duke would restore to him certain lordships to which he asserted a right, and would grant certain others to his nephew William of Breteuil. These lands had been the possession of his uncle Ralph of Wacey, guardian of the Great William in his early days, who it seems was sportively known as Ralph with the Ass’s Head.[474] Let the Duke give him and his nephew back their own, and Bertrada should be, as far as the Count of Evreux was concerned, Countess of Anjou.
[Sidenote: Robert consents.]
[Sidenote: His counsellors.]
[Sidenote: Fulk marries Bertrada.]
[Sidenote: Maine kept quiet for a year.]
The Duke did not venture to answer without the advice of his counsellors. But the combined wisdom of Robert of Bellême, lately a rebel but now again in favour,[475] of the Ætheling Eadgar, and of that monastic William of Arques of whom we have already heard,[476] advised the acceptance of Count William’s terms. The whole county of Maine was of more value than the lordships which the Count of Evreux demanded as the price of his niece.[477] The power and the will of Fulk to do what he promised about Le Mans and Maine seems not to have been doubted. The double bargain was struck, and it was carried out for a season. Count William and his nephew got all that they asked, except that one lordship passed to Gerard of Gournay. Fulk too got what he asked, namely Bertrada, till such time as King Philip took her away. She had time to quarrel with her stepson Geoffrey, and to become the mother of Fulk, afterwards Count of Anjou and King of Jerusalem, and grandfather of the first Angevin King of England. And Count Fulk was able, by whatever means, to keep the Cenomannian city and county in a formal allegiance to the Norman Duke, till such time as the temptations to revolt became too strong to be withstood.
[Sidenote: Movements in Maine.]
[Sidenote: Hugh son of Azo sent for. 1090.]
[Sidenote: Union of Geoffrey and Helias.]
Our story however seems to imply that the submission of Maine to Robert was wholly on the surface, and that all this while schemes were going on for shaking off the hated Norman yoke. The present movement took the same form which had been taken by the movement in the Conqueror’s day.[478] The avowed object of Cenomannian patriotism was now, as then, the restoration of the ancient dynasty. The valour and energy of the citizens of Le Mans are constantly spoken of; but we hear nothing this time of the commune. The rule of some prince seems to be assumed on all hands, and for a while all seem to have agreed in seeking that prince in the same quarter in which they had sought a prince already. Little indeed of good for Le Mans or Maine had come of the former application to Azo and Gersendis; but their son Hugh had now reached greater years and experience, and the men of Maine again sent into Italy to ask for him to reign over them.[479] The application was supported both by Geoffrey of Mayenne, of whom we have so often heard during the last thirty years, and by Helias of La Flèche, who might well have asserted his own claims against those of the distant house of Este.[480]
[Sidenote: Helias of La Flèche.]
[Sidenote: His character]
[Sidenote: and descent.]
[Sidenote: His castles.]
[Sidenote: His possible claim on the county.]
[Sidenote: He accepts the succession of Hugh.]
Helias now becomes the hero of the Cenomannian tale. He is one of the men of his time of whom we can get the clearest idea. We see him alike in his recorded acts and in his elaborately drawn portrait; and by the light of the two we can hail in him the very noblest type of the age and class to which he belonged. We see in him a no less worthy defender of the freedom of Maine than Harold was of the freedom of England. He stands before us with his tall stature, his strong, thin, and well-proportioned frame, his swarthy complexion, his thick hair cropped close after Norman or priestly fashion.[481] Brave and skilful in war, wise and just in his rule in peace, ready and pleasant in speech, gentle to the good and stern to the evil, faithful to his word, and corrupted neither by good nor evil fortune, a man withal of prayer and fasting, the bountiful friend of the Church and the poor, Helias stands forth within the narrow range of a single county of Gaul as one who, on a wider field, might have won for himself a place among the foremost of mankind.[482] With the house of the old Counts of Maine he had a twofold connexion. The male line of Herbert Wake-dog had come to an end; but in the female line Helias came of it in two descents, while Hugh came in one only. Not only was his mother Paula one of the sisters of the younger Herbert, but his father John of La Flèche was son of a daughter of Wake-dog himself.[483] To his father’s Angevin fief of La Flèche, among the islands of the Loir, his marriage with Matilda, a grand-niece of Archbishop Gervase of Rheims, known to us better as Bishop of Le Mans,[484] had added a string of castles in the south of Maine. Two of these, Mayet and the one which is specially called the Castle of the Loir, fill a prominent place in our story.[485] Helias was plainly the greatest lord of eastern Maine, the modern department of Sarthe, as Geoffrey of Mayenne was the greatest in western Maine, the modern department which still bears the name of his own fortress.[486] One might have thought that the position of Helias as a great local chief might, when the elders of Maine were called on to choose a prince, have outweighed any slight genealogical precedence on the part of the stranger Hugh. But the great men of the county may not have been disposed to place one of themselves over their own heads. Anyhow Helias, like his father before him,[487] waived his own claim to the succession. Along with the lord of Mayenne and the great mass of the people of the city and county, he welcomed the Ligurian prince――such is the geography of our chief guide――when he came to take possession of the dominion to which the voice of the Cenomannian people had called him a second time.[488]
[Sidenote: Negotiations with Hugh.]
[Sidenote: Revolt of Maine. 1090.]
[Sidenote: Invitation to Hugh.]
We are to suppose that the negotiations with the house of Este were going on during the year when Count Fulk contrived to keep Maine outwardly quiet. But when the quarrel between William and Robert broke out, when Normandy was divided and dismembered, the Angevin over-lord’s influence gave way. The time for action was clearly come. Le Mans and all Maine now openly rose against the Norman dominion. Duke Robert’s garrisons were driven out;[489] the Cenomannian land was again free. But the first act of restored freedom was to invite Hugh of Este, descendant of the ancient counts, to come at once to take possession, and to rule in the palace on the Roman wall which fences in the Cenomannian hill.
[Sidenote: Opposition of Bishop Howel.]
[Sidenote: Howel imprisoned by Helias.]
[Sidenote: Interdict of Le Mans.]
[Sidenote: Liberation of Howel on Hugh’s coming.]
The chief opponent of the movement for independence was, as before, the Bishop. The throne of Saint Julian was still filled by the Breton Howel, the nominee of the Conqueror, and he stood firm in his loyalty to his patron’s eldest son.[490] He withstood the revolt by every means in his power, and scattered interdicts and anathemas against the supporters of the newly-elected Count.[491] Hugh had not yet come, and the opposition of the Bishop was felt to be dangerous. Helias therefore, whose piety did not lead him to any superstitious reverence for ecclesiastical privileges, dealt with Howel as an enemy, or at least as one whom it was well to keep out of the way for a season. As the Bishop was going through his diocese with a train of clergy, in the discharge of some episcopal duty, Helias seized him, carried him off, and put him in ward at La Flèche.[492] The great grievance seems to have been that Howel was denied the company of his attendant clergy, and was allowed the services only of one unlettered rustic priest. The fear was lest the Bishop and his more learned companions would, in their Latin talk, plot something which their keepers would not understand.[493] This very complaint shows that the Bishop’s imprisonment was not of a very harsh kind. But the cause of the captive prelate was zealously taken up by his clergy. Le Mans and its suburbs were put under a practical interdict; divine worship ceased; the bells were silent; the doors of the churches were stopped up with thorns.[494] Great, it is said, was the joy when the Bishop was set free and came back to his city. We are told by a writer in the episcopal interest that Helias set him free in a fit of penitence, in answer to many intercessions from nobles, clergy, and neighbouring bishops. Howel was gracious and forgiving, and let his wrongs be forgotten on the restoration of whatever had been taken from him.[495] All this is possible; but the more definite statement that Howel was kept in ward till Hugh came shows that his captivity was a matter of policy, and that he was set free as soon as it seemed that no object could be gained by prolonging it.
[Sidenote: Hugh reaches Le Mans.]
[Sidenote: Howel flees to Robert.]
[Sidenote: Robert’s carelessness as to his loss.]
[Sidenote: He cleaves to his rights over the bishopric.]
[Sidenote: Dispute between Hugh and Howel.]
[Sidenote: Howel refuses to acknowledge Hugh as advocatus.]
[Sidenote: Howel and his Chapter.]
[Sidenote: Disputes about the deanery.]
[Sidenote: Howel comes to England.]
[Sidenote: Return of Howel. June 28, 1090.]
Meanwhile Hugh was on the road. At the border fortress of La Chartre he was met by the magistrates of Le Mans――the city seems, as often in Cenomannian history, to act for the whole county――who swore oaths to him, counting, it is added, their former oaths to Duke Robert for nought.[496] The Bishop, determined not to acknowledge the revolution, fled to the court of the prince whom he did acknowledge. But he found little help there. The idle and luxurious Robert seemed not to care, he seemed almost to rejoice, that so noble a part of his dominions had fallen away from him.[497] One thing only he would not give up; he would at all hazards cleave to his rights over the Cenomannian bishopric. Robert bade Howel to go back to Le Mans, but to do nothing which could be taken as an admission of Hugh as temporal lord of the bishopric.[498] Howel went home, and found the new Count, for whatever reason, quartered in the episcopal palace. He had himself to live in the abbey of Saint Vincent, just outside the city. A long dispute followed between the Breton Bishop and the Italian Count, and then came a still fiercer dispute between the Bishop and a party in his own Chapter. One or two points are of constitutional interest, and remind us of questions which we have just before heard of in our own land. The Count called on Howel to acknowledge himself as his feudal superior for the temporalities of the bishopric.[499] He refused and left the city, on which Hugh seized the temporalities of the bishopric. Worse even than the Count were the Bishop’s clerical enemies, one Hilgot at their head. By a cruel subtlety they had persuaded him to appoint as Dean a mere boy from his own land, Geoffrey by name, of the age of twelve years only――so it is said. Now they turned about, found fault with the appointment, and set up an anti-dean of their own.[500] The Bishop crossed over to England for help, and, strange to say, he found a friend in the King.[501] But meanwhile all kinds of wrongs were done to his people, even to branding an innocent boy in the face.[502] At last a reconciliation between the Count and the Bishop was brought about, partly because of the turn taken by public feeling. Saint Julian’s, in the absence of its chief pastor, was forsaken, while crowds flocked to keep the feasts of the Church at the Bishop’s monastic retreat. This was at the priory of Solêmes, near Sablé, lying south-west of the city, towards the Angevin border.[503] At last the prelate came back amidst universal joy, and the Count made good all wrongs and losses that he had undergone.[504]
[Sidenote: Unpopularity of Hugh.]
[Sidenote: February, 1091.]
[Sidenote: Danger of Maine.]
[Sidenote: Helias buys the county.]
But happier days were to come for the Bishop and the people of Maine. It was not only to Howel and his clergy that the Italian Count had made himself hateful. He had none of the qualities which were needed in the ruler of a high-spirited people in a time of danger. Idle, timid, weak of purpose, he had no power among the men over whom he was set; and he had not, as seems to have been hoped for, brought with him any store of money from the south.[505] His wife, a daughter of Robert Wiscard, a woman of a lofty spirit, was too much for him. He put her away, and was excommunicated by Pope Urban for so doing.[506] Despised of all men, he was thinking of flight.[507] It was now moreover the moment when the Norman power had again become specially dangerous to Maine. The sons of the great William, lately at variance, were now reconciled, and the subjugation of Maine was one of the terms of their agreement.[508] Helias saw his opportunity. He set forth the dangers of the land to his cousin. Hugh said that he wished to sell his county and be off.[509] Helias argued that, in that case, he ought to sell it to no one but himself. He set forth his right by birth; he said that it was no easy place that he was seeking. But his just rights and a love for the freedom of the land called him to it, and he trusted that God would help him in his post of danger.[510] A bargain was soon struck. For a sum of ten thousand Cenomannian shillings Hugh agreed to abdicate in favour of his cousin. The coronet of Maine passed from the son of Gersendis to the son of Paula. Hugh went back into Italy with his money, and Helias was received without opposition as Count of Maine.[511]
[Sidenote: First reign of Helias. 1091-1098.]
[Sidenote: His strong and just rule.]
[Sidenote: His friendship for Howel.]
[Sidenote: Peace of the land.]
The reign of Helias over Le Mans and Maine lasted for about twenty years, with a break of three years of warfare of which we shall presently have to speak. First came a time of seven or eight years, during which the Cenomannian people might indeed be objects of envy to the people either of Normandy or of England. The new prince, by every account of his actions, showed himself the model of a ruler of those times. He did justice and made peace; as far as a prince of those days could do so, he sheltered the weak from the oppressions of the strong.[512] His personal piety was not lessened, nor was his devotion to the Church less zealous, now that the ecclesiastical power was no longer a political enemy. Strong in the friendship of his late gaoler, Bishop Howel could rule his diocese in peace, and could carry on his works of building, both in the city itself and in his neighbouring lordship of Coulaines.[513] And these happy years were years of peace without as well as within. The rule of Helias was undisputed; Maine saw neither revolt within her own borders nor invasion from any power beyond them. Whatever designs either Robert or William may have cherished against the independence of Maine, those designs did not for the present take the shape of any overt act. Robert seems to have done absolutely nothing; the first signs of impending evil showed themselves soon after William’s acquisition of Normandy; but there was no open warfare for two years longer.
[Sidenote: Translation of Saint Julian. October 17, 1093.]
[Sidenote: Visit of Pope Urban to Le Mans. November or December, 1095.]
[Sidenote: Sickness of Howel. 1095-1097.]
In these times of exceptional quiet there is little to record beyond ecclesiastical ceremonies. It was a bright day at Le Mans when Bishop Howel was able to translate the body of the venerated patron of the city to the place of honour in his new building.[514] That was the time when Anselm, already enthroned, was waiting for consecration, and when Malcolm had turned away from Gloucester to plan his last invasion of Northumberland.[515] In these years too Howel must have finished the two stately towers of Saint Julian’s minster, of which we shall before long have a tale to tell. But Le Mans presently saw a greater day than all, as it seemed at least in the eyes of the biographer of her bishops. After the days of Piacenza and Clermont, Pope Urban honoured the Cenomannian city with his presence. For three days the sovereign Pontiff was the guest of Howel, and we are told that, though it was a year of scarceness, yet the Bishop of Le Mans was able to entertain the Pope and his following right bountifully.[516] Howel, it is said, appeared among his fellow-bishops conspicuous for the gifts of both mind and body. Men rejoiced with him on the happiness of receiving such a guest, and deemed from his health and vigour that he might long enjoy his honours.[517] Before long he fell sick, and his sickness was unto death, although his end did not come till nearly two years after the preaching at Clermont. The visit of Urban, the death of Howel, led to important events in the history of Maine.
[Sidenote: Helias takes the cross. 1095-1096.]
[Sidenote: Estimate of his action.]
[Sidenote: Sigurd and Eystein.]
[Sidenote: Argument in favour of the Crusade.]
The preaching of the crusade, above all the presence, and doubtless the preaching, of the crusading Pope in his own city, stirred up the same impulse in the heart of Helias which was stirred up in the hearts of so many other men of his day. Young and strong, devout and valiant, he would go and fight to win back the sepulchre of his Lord from the misbelievers and to deliver his Christian brethren in other lands from their cruel bondage. By the counsel of the Pope, the Count of Maine took the cross, and made ready to go on the armed pilgrimage along with his neighbours, with Robert of Normandy and Stephen of Chartres.[518] Our feeling perhaps is that Helias, like Saint Lewis, had a stronger call to stay at home than to go on the crusade. A certain part of mankind, a small part certainly, but that part among which his immediate duty lay, was peaceful and happy under his rule as they were not likely to be under the rule of any other. Could it be right, we might argue, for him to leave a work which none could do but himself, a work which he had taken on his shoulders of his own free will, for another work, however noble, which others could do as well as himself? Let Robert go and win honour abroad instead of dishonour at home. Normandy was in such a case that the coming even of Rufus was a happy change. Let Stephen of Chartres go; he left his royal-hearted Adela behind him. Let King Philip go, if he could go; his son Lewis would rule his realm far better than he. But let Helias stay, and keep for his land and city that well-being which he had given and which another might take away. An argument nearly the same as this was actually pressed on the crusading Sigurd by his stay-at-home brother Eystein. While Sigurd was warring far away, Eystein had done a great deal of good to his own people in Norway.[519] But there are moments in the world’s history, moments when all has to be sacrificed to a great cause, when arguments like these, so sound against ordinary warfare, sound above all against the utterly purposeless warfare of those days, cannot be listened to. If Western Christendom was to arm for a crusade, it was well that that crusade should be headed by the noblest men in Western Christendom. The work would not be done, if it were only left to lower souls. If Godfrey was to march, it was fit that Helias should march beside him. Godfrey went; Helias did not go. He had now a neighbour who made it vain for him to think of leaving his own land in jeopardy, even to carry out his promise to Pope Urban and to go on the holy war.
[Sidenote: William in Normandy. August (?), 1096.]
[Sidenote: Danger to Maine.]
[Sidenote: Importance of Norman neutrality.]
[Sidenote: Helias and Robert.]
[Sidenote: Helias and William.]
[Sidenote: He professes himself William’s vassal.]
[Sidenote: Answer of Rufus; he demands the cession of Maine.]
[Sidenote: Challenge of Helias.]
[Sidenote: Rufus lets Helias go with a defiance.]
The bargain between William and Robert had just been struck. The two brothers were together at Rouen. Robert was about to set out for Jerusalem; William had come to take possession of Normandy. It would have been the height of rashness for Helias to join in the enterprise of Robert, unless he could make his county safe during his absence against any aggression on the part of William. According to Norman doctrines, Maine was simply a rebellious province. Robert had done nothing to stop the rebellion, but he had never acknowledged either Hugh or Helias as lawful Prince of the Cenomannians. Where Robert had done nothing, William would be likely to act with vigour. The claims which Robert had simply not acknowledged William might be inclined to dispute with the sword. It was therefore of the utmost moment for the Count of Maine to secure the friendship, or at least the neutrality, of the new ruler of Normandy. Helias doubtless knew that, if William bound himself by his knightly promise, that promise would be faithfully kept, and he perhaps hoped that towards one who was bound on a holy errand, an errand during which he would be harmless and powerless as far as Maine and Normandy were concerned, the chivalrous king might be disposed to pledge such a promise. He therefore went to Rouen, and sought interviews with both brothers. He first took counsel with the Duke.[520] Robert, we know, could give counsel to others,[521] and he had no temptation at this moment to give unfriendly counsel to Helias. By his advice, the Count of Maine went to the King; he addressed him reverently, and, if his words be rightly reported, acknowledged himself his vassal. So to do was no degradation, and the acknowledgement might turn the King’s heart towards him. He set forth his purpose of going to the crusade; he said that he wished to go as the King’s friend and in his peace.[522] Then Rufus burst forth in a characteristic strain. Helias may go whither he thinks good; but let him give up the city and county of Maine; whatever his father held it was William’s will to hold also.[523] Helias answers that he holds his county by lawful inheritance from his forefathers, and that he hopes by God’s help to hand it on to his children. But if the King has a mind to try the question in a peaceful pleading, he is ready to maintain his right before kings, counts, and bishops, and to abide by their judgement.[524] Rufus tells him that he will plead against him with swords and spears and countless arrows.[525] Then Helias spoke his solemn challenge. He had wished to fight against the heathen in the name of the Lord, but he had found the enemies of Christ nearer to his own doors. The county which he held was his by the gift of God;[526] he would not lightly give it up, nor leave his people to the wolves as sheep without a shepherd. Let the King and all his nobles hear. He bore the cross of a pilgrim; that cross he would not lay aside; he would bear it on his shield, on his helmet, on the saddle and bridle of his horse. Under the protection of that sign he would go forth to defend himself against all who might attack him, that all might know that those who were fighting against him were fighting against a warrior of the cross. He trusted in Him who ruled the world and who knew the secrets of his heart, that a day would come when he would be able to discharge his vow according to the letter.[527] The Red King bade him go whither he would and do what he would; he had no mind to fight against crusaders, but he would have the city which his father had once won.[528] Let Helias get together workmen to repair his broken walls.[529] He would presently visit the citizens of Le Mans, and would show himself before their gates with a hundred thousand pennoned lances.[530] He would send cars drawn by oxen, and laden with arrows and javelins. But before the oxen could reach Le Mans, he would be there with many legions of armed men.[531]
[Sidenote: Helias makes ready for defence.]
[Sidenote: William delays his attack. 1096-1097.]
Such was the threatening message which Helias was bidden to receive as the most certain truth and to go back and tell his accomplices――that is, we may understand, his faithful subjects. He went back to his capital, and began to put his dominions into a state fit to withstand an attack. But as yet no attack came; for a year or more neither king nor legions nor oxen were seen before the gates of Le Mans. William was busy with many matters, with the dispute with Anselm, with the Welsh war, with the affairs of Scotland. We are told, characteristically enough, that in the midst of all these affairs he forgot Maine altogether. Helias meanwhile remained in actual possession of the county, not attacked or disturbed by Rufus, but in no way acknowledged by him, with the King’s threats hanging over him, and knowing that an attack might come at any moment. At last this armed neutrality came to an end. An event happened which called the King’s mind back to Cenomannian affairs in a manner specially characteristic of Cenomannian history.
[Sidenote: Affairs of the bishopric.]
[Sidenote: Death of Howel July 29, 1097.]
[Sidenote: Helias nominates Geoffrey.]
[Sidenote: The canons choose Hildebert.]
[Sidenote: Helias accepts the election.]
[Sidenote: Geoffrey Archbishop of Rouen. 1111.]
[Sidenote: Hildebert Bishop of Le Mans. 1097-1126.]
[Sidenote: Archbishop of Tours. 1126-1134.]
Again, as so often in our story, the bishopric of Le Mans becomes the centre of the drama and the subject of dispute among the princes of the world. In the middle of the summer, shortly before the council of Winchester, Bishop Howel died, seemingly of the same sickness which had come upon him soon after the visit of Pope Urban. Helias, like Hugh, deemed himself, as the reigning Count, to be the temporal lord of the bishopric, and he at once nominated to the vacant see. His choice was the Dean of Saint Julian’s, that same Geoffrey who had been placed by Howel in the deanery in his childhood, and who, if the dates be right, must still have been wonderfully young for a bishop.[532] But the canons of Saint Julian’s stood upon their right of free election, and chose a man of greater name, their Chancellor and Archdeacon, the famous Hildebert.[533] They placed him at once, seemingly against his own will, on the episcopal throne.[534] At first Helias was wroth, and was minded to set aside this direct slight to his authority. But the rights of the Chapter were set before him, and, unlike our own Confessor under less provocation, he yielded, and accepted the election.[535] The Dean, deeming himself sure of the bishopric, had made ready a great feast; but his dainties were spread and eaten to no purpose.[536] His time of promotion was only deferred. Fourteen years later, Geoffrey succeeded William the Good Soul in the archbishopric of Rouen. So his now more successful competitor was not fated always to remain in the second rank of prelacy. One of the great scholars of his day, renowned for his writings both in prose and verse, a diligent writer of letters and thereby one of the authorities for our history, a builder, a reformer, an enemy of heresy who could yet deal gently with the heretic,[537] a model in short, we are told, of every episcopal virtue, Hildebert ruled the church of Le Mans for more than twenty-nine years, and then for the last nine years of his long life was removed to the metropolitan throne of Tours.[538]
[Sidenote: Claims of the Norman Dukes over the bishopric.]
[Sidenote: Anger of Rufus at the election of Hildebert.]
All the elements of the Cenomannian state, prince, clergy, and people, had joined in the elevation of Hildebert. But there was one to whom any free election or nomination by any of the local powers was in its own nature distasteful. It was perhaps because their claim was very doubtful that the princes of the Norman house clave with such special obstinacy to their rights over the temporalities of the see of Le Mans. The bishopric was the one thing in Maine which even the careless Robert cared about.[539] And to William Rufus, who so deeply cherished his father’s memory, it would seem a crowning indignity that a bishop appointed by his father, a special and loyal friend of his father, should be succeeded by any one, whether the choice of count, chapter, or commune, in whose election he himself had no share. When the King heard of the election of Hildebert, he was very wroth. He forbade his consecration, seemingly under threats of open war.[540] Hildebert was consecrated none the less, and the war which Rufus had hitherto planned in his heart, broke out in action.[541]
[Sidenote: William in Normandy. November, 1097.]
[Sidenote: His designs on Maine.]
[Sidenote: Robert of Bellême attacks Maine.]
[Sidenote: Helias strengthens the castle of Dangeul.]
[Sidenote: Its position.]
When William crossed the sea in the November following the election of Hildebert, we may believe that the wrong which he held to have been done to him in the matter of that election was in his mind as a secondary cause of action, along with his demand of the Vexin from the King of the French. He came for war with France; he was ready for war with Maine also. But we do not hear of any actual military operations till the next year had begun. And, when warfare began, it was at first warfare carried on, just as often happened in Wales and even in Scotland, by the King’s licence indeed, but not by the King himself. The immediate danger lay on the side of the county which was threatened by the constant enemy of Maine and of Helias, Robert of Bellême. From him came the first acts of warfare. It was against him that Helias now found it needful to strengthen his castle of Dangeul.[542] This point lies to the north-east of Ballon, at only a few miles’ distance. The castle stands on a height nearly equal to that of Ballon, though Dangeul does not take the same marked form of a promontory, but rather stands on the edge of a wide expanse of high ground sinking by stages down to the plain below. The fortress has wholly vanished; but its site may be traced within the grounds of the modern château which has taken its place, and which represents, in a figure, the stronghold of Helias. The view which the spot commands shows how well the site was chosen. The eye ranges as far as the height of Sillé-le-Guillaume on one side, as far as the Norman Chaumont on the other. Dangeul stood right in the way of an advance of the arch-enemy, whether from his own home at Bellême or from any of his Norman or Cenomannian fortresses.
[Sidenote: Geographical character of the war; waged chiefly with Robert of Bellême.]
The war of Maine is largely a war between Helias and Robert of Bellême. This gives the war its special geographical character. The immediate possessions of Helias lay in the south-eastern part of the county; the fortresses of the enemy threatened him from the north-east. The capital lay between them. The result is that the seat of war is confined to the eastern part of Maine, the modern department of Sarthe, and that Le Mans itself is its special centre. Of western Maine, the modern department of Mayenne, we hear nothing. There is no news from the old battle-field of Domfront, Ambrières, and Mayenne itself, though of the lord of Mayenne we still continue to hear. There is nothing this time to tell of Sainte-Susanne or of Sillé-le-Guillaume.[543] The war takes up such an area as is natural when the strife is waged mainly for the city of Le Mans, when it is waged between the lord of La Flèche and the lord of Bellême. The enemy advances from Alençon and Mamers; he is checked by the fortification of Dangeul.
[Illustration: Map illustrating the CAMPAIGN OF MAINE A.D. 1098. Edwᵈ. Weller For the Delegates of the Clarendon Press.]
[Sidenote: Effects of the occupation of Dangeul.]
[Sidenote: Robert of Bellême invites the King. January, 1098.]
[Sidenote: William and Robert against Helias.]
[Sidenote: Guerrilla warfare of Helias.]
[Sidenote: William leaves Maine.]
The occupation of this last strong post by Helias was not without effect. He did not indeed win back any of the castles which were held by Robert of Bellême; but the garrison of Dangeul kept the invader in check, and hindered him from carrying his accustomed ravages through the whole country. This move of Helias seems even to have convinced Robert that the conquest of Maine was an undertaking too great for his own unassisted power. In January he went to the King, and stirred him up to a direct attack on Helias. With a lover of warfare like Robert winter went for nothing; it would be just the time to take the enemy by surprise, while they were not expecting any attack. The King, we are told, was unwilling. It is hard to understand why this should be, unless he was too busily occupied with the war in the Vexin. He was ashamed however――the chivalrous feeling again comes in――to shrink from any warlike enterprise which was proposed to him.[544] The King and the Count of Bellême set forth; but they found the Count of Maine fully their match. He knew how war was to be carried on in his own land against an enemy stronger than himself. He planted detachments at every convenient post; he lined the hedges and defences of every kind with men; he guarded the passages of the streams, and the difficult approaches of the woods. Against this kind of skirmishing warfare the mighty Rufus and all his knights were able to do as little as they were able to do against the light-armed Welsh.[545] The King waxed fiercer than ever against the men of Maine and their Count; but he withdrew his own personal presence, betaking himself doubtless to the other seat of war.
[Sidenote: Robert of Bellême continues the war.]
[Sidenote: Castles held by him in Maine.]
Meanwhile Robert of Bellême was left to carry on the struggle with Helias. He was ordered by Rufus to bring together as large a force as he could in his own fortresses, nor did the King forget to supply him with abundance of money for that purpose.[546] On such a bidding as this, Robert of Bellême, Robert the Devil on Cenomannian lips, set to work with a will which fully bore out his surname. He built new fortresses, he strengthened the old ones with deep ditches.[547] He had already occupied nine castles, besides fortified houses, on Cenomannian ground.[548] The list is given as Blèves, Perray, Mont-de-la-Nue, Saônes, Saint Remy-du-plain, Lurçon, Allières, Motte de Gauthier-le-Clincamp, and Mamers. All these lie in the north-eastern part of the county, the part immediately threatened from Alençon and Bellême. They occupy nearly the whole of the land between the Cenomannian Orne and the upper course of the Sarthe above Alençon, lying on each side, north and south, of the great forest of Perseigne. The line of the Sarthe from Alençon to Le Mans remained untouched, while Ballon stood as the advanced guard of the capital, and Dangeul was a yet further outpost of Helias, in the very teeth of the invader from Bellême. Perray, alone among the points held by Robert, stands as far south as the lower course of the Orne.
[Sidenote: Mamers.]
[Sidenote: Blèves.]
[Sidenote: Allières.]
[Sidenote: Saint Remy-du-plain.]
[Sidenote: Saônes.]
[Sidenote: Small architectural remains of the eleventh century.]
Several of the castles on this list occupied marked sites, and have left considerable traces. Mamers and Blèves were strictly border fortresses, points which Robert had seized just within the Cenomannian border; the others were more advanced points in the heart of the Cenomannian land. Mamers, with its streets sloping down to the young Orne, is the only one of the places on our list which is now at all a considerable town. But the only signs of its fortifications which are to be seen are found in the names of its streets, which suggest the former presence of a fort by the river and of a castle on somewhat higher ground. Mamers, due west from Bellême, may well have been Robert’s first conquest, and its occupation may have marked his first advance into the dominions of his neighbour. But he must also, early in his career, have made himself master of Blèves. This is a point which has no natural advantages of height, but which, standing in the very north-east corner of Maine, separated from Perche by a small tributary of the Sarthe, is important from its border position and as commanding a bridge. A mound which once stood there has been levelled; a graceful Renaissance house near its site is the present representative of the castle; but parts of the ditches may still be seen; the church, near but not within the enclosure, contains work which may have been looked on by Hildebert and Helias, and ancient masonry still remains at the manorial mill. Blèves lies north of the forest of Perseigne; at Allières, on its eastern verge, all actual traces of the castle have vanished; but the church again contains some small parts which seem contemporary with our story, and the site of the fortress may well be marked by the modern château on the hill-side commanding a wide view to the south. But more speaking witnesses of this war may be seen at two points lying south of the forest and directly west of Mamers. Saint Remy, distinguished as Saint Remy du Plain from a namesake to the south-east known as Saint Remy du Mont, stands, not indeed in the plain, but on the edge of the high ground. It commands an extensive view, reaching to the point which bounds most of the views in northern Maine, the butte of Chaumont. A site of the like kind, but with a less wide prospect, is held by Saônes at a short distance to the south, hard by that unusual feature in these lands, a small lake. Saônes is now a small village, but it was once of importance enough to give its name to the surrounding district of Saosnois or Sonnois. In both these cases the castle-mound rises immediately to the west of the church, the latter at Saint Remy being a late building of more pretension than is usual in the neighbourhood. Each mound has its surrounding ditch, which at Saint Remy is of most striking depth; each has its encircling wall; each has its inner tower, that at Saônes of an irregular four-sided shape, that of Saint Remy octagonal without and round within. Here are two unmistakeable and most striking sites of the fortresses which the invader from Perche rent away from the Cenomannian county. But, with such small remains of walls as are still left, it is hard to say in each case how much may be the work of Robert of Bellême himself. The mounds――natural hills improved by art――and their ditches are doubtless far older than his day; the walls must often be far later. There is little architectural detail left to decide such points; we are left to the less certain evidence of masonry. Some of the masonry in the inner building at Saônes certainly has the air of work of the eleventh century. In any case, whatever may be the exact amount of his work among the existing remains, everything bears witness to the impression which Robert’s invasion made on the district and to the reputation which he left behind him. Not far from Saônes, some remains of dykes, of the age or object of which it would be rash to speak with certainty, still keep the name of Robert the Devil.
[Sidenote: Nature of the country and of the war.]
[Sidenote: Teaching of the landscapes in Maine.]
[Sidenote: The castles.]
[Sidenote: Their object private war.]
[Sidenote: Contrast with England.]
[Sidenote: Comparative rarity of castles in England.]
[Sidenote: State of the Cenomannian castles.]
A visit to the scene of this war, a look-out from any of the chief fortified points, brings forcibly home to us the nature of that kind of struggle with which we are dealing. Nothing but an actual sight of Italy and Greece fully brings home to the mind the state of things when each city was a sovereign commonwealth, armed with all the powers of war and peace. Till we take in the fact with our own eyes, we do not thoroughly understand how men felt and acted when they constantly lived with rivals, rivals who might at any moment become enemies, within sight of their own territory. The out-look from any of the Cenomannian heights, the out-look from the home and centre of mischief on the hill of Bellême, brings home to us another state of things with equal force. Had the commune of Le Mans lived on, had other neighbouring cities followed its example, the older Greek, the later Italian, model might have been seen in all its fulness on the soil of northern Gaul. And warfare between Le Mans and Tours, between Le Mans and Alençon, carried on with that mixture of lofty and petty motives which is characteristic of warfare between rival cities, would have been ennobling compared with the state of things which actually was. For here we see every available point seized on to make what, at least in the hands of Robert of Bellême, was a mere den of robbers.[549] From his own scarped mound at Bellême the destroyer could see far enough into the Cenomannian land to give a keen whet to his appetite for havoc. Within the land which thus lay open to his attack, we see from every height the sites, not of one or two only, but of a whole crowd of strongholds which have passed away. A very few only of these strongholds could ever have been needed for the protection of any town or for the general defence of the country. They were strongholds which had been first raised for the purpose of private war, and which, in the hands of their present master, were turned to the purpose of general oppression. One wonders how, in such a state of things, when almost every village was overshadowed by its robber’s nest, a single husbandman could till his field, or a single merchant carry his wares from town to town. And we must remember that, unless during the nineteen years of anarchy, this state of things never existed in England. Our forefathers raised their wail over the building of the castles and over the evil deeds which were wrought by those who built them. But at no time in England, save on the borders which were exposed to the foreign enemies of the kingdom, did castles stand so thick on the ground as they did in the land on which we now look. The eye which has been used to track out the scenes of the Cenomannian war comes back to an English landscape of the same kind, to mark the steep bluff or the isolated mount, which seems designed to be girt with a ditch and crowned with a donjon, and almost to wonder that no ditch or donjon ever was there. And, as we gaze on the land where they crowned every tempting site, we better understand the joy and thankfulness with which men hailed the reign of any prince who put some curb on the pride and power of the knightly disturbers of the peace and gave to smaller men some chance of possessing their own in safety. We can understand how in such a prince this overwhelming merit was held to outweigh not a few vices and crimes in his own person. We can understand how, at the beginning of every period of restored order, a general sweeping away of castles was as it were the symbolic act of its inauguration. And perhaps the thought comes all the more home to the mind, because the Cenomannian castles are, to so great an extent, a memory and not a presence. They are not like those castles by the Rhine which have come to take their place as parts of a picturesque landscape. As a rule, it is not the castles themselves, but the sites where we know that they once stood, which catch the eye as it ranges from Mamers to Sillé, from Ballon to Alençon. But when we see how many spots within that region had been made the sites of these dens of havoc――when we think how many of them had, in the hands of Robert of Bellême, become dens of havoc more fearful than ever――we shall better understand how men cherished the names of William the Great and of his youngest son; we shall better understand the work which had now to be done in the Cenomannian land by one nobler than either the son or the father.
[Sidenote: Wrong and sacrilege of Robert of Bellême.]
[Sidenote: Helias defeats Robert at Saônes.]
[Sidenote: Cruelty of Robert.]
In the minds of Helias and his contemporaries the occupation of so large a part of their country was yet more keenly embittered by the despite done to holy places and the wrong wrought on men who enjoyed exceptional respect even in the fiercest times. Some of the strongholds of Robert the Devil were planted on lands belonging to the Church, especially to the abbeys of Saint Vincent and La Couture without the walls of Le Mans. The peaceful tenants of these religious houses, accustomed to a milder rule than their neighbours, groaned under the oppressions of their new masters.[550] Stirred up by this wrong and sacrilege, the Count of Maine marched forth to protect his people. Now that the King was gone, he even ventured on something like a pitched battle. He met Robert of Bellême at the head of a superior force near the lake and castle of Saônes, not far, it may be, from the dyke which specially bears the tyrant’s name. The pious Count and his followers, calling on God and Saint Julian, attacked the sacrilegious invaders and put them to flight.[551] Several of the nobles of Normandy were wounded or taken prisoners. Robert of Courcy, a name not new to us,[552] lost his right eye. William of Wacey and several others were taken, and were released on the payment of heavy ransoms.[553] Helias, in short, carried on a defensive warfare in the spirit of a Christian knight. Not so his enemy. Robert of Bellême carried on a war of aggression in the spirit of a murdering savage. All the worst horrors of war were let loose upon the land. Robert’s treatment of prisoners was not that which the captive Normans met with at the hands of Helias. In the holy season of Lent, when other sinners, we are told, forsook their sins for a while, the son of Mabel only did worse than ever. Three hundred prisoners perished in his dungeons. Large ransoms were offered for their release; but Robert would not forego for money the pleasure of letting them die of cold, hunger, and wretchedness.[554]
[Sidenote: April, 1098.]
[Sidenote: Second victory of Helias. April 28, 1098.]
[Sidenote: Helias taken prisoner near Dangeul.]
The war thus went on till the end of April. On the Wednesday in the last week of that month Helias made an expedition against Robert. The exact point of attack is not told us; but doubtless it was some of the fortresses held by the enemy. It was perhaps Perray, the hostile point furthest to the south, perhaps Saônes, the scene of his own former victory over the invaders. The starting-points of the Count’s operations were the two points which he held as outposts of the city against attacks from the north, Ballon and his own immediate dwelling-place at Dangeul. From these castles Helias led forth his forces. The day’s skirmish was successful; the pride of Robert the Devil received another check.[555] But fortune soon turned from the better to the worse cause. The Count bade the main body of his followers march on to Ballon, while he himself, with seven knights only, was minded to halt at his own castle of Dangeul. As he drew near to the fortress, he saw a few men lurking among the trees and bushes.[556] Trees and bushes are still there in abundance, surrounding the modern house which in a figure represents the castle of Helias. The presence of liers-in-wait so near his own home was threatening. Helias rode against them and scattered them; in so doing he also scattered his own small party. But the few men in the thickets were only the advanced guard of a larger body. The arch-fiend Robert was himself near in ambush. At the lucky moment he sprang forth; his comrades seized the Count, along with his standard-bearer Hervey of the Cenomannian Montfort,[557] and the more part of his small following. The few who escaped made their way to Ballon, to turn the joy of their comrades into sorrow at the news that Count Helias was a prisoner.[558]
[Sidenote: Contrast between Robert of Bellême and William Rufus.]
[Sidenote: Helias surrendered to the King.]
[Sidenote: William and Helias.]
[Sidenote: Helias kept at Rouen.]
The noblest man in Gaul was now at the mercy of the vilest. Helias was helpless in the hands of Robert of Bellême. The tale which follows is picturesque in itself, and it is specially valuable as throwing light on the mixed character of the Red King. With all his evil deeds, he was at least not the worst man with whom we have to do. We now see what mere chivalry could do and what it could not do. It could not raise a man to the level of Helias; but it kept him from sinking to the level of Robert of Bellême. Helias was far too important a captive to be left to die a lingering death in the dungeons of Robert. He was taken to Rouen, and handed over to the King; and in the King’s hands he at least ran no risk as to life or limb. William Rufus might perhaps not understand a patriot fighting for his city and country. He could perhaps understand a prince fighting for the inheritance of his fathers. He could most fully understand and admire a gallant and honourable knight fighting manfully in any cause, even though his gallantry was directed against himself. In one or other of those characters, Helias extorted a kind of respect from the King who was so bitterly enraged against him. The fortune of war had gone against the defender of Maine, but William was not disposed to press his advantage harshly. Helias was kept in the castle of Rouen, a prisoner, but a prisoner whose durance was, by the King’s express order, relieved by honourable treatment.[559]
[Sidenote: State of things at Le Mans;]
[Sidenote: the new municipality.]
[Sidenote: Bishop Hildebert and the Council.]
[Sidenote: William’s council at Rouen.]
[Sidenote: His speech.]
[Sidenote: A great levy ordered.]
One element of the Cenomannian state, and that the highest, was thus lost to it. But at Le Mans the prince was only one element in the state; the ecclesiastical and the civic powers appear alongside of him at every stage. As soon as the Count was in the hands of the enemy, another power, perhaps not the old commune, yet some form of republican or municipal government, at once sprang up. Bishop Hildebert appears at the head of a council or assembly of some kind which devised measures daily for the safety of the commonwealth.[560] We must not build too much on the expressions of rhetorical writers who loved to bring in classical allusions; still, considering what Le Mans had been, a momentary burst of the old freedom is no more than we might reasonably look for. If so, the restored commonwealth had, at its first birth, to brave the full might of the younger William, as the former commonwealth had had to brave the full might of the elder. We can only tell the tale as we have it, and we have no means of connecting what was going on in Maine with what was going on at the same time in the Vexin. Yet one is a little surprised to find William, at this stage of the year, sitting quietly at Rouen, holding a council, and presently sending forth orders for the levying of a great army, as if two wars were not already waging. In his council of the Norman barons the Red King is made to express himself in a humane and devout strain. Hitherto he had been careless about winning back the heritage of his father; he had been unwilling, for the mere sake of enlarging his dominions, to trouble a peaceful population or to cause the death of human beings.[561] Now however God, who knew his right, had, without any knowledge of his, delivered his enemy into his hands; what should he do further?[562] The writers of these times do indeed allow themselves strange liberties in putting speeches, and sometimes very inappropriate speeches, into the mouths of the actors in their story. But surely to put words like these into the mouth of William Rufus, as something uttered in seriousness, would be going beyond any conceivable licence of this kind. Considering his better authenticated speeches, one is tempted to believe that we have here the memory of some mocking gibe. He, King William, had not laid waste the fields of Maine nor caused men to die of hunger in prison. It was only Robert of Bellême who had done such things. It would be quite in character with Rufus, as with Jehu, to ask, Who slew all these?[563] Nor is such brutal mockery in any way inconsistent with the display of chivalrous generosity whenever any appeal is made personally to himself in his knightly character. Anyhow we are told that the barons advised that a summons should go forth bidding the whole force of Normandy to come together for an expedition to win back the land of Maine. They themselves would come, willingly and with all daring, in their own persons.[564]
[Sidenote: Numbers of the army.]
All this reads strangely in a narrative which, a page or two before, had told us of the warfare around Gisors which, one would think, must have been going on at this very moment. But we read that the messengers went forth, and that the host came together. Not only from Normandy, but from Britanny and Flanders, from Burgundy and France――not a word as to the treason implied in this last name――men flocked to the banners of the prince who was so bountiful a paymaster.[565] At some stage of their march, an aged French warrior, a survivor of the wars of King Henry――one therefore who could remember the ambush of Varaville and the flames of Mortemer, perhaps even the clashing of lances at Val-es-dunes――Gilo de Soleio by name, beheld the host from the top of a high hill. He had seen many and great gatherings of men, but never on this side the Alps――had he fought then in Apulia or at Dyrrhachion?――had he seen so vast an army. He told the number of the men at fifty thousand.[566] Be the figures trustworthy or not as to this particular army, this is one of several hints which help to show us what passed in those days for an army of unusual numbers.[567]
[Sidenote: The army meets at Alençon. June, 1098.]
[Sidenote: The army at Fresnay.]
[Sidenote: The castle and church of Fresnay.]
[Sidenote: Beaumont-le-Vicomte.]
[Sidenote: The Viscount Ralph asks for a truce.]
[Sidenote: Rufus grants it.]
[Sidenote: Action of Geoffrey of Mayenne.]
The trysting-place of this great host was at Alençon, the border town and fortress of Normandy, where the Sarthe divides the Norman and Cenomannian lands.[568] Once famous as the town whose people had felt so stern a vengeance for their insults to the great William, it was now a stronghold of Normandy against Maine, at all events a stronghold of Robert of Bellême against those who still maintained the cause of the captive Helias. There the army met in June.[569] Rufus, in invading Maine, was repeating an exploit of his father. He entered by the same road, and began by threatening the same fortress. The words of our authorities may lead us to think that he himself tarried at Alençon, while his army, or the bulk of it, marched to Fresnay.[570] Fresnay-le-Vicomte, Fresnay-on-Sarthe, was the first castle in Maine to which the Conqueror had laid siege, and under its walls Robert of Bellême had been girt with the belt of knighthood.[571] At that time Fresnay, along with Beaumont lower down the river, had dared to withstand the invader. Both fortresses stand on heights overlooking the Sarthe; Fresnay, seated on a limestone rock rising sheer from the stream, might seem well able to defy any enemy. Of the ancient part of the castle nothing is left but shattered walls and a stern gateway of a later age. The church, a gem of the art of an age nearly a hundred years later, contains only a small part which can have been standing in the days of Rufus. Beaumont is not mentioned in our present story. But its square keep must have already looked down on the Sarthe and its islands, while a mound on each side of the town, one seemingly artificial, one by the river-side only improved by art, may perhaps mark the sites of besieging towers raised by the Conqueror to bring town and castle into subjection.[572] The then lord of Fresnay and Beaumont, the Viscount Hubert, had at a later stage forsaken both his castles on the Sarthe, to defy, and that successfully, the whole might of William the Great from his more inaccessible donjon on the rock of Sainte-Susanne.[573] His successor, the Viscount Ralph, felt no call to run any such risks. When the army drew near to Fresnay, when no hostilities beyond a little skirmishing had as yet taken place, Ralph went to the King at Alençon and asked for a truce. He pleaded that he was but one member of a body; he could not take on himself the duties of the head of that body; he could not without dishonour be the first man in Maine to yield his castle without fighting. The council of Maine was sitting in the city; he, Ralph, was bound by their resolves; let the King go on to Le Mans and negotiate; as he should find peace or war at Le Mans, he should find peace or war at Fresnay.[574] Rufus, always ready to answer any appeal to his personal generosity, praised the proposal of Ralph, and granted him the truce which he asked for.[575] He did the like to others whose lands lay on his line of march. Among these we hear of Rotrou of the Cenomannian Montfort, and of one whose name has for so many years been sure to meet us the first moment he set foot on Cenomannian soil, the now surely aged Geoffrey of Mayenne.[576]
[Sidenote: Estimate of their conduct.]
[Sidenote: Fulk Rechin at Le Mans.]
[Sidenote: May 5, 1098.]
[Sidenote: He is received.]
[Sidenote: Fulk’s son Geoffrey left at Le Mans.]
The conduct of these lords seems to show lukewarmness, to say the least, in the cause of Cenomannian independence. We are again reminded of the days of the commune, of the unwillingness of the nobles to accept the republican government, of the special treason of Geoffrey himself.[577] We can understand that many of the lords of castles throughout Maine, though they might prefer their own count to the king who came against them, might yet prefer the king to any form of commonwealth. The local historian does not scruple to use strong language on the subject. For we can hardly doubt that Geoffrey, Ralph, Rotrou, and others in the like case, are the persons who are referred to as the faithless men by whose consent Rufus was led to hasten to the city.[578] But the King had another motive to call him thither. By this time there was no longer a commonwealth to be dealt with; Le Mans had again a prince, though no longer her native prince. In the very week after Helias was taken prisoner, Fulk of Anjou came to Le Mans, and brought with him his son Geoffrey. He himself came in his character of superior lord,[579] while Geoffrey, to whom Eremburga, the only child of Helias, was betrothed, might pass in some sort for the heir of the county.[580] The citizens, we are told, received the Angevin count willingly; any master was better than the Norman. Fulk put garrisons in the fortresses of La Mans, with his son in command. He then left the city, seemingly for operations in other parts of Maine.[581]
[Illustration: LE MANS E. Weller For the Delegates of the Clarendon Press.]
[Sidenote: March of Rufus.]
[Sidenote: Castle of Bourg-le-roi.]
[Sidenote: Rufus at Montbizot]
[Sidenote: and Coulaines.]
[Sidenote: View of Le Mans.]
[Sidenote: Rufus ravages Coulaines.]
Against this new enemy William Rufus set out from Alençon. He had to overtake the host which was already at Fresnay. He crossed the Sarthe; he continued his course along its left bank, and stopped for the first time at Rouessée-les-fontaines.[582] This point is no great distance from Alençon, and it is still some way north of Fresnay. The present village of Rouessée contains no signs of any castle or mansion fitted for a king’s reception. One suspects that the exact spot meant must be the neighbouring castle of Bourg-le-roi, a castle said to take its name from Rufus himself. Here a ruined round tower, with walls of amazing thickness and girded by a deep ditch, looks down from a small hill on what seems to be the preparation for a large town which has never been built. A small village and church are sheltered within walls of vast compass, pierced by gates of later date than the days of Rufus and Helias. His next stage is distinctly spoken of as an encampment. The King had now joined his army. That night his camp was pitched at Montbizot, in the peninsula between the Sarthe and the Cenomannian Orne.[583] On the third day he encamped in the meadows, by the Sarthe, hard by the village of Coulaines.[584] He was still on the left bank of the river, the same bank as the city itself, though the bend which the stream makes immediately under the hill of Le Mans gives the city almost the look of standing on the other side. Wide meadows spread from the village of Coulaines to the foot of the hill; they were now covered by the tents of Rufus. Right before the eyes of the army, high on its hill, rose the city which they were come to attack, and it rose so as to bring at once before their leader’s eyes the objects which would specially stir up his wrath. As Le Mans is seen from the meadows of Coulaines, the city and its hill lie almost out of sight to the south-west. The prominent objects are those which stand in the north-east corner of the city and in the adjoining suburb. Highest of all, rising above the city itself, soared the abbey of Saint Vincent without the walls, the house whose tenants had been so cruelly oppressed by Robert of Bellême.[585] Saint Julian’s, on its lower ground, almost closes in the view on the other side. When Rufus drew nigh, the twin towers of Howel rose high in all the freshness of their newly-finished masonry, to remind the King that the chair of the prelate whom his father had appointed was now filled by a successor in whose choice no regard had been paid to his own pleasure. Between the two minsters rose the royal tower, the tower of his father, the fortress which had passed away from him and from his father’s house, held no longer even by a rebellious vassal, as he might deem Helias, but by the invading stranger from Anjou. How deeply one at least of these feelings rankled in the mind of Rufus is shown by his dealings with the immediate neighbourhood of his encampment. The village of Coulaines was an episcopal lordship. For the churl chivalry taught no mercy; in his wrath against Hildebert, the King burned the church and the whole village, and cruelly laid waste the neighbouring lands.[586]
[Sidenote: Sally from the city.]
[Sidenote: Rufus goes away.]
[Sidenote: Ballon betrayed to Rufus and occupied by Robert of Bellême.]
[Sidenote: The siege of Le Mans raised.]
But however fiercely Rufus might wreak his spite on the unlucky lands and tenants of the bishopric without the walls, the flock of Hildebert within the city was safe for a while. Le Mans was not to pass into the King’s hands just yet, and Ralph of Beaumont and Geoffrey of Mayenne might still keep their bat-like nature for some while longer. For it is at this stage that the local historian places an exploit of the citizens of Le Mans which reminds us of the way in which our own Godwine was said to have won the special favour of Cnut for himself and his fellow-Englishmen.[587] The men of the city marched forth――whether under Angevin leadership we are not told――to attack the King’s camp at Coulaines. Rufus, deeming that some treachery was on foot, marched off in the night with his army. In the morning the citizens occupied the camp and found no one there.[588] It is hard to say what we are to make of this story, which has a somewhat mythical sound. But it has at least thus much of truth in it, that Rufus was obliged to break up the siege of Le Mans for a while. The castle of Ballon, of which we have already so often heard, was betrayed to Rufus by its lord Pagan of Mont-Doubleau, and it was held that this strong position, nearly due north of the city, almost put the city itself into the King’s power. Robert of Bellême was put in command at Ballon, with three hundred knights. At his bidding the land was ravaged in every way; the vines were rooted up and the crops were trampled down. But at last the invaders began to feel the effects of the damage they themselves had done. A failure of provisions, especially of oats for the horses, hindered the Red King from keeping on the siege.[589] He went away into Normandy, bidding his men go home and see to their harvests, and come again when the crops were reaped.[590] Nothing is more natural in the case of the native Normans, who would feel in such a case very much as Englishmen felt; but one can hardly believe that William allowed his great mercenary force to be wholly broken up. And again, the question keeps always presenting itself, What was going on in the Vexin? Was there any moment when so eager a warrior, with two wars on his hands at once, left both of them to take care of themselves? Throughout this story the relations between the French and the Cenomannian wars form a never-ceasing puzzle. But we presently come to an incident of the campaign which is the most characteristic in the whole history of William Rufus.
[Sidenote: Fulk attacks Ballon.]
[Sidenote: Successful sally of the besieged.]
[Sidenote: William at Ballon, c. July 20, 1098.]
[Sidenote: His treatment of the captive knights.]
[Sidenote: Illustration of the chivalrous spirit.]
While William was away, Count Fulk, at the head of a mixed host, Angevin and Cenomannian, laid siege to the newly-betrayed castle of Ballon. The attack went on for some days; a message was sent to the King for help. To meet this fresh danger, the nobles of Maine and Anjou pressed in greater numbers to help the Count and his force. The defenders of the castle planned a sally. Beggars went out as spies, and brought in news that the besiegers were busy dining at the hour of tierce. The sally was made; the besiegers were surprised in the midst of their meal;[591] a hundred and forty knights and a crowd of foot-soldiers were taken prisoners. The rest took to flight and left a rich spoil of arms, clothes, and furniture as a prey to the Normans. Many of the captives were men of high rank and great possessions. The story almost reads as if Robert of Bellême condemned them to die of hunger; if so, Rufus came before hunger had done its work; cold would no longer be a means of torture. It was now not Lent, but the third week in July, when King William with a great force came to Ballon. A cry presently reached him from the prisoners, “Noble King William, set us free.” The chivalrous King, who had no mercy for the peasants of Coulaines, felt his heart stirred towards the captive knights of Anjou. He ordered that a meal should be made ready for them along with his own followers, and he set them free on their parole till the meal was ready. Some of his companions suggested to him that, in the crowd and confusion, they might easily escape. Rufus cast aside such a suggestion with scorn. He would never believe that a good knight would break his word; he who should do so would have punishment enough in the scorn of all mankind that would follow him.[592] Here we see the chivalrous character in all its fulness. Justice and mercy go for nothing; the law of God and the law of man go for nothing; the oath of the crowned king, the promise of a prince and a brother, go for nothing; but the class tie of knighthood is sacred; the promise made under its guaranty is sacred. As a good knight, William Rufus is faithful to his own word pledged as such to others; as a good knight, he will not believe that a brother of his order can be other than faithful to his word pledged as such to him.
[Sidenote: Fulk goes back to Le Mans.]
[Sidenote: Negotiations for peace.]
[Sidenote: Share of Helias.]
[Sidenote: Convention between William and Fulk. August, 1098.]
[Sidenote: Le Mans to be surrendered.]
[Sidenote: Helias to be set free.]
The siege of Ballon was at an end. Fulk, we are told, betook himself to the city, and there stayed in some of the monasteries, waiting to see what would happen.[593] But the defenders of Le Mans, both native and Angevin, had now made up their minds that resistance to the power of Rufus was hopeless; their object was to treat for peace. The captive Helias was allowed a share in the negotiations; he was specially fearful that Fulk might make some agreement by which he himself might be cut off from Maine for ever.[594] By the King’s leave, Bishop Hildebert and some of the chief men of the city visited Helias, and they agreed on terms which were put into the form of an agreement between Rufus and Fulk. It was rather a military convention than a treaty of peace, and it left all the disputed questions unsettled. Nothing was said either as to the general question about the bishopric or as to the particular election of Hildebert. Nor was it at all ruled who was to be looked on as lawful Count of Maine. It was not even agreed that hostilities were to cease. The actual terms are conceived in words which seem to come from Rufus himself. The memory of his father is put prominently forward. Le Mans and all the fortresses which had been held by the late King William were to be surrendered to King William his son. Helias and all other prisoners on both sides were to be set free.[595] All sides, we are told, rejoiced at this agreement. To William and his followers it was a great immediate triumph. To the people of Le Mans it was at least immediate deliverance from a wasting struggle. And wary men may have seen that the liberation of Helias was not too dearly bought even by the surrender of his capital. If the valiant Count were set free, free alike from fetters and from promises, he would win back his lost city and dominion before long.
[Sidenote: Submission of Le Mans.]
[Sidenote: The castles occupied by the King’s troops.]
But for the present all went according to the pleasure of the Red King. Rufus, as his father had twice done, entered Le Mans without bloodshed, amidst at least the outward welcome of its inhabitants. And it may well be that, if Helias was not to be had, they may have looked on William as a more promising master than Fulk. The convention was formally accepted, and it was immediately carried out. Robert the son of Hugh of Montfort, that Hugh whom we have already heard of on Senlac and at Dover,[596] was sent at the head of seven hundred chosen knights, full armed in their helmets and coats of mail, to occupy the fortresses of Le Mans.[597] They met with no opposition; the garrisons, native or Angevin, marched out; the Normans took possession. All the strong places of the city――the ancient palace of the counts on the Roman wall――the donjon of William the Great, the royal tower, standing so dangerously near to the north wall of Saint Julian’s minster――the other fortress of the Conqueror, the tower of Mont Barbet on its height, overlooking the city from the side of Saint Vincent’s abbey――all that the father had either subdued or called into being――now passed without a blow into the hands of the son. The King’s banner――what was the ensign wrought upon it?――was hoisted amid shouts of victory on the highest point of the royal tower. King William the Red had achieved the object which in his thoughts came nearest to the nature of a duty. He had brought under his hand all that had ever been under the hand of his father.[598]
[Sidenote: William’s entry into Le Mans.]
[Sidenote: His reception by Hildebert.]
[Sidenote: The church of Saint Julian.]
On the day of the military occupation followed the day of the joyous entry. The Red King entered, doubtless by the northern gate, the gate between Saint Vincent’s abbey and the royal tower. His new subjects welcomed him with shouts and songs, and were received by him to his full peace.[599] Bishop Hildebert, seemingly now admitted to favour, with his clergy and people, met the King with psalms and processions. They led him by the royal tower, with his own banner floating on its battlements, to the cathedral church, now a vaster and more splendid pile than when the first Conqueror had been led to it with the same pomp.[600] The twin towers of Howel soared in their freshness; the aisles which we still see, with their abiding Roman masonry, had risen at his bidding; it may well have been by the mighty portal of his rearing that Rufus entered within the hallowed walls. Within, the sight was different in every stone, in every adornment, from that on which we now gaze. The columns and arches of Saint Julian’s nave were still the columns and arches of the basilica which Aldric had raised when Le Mans was a city of the Empire of the pious Lewis.[601] It may be that of those columns we can here and there spell out some faint traces amid the finer masonry and gorgeous foliage of the next age. But of the works to the east, still new when Rufus came, the splendid reconstructions of later times have left us no signs. The choir of Arnold still blazed in all its freshness with the rich decorations which had been added by the skill and bounty of Howel. The first bloom had not passed away from the painted ceiling, from the rich pavement, from the narrow windows glowing with the deep richness of colour which no later age could surpass. Through all these new-born splendours of the holy place the scoffer and blasphemer was solemnly guided to the shrines of Saint Julian and of all the saints of Le Mans. And there were moments when the heart of Rufus was not wholly shut against better thoughts. As at Saint Martin of the Place of Battle, so at Saint Julian in newly-won Le Mans, we may deem that some dash of thankfulness was mingled with his swelling pride, as he felt that he had finished his father’s work.
[Sidenote: William leaves Le Mans.]
[Sidenote: General submission of Maine.]
The stay of William at Le Mans does not seem to have been long. The government of the city was put into the hands of Count William of Evreux and of Gilbert of Laigle. The royal tower, well provisioned, stocked with arms and with all needful things, was placed under the immediate command of Walter the son of Ansgar of Rouen.[602] The nobles of Maine now came in to make their submission and to receive the King’s garrisons into their castles. Among them were Count Geoffrey of Mayenne and the Viscount Ralph of Beaumont. The terms of their engagement were fulfilled. Their castles were to follow the fortune of Le Mans, and Le Mans now was King William’s.[603]
[Sidenote: Meeting of William and Helias.]
[Sidenote: Proposals of Helias.]
But he who had lately been the lord of them all was waiting for the benefits of the convention to be extended to himself. We are a little surprised when we presently find the King at Rouen, and when we further find that Helias, who had been lately in ward in the castle there, had now to be brought hither from a prison at Bayeux.[604] The King and his captive met face to face. The contrast between the outward look of the two men was as striking as the difference in their inward souls. Before the victorious King, short, bulky, ruddy, fierce of countenance, hasty and stammering in speech, stood the captive Count, tall, thin, swarthy, master of eloquent and winning words. Something of bodily neglect marked, perhaps not so much the rigour of his confinement as a captive’s carelessness of wonted niceties. His hair, usually neatly trimmed, was now rough and shaggy.[605] The King seems to have begun the dialogue;[606] “I have you, Sir.” Helias answered with dignity and respect, as a man of fallen fortunes speaking to a superior in rank, and yet not stooping to any unworthy submission. He called on the King, in the name of his might and his renown, to help him. He had once, he said, been a count, lord of a noble county. Fortune had now turned against him, and he had lost all. He asked leave to enter the King’s service, to be allowed to keep his rank and title of count, but pledging himself not to make any claim to the Cenomannian county or city, till by some signal exploit on the King’s behalf he should be deemed worthy to receive them as a grant from the King’s free will. Till then it would be enough for him to have his place in the royal following and to enjoy the royal friendship.
[Sidenote: William disposed to accept Helias’ proposal.]
[Sidenote: He is hindered by Robert of Meulan.]
[Sidenote: Defiance of Helias.]
[Sidenote: Answer of Rufus.]
[Sidenote: Helias set free.]
Such an appeal as this went straight to the better part of William’s nature, and he was at once disposed to agree to the proposal of Helias. But then stepped in the selfish prudence of Robert of Meulan, who measured other men by himself. He was now the King’s chief adviser, and he jealously grudged all influence which might fall to the lot of any one else.[607] The admission of Helias to the King’s friendship and councils would of all things be the least suited for Robert’s purposes. He could not bear that any man, least of all a man of a spirit so much higher than his own, should be so near the throne as Helias threatened to be. The men of Maine, said the Count of Meulan, were a cunning and faithless race. All that the captive Helias sought by his offers was to insinuate himself into the King’s favour, to learn his secrets, that he might be able, when a fitting moment came, to rise up against him with more advantage and join himself to his enemies with greater power. The purpose of Rufus was changed by the malignant counsel of Count Robert. The petition of Helias was refused; it was again made; it was again refused. Then the Count of Maine spoke his defiance. “Willingly, Sir King, would I have served you, if it had been your pleasure; willingly would I have earned favour in your sight. But now, I pray you, blame me not, if I take another course. I cannot bear with patience to see mine inheritance taken from me. All right is denied to me by overwhelming violence; wherefore let no man wonder if I again renew my claim, if I strive with all my might to win back the honour of my fathers.” Rufus was beside himself with wrath at words like these; but it was in words only that his wrath spent itself. He stammered out, “Scoundrel, what can you do? Be off, march, take to flight; I give you leave to do all you can, and, by the face of Lucca, if you ever conquer me, I will not ask you for any grace in return for my favour of to-day.” Even after this outburst, the Count had self-command enough to ask for a safe-conduct, and the King had self-command enough to grant it. Helias was guided safely through the Norman duchy, and made his way, to the delight of his friends, to his own immediate possessions on the borders of Maine and Anjou.[608]
[Sidenote: Illustration of the King’s character.]
Of all the stories of the Red King there is none more characteristic than this. His first impulse is to accept a generous and confiding offer in the spirit in which it was made. For a moment he seems to rise to the level of the man who stood before him. Even when his better impulse is checked by an evil counsellor, he does not sink so low as many would have sunk in the like case. In the wildest wrath of his insulted pride, he does not forget that his word as a good knight is pledged to the man who has defied him. Rufus was bound by all the laws of chivalry to let Helias go this time, whatever he might do if he caught him again. And the laws of chivalry Rufus obeyed in the teeth of temptations of opposite kinds. A meaner tyrant might have sent Helias at once to death or blinding. A calmer or more wary prince, even though not a tyrant, might have argued that it was unsafe for him and his dominions to let the man go free who had uttered such a challenge. He might further have argued that a speech which was so like an open declaration of war at once set aside the conditions of peace. But William Rufus, when once on his point of honour, was not led away from it either by the impulse of vengeance or by the calculations of prudence. His knightly word was pledged that Helias should go free. Free therefore he went, after his defiance had been answered by a counter defiance, each alike emphatically characteristic of the man who uttered it.
§ 3. The End of the French War.
September-December, 1098.
[Sidenote: William on the continent. 1097-1099.]
[Sidenote: Extent of William’s conquests in Maine.]
[Sidenote: He begins, but does not finish.]
The war of Maine was, or seemed to be, over. And, just at this point we get a chronology clear enough to enable us to fix the connexion of the two works which were going on at once. We have seen William in his Norman capital at a time when we should rather have looked for him on one or other of his Norman frontiers. But it seems plain that he spent the whole year on the mainland, and that he did not cross to England at any time between the two Christmas feasts which he is specially said to have kept in Normandy. Helias was set free in August, and we are led to believe that Rufus now deemed that the war of Maine was over, or at least that he could afford to despise it in its present stage. We shall presently see that the war of Maine was by no means over, and that William’s Cenomannian conquests hardly reached beyond the capital and the lands north of the capital. We are inclined to wonder that a warlike prince like Rufus took no further heed to a campaign which was manifestly unfinished, while an active enemy was again at liberty and was still in possession of a strong line of castles. But this is neither the first nor the last time in which we find William the Red much more vigorous in beginning a campaign than in ending it. And in this case he may, with two wars on his hands, have not unreasonably thought that, after so great a conquest as that of the capital of Maine, he could afford to turn his thoughts to the other seat of warfare. In the month after Helias was set free, he made up his mind for a special effort against the stubborn border-land of France.
[Sidenote: William sets forth. September 27, 1098.]
[Sidenote: The sign in the sky.]
[Sidenote: Its meaning.]
[Sidenote: He marches to Pontoise.]
Two days before Michaelmas, William set forth, from what head-quarters we are not told, at the head of a great army. On his way to the seat of war he enjoyed the hospitality of Ralph of Toesny on the hill of Conches. That night there was a sign in the heavens; the whole sky blazed and seemed as red as blood. At other times such a portent in the heavens might not have seemed too great to betoken some great victory or defeat on the part of one or other of the contending kings of the West. But, while Christendom was on its march to the eastern land, the heavens could tell of nothing meaner than the ups and downs of the strifes between two continents and two creeds. If the sky was red over Conches and Evreux and the whole western world, it was because at that moment Christians and heathens met in battle in the eastern lands, and by God’s help the Christians had the victory.[609] But William Rufus cared little for signs and wonders, even when he himself was deemed to be the subject of their warning. His heart was not in Palestine, but on the French border; and his present business was a march against the most distant of the three fortresses to which he laid claim. Chaumont and Trie still held out; but their garrisons could not hinder him from carrying a destructive raid into districts far more distant from his head-quarters at Gisors. He marched to the south-east, burning, plundering, and carrying off prisoners from the whole French territory as far as Pontoise.[610]
[Sidenote: Castle and town of Pontoise.]
[Sidenote: Strong position of the town.]
[Sidenote: Pontoise the furthest point of the raid.]
The invading King had now reached a point of French soil nearer to Paris than the spot where Count Robert kept the Seine barred at Meulan. At Pontoise, as the name implies, was the bridge spanning the Oise, the tributary which joins its waters with those of the Seine at Conflans――the Gaulish Confluentes――between Paris and Meulan. Here a precipitous rock rises above the stream, a rock which, strengthened and defended by art in every way, was crowned by the vast circuit of the castle of Pontoise. Here is no town sloping down from the castle to the river. The castle rock rises sheer――it rose most likely from the water itself, till the Oise, like the Seine at Rouen, was curbed by a quay. In the view from the bridge, the castle, shorn as it is of its towers and of all that can give stateliness to such a building, still lords it over everything. The town of Pontoise seems to crouch by the side of the rock; the great church of Saint Maclou, with its lofty tower of late architecture, is wholly hidden from sight. It is only at some distance beyond the river, in the suburb known as that of Saint Ouen l’Aumône, that we begin to see that the church stands on ground not much lower than the site of the castle. We then learn that the town of Pontoise, standing on a height separate from the castle-rock, well walled, and with streets as steep as those of Le Mans or Lincoln, was in itself no contemptible fortress. As usual, there is little or nothing in town or church or castle that we can positively assign to the period of our story. But the main features of the spot must be the same now as they were when the Red King led his plundering host as far as the bridge of the Oise. It is plain that this was the end of his course on this side; it is plain that Pontoise was not added to the list of fortresses which were taken by him or betrayed to him. But we have nothing to explain why he turned back at this point, whether he met with any repulse in an attack on Pontoise or whether he attacked Pontoise at all. We only know that Pontoise marks in one sense the furthest point of the French campaigns of William Rufus. We shall presently find him on another side at a greater distance from his own dominions; but Pontoise marks his nearest approach to the capital of France. Had Pontoise been William’s as well as Meulan, Paris would indeed have been threatened. But this south-eastern journey was clearly, in its effect at least, a mere plundering raid, from which Rufus came back to attempt a more regular attack on the nearer enemy at Chaumont.
[Sidenote: Siege of Chaumont.]
[Sidenote: The archers of Chaumont shoot the horses only.]
[Sidenote: Chaumont not taken.]
The siege of Chaumont is described to us in greater detail than the march on Pontoise, but we do not, any more than at Pontoise, get a really intelligible account. It is plain that the siege was a considerable enterprise, one to which Rufus led his whole army. It is also plain from the result that its issue must have an important effect on the turn of affairs. But of the siege itself all that we hear is one of those strange stories by which we are sometimes met, stories which must have some meaning, which must be grounded on some fact, and which yet, as they stand, pass all belief. We are told that the defenders of Chaumont were valiant men, strong to defend the battlements of their own castle. But to defend their own castle was all that they could do; their numbers were not enough to enable them either to meet William’s great army in open battle, or even to hinder his plunderers from laying waste the neighbouring lands. But the defence of Chaumont itself was stout, and, as it turned out, successful. Yet we are told that the garrison of Chaumont, out of the fear of God and out of tenderness towards men, stood strictly on the defensive, or took the offensive only towards brute beasts. In taking aim at the besiegers, they avoided the persons of the riders, and aimed all their blows at the horses. Seven hundred horses of great price fell under the arrows and darts of the men of Chaumont, and their carcases made a rich feast for the dogs and birds of prey of the Vexin.[611] The virtue of these scrupulous warriors did not go unrewarded. Our story breaks off somewhat suddenly; but we see that at all events Chaumont was not taken.
[Sidenote: Rare notices of southern Gaul.]
[Sidenote: Coming of William of Poitiers.]
[Sidenote: Alliance of Normandy and Aquitaine.]
The war now takes a turn of special interest, which makes us specially regret the very unsatisfactory nature of our materials. The field of our story is suddenly enlarged; but events do not crowd it at all in proportion to its enlargement. It is but seldom that our tale brings us into any direct dealing with the lands and the princes south of the Loire. We have seen the tongue of oil supplant the Danish tongue in Normandy, and we have seen it appear as a rival to our own speech in our own island. But we have been seldom called on to listen to the accents of the tongue of oc. But at this moment the chief potentate of that tongue suddenly appears on the field of our story, an appearance from which we naturally look for great events. The young lord of the Vexin and heir of France had to meet a new enemy, almost as powerful, and quite as reckless and godless, as the old one. Another William, William of Poitiers and Aquitaine, came to the help of William of Normandy and England.[612] He was in the end to go to the crusade――to go not exactly in the guise of Godfrey or Helias.[613] But he had not yet set out; and, before he went, he came to strike a blow on behalf of the prince to whom he was said to have sold the reversion of his dominions. The mighty dukes of the North and the South might seem to have utterly hemmed in the smaller realm of the king whose men they were or should have been.[614] The final results of their alliance were not memorable, but the coming of the southern duke had the immediate effect of carrying the war into districts little used to the presence of English or even of Norman warriors.
[Sidenote: Campaign to the west of Paris.]
[Sidenote: Valley of the Maudre.
[Sidenote: Maule.]
[Sidenote: Montfort-l’Amaury.]
[Sidenote: Neauphlé-le-Château.]
[Sidenote: Epernon.]
[Sidenote: The two Williams march against the Montfort castles.]
[Sidenote: Seat of war affected by the coming of William of Poitiers.]
It can hardly fail to have been the march of William of Aquitaine which led to a campaign carried on in the lands west and south-west of Paris, within the triangle which may be drawn between the three points of Mantes, Paris, and Chartres. One side of this triangle is formed by the Seine itself, and here the adhesion of the Count of Meulan must have effectually guarded the seat of war from the north. Somewhat to the west of Meulan, between that fortress and Mantes, the small stream of the Maudre empties itself into the Seine. The course of this stream and the valley through which it flows formed the chief seat of warfare at this stage, seemingly after the attacks on Chaumont had proved fruitless. Small as the Maudre is, its course makes a clearly marked valley, running nearly north and south. About the middle of it lies Maule, the fortress of Peter of Maule, the benefactor of the house of Saint Evroul, and therefore high in favour with its historian. Further to the south, where the stream is a mere brook, the valley widens into a plain between hills, and here some of the strongest points are occupied by the strongholds of the French house of Montfort, numbering among them the spot which gave that house its ever-memorable name. Here rose the hill which above all others glories in the name of the Strong Mount, the home of the Simons and the Amalrics. Under the name of Montfort-l’Amaury it still keeps the less illustrious of the two names, one or other of which was always borne by its successive counts. To the north-east of the cradle of their race, on the other side of the Maudre, the Counts of Montfort had planted another stronghold on a height, which, though all traces of a fortress have passed away, still keeps the name of Neauphlé-le-Château, as distinguished from another place of the same name, Neauphlé-le-Vieux. Much further to the south-west, on the upper course of the Drouelle, a tributary of the Eure, stood Epernon, another fortress of the house of Montfort, a border fortress of the strictly French territory towards the lands of the Counts of Chartres. On this district now fell the heavy wrath of the two Williams, who led a mighty multitude against Montfort and Epernon and laid waste the whole surrounding land. They had traitors in their service; they came under the guidance of Almaric the Young and of Nivard of Septeuil.[615] This last place lies in the valley of the Vaucouleurs, a stream running almost parallel with the Maudre and joining the Seine at Mantes. Such a position, lying nearly due west from Maule, and at a greater distance north-east from Montfort, marks a dangerous outpost thrown out from the Norman side into the heart of the French territory. Of the line of march of the Poitevin duke we have no account; but it must have been his coming which caused the seat of war to be changed from the north-west of the threatened capital of France to the south-west, a region so much better suited for an invader from the south.
[Sidenote: No special mention of Lewis.]
[Sidenote: The castles resist singly.]
[Sidenote: Peter of Maule.]
[Sidenote: The two Simons of Montfort.]
[Sidenote: The elder Simon defends Neauphlé.]
[Sidenote: The castle of Montfort.]
[Sidenote: The church.]
[Sidenote: Defence of the younger Simon.]
[Sidenote: Interest of the defence.]
It is somewhat singular that, while we have so striking a general picture of the courage and conduct of the young Lewis during this struggle, we hear nothing of any particular exploit of his, we hear nothing of any help given by him to any of the threatened fortresses. It is their own lords, each for himself, who withstand, and successfully withstand, the attacks of the powers of North and South. Our chief informant――English, Norman, and French, all at once――enlarges on the failure of Philip to give any help to his vassals; but we should never learn from him that his place was supplied by his son.[616] Every man, it would seem, fought for his own hand. We are told this of a crowd of unnamed lords defending unnamed fortresses. But we are not left to guess at the name of the friend of Saint Evroul, Peter of Maule, who, with his sons Ansold and Theobald, successfully defended his fortress in the valley of the Maudre.[617] We must suppose that the forces of the two Williams were scattered and frittered away in a series of desultory attacks against strongholds scattered all over the country. But to us at least the main interest of the campaign gathers round the dwellings of the house of Montfort. We should be well pleased to have even such details of a warfare which affected them as we have had of the sieges of Chaumont and as we shall presently have of the siege of Mayet. But we hear only of the result, how the arms of the two Simons, elder and younger, defended all the possessions which looked up to the Strong Mount as their head. The elder guarded the height of Neauphlé, where a curve in the hills, theatre-shape, awakens some faint remembrance of the kingly mount of Laon.[618] But the Mons fortis itself, the hill from whence, in after times, Simon the father went to work the bondage of Toulouse and Simon the son to work the freedom of England, must have been among the strongholds which were saved by the energy of the younger bearer of the name which was to be so fearfully and so gloriously renowned. High on its peninsular hill, still keeping some small traces of elder towers along with one graceful fragment of far later days, the castle of Montfort looks down over church and town, over hills and plains, bidding defiance to foes on every side, but bidding the most direct defiance of all to any foe who should advance by the path which must have been trodden by the Aquitanian duke. For of all the outlooks from the height of Montfort the widest and the most striking is that by which the eye looks out towards those southern lands which came so near to forming a South-Gaulish realm for its own lords. The church stands beneath on a lower point of the steep. The works of later times, which have filled its windows with the painted forms of the basest of the later Valois, have spared one side of the more ancient central tower, preserving to us forms which were looked on, not indeed by the Simons of our own immediate story, but by the Simon of Muret and the Simon of Evesham. A gate at the base of the castle mound, though the actual building must be of later date, still keeps the name of that Hugh Bardolf, himself joined by a tie of affinity to the house of Montfort, of whom we have heard elsewhere as one of the most abiding of the enemies of Normandy.[619] Here, while the father defended Neauphlé, the son defended the cradle of their race, and their other outlying possessions. Not a detail is given us; but our historian emphatically tells us that it was by the help of God that the lords of Montfort kept their fortresses safe from the twofold enemy.[620] And, though a King of the English marched against them, though doubtless there was no lack of native English warriors in his train, yet we may join in the pious thankfulness of our guide at Saint Evroul. It was not good for English interests in any wide or lasting sense that the sovereign of England should even hold his ancestral Normandy, much less that he should inherit Aquitaine and conquer France. When the lords of Montfort in the eleventh century beat back from their strongholds all the efforts of England and Normandy, of Poitiers and Aquitaine, they were in truth working in the same cause as their glorious descendant in the thirteenth. Unknowingly and indirectly, they were, no less than he, fighting for the freedom and the greatness of what in their eyes seemed hostile England.
[Sidenote: The war lingers on.]
[Sidenote: Christmas, 1098.]
[Sidenote: No successes of the two Williams.]
[Sidenote: A truce agreed to.]
The war seems to have lingered on through another winter, the second of those when King William kept his Christmas feast in Normandy. But no successes are recorded either of William of England or of William of Aquitaine. The Red King had really done nothing, either alone or in company with his Poitevin ally. The gallant resistance of the men of the French borderland had beaten him back at every point. He was now glad to conclude a truce, which the events which followed made practically a peace.[621]
[Sidenote: Survey of the French war. Its ill-success.]
[Sidenote: Illustration of William’s character.]
It is not at first easy to understand why so very little came of such great preparations as those which William Rufus made for the French war. The strength of two great states, during the later stages of the war the strength of three great states, was broken by efforts which, even allowing as much as we can for the energy of young Lewis, were mainly those of the nobles and people of a single district. England, Normandy, and Aquitaine, were baffled by the men of the French Vexin. It is true indeed that the war of Maine was far from being really ended, but Rufus seems at this stage to have thought little of the efforts of the man whom he had bidden to do his worst against him. Nor was there anything this year in England, as there was the year before, to draw off the King’s attention from continental affairs. Scotland was quiet under a king of his own naming; Magnus did not really threaten England; the Welsh border might be left to Robert of Bellême or those whom he had left in charge. All that we can do is to record this singular break-down of a great force, without being able fully to explain it. One remark may be made. Men of the temper of Rufus often get simply weary of undertakings which bring little success, and in which there is nothing to call forth any special point of personal vengeance or personal honour. Rufus claimed the Vexin; but his heart does not seem to have been set on its possession, as it clearly was set on the possession of Le Mans. There was no one on the French border who had stung him personally to the quick as Helias had done. The want of success in the joint undertaking of the two Williams is certainly hard to understand; but we can quite understand how William of England and Normandy might, in sheer disgust, throw up an undertaking in which he did not at once succeed. When he was once more wounded in the most sensitive part, he was, as we shall presently see, all himself again.
[Sidenote: William keeps Christmas in Normandy. 1098-1099.]
[Sidenote: Easter Gemót. April 10, 1099.]
[Sidenote: Whitsun Gemót in the new hall at Westminster. May 10, 1099.]
William, master of Le Mans, but hardly to be called master of Maine, and assuredly not master of the Vexin, stayed in Normandy during the winter which followed the double war in those regions. The time of his absence is spoken of as a time of special oppression in England, a time when the exactions of Flambard and his fellows grew worse and worse, on account of the great sums which had to be sent over the sea for the King’s wars.[622] The Christmas feast was again kept in Normandy, in what city or castle we are not told, but such incidental notices as we have seem to point to Rouen as his usual head-quarters when he was in the duchy. He came back to England in time for the Easter feast; the feast implies the assembly; but we have no account of its doings; there was no longer in England either an Anselm to afford subjects for discussion or an Eadmer to report the debates. The next festival was of greater importance, if only on account of the place where it was held, a place ever-memorable in the history of England from that day to this. “At Pentecost the King William held his court for the first time in the new building at Westminster.”[623]
[Sidenote: Buildings of William Rufus.]
[Sidenote: They are reckoned among national grievances.]
[Sidenote: Various grievances.]
[Sidenote: Complaints in 1096,]
[Sidenote: in 1097.]
[Sidenote: Signs and wonders in 1098.]
[Sidenote: Bad weather of 1098.]
[Sidenote: The great buildings in London. 1097.]
The architectural works of William Rufus form a marked feature in his reign; but the place which they hold in the national annals is singular. They are set down among the grievances of that unhappy time. Besides the bad weather, which was not the Red King’s fault, and the bad harvests which were deemed to be in some measure his fault, there were the unrighteous taxes and the other forms of unlaw which were directly his fault; lastly there were the great buildings which are set down as not the least among his ways of oppressing the people. We have heard some of the wails which the Chronicler sends up year by year. The year of the purchase of Normandy was a year when the land was pressed down by manifold gelds and by a heavy time of hunger.[624] The next year, the year of Anselm’s going, was a year of signs in the heavens, and of ungelds and unweather below.[625] The next year, the year of Maine, the year of the Vexin, the year of Anglesey, had also its physical wonders. In the summer a pool at Finchampstead in Berkshire was said to have welled up blood.[626] At Michaelmas the heaven seemed well-nigh all night as if it were burning.[627] That was a very grievous year, through manifold ungeld and through mickle rains that all the year never stopped; and――what came home to those who could look back to the bright days of the Golden Borough――well-nigh all tilth in the marsh-land died out.[628] Such are the mournful voices to which we listen year by year; but in the central year of the three another grievance is added. “Eke many shires that with work to London belonged were sorely harassed through the wall that they wrought around the Tower, and through the bridge that well nigh all flooded away was, and through the King’s hall-work that man in Westminster wrought, and many men therewith harassed.”[629]
[Sidenote: Earlier parallels.]
[Sidenote: Abuse of the old law.]
[Sidenote: The bridge and the Tower.]
[Sidenote: Question as to the hall.]
This was the light in which three great works of building on which Englishmen of later days learned to look with national pride were looked on by the men of the time when they were wrought. We hear the cry of the Hebrew in the brick-field toiling to rear up the treasure-cities of the Pharaohs. We hear the cry of the Roman plebeian, as the proud Tarquin constrained him to give the sweat of his brow to fence in the seven hills with walls or to burrow beneath the ground to lay the foundations and turn the arches of the great sewer.[630] So it was in the days of the Red King with the Tower of London, the bridge of London, the hall of Westminster. We may believe that, as so often happened, the old law of England was turned to purposes of oppression. The repair of bridges and fortresses was the universal burthen on the Englishman’s eðel, the duty which he owed, not to a personal lord, but to the commonwealth of which he was a member.[631] In one case at least we know that the defences of the local capital were laid by local law upon the people of the whole shire.[632] What was law at Chester would seem from the words of the Chronicler to have been law in London also. There were certain “shires that with work to London belonged.” William Rufus may therefore have been quite within the letter of the ancient law in calling on the people of certain shires to contribute in money or labour to any works which were needed for either the Tower or the bridge of London. But it is clear that this is the kind of law which opens the way to a great amount of oppression in detail, and that the law itself supplies temptations to extort more than the law gives. The bridge at least was an useful work, and if the men of London thought that the Tower stood by their walls rather to overawe them than to defend them, that was an argument which could not be openly brought forward. But it is by no means clear whether the ancient law about bridges and fortresses could be stretched so as to take in works at the King’s palace. Anyhow the burthen laid on the people was frightfully oppressive, and those who felt the burthen bitterly complained. And, if we rightly understand the Chronicler, the grievance of building the bridge was doubled by a flood which swept away the unfinished work, and made it needful to build it over again.[633]
[Sidenote: Growth of the greatness of London.]
[Sidenote: Relations of London and Winchester.]
Thus, amid the toils and groans of the people, three mighty works arose, to hand down the name of William Rufus to after ages as a great builder. While Rufus was harrying the land of Maine, a land which but for him might have remained peaceful and happy under a righteous ruler, while he was striving in vain to bring the heights of Chaumont and Montfort under his power, the people of a large part of England were giving their strength and their money to make London put on a new face, to make all things ready for the time when the King should again come to his island kingdom to wear his crown in or hard by its greatest city. All these works point, among other things, to the steady growth of the greatness of London. The city had grown fast in importance during the whole century which was now drawing to an end, and at no time faster than during Harold’s nine months of little stillness.[634] London had become the city of the King; Winchester was left to be the city of the Old Lady.[635] The attractions of the New Forest drew the Conqueror, specially after the death of Eadgyth, back again to the old West-Saxon capital; but this preference of Winchester as the head-quarters of sport in no way checked the advance of London as the real head of the kingdom. Harsh as may have been the means by which the Red King raised his great buildings, richly as he and they may have earned the curses of his subjects at the time, we can say nothing against either the taste or the policy which led him to the defence and the adornment of the great city and of the palace which lay under its shadow.
[Sidenote: The wall round the Tower.]
[Sidenote: London Bridge.]
[Sidenote: Westminster Hall.]
[Sidenote: Its two founders.]
[Sidenote: Its architecture.]
[Sidenote: Recasting by Richard the Second.]
[Sidenote: Legal position of the reign of Rufus.]
[Sidenote: History of the hall.]
Notwithstanding any momentary checks, the works went on and prospered. The great tower of Gundulf――strange work for the meek follower of Anselm――was fenced in with a surrounding wall. The river was spanned by its first stone bridge, that long range of narrow arches, itself a thickly-peopled city over the stream, of which the last traces vanished in our own early days. But above all there now arose that famous hall of Westminster whose name has come to be another name for the law of England. Strange founder for such a pile might seem the prince whose reign was before all others the reign of unlaw. And yet it was not wholly unfitting that the Prytaneion of England should first arise at the bidding of William the Red, and should take a new form at the bidding of a later king in whose days unlaw was again mighty. The great hall arose at the bidding of Rufus, in the stern and solemn form of the art of his day――the day, be it remembered, of William of Saint-Calais and the choir of Durham――with its low massive walls, its two ranges of pillars and arches, far removed, we may be sure, from the graceful forms which had been at Spalato and which were to be again at Oakham, but standing firm in their strength, bearing the full impress of the style whose leading feature is that of simple, changeless, abiding, rest.[636] At the bidding of Richard of Bourdeaux the walls were cased, and pierced with windows of forms unknown in the days of the Red King; his pillars and arches were swept away; the central space and its aisles were thrown into a single body; the timber roof of wondrous span and wondrous workmanship leaped boldly from wall to wall, with a daring which might have pleased the swelling pride of Rufus himself. Thus, at the word of two despotic kings, arose the pile which may claim, no less than its neighbours, Saint Peter’s chapter-house and Saint Stephen’s chapel, to be the chosen home of English freedom. For in England law has ever grown out of unlaw. The despotism of Normans and of Tudors only paved the way for the outbursts of freedom in the thirteenth century and in the seventeenth; a reforming Henry dogged the steps alike of Rufus and of Richard. And if from one side the reign of Rufus was a reign of unlaw, from another side it was a reign of overmuch law. It saw the beginning of those legal subtleties, that web woven by the wicked skill of Flambard, which makes the Red King’s day a marked epoch in legal history. His reign bridges the space between the days when we had laws but when we had no lawyers, and the days when lawyers had grown so many and so subtle that the true ends of law were sometimes forgotten among them. If from one side the hall of Westminster has been one of the cradles of English freedom, from another side it has been the special home of that form of unlaw by which men have been sent to a wrongful doom under the outward forms of justice. Of all that is good and bad in the history of the law of England the hall of Rufus is the material embodying. Within no other building reared by the hand of man has so great a share of English history been wrought.
[Sidenote: Object of the hall.]
[Sidenote: Personal pride of Rufus.]
[Sidenote: Legends of the hall.]
[Sidenote: Alleged sayings of Rufus.]
[Sidenote: The Whitsun feast.]
[Sidenote: The sword borne by the King of Scots.]
But it was not directly as the dwelling-place either of law or of its opposite that Rufus first reared his hall. It was built rather as a trophy of his own swelling pride. The home of the Confessor, the home of the Conqueror, was not stately enough for the Red King. He would be lodged, at least in that special home of kingship, as better became the idea which he had formed of his own greatness. It was the hall of the king, rather than the hall of the kingdom, the centre and crown of his own house, the place for the display of his own splendour, which Rufus sought to call into being. When the work was done, other men deemed that it was as great, perhaps greater, than even so great a king could need. But its founder was not satisfied. Nero, when he had finished his Golden House, allowed that he was at last lodged like a man. Rufus, when he had outdone the works of all that had gone before him, hardly deemed that he was lodged like a man in his palace of Westminster. The new hall, when it was done, was not half so great as he had meant it to be.[637] Some add a wilder saying, that he would build a house on such a scale that the great hall should be but one of its bed-chambers.[638] But the hall, such as it was, vast in the eyes of other men, small in the eyes of its master, was ready for use by the day of the Pentecostal feast. Then the assembly came together; then the accustomed rites were gone through in the West Minster; then the banquet and the council were held, as was wont, under its shadow, in the accustomed place, but within new walls and under a new roof. Within those walls, beneath that roof, men for the first time saw King William of England, lord, as he deemed, of Scotland, Normandy, and Maine, in all his own greatness and glory, in all the greatness and glory of his new work. One feature in that great gathering might indeed have helped to swell his heart even higher than it had ever before been swollen. The crown was, as usual, placed on his head in the minster and worn in the hall. And on that day at least he must have felt that the crown which was placed on his head was in truth an imperial diadem. William the Red was not indeed rowed on the Thames by vassal kings, like Eadgar the Giver-of-peace. But in the pomps of that day he saw a king march before him as his vassal, a king who had received his crown at his own bidding. When King William of England wore his cynehelm in church and hall, King Eadgar of Scotland, first of his men in rank and honour, bore the sword of state before his lord.[639] Was that day of pride and pomp merely a day of pride and pomp, or were any of the great affairs of William’s kingdom and empire dealt with in the joint presence of the Monarch of Britain and his kingly vassal? One thing only we know; one act alone of that gathering is recorded. But that act is one which has no small fitness as the one act which we know that the Red King did in his new building.
[Sidenote: Deaths of bishops and abbots.]
[Sidenote: Walkelin of Winchester. January 3, 1098.]
[Sidenote: Character and acts of Walkelin.]
[Sidenote: The monks take possession of Walkelin’s church. April 8, 1093.]
[Sidenote: Walkelin joint-regent with Flambard. 1097.]
[Sidenote: The King’s demand for money. Christmas, 1097-1098.]
The hands of Randolf Flambard must have been just then full of work, and the coffers of King William must have been just then well filled with wealth flowing in from the usual sources. Bishops and abbots had for some time been dying most conveniently for the King and his minister. Within the first few days of the year of Le Mans and Chaumont died the friend, some said the kinsman, of the Conqueror, the Norman Walkelin, the successor of English Stigand in the see of Winchester.[640] Though he had appeared as an adversary of Anselm,[641] though he had once designed to supplant the monks of the Old Minster by secular canons,[642] though he was said to have lessened the revenues of the monks to increase those of the bishopric,[643] he still left behind him a good name in the monastic annals of his church, both for the austerity of his own life and for the affection which he afterwards learned to show to the brethren.[644] Winchester tradition loved to tell of the pious fraud by which he had cajoled the Conqueror out of the whole timber of a great wood towards the rebuilding of his church.[645] It told how, in the year of the King’s temporary penitence, the monks had, in the presence of well-nigh all the prelacy of England, taken possession of the church of Walkelin’s building, and how they had presently gone on to rase to the ground the church of Æthelwald which had been deemed so stately a pile not much more than a hundred years before.[646] It told how, when the King set forth for the French war, the Bishop of Winchester was left as joint-ruler of the realm with the mighty chaplain and Justiciar.[647] And it told the last tale, how, when he had barely entered on his new office, on the very Christmas morning, while the holiest rite of Christian worship was going on, the King’s messenger came to demand two hundred pounds without delay. The Bishop, like Anselm, knew that he could raise no such sum without robbery of the Church and oppression of the poor. He prayed that he might be set free from a world of which he was weary. Two days later his prayer was answered; while the Red King warred at Chaumont and Mayet, Randolf Flambard remained sole ruler of England.[648]
[Sidenote: Death of Turold of Peterborough,]
[Sidenote: and of Robert of New Minster.]
[Sidenote: Death of Baldwin of Saint Eadmund’s. December 29, 1097.]
[Sidenote: Acts of Baldwin.]
[Sidenote: Rebuilding of the Church.]
[Sidenote: Miracles of Saint Eadmund.]
[Sidenote: Osgod Clapa.]
[Sidenote: Bishop Herfast.]
[Sidenote: Robert of Curzon.]
[Sidenote: Completion of the Church. 1094.]
[Sidenote: The King forbids the dedication.]
[Sidenote: Translation of Saint Eadmund. April 30, 1095.]
[Sidenote: Baldwin’s relation to the English.]
On the death of Bishop Walkelin presently followed the deaths of two other heads of great monastic bodies. One was Turold, the martial abbot of Peterborough, of whom we heard in the days of Hereward;[649] the other was Robert of New Minster, he whose staff had been bought for him by his too dutiful son the Bishop of Norwich.[650] And, a few days before the death of Walkelin, another great abbot passed away who was, in a way in which none of those three was, a link with earlier days. Abbot Baldwin of Saint Eadmund’s, the skilful leech of King Eadward, if not himself of English birth, had at least received his staff from an English King. His house had been growing in wealth and fame ever since the penitent devotion of Cnut had changed the secular canons of Beadricsworth into the monks of Saint Eadmund’s. We have already heard of Baldwin’s medical skill and of his strivings for the privileges of his church against the East-Anglian bishopric.[651] He won fame also, like other abbots of his day, as the rebuilder of his church, the church which, besides his royal patron, sheltered the relics of the holy abbot Botolf and the valiant ætheling Jurwine.[652] The latest research has added largely to our knowledge of Baldwin and his house, and has brought to light several details which illustrate the reign of the Red King and the characters of some of the chief actors in it. Saint Eadmund had long ago begun to work signs and wonders. In King Eadward’s day he had avenged himself on our old friend Osgod Clapa, reverenced at Waltham but not reverenced at Saint Eadmund’s, because he had thrust himself into the holy place with his Danish axe in warlike guise on his shoulder.[653] In the days of the elder William, when the dispute was going on between the abbey and the bishopric, the saint had directly interfered to bring Bishop Herfast to a better mind by a bodily chastisement.[654] He had even appeared, as he had done to the tyrant Swegen,[655] mounted and lance in hand, to smite, and in smiting to reform, a courtier of the Conqueror’s, Randolf by name.[656] But we are more concerned with stories which directly bear on our own history. When Roger Bigod did so much evil in eastern England in the days of the general rebellion, Saint Eadmund did not fail to defend his own lands, and to smite with madness a certain Robert of Curzon to whom the rebel had presumed to grant a manor belonging to the abbey.[657] We read too how, when the new church was finished, King William, seemingly in the assembly at Hastings, by what caprice is not explained, gave permission for the translation of the martyr, but forbade the dedication of the church.[658] Meanwhile, a rumour, of which we have heard the like more than once, is spread abroad that the body of Saint Eadmund is not really there, and that the precious things which adorned the empty shrine might well be applied to the objects of the King’s warfare. The danger passed away, and, notwithstanding some opposition from Bishop Herbert, a solemn translation, in the presence of Bishop Walkelin of Winchester and of Randolf the chaplain, removed all doubts.[659] Abbot Baldwin survived this triumph two years and a half. His career had been a long and a busy one. In the course of his warfare with the East-Anglian bishops, he had found it needful to visit Rome, and he too, like others, found how great was the strength of gold and silver at the threshold of the Apostles.[660] He had gone on that journey with English companions, and when he died, during the Christmas feast which followed the departure of Anselm, he was mourned by men of both races.[661]
[Sidenote: Vacancy of Durham.]
[Sidenote: The bishopric granted to Flambard.]
[Sidenote: Consecration of Flambard. June 5, 1099.]
We cannot, as these stories alone show, go very far in the reign of Rufus without coming across the name of Randolf Flambard, chaplain and Justiciar. We are now about to hear of him in a new character. The churches of the prelates who so opportunely died, remained unfilled; their temporalities passed into the King’s hands; their revenues were to be gathered in, their tenants were to be squeezed as might be needful, by the zealous care of the faithful Randolf. But one church, of higher dignity than all these, which had stood vacant longer than all these, was at last to have a shepherd. The careful guardian of them all was at last to have his reward. The reward was a great one, but in the course of his long service he had doubtless gathered enough into his private hoard to pay the price even for such a gift. The hall was built; the Witan were assembled in it; and, as the one recorded act of the assembly, the King gave the bishopric of Durham to Randolf his chaplain, that ere drave all his gemóts over all England.[662] In the new hall of Westminster, the hall of justice, often the hall of injustice, the man who had wrought so much of real injustice, but who had raised the name of justice, in its official meaning, to the high place which it has ever after kept――the Justiciar Randolf Flambard, the founder of the greatness of his office, the creator of the feudal law of England――received one of the greatest of the prizes to which men of his class could look forward. The driver of gemóts, the exactor of the moneys of rich and poor, became, not only lord of strong castles and of barons and knights not a few, but also shepherd of souls in a great diocese, abbot of monks in a monastery too young as yet to have wholly lost its first love. The new successor of Saint Cuthberht, Randolf Bishop of Durham, was presently consecrated in Saint Paul’s minster by his metropolitan Archbishop Thomas. But the local patriotism of Durham takes care to put on record that, as his predecessor William of Saint-Calais had made no profession, so neither did he.[663]
[Sidenote: Character of the appointment.]
[Sidenote: Flambard’s episcopate. 1099-1128.]
[Sidenote: His works at Durham.]
[Sidenote: The castle of Norham. 1121.]
[Sidenote: His personal character.]
[Sidenote: 1106?-1128.]
The appointment of Randolf Flambard to a great bishopric, as it is the last recorded kingly act of Rufus in England, was the crowning act of that abuse of the royal power in ecclesiastical matters, that bringing low of the Church and her ministers, which is so marked a feature of his reign.[664] To place the bishop’s staff in the hands of Randolf Flambard was going a step further than to place it in the hands of Robert Bloet. Yet Flambard showed himself in some ways, in all temporal ways, as a great prelate. A mighty builder, he joined his efforts with those of his monks to carry on Saint Cuthberht’s abbey on a plan as noble as that on which William of Saint-Calais had begun it, and with greater richness of detail.[665] He strengthened the fortifications of his castle and city; he laid out the green between the castle and the abbey. At the extreme border of what was now the English kingdom, not on the extreme border of his own diocese, he founded the famous castle of Norham. It was built, we are told, as a defence alike against border thieves and against attacks of invading Scots.[666] But this last motive was hardly needed in the days of Eadgar, Alexander, and David. Every temporal right of his church he defended to the uttermost.[667] Still eager to be first, pretending with voice and gesture more of wrath than he really felt, we see in the mighty Bishop of Durham essentially the same man as the royal officer who made sad the enthronization day of Anselm.[668] As to his life and conversation strange tales are told. The Bishop is said to have wantonly exposed his monks to temptations most contrary to monastic rule, to have entertained them in the episcopal hall along with guests most unbecoming for an episcopal castle, and to have marked as hypocrites all who refused to join in his unseemly revelries.[669] But the mass of Flambard’s doings as bishop, good or bad, belong to the reign of Henry, to his own second episcopate. Our own story will show him, after a short occupation of his see, an exile, an exile after the type of William of Saint-Calais rather than after the type of Anselm. From that exile he came back, as his predecessor came back, to go on with his great work, to rule, with unabated strength of mind and body, to extreme old age, and to die with every sign of penitence.[670]
[Sidenote: Later events of the year. 1099.]
The appointment of Flambard is the last recorded act of the Red King on English ground. We take leave of him, as far as the affairs of our own country are concerned, in the new hall of Westminster, placing the bishop’s staff in a hand which doubtless grasped it more readily than the hand of Anselm. But we have still to see somewhat of him in two other characters, in either of which he was more at home than in that of the civil ruler. We have to look at him as the hunter and as the warrior. From the great ceremony at Westminster he seems to have straightway taken himself to enjoy the sports of the woods in Wiltshire. The prince who ruled on both sides of the channel had come back to his island realm to busy himself both with English affairs and with English pleasures. While thus engaged, his thoughts were once more suddenly called to matters beyond the sea.
§ 5. The Second War of Maine.
April-September 1099.
[Sidenote: Action of Helias. August, 1098-April 1099.]
[Sidenote: August, 1098.]
[Sidenote: Helias withdraws to La Flèche.]
[Sidenote: He strengthens the castles on the Loir.]
[Sidenote: La Chartre.]
[Sidenote: La Flèche.]
[Sidenote: Château-du-Loir.]
[Sidenote: Preparations of Helias. August 1098-April 1099.]
[Sidenote: April 10, 1099.]
In the August of the last year William had given Helias of Maine his full leave to do what he could against him, reserving doubtless to himself the like power to do what he could against Helias. In the months which had since passed the Count of Maine had shown that he could do a good deal; but it seemingly was not till he had shown the full range of his powers of doing that the King felt himself called on once more to try his own powers against him. William did not stir himself till the news came that Helias was again in Le Mans, and then he stirred himself indeed. Helias, when he was set free in August, went at once to his own immediate possessions on the border of Maine and Anjou. If he was no longer Count of Maine, he was still lord of La Flèche. If he could no longer reign on the Cenomannian height, in the palace on the Roman wall or in the tower before whose rising strength the Roman wall itself had given way, he could at least keep his own native town and castle. At La Flèche, and in the whole southern part of the county, Helias still reigned, undisputed and unthreatened. He was still lord of the whole line of fortresses which guarded the course of the Loir, the tributary of the greater stream with which its name is so easily confounded. The castles along that river, reared doubtless to guard the Cenomannian border against attacks from the south, served, now that things had so strangely turned about, to protect the southern districts of Maine against attacks from its own capital. In front of the land to be guarded stood the castles of Mayet and Outillé. Along the Loir itself stood a formidable line of defences; La Chartre guarded one end, La Flèche the other; between them lay La Lude and the fortress which is still specially known as the Castle of the Loir. The stream flows below the hill-fort of La Chartre, once held by Geoffrey of Mayenne,[671] but the name of this castle is not mentioned in our present story. The omission is singular, as La Chartre must always have been a post of special importance, guarding Maine towards the land of Chartres as well as towards the now Angevin land of Tours. It rises, like Bellême and Saint Cenery, on the bluff of a promontory where two mounds with their fosses mark the site of the fortress, and where the rocky sides of the hill are pierced, like the hill of Nottingham, like so many hills along the greater Loire, with the dwelling-places of man. Much lower down the Loir is Helias’ own special home of La Flèche, where all traces of his day have vanished, but where the castle of John and Paula must have stood, on a site most unlike that of La Chartre, on one of the rich and grassy islands which are there formed by the branching of the stream. Château-du-Loir lies between the two, and the river from which it takes its name is a far less prominent feature there than at either La Flèche or La Chartre. The fortress which is specially called the Castle of the Loir stands at a greater distance from its waters than either of the other two. But of the stronghold itself it has more to show than either. The castle stands half-hidden in the midst of the small modern town, and the approaches to it have been carefully defaced and levelled. But the stump of a tower of irregular shape still remains, which may well be a fragment of the stronghold of Helias; the neighbouring church too still keeps under its choir a crypt which must be far older than his day. Still in possession of a considerable part of his dominions, master of a district so strongly guarded, the undisputed lord of La Flèche began to make everything ready for a campaign which might make him once more Count of Le Mans. From August till April, Helias kept within his own lands――like a bull in the hiding-places of the woods, says the local writer[672]――strengthening his own fortresses and making alliances wherever he could. The whole line of castles, together with the fortified villages in the neighbourhood, had by Easter-tide been made ready for defence against the attacks of any enemy.[673]
[Sidenote: Helias begins operations.]
[Sidenote: He marches against Le Mans. June, 1099.]
[Sidenote: Junction of Sarthe and Huisne.]
[Sidenote: Battle at Pontlieue.]
[Sidenote: Victory of Helias; he recovers Le Mans.]
Helias now deemed that the time was come for offensive operations against the invaders of Maine. He began to attack the posts which were occupied by the King’s forces, and to lay waste the lands in their possession. In this work he was secretly favoured by the people of the country,[674] and before long a large body of his friends and neighbours had openly joined his banner. In June he set forth at the head of a great force for an enterprise against the city itself.[675] We should like to know what, in such a case, was deemed a great force; but we may suspect that the following of Helias would largely consist of irregular levies, not well fitted, unless with the advantage of very superior numbers, to measure themselves with the picked and tried mercenaries of Rufus. The army marched northwards towards Le Mans. A little to the south-west of the city the Sarthe is joined by the Huisne, the stream which, with its tributaries, waters the whole north-eastern part of Maine. The river is at this point shallow and weedy, with woody banks and small islands in its bed. Two old lines of road lead from the south towards the lower course of the Huisne. One leads towards the bridge of Pontlieue, a bridge which has a history in modern times.[676] The other leads to a ford less than a mile lower down the stream, now known as the ford of Mauny. One of our accounts distinctly makes Helias cross by a ford; the other seems less distinctly to imply that he crossed by a bridge.[677] At any rate he crossed in this quarter, immediately south of Le Mans. He challenged the King’s troops in the city to come forth. The challenge was accepted, and a battle followed on the ground between the Huisne and the city. Pontlieue may now pass as a suburb of Le Mans, and not its least busy suburb. In those days the flat ground was doubtless all open; the hospital reared by Henry the Second in the neighbourhood of his native city must have been placed there as in a rural retreat. The fight was stout; the King’s troops fought valiantly; but they were put to flight by the greater numbers of the liberating host. The beaten garrison sought shelter in the city; fliers and pursuers streamed in together; the gates could not be shut; Count Helias was again in Le Mans at the head of a conquering army.[678]
[Sidenote: Joy of the citizens.]
[Sidenote: The castles still held for Rufus.]
[Sidenote: Comparison with the deliverance of York in 1069.]
[Sidenote: The Normans set fire to the city.]
[Sidenote: Discouragement of the citizens.]
The joy of the citizens of Le Mans was indeed great at his coming.[679] Their own lord, their native count, the happiness of whose former reign they remembered in its fair contrast with the Norman dominion, was again amongst his faithful people. The formal welcome which had greeted the coming of Rufus was exchanged for heartfelt delight at the coming of Helias. But there was still work to be done. Helias was in Le Mans; but the garrison of Rufus was in Le Mans also. The garrison had not been able to hinder the Count’s followers from entering the city; but the Count’s followers had not been able to hinder the garrison from securing themselves in the fortresses of the city, in the King’s tower and in Mont-Barbet.[680] And now the story reads almost word for word like a famous scene in our own history just thirty years before.[681] Helias entered Le Mans as Eadgar and Waltheof entered York. And at Le Mans, as at York, the native deliverers occupied the city while the foreign garrison still held the castles. The Normans at Le Mans betook themselves to the same means of defence as the Normans at York, the familiar means of defence of their nation. Whether he would or not, the joyous entry of Helias was to be celebrated with the same kind of offerings as the crowning and the churching of the Conqueror. Westminster, York, Mantes, had felt the Norman power of destruction; the turn of Le Mans was now come. Walter the son of Ansgar set his engineers to work, and, when the evening came, flaming brands and hot cinders were hurled from their engines upon the houses of the city. It was summer; all things were dry; a strong east wind was blowing, and all Le Mans was presently in a blaze.[682] How the great minster, so near to the King’s tower, escaped without damage does not appear. But, as the church stands between the castle and the main part of the city, we may conceive that the fiery bolts launched by the engines from the tower might fly over the roof of its nave without doing harm. In any case, before the end of the day on which Helias entered, a large part of the city and suburbs was burned. The true prince was again in his own city; but he had nothing there to reign over, except smoking ruins commanded by a hostile fortress. And we are told that the love of the citizens for their count was somewhat lessened by this mischance of warfare, which was surely no fault of his. We are significantly told that they were less eager to fight for him in the evening than they had been in the morning.[683] Wooden houses indeed could easily be rebuilt; it may even be that that day’s fire cleared the space for those noble domestic buildings of a little later date, some of which the official barbarism of our own day has deigned to spare, and of which those that still remain count among the choicest treasures of Le Mans.[684] But at the moment the effect must have been disheartening, and the change in the feelings of the people is in no way wonderful.
[Sidenote: Operation against the castles.]
[Sidenote: The castles besieged in vain.]
[Sidenote: Question of the church towers.]
[Sidenote: Robert of Bellême strengthens Ballon.]
At Le Mans, as at York in the like case, the business of the moment was the assault of the castles; but at Le Mans the enterprise of the deliverers was less fortunate than it had been at York. The citizens of Le Mans were not, like the citizens of York, to have the pleasure of breaking down the stronghold of the stranger. Helias himself, after all, was a French prince of the eleventh century, and he would hardly have been so ready as Waltheof was to encourage such a work. He had never, during his earlier reign, thought of playing Timoleôn in that special fashion. But in any case the fortresses were first to be taken. Walter the son of Ansgar seems to have been a more wary captain than William Malet and Gilbert of Ghent. He did not risk a sally, and Helias had not the same opportunity as Waltheof of showing his personal prowess by cutting off Norman heads in the gate.[685] He was driven to a formal siege of the castle. Amid the ashes of the burned city he planted his engines to play upon the royal tower. We may almost suspect, from a story which we shall come to presently, that the new towers of Saint Julian’s were profaned to warlike uses, and were made, as they well might be, to play a part in the attack. But in any case the attack was in vain. The strength of the fortresses, the skill with which their defenders brought engines to answer engines, were too great for all the battering-works of Helias.[686] The King’s tower and Mont Barbet both held out, and Robert of Bellême took the further precaution of strengthening the defences of Ballon.[687]
[Sidenote: The news sent to the King.]
[Sidenote: The news brought to him in the New Forest.]
But it was not enough for the garrisons to hold out. They served a master beyond the sea; and that master had yet to learn either that they were holding out or that there was any enemy for them to hold out against. We are in this story doubtless dealing with the work of a very few days. The fight by the ford, the entry of Helias, and the fire, all took place on the same day. The siege of the castles would begin at the first moment that any engines could be brought up. Whether Helias had brought them with him, or whether he had to send for them, we are not told. We may be sure that there was no great delay in sending the news to the King; but the messenger did not start till he had something more to tell than that Le Mans, or what was left of it, was in the hands of its own count. A Norman Pheidippidês, Amalchis by name, the special courier of Robert of Bellême, was sent with the news.[688] He crossed the sea; he hastened to the King’s hunting-seat of Clarendon, and met William and a party of his favourite companions going forth to hunt in the New Forest. The King asked the messenger what the news was. The news was speedily told; Le Mans was taken by treason. But Amalchis could add some words of comfort, how his own lord held Ballon, how the King’s troops in the city, though besieged and attacked by the enemy, still held out in the fortresses, how they were longing for the King to come in person to their help.[689] We can hardly believe that Rufus had heard nothing of the general movements of Helias in southern Maine; but all that had happened since the Count set forth for Pontlieue came to his ears in a single message.
[Sidenote: William rides to the coast.]
[Sidenote: He crosses to Touques.]
At the hearing of such a tale as this William the Red did not tarry. He waited for no counsellors. His words were only, “Let us go beyond the sea and help our friends.” When those around him bade him wait till a force could be made ready, he answered, “I will see who will follow me. Do you think that I shall be left without men? I know well the youth of my lands, they will hasten to come to me, even at the risk of shipwreck.” So saying, without following, without preparation, he loosened his bridle, he put spurs to his horse, he rode straight to the sea-shore at Southampton, and at once trusted himself all alone to an old crazy ship which he found there. The sky was cloudy; the wind was contrary; the blasts tossed up huge waves; the sailors prayed him to wait till the winds and the waves should be more inclined to peace and mercy. “I never heard of a king being drowned,” cried Rufus; “make haste, loose your cables; you will see the elements join to obey me.” He set sail, and the next morning he reached the haven of Touques, God, we are told by the monk of Saint Evroul, being his guide.[690]
[Sidenote: Touques in Rufus’ time.]
[Sidenote: Landing of the King.]
[Sidenote: His ride to Bonneville.]
The spot where William landed must, especially at the moment of William’s landing, have had a widely different look from that which it bears in our own day. The river from which the town of Touques takes its name, flowing down from Lisieux to its mouth by the modern pleasure-town of Trouville, has had its course shifted by modern improvements; but it has perhaps not greatly changed in width or bulk of stream since the time of our story. Touques lies a few miles inland; but a high tide would easily bring up the small vessels of that day to the point which was once a busy haven, but which now affords at the most a landing-place for barges. The single long street, full of picturesque wooden buildings of later times, and containing a striking disused church of the days of Rufus or his father, now turns away from the stream, as if to show that the days of Touques as a haven have passed away. In those days the inland port, placed in the rich vale of the stream, under the shadow of the hills, those to the right forming the forest-land of Touques, was a frequented spot; and at the moment when the ship came which bore Rufus and his fortunes, it presented a busy scene. As was usual in the summer-tide, a crowd of persons, both clerical and lay, was gathered at the riverside.[691] When they saw a ship coming from England, they pressed to ask what the news might be. Specially they asked how the King fared. And lo, the King was there as his own messenger to answer them.[692] He returned their greetings in merry mood, and all wondered and were glad.[693] We must remember that Normandy had better reason to be glad at the presence of Rufus than either England or Maine. The King landed; he sprang on the first beast that he could find, a mare belonging to a priest, and so took the road which led towards the south-east to the castle of Bonneville, on the slope of the hills which overlook and guard the haven. The distance is short, and most of it is uphill, and the speed of the priest’s mare was most likely not equal to the speed of the King’s own horse which had borne him from Clarendon to Southampton. A loyal crowd, clerks and peasants, were thus able to follow him on foot, cheering their sovereign as he rode up the hill-side to the castle.[694]
[Sidenote: The castle of Bonneville.]
[Sidenote: Early history and legends of Bonneville.]
The headlong rush by land and sea was now over, and the Red King again found himself in one of the chief strongholds of Normandy. The castle of Bonneville, placed, not on the top of the hill, but on a small spur projecting from its side, was in fact the citadel of Touques. It specially guarded the inland haven; otherwise one might rather have looked for the site of such a fortress on the hills which overlook the sea and guard the actual mouth of the stream. Yet from the towers of Bonneville we look out on a wide and a goodly prospect. Almost at the foot of the hill lies Touques itself. The river stretches away to its mouth at Deauville; on the right the valley is fenced in by the high ground of the forest, on the left by the hill crowned by the castle of Lassay, famous in later times, with the small priory of Saint Arnold, still keeping work of the Conqueror’s day, nestling on the hill-side. But at Bonneville itself no strictly architectural work remains which can have served the Red King as a resting-place after his fierce journey. The existing castle, a shell-keep strengthened by round towers, seems to be in all parts later than the days of Rufus, later than the days of Norman independence. A single gateway only could possibly be placed even within the latter years of the twelfth century. But the site is an ancient one; the castle is girded by a ditch, and the ditch is in some parts further strengthened by an embankment, which seem more likely to have been taken advantage of by the Norman dukes than to be their original work. Bonneville had been one of the dwelling-places of William the Great, and it is one of the many towns and castles which claim to have been the scene of the oath of Harold.[695] Though the existing buildings are later, the hill itself and its earthworks are there, as when Rufus drew breath among them. He there rested for a moment, after being borne with the swiftest speed of his own age from the sports of the West-Saxon forest to the serious business which pressed on a ruler of Normandy when Le Mans was again held by a hostile power.
[Sidenote: William at Bonneville.]
[Sidenote: His levy.]
[Sidenote: He marches towards Le Mans.]
[Sidenote: Helias flees to Château-du-Loir.]
The castle which Rufus had now reached, the nearest fortress in Normandy to the spot in England from which he had so wildly rushed, now became the starting-point of a campaign which, in its beginning, was not unskilfully planned. At Bonneville the King began to make his preparations for the recovery of Le Mans. He sent his messengers to and fro, and soon gathered a large force. He then began his march southward; he crossed the frontier, and pressed on towards Le Mans, harrying the land as he went.[696] The effect of his coming was immediate. When the news came that the King was on his way, the forces of Helias began to fail him; he no longer dared to go on with the siege of the castles; he no longer dared even to hold the city.[697] He fled from Le Mans, and hastened to the defence of his immediate possessions in the southern part of the county. Here he took up his head-quarters in his own fortress specially known as the Castle of the Loir. Within its walls the Count of Maine again waited for better days, while the hosts of Normandy drew near to his capital.[698]
[Sidenote: Flight of the citizens.]
[Sidenote: William passes through Le Mans.]
[Sidenote: His camp beyond the Huisne.]
Meanwhile despair reigned in Le Mans. A crowd of the citizens, with their wives and children and all that they had, followed their prince.[699] When Rufus heard of the flight of Helias, he was still north of Le Mans. He pressed on to overtake his enemy; he reached the city; but, like Harold on the march to Stamfordbridge, he did not deem it a time to tarry even a single night within its walls. And in the mind of Rufus there was doubtless another motive at work besides either military precaution or even simple military ardour. With him it would be a point of honour to occupy, at the first moment that he could, the ground on which his choice troops had been put to flight by the hasty levies of Helias. He marched through the city, over the battleground of Pontlieue; he crossed the bridge of the Huisne, and pitched his camp on the broad plain[700] to the south of the stream. He had thus passed into what might seem the immediate dominions of his rival, as his rival had passed at the same point to attack the city which he claimed as specially his own.
[Sidenote: He harries southern Maine.]
[Sidenote: Helias burns the castles.]
[Sidenote: Helias keeps on the defensive.]
From his camp on the left back of the Huisne Rufus began a deliberate and fearful harrying of the whole southern part of Maine. But before his troops could reach the strongholds of the enemy, they found the land laid waste before them. Even two castles, those of Outillé and Vaux-en-Belin,[701] were set fire to by the Count’s own partisans. Robert of Montfort――the Norman Montfort――pressed on with five hundred knights, put out the fire at Vaux, repaired the fortress, and held it for the King.[702] Helias meanwhile was biding his time in the Castle of the Loir. His force was still strong; but he deemed it no time for any attack on his part. Perhaps he knew Rufus well enough to feel sure that against him the tactics of Fabius were the tactics which were most likely to prevail.
[Sidenote: William besieges Mayet.]
[Sidenote: Observance of the Truce of God.]
For in this campaign, exactly as in the earlier campaign in Maine and in the campaign in the Vexin, the thing which most strikes us is the way in which it ends, or, more truly, the way in which it comes to no end at all. While Helias held out at Château-du-Loir, William, instead of attacking him, laid siege to Mayet. At this last point, lying some way north of Château-du-Loir, we find the scene of some of the most remarkable anecdotes in our whole story, and it is here that the last serious warfare of the Red King seems to have taken place.[703] The siege was not a long one, and its result was strange and unexpected; but the few days which it took are crowded with incident, and they set William Rufus before us in more than one character. He first appears in a mood which may be thought wholly unexpected; perhaps as touched by devotion himself, at all events as hearkening readily to the devotional scruples of others. The King’s host appeared before Mayet on a Friday, and he gave orders for a general attack on the castle on the next day.[704] The sabbath morning dawns; the warriors are vying with one another in girding on their weapons and making ready for the attack.[705] Then a pious scruple, a scruple which seems to have occurred to no man on the day of Senlac, touched the hearts of some of the elders of the host. Certain unrecorded wise men crave of the King that, out of reverence for the Lord’s burial and resurrection, he will spare the besieged both that day and the next, and will grant them a truce till Monday. In other words, they demand the observance of the Truce of God.[706] The King gives glory to God, and gives orders that it shall be as they wish; nothing shall be done against the castle on either Saturday or Sunday; on Monday the attack shall be made.[707]
[Sidenote: No bribery in Maine.]
[Sidenote: Preparations of the besieged.]
[Sidenote: The castle attacked on Monday.]
[Sidenote: Story of Robert of Bellême.]
[Sidenote: Illustrations of chivalry.]
[Sidenote: The besiegers fill the ditch with wood.]
We now get a glimpse within the walls. The defenders of Mayet, we are told, were men of proved valour and endurance, faithful to their lord and ready to fight for him to the death.[708] It is worth notice that, through the whole story, the Red King’s favourite arms are never heard of within the bounds of Maine. The wealth of England, which carried such weight within Normandy and France, which proved such an unanswerable argument in the mind of King Philip, goes for nothing on the banks of the Sarthe and the Loir. It seems never to enter into any man’s mind that it was worth trying to buy over any man who owned Helias as his lord. So now in the Red King’s camp steel lies idle on the holy days of the older and the newer law; and gold seems to lie idle no less. But those days were not days of idleness within the bulwarks of Mayet. The gallant defenders of the castle were making ready for the attack. One special means of defence was to place wicker crates along the walls in order to break the force of the stones hurled by the King’s artillery.[709] At last Monday came, and the assault began. The deep and wide ditch of the castle was found to be no small hindrance to the besiegers. A wild story is told that the King ordered the ditch to be filled up with horses and mules, the beasts seemingly of draught and burthen.[710] For them, as the villains of the brute world, there was no mercy; the destrier of the knight was, in knightly hearts, entitled to some share of the respect due to his rider. But the tale adds that Robert of Bellême, the man so hateful in Cenomannian memory, improved on the King’s order, and bade the ditch be filled, not only with horses, but with human villains also.[711] Such an order would really be thoroughly in the spirit of chivalry. It would have come well from the mouths of those French gentlemen who called at Crecy for the slaughter of the so-called peasants whom they had hired from Genoa.[712] But William the Red had learned beneath the walls of Rochester what the churls of one land at least could do, and he was not likely to carry his knightly ideal quite so far as this. The tale, we may suspect, is a bit of local Cenomannian romance, part of the popular tale of the devil of Mamers. Those who tell it add that the effect of the order was to cause the immediate flight of all the members of the despised class who were within hearing.[713] But the most trustworthy narrative of the siege of Mayet tells us nothing of any of these strange ways of filling up a ditch. There we read only of vast piles of wood which were hurled into it, and of a path raised on piles which the besiegers strove to make level with the palisade of the castle.
[Sidenote: The besieged burn the wood.]
[Sidenote: Narrow escape of William.]
[Sidenote: William’s captains advise a retreat.]
[Sidenote: The siege raised on Tuesday.]
[Sidenote: The land ravaged.]
But the devices of the garrison of Mayet were at least equal to the devices of their enemies. They hurled down masses of burning charcoal, and so, by the help of the summer heat, they burned up the piles of wood with which the besiegers were filling up the ditch.[714] All Monday both sides strove with all their might against one another, and the King began to be grieved and angry that all his efforts had availed nothing.[715] While he was thus troubled in mind, a stone was aimed at him from a lofty turret. It missed William himself, but a warrior who stood by him was crushed to pieces by the falling mass.[716] Then there rose a loud shout of mockery from the wall; “Lo, the King now has fresh meat; let it be taken to the kitchen and made ready for his supper.”[717] We might have looked to hear that for such scorn as this the Red King vowed a vengeance like his father’s vengeance at Alençon. But either Rufus and his counsellors were strangely cowed, or else they were glad of any excuse to throw up an enterprise one day of which seems to have been enough to weary them. The lords and high captains of the King’s host impressed on their master’s mind that the defences of Mayet were very strong, that its defenders were very brave, that, sheltered as they were behind their strong walls, they had a great advantage over besiegers encamped in the open air.[718] These sound strange arguments in an age when warfare chiefly consisted in attacking and defending strong places. They sound strangest of all when they are addressed to a king who, so short a time before, had taken it for granted that not only men and walls, but the winds and the waves, would yield to his will. But the reasoning of these prudent warriors is said to have carried conviction to the King’s mind. Rufus saw that the best thing that he could do was to march off while he was still safe. There were other ways besides besieging castles by which more damage could be done to the enemy with less risk to his own followers.[719] Orders were given to march to Lucé with the first light of Tuesday. The host arose early, and went on, making a fearful harrying as they went. Vines were rooted up, fruit-trees cut down, walls and houses overthrown. The whole of that fertile land was utterly laid waste with fire and sword.[720]
[Sidenote: No real success on the King’s part.]
[Sidenote: Illustration of Rufus’ character.]
[Sidenote: The campaign unfinished.]
[Sidenote: William satisfied by the recovery of Le Mans.]
This seems a somewhat paltry ending for a campaign which began with the King’s breathless rush from the New Forest to Bonneville. Not very much had come of the headlong ride or of the sail in the crazy ship. William Rufus had gained no real success, military or political. He was as far as ever from the real possession of the whole land of Maine. He had rooted up a great many vines and cut down a great many fruit trees; but he had neither won a battle nor taken a fortress. His garrisons at Le Mans and at Ballon had held out; Helias had left Le Mans open to him; at Vaux Robert of Montfort had overcome, not Helias, but the flames. On the other hand, Helias himself was safe, in full command of most of his southern castles; from the only one of them which the King had actually attacked, he had turned away baffled after one day’s fighting. In all these cases it would seem as if the fiery impulses of Rufus soon spent themselves, as if all depended on the first rush. If that failed, he never had perseverance to go on. In his strangely mingled nature, he could be either a ruler or a captain when the fit to be either took him. He had not steadiness to be either for any long time together. Certain it is that he left all his continental campaigns unfinished; and this one, which was begun with such a special blaze of energy, was left more utterly unfinished than any of the others. And yet perhaps, after all, William Rufus had succeeded in the chief wish of his heart. Le Mans was the special prize of his father; its castles were the work of his father. But his father had had no special dealings with Mayet or Château-du-Loir. He might be satisfied to do without such small and distant possessions, he might be satisfied even to undergo defeat before them, as long as the city which his father had twice won, as long as the royal tower which his father had reared, were his beyond dispute.
[Sidenote: William’s good treatment of Le Mans.]
[Sidenote: He enters the city.]
[Sidenote: He stops the oppressions of his garrison.]
[Sidenote: He drives out the canons.]
[Sidenote: He leaves garrisons and returns to England. September, 1099.]
But it is at least to William’s honour that, in his last entry at Le Mans, he showed himself a benefactor to the city which had suffered so much. Rufus had, as we have seen in the case of Robert of Bellême, men about him who were worse than himself. Or rather, putting aside such exceptional sinners as Robert of Bellême, he had men about him who simply did, as a matter of course, according to the fashion of the time, without either rising or sinking to those parts of the character of Rufus which are special to himself. So now the citizens of Le Mans found in the Red King himself a deliverer from the oppressions done by his officers. Those among the inhabitants who had stayed in the city and had not followed their Count in his flight, had suffered every kind of wrong-doing at the hands of the King’s garrisons. The tale, according to the local historian, was too long and sad to tell in full.[721] But matters grew better when the King came himself. William again entered Le Mans in triumph, a triumph won chiefly over vines and apple-trees, certainly not over the garrison of Mayet.[722] Anyhow he came in a merciful mood. He checked the excesses of his soldiers; it was owing to his bounty only that the city was saved from utter ruin.[723] But on one class of its inhabitants his hand was harder than on the rest. The canons of Saint Julian’s, or so many of them as had agreed to the election of Hildebert, were driven out by the King’s order.[724] William then disbanded his army,[725] leaving garrisons in the castles of Le Mans, and doubtless in that of Ballon also. He then left the mainland for the last time, and, after an absence of three months, came back to England about the time of the feast of Michaelmas.[726]
[Sidenote: William and Hildebert.]
[Sidenote: Hildebert reconciled to the King.]
[Sidenote: Charges brought against him.]
[Sidenote: William bids Hildebert pull down the towers of Saint Julian’s.]
[Sidenote: Dialogue between William and Hildebert.]
[Sidenote: The southern tower.]
[Sidenote: Appearance on the north side.]
But, if William Rufus, on his last visit to Le Mans, saved the inhabitants of the city from ruin, he presently deprived the city itself of one of its chief material ornaments. It was the election of Hildebert which had first stirred up his wrath, and he had picked out the lands of the bishopric, as the lands of a personal enemy, for special havoc.[727] Yet we read that, at some very early stage of his march, before he had yet crossed the frontier of Normandy and Maine, Hildebert met the King, and was received as a friend, on showing that he had had no hand in bringing about the occupation of the city by Helias.[728] But, after William had again entered Le Mans, the charge was once more brought against the Bishop by some of the clergy of Saint Julian’s who had opposed his election from the beginning. It was by Hildebert’s counsel, they said, that Helias had been received, and that the King’s castles had been besieged; nay, the towers of the minster itself, the twin towers of Howel, had been used, as they well might be, for the attack on the royal tower. William hearkened to the enemies of Hildebert, and gave him his choice, either to pull down the towers which were so liable to abuse, or else to follow him at once into England.[729] To the Bishop of Le Mans the sea-voyage itself seemed frightful;[730] and when its dangers were passed, when Hildebert had reached the shores of our island, his enemies, who seem to have crossed also, again began to accuse him to the King.[731] A strange dialogue followed between the two. William, in his craft, offered to purchase the destruction of the towers at a price which would have greatly increased the internal splendour of the church. Let the Bishop agree to pull down the towers, and he, King William, will give him a vast mass of gold and silver for the adornment of the new shrine of Saint Julian.[732] But the Bishop had his craft also. He was in the land so famous for gold and silver work, the land where Otto and Theodoric were doubtless still plying their craft. They had no such goldsmiths at Le Mans; let the King keep his precious ingots for works within his own kingdom.[733] Still the destruction of the towers is pressed upon him; all that he can gain, and that with difficulty, is a little delay. Hildebert at last went back to Le Mans, taking with him, not indeed the King’s great ingots, but some lesser ornaments for his church.[734] The burning of the city, the dispersion of his canons, the havoc wrought in his own lands, all weighed him down. He poured forth the full bitterness of his soul in his extant letters. The unrepealed order for the pulling down of the two towers still hung over him. Was it ever carried out? Our author does not say distinctly. We might rather infer from his story that the death of Rufus and the return of Helias saved the Bishop from his difficulties.[735] Yet the appearance of the building itself looks the other way. As the church of Saint Julian now stands, the southern tower of Howel has its existing representative. It is slender, and, if it stood against a building of ordinary height, it would be tall. Its upper part belongs to the late rebuilding of the transepts, but the lowest stage belongs to the latest and richest style of Romanesque, contemporary with the great recasting of the nave. It is no work of Howel or even of Hildebert; but it is the work of one who wished to reproduce, with the richer detail of his own day, the general likeness of what Howel’s tower had been. On the north side this tower has no fellow; the space at the end of the transept which answers to it is occupied by a ruined building of earlier Romanesque, which may well be the stump of the original tower of Howel.[736] Are we to infer that the bidding of Rufus was carried out――that the towers, or their upper stages, were actually destroyed――that every later ruler of Le Mans, the devout Helias among them, deemed the northern tower too near to the royal fortress to allow of its rebuilding, but that the rebuilding of the more distant tower on the southern side was begun in the earlier and finished in the later recasting of the church? May we look on the shattered building which joins hard to the northern transept of Saint Julian’s as being truly the remnant of a tower which Howel reared with the good will of William the Great, and which Hildebert, with a heavy heart, pulled down at the bidding of William the Red? If it be so, I know of no spot where architectural evidence speaks more strongly to the mind, where walls and columns and arches bring us more directly into the presence of the men who made and who unmade them. Among all the wonders of Saint Julian’s minster――beside the nave which is inseparably bound up with so many living pages of our story――beside the choir which in itself concerns not the historian of Norman kings and Cenomannian counts, but on which we gaze in breathless wonder as one of the noblest of the works of man――no spot comes more truly home to us than that where we see the small remnants of what once was there and is there no longer. Alongside of the soaring apse to the east, of the wide portal to the west, the northern tower of Howel is indeed conspicuous by its absence.
[Sidenote: Robert at Jerusalem. July, 1099.]
[Sidenote: Death of Pope Urban. July 29.]
[Sidenote: Revolt in Anglesey. 1099.]
[Sidenote: Return of Cadwgan and Gruffydd.]
[Sidenote: Recovery of Anglesey and Ceredigion by the Welsh.]
The second war with Maine is the only event beyond the bounds of England which our own annalists record under this year, except indeed those œcumenical events besides which the affairs of Maine, and even the affairs of England, seem for the moment but as trifles. In the same month of July in which William made his way into Le Mans, his brother Robert, in quite another warfare, made his way into Jerusalem.[737] Presently, before he could have heard of his own work, the great preacher of the crusade, Pope Urban the Second, passed away.[738] With the affairs of Maine these events have a direct connexion. It was not the fault of Count Helias that he did not obey the teaching of Urban, that he did not enter the Holy City alongside of Robert and Godfrey. But it needs an effort to turn away either from Jerusalem or from Le Mans to record the last counter-revolution in Anglesey. Yet it is not amiss to remember that two lands were at the same moment striving for freedom against the Red King, and that the Briton and the Cenomannian had to hold their own against the same enemy. He who ruled at once at Bellême and at Shrewsbury was terrible to both alike. We may believe that the Britons marked their time while the fierce Earl had his hands full beyond the Channel, to strike another blow to win back their land, and specially to win back the island which had been the scene of the warfare of the last year. But it would seem that, in some parts at least of the land, there was little need for blows. The two princes who had fled to Ireland, Cadwgan son of Bleddyn and Gruffydd son of Cynan, now came back. Cadwgan obtained a peaceful settlement in Ceredigion; Gruffydd got possession of Anglesey, perhaps as the price of warfare. A son of Cadwgan, Llywelyn, was presently killed by the men of Brecheiniog, that is doubtless by the followers of Bernard of Newmarch.[739] Another Welsh prince, Howel by name, had to flee to Ireland.[740] We may infer that the central border-land was still firmly held by the conquerors, but that, though the French had constrained the Britons of Anglesey to become Saxons,[741] French and Saxons alike had to yield to the returning Britons both in Anglesey and in Ceredigion. Gruffydd and Cadwgan, names which are by this time familiar to us, are again established in Britain. Both of them play a part in the later history of their own land, and Cadwgan at least will appear again within the range of our own story.
[Sidenote: Natural phænomenon.]
[Sidenote: The great tide. November 3, 1099.]
[Sidenote: Death of Bishop Osmund of Salisbury. December 3, 1099.]
These Welsh matters find no place in the English Chronicles, which find so little space even for the deeds of Helias. Most likely they made no great impression on the mind of Rufus, now that, not Maine indeed, but at least Le Mans, was again his. He came back to England, a conqueror doubtless in his own eyes, about the feast of Saint Michael. The year did not end without one of those natural phenomena in which the reign is so rich. This time it was the wonderful flood-tide which, in the beginning of November, on a day of new moon, came up the Thames, flooded the land, overwhelmed houses and villages, and swept away men, oxen, and sheep.[742] A month later a new source of revenue began to flow into the Red King’s coffers. Bishop Osmund of Salisbury, the founder alike of the elder church and of the abiding ritual of his diocese, died early in December.[743] His temporalities passed, like those of Canterbury and Winchester, into the King’s hands. The Bishop of Durham had doubtless bade farewell to such duties; but the race of exactores, of clerical exactores, had not died out. There were still plenty of men in the Red King’s court who were ready to help in wringing the last penny out of the lands of bishops till they had wrung enough to buy bishoprics for themselves. The end is now drawing nigh; but till the end came, the groans of the Church, of the tenants of the Church, and of the whole people of the land, went up with a voice ever louder and louder.
THE LAST DAYS OF WILLIAM RUFUS AND THE ACCESSION OF HENRY.
1100-1102.[744]
[Sidenote: End of the eleventh century.]
[Sidenote: Changes in Britain. 1000-1100.]
[Sidenote: Internal changes.]
[Sidenote: Changes in foreign relations.]
[Sidenote: Scotland.]
[Sidenote: Wales.]
[Sidenote: Fusion of elements in Britain begins.]
[Sidenote: Ireland.]
The last year of the eleventh century had now come. The course of those hundred years had wrought many changes in the world. To our eyes the changes which it had wrought in the isle of Britain seem great and wonderful, and great and wonderful they were. At the beginning of the century Englishmen were struggling for their country and their homes against the invading Dane. The Dane had won the land; he had given us one foreign ruler who became one of ourselves. The days of foreign rule had passed away, only, as the event proved, to pave the way for a foreign rule which was to be far more abiding. A foreign rule which, by adopting national feelings, in some sort deadened them paved the way for a foreign rule which, by seeming for a moment to crush the old life of the nation, really called it up again in new shapes. But the rule of the Norman could not, like the rule of Cnut, itself become national during the life-time of the Conqueror or of his first successor. There was indeed a change between the England of Æthelred and the England of William Rufus. The outward aspect of the land itself must have changed, now that well-nigh every English mound was crowned by its Norman castle, now that well-nigh every English minster was giving way to a successor built after Norman patterns. But, if things had changed, men had changed also. Compare the signatures to a charter of Æthelred and the signatures to a charter of William. The change which had come over the land is marked by the difference between the list of English names among which it may be that some follower of the Norman Lady has crept in, and the list of Norman names among which it may be that some unusually lucky Englishman has contrived to hold his place. England had thus changed indeed in her internal state; she had changed no less in her relations to other lands. Within her own island she had made what it is no contradiction to speak of as a peaceful conquest made at the sword’s point. The elder Eadgar had placed the younger on the Scottish throne as the work of warfare. So far as Eadgar’s work was the political submission of Scotland, its results were but for a moment. So far as it led to the peaceful change of Scotland into a second and separate English kingdom, its results have been indeed abiding. Towards Wales, amidst much of seeming ill-success, the work of conquest had in truth begun; the Red King had found out the true way to curb those bold spirits which he could not overcome in the field. Much indeed had the eleventh century done, in different ways, towards welding the three elements of the isle of Britain into one political whole. Ages had to pass before the work was finished; but it was in the eleventh century, above all, in the reign of Rufus, that it really began. Towards the impossible work, forbidden by geography and history, of welding another great island into the same whole, whatever either William may have dreamed――yet to the Conqueror we may not dare to ascribe mere dreams――neither had done anything. So far as the two great islands of the Ocean had begun to draw near to one another, it was as yet wholly through the advances which the princes and people of Ireland had made in spiritual things to the Pontiff of the other world, the Patriarch of all the nations beyond the sea.
[Sidenote: Britain ceases to be another world.]
[Sidenote: Marriages of Ælfgifu-Emma and Eadgyth-Matilda.]
[Sidenote: England becomes part of the Latin world.]
[Sidenote: Advance of the Latin world in the eleventh century.]
[Sidenote: Conversion of the North.]
[Sidenote: The Crusade.]
[Sidenote: The struggle in Spain.]
[Sidenote: Decline of the Eastern Empire.]
[Sidenote: Renewed advance.]
[Sidenote: Sicily.]
But one great work of the times over which we are casting our eyes was that Britain was now fast ceasing to deserve its ancient name of another world. The earliest and the latest years of the century are each marked by a marriage, by a change of name on the part of the bride, which puts the change before us in a living way. A new epoch of intercourse with other lands had begun when, on her marriage with a King of the English of her day, Norman Emma had to become English Ælfgifu. How greatly things had turned the other way was shown when, on her marriage with a King of the English of her day, English Eadgyth had to become Norman Matilda. The land which was to be the realm of Henry and Matilda was, through the chain of events which began with Emma’s marriage, fast changing from the separate world of Æthelred’s day into a part of the larger world of Western Europe, the world of Latinitas, of Latin speech and of learning, the world which, amidst all the struggles of rival Popes and Emperors, still deemed itself the world of Rome. And in few ages had that world done more to extend itself than in the age which began with Æthelred and ended with Henry. At the beginning of the century northern Europe was still largely heathen; England was fighting the battle of Christendom against the Danish renegade. Now the kingdoms of the North had passed into the Christian fold. The change between the beginning of the century and the end is best marked by saying that before its end the crusades had begun, that the first crusade had been crowned with the greatest of crusading victories. But, in looking at the crusades of the East, the abiding crusade of the West must not be forgotten. Our own Chronicler has not failed to tell us somewhat of the great strife of Christian and Saracen in the south-western peninsula,[745] and if the taking of Toledo was followed by reverses of the Christian arms, it was only by dint of help from Africa. Here is a sign that the tide was turned, and that it was only by such help from beyond the straits, by a new passage of Africa into Europe, that Islam could maintain itself in the once Roman and Gothic land. In the Eastern world, the crusade should not make us forget the causes of the crusade. At the beginning of the century we saw the Eastern Rome in her full might, the might of Saracenic victories which were already won, of Bulgarian victories which were winning. But now, as the Western Mussulman has to call in help from Africa, so the Eastern Christian has to call in help from Western Europe. The Christian frontier in Asia has indeed frightfully gone back since the beginning of the century; but it has again begun to advance; Nikaia, Antioch, Jerusalem itself, are restored to the Christian world, and Nikaia is restored, not only to the Christian world but to the obedience of the Eastern Augustus. And, by not least memorable change among so many, the great Mediterranean island, the battle-field of Greek and Saracen, has passed away from the rule of either, while remaining the flourishing dwelling-place of both. Sicily has entered within the range of Western Christendom, and Palermo, like Winchester, has entered within the range of Norman dominion. When Æthelred reigned at Winchester and Richard at Rouen, a bishop of Evreux could not have performed the funeral rites of a bishop of Bayeux within the walls and between the havens of the Happy City.
[Sidenote: Change from Æthelred to William Rufus.]
[Sidenote: Schemes of Rufus.]
Changes then had been great in east and west and north and south during the century which carries us from Otto the Wonder of the World and Basil the Slayer of the Bulgarians to what at first sight seems the lower level of Henry the Fourth and Alexios Komnênos. And when in our own land the same space carries us from Æthelred to William Rufus, the gap seems wider still. And it was at least not the fault of William Rufus that the changes wrought by the eleventh century were not greater still. Æthelred, the man without rede, was not likely to change the face of the world, unless by passively supplying the means for Swegen and Cnut to change it. But William Rufus had no lack of rede of one kind, though it was perhaps of a kind which better deserved to be called unrede. But it was unrede of a more active kind than the unrede of Æthelred. William was eager enough to change the face of the world for his own behoof. To win, after a sort, the submission of Scotland and Maine, to plan the conquest of Ireland and France, to negotiate for the purchase of Aquitaine――here alone are far-reaching plans enough, plans which could not have been carried out without some large result on the history of mankind. That result could never have been the lasting establishment of that Empire of Gaul and Britain of which Rufus seems to have dreamed. But had his continental plans been successful, they might have led, as the marriage of Lewis and Eleanor in the next century might have led, to the formation of a kingdom of France in the modern sense some ages before its time.
[Sidenote: Contradiction in William’s position.]
[Sidenote: His defeats not counted defeats.]
The strange thing is that a man who schemed so much, who filled so great a place in the eyes of his own generation, after all did so little. Almost more strange is the way in which he sees all his great plans utterly shattered, and yet seems to feel no shame, no discouragement, no shock to his belief in his own greatness. He comes back really defeated; he has twice won Le Mans, and that is all; but if he has won Le Mans, he cannot win Mayet. So far from winning Paris, he cannot win Chaumont. So far from reigning on the Garonne, he cannot keep even the frontier of the Loir. But what would have been counted defeat in any one else does not seem to have been counted defeat in William Rufus. Beaten at all points but one, he still keeps the air of a conqueror; he still seems to be looked on as a conqueror by others. From the beginning to the end, there is a kind of glamour about the Red King and all that he does. He has a kind of sleight of hand which imposes on men’s minds; like the Athenian orator, when he is thrown in the wrestling-match, he makes those who saw his fall believe that he has never fallen.[746] We might even borrow a word from the piebald jargon of modern diplomacy; we might say that the reign of the Red King was the highest recorded effort of prestige.
[Sidenote: The year 1100.]
[Sidenote: Lack of events in its earlier months.]
[Sidenote: Contrast with the year 1000.]
[Sidenote: Vague expectations afloat.]
[Sidenote: Portents and prophecies.]
And now we have entered on the last year of the reign and of the century. It is a year whose earlier months are, within our own range at least, singularly barren of events, while its latter months are full of matter to record. It is a kind of tribute to the importance of William Rufus that there is at once so much to record the moment he is out of the way. When he is gone, a large part of the world feels relief. But about the lack of events earlier in the year there is something strange and solemn. The last year of the eleventh century was not marked by that general feeling of awe and wonder and looking forward to judgement which marked the last year of the tenth century. But, at least within the range of the Red King’s influence, that year seems to have been marked by that vague kind of feeling of a coming something which some of us have felt before the great events of our own times. Whatever may be the cause, it is certain that, as the news of events which have happened sometimes travels with a speed which ordinary means cannot account for,[747] so the approach of events which have not yet happened is sometimes felt in a way which we can account for as little. Coming events do cast their shadows before them, in a fashion which, whether philosophy can explain it or not, history must accept as a fact. And coming events did preeminently cast their shadows before them in the first half of the year 1100. In that age the feeling which weighed on men’s minds naturally took the form of portent and prophecy, of strange sights seen and strange sounds listened to. There is not the slightest ground for thinking that all these tales are mere inventions after the fact, though they were likely enough to be improved in the telling after the fact. The frightful state of things in the land, unparalleled even in those evil times, joined with the feeling of expectation which always attends any marked note of time, be it a fresh week or a fresh millennium――all worked together to bring about a looking for something to come, partly perhaps in fear, but far more largely in hope. Things could hardly get worse; they might get better. Men’s minds were charged with expectation; every sight, every sound, became an omen; if some men risked prophecies, if some of their prophecies were fulfilled, it was not wonderful. The first half of the year, blank in events, was rich in auguries; in the second half the auguries had largely become facts. In its first months men were saying with hope, “Non diu dominabuntur effeminati.”[748] Before the twelvemonth was out, they were beginning to say with joy, “Hic rex Henricus destruxit impios regni.”[749]
§ 1. The Last Days of William Rufus.
January――August, 1100.
[Sidenote: The three assemblies of 1099-1100.]
[Sidenote: Christmas at Gloucester. 1099-1000.]
[Sidenote: Easter at Winchester. April 1, 1100.]
[Sidenote: Pentecost at Westminster. May 20, 1100.]
[Sidenote: No record of these assemblies.]
[Sidenote: Death of Urban.]
This year the King, occupied by no warfare beyond his realm, was able to hold all the assemblies of the year at their wonted times and in their wonted places.[750] At Christmas William Rufus wore his crown at Gloucester, the place of his momentary repentance and of his wildest insolence. He had there given the staff to Anselm; he had there sent away Malcolm from his court without a hearing. At Easter he wore his crown at Winchester, the city which had first received him after the death of his father, where he had first unlocked his father’s treasures, and had put in bonds those whom his father had set free. At Whitsuntide he wore his crown at Westminster, and again held the assembly and the banquet in the mighty hall of his own rearing. We have no record of the acts of any of these three assemblies. The two former at least may well have been gatherings which came together more for the display of kingly magnificence than for the transaction of any real business of the realm. All things seemed to be as glorious as ever for the defeated of Mayet and Chaumont. In the death of Urban Rufus saw the removal of an enemy, at least of a hindrance in his way. He had indeed found that Urban could be won to his will by a bribe. Still he was a Pope, a Pope whom he had himself acknowledged, a Pope whom it might be needful to bribe. Better far was it to come back to the happy days before he had been cajoled by Cardinal Walter, before he had been frightened into naming Anselm, the happy days when he was troubled by no archbishop in the land and no pope out of it. Those days were come again. Anselm was far away; Urban was dead; Paschal he had not acknowledged. The last recorded words of Rufus before the day of Lammas and its morrow were those in which he set forth his fixed purpose to use as he would the freedom which was his once more.[751]
[Sidenote: Continental schemes of Rufus.]
But if we have no record of the three assemblies of the year, if we have no traditional sayings of the King, if we have no record of anything that really happened during these months, we can see that great schemes were planned; great preparations were making, which must have been the matter of deep debates at the Pentecostal assembly. Our own Chroniclers are silent; our tidings come from our familiar teacher at Saint Evroul. Though the Red King kept himself so close in his island kingdom, he was planning greater things than ever beyond the sea. He had Normandy to keep and he had Aquitaine to win. For such objects he had need of both gold and steel, and we cannot doubt that in the assembly held at Whitsuntide within the new hall of Westminster King William demanded no small store of both to enable him to carry out the schemes of his overweening pride.
[Sidenote: Robert’s return from the crusade.]
[Sidenote: His marriage with Sibyl of Conversana.]
[Sidenote: His reception in south Italy.]
[Sidenote: Character of the Duchess Sibyl.]
[Sidenote: His funds for buying back the duchy.]
Normandy was to be kept. Duke Robert, the bold crusader, was coming back from the lands where his name, once so despised in his own duchy, had been crowned with unlooked-for glory. He was coming back by the path by which he had gone, through the Norman lands of southern Italy. And he was coming with a companion whose presence promised something in the way of amendment alike of his private life and of his public government. He brought with him a wife, Sibyl of Conversana, daughter of Geoffrey lord of Brindisi, and grand-niece of Robert Wiscard. He had been welcomed by his southern countrymen with all honours and with precious gifts; both Rogers, the Duke of Apulia and the young Count of Sicily, to be one day the first and all but the most famous of Sicilian kings, were zealous in showing their regard. But from the house of the Count of Conversana he took away the most precious gift of all in a woman who is described as uniting all merits and beauties within and without, and who was certainly far better fitted to rule the duchy of Normandy than he was.[752] His father-in-law and his other friends gave him great gifts in money and precious things towards redeeming his dominions from his brother.[753] But William Rufus had no thought of restoring the pledge; he had Normandy in his grasp, and he had no mind to let it go.
[Sidenote: William of Aquitaine;]
[Sidenote: his crusade;]
[Sidenote: He proposes to pledge his duchy to Rufus.]
[Sidenote: Preparations for occupation of Aquitaine.]
But besides this, Aquitaine was to be won. It was indeed to be won in a peaceful sort, as far as the engagements of its sovereign went. Duke William of Poitiers, the ally of William of England in his French campaign, was at last ready for his crusade. Strange warrior of the cross, strange comrade for Godfrey or even for Robert, was he who, after his return from the Sepulchre, spared the life of a holy bishop who rebuked him on the ground that he hated him too much to send him to paradise, who brought together the monastic harem at Niort, and who marched to battle with the form of his adulterous mistress painted on his shield.[754] But now he was setting forth for the holy war. Thirty thousand warriors――the conventional number everywhere――from Aquitaine, Gascony, and other lands of southern Gaul, were ready, we are told, to follow in his train.[755] But Duke William, like Duke Robert, lacked money. He sent therefore to the master of the hoard which seemed open to all comers, seeking to pledge his duchy, as Robert had pledged his.[756] We cannot help suspecting that some such arrangement had been made at an earlier time, when the two Williams joined their forces together against France; but, if not made then, it was made now. King William readily agreed to an offer which would practically make him master of the greater part of Gaul. He was lord of Normandy; he held himself to be master of Maine; he was about to become lord of Aquitaine. Maine and Poitou indeed did not march on each other; but Anjou might be won by some means. Fulk could not hold out against a prince who hemmed him in on either side. Either gold or steel would surely open the way to Angers, as well as to Rouen and to Bourdeaux. Prepared for all chances, William was gathering money, gathering ships, gathering men, for a greater work than fruitless attacks on Mayet and Chaumont, for the great task of enlarging his dominion,――our guide says to the Garonne; he should rather have said to the Pyrenees. Robert was to be kept out of Normandy; to restore to the debtor his pledge was the dull virtue of the merchant or the Jew; such duties touched not the honour of the good knight. No man could perform all his promises, and the restoration of Normandy was a promise of the class which needed not to be performed. Aquitaine was to be peacefully bought; but possibly arms might be needed there also. All who should dare to withstand the extension of William’s dominion to the most southern borders of Gaul were to be brought to obedience at the sword’s point.
[Sidenote: His alleged designs on the Empire.]
I have said “dominion;” but the word in the writer whom I follow is Empire.[757] That name, one not unknown to us in the history of Rufus, may have been dropped at random; but it may have been meant to show that mightier schemes still were at work in the restless brain of the Red King. We may couple the phrase with vague hints dropped elsewhere, which show that, whether Rufus really thought of it or not, men gave him credit for dreams of dominion greater even than the supplanting of Fulk of Angers, of William of Poitiers, and of Philip of Paris all at once. The doctrine that Britain was a land fruitful in tyrants was to be carried out on a greater scale than it had been in the days of Carausius or Maximus or the later Constantine. The father had once been looked for at kingly Aachen;[758] the son, so men believed, hoped to march in the steps of Brennus to imperial Rome.[759] He would outdo the glory of all crusaders, of princes of Antioch and kings of Jerusalem. Geoffrey, Bohemund, his own brother, had knelt as vassals in the New Rome; he would sit as an Emperor in the Old. Then he would have no question about acknowledging or not acknowledging popes; he would make them or refuse to make them as he thought good. The patrimony of Saint Peter might be let to farm, along with the estates of Canterbury and Winchester and Salisbury. Whether such thoughts really passed through the mind of William Rufus we can neither affirm nor deny. That men could believe that they were passing through his mind shows that they believed, and rightly, that he was capable of dreaming, of planning, of attempting, anything.
[Sidenote: Portents.]
[Sidenote: Death of young Richard. May, 1100.]
[Sidenote: William, natural son of Robert.]
But while the preparations were making, the portents were gathering. First came a stroke which reads like a rehearsal of his own end. While Robert was coming back with his Sibyl to found a new and legitimate dynasty in the Norman duchy, a blow fell on one of the children of his earlier wanderings.[760] One Richard had already fallen in the haunted shades of the New Forest,[761] and his death opened the path for his younger brother to reign at Winchester and Rouen and Le Mans, and to dream of reigning at Dublin, Paris, Poitiers, and Rome. Another Richard, the natural son of Duke Robert, who must have been enrolled in the service of his uncle, was cut off on the same fatal ground early in May, shortly before the Westminster assembly. The King’s knights were hunting the deer in the forest; one of them drew his bow to bring down a stag; the arrow missed the intended victim, and pierced Richard with a stroke which brought him dead to the ground.[762] Great grief followed his fall; his unwitting slayer, to escape from vengeance, fled and became a monk.[763] Young Richard thus died while his uncle was making ready to keep his father out of the dominions which he was pledged to restore. His brother William, the other son of Robert’s vagrant days, seems to have followed the fortunes of his father, till, after Tinchebrai, he went to Jerusalem and died fighting in the Holy War.[764]
[Sidenote: Wonders and apparitions.]
[Sidenote: Warlike preparations. June-July, 1100.]
[Sidenote: Consecration of Gloucester Abbey. July 15, 1100.]
[Sidenote: Vision and prophecies.]
The death of Richard might be a warning. It might be taken as a sign that some special power of destiny hovered over the spot where the dwellings of man and the houses of God had been swept away to make clearer ground for sports where joy is sought for in the wanton infliction of death and suffering. Still it was no portent out of the ordinary course of nature. But portents of this kind too were not lacking. The pool of blood in Berkshire welled again;[765] the devil was seen openly in many places, showing himself, it would seem, to Normans only, and talking to them of their countrymen the King and the Bishop of Durham.[766] Strange births, stranger unbirths, were told as the news of the day to a visitor from another land.[767] As the day approaches, a crowd of vivid pictures seems to pass before us. June and July passed amidst preparations for war, but July saw also one great ecclesiastical ceremony. Abbot Serlo’s minster of Gloucester was now near enough to perfection for its consecration to be sought for. Whether all the lofty pillars of the nave were as yet reared or not, at least that massive eastern limb with its surrounding chapels, which may still be seen through the lace-work of later times, was already finished. The rite of its hallowing was done by the diocesan Samson and three other bishops, Gundulf of Rochester, Gerard of Hereford, and Hervey the shepherd of the stormy diocese of Bangor. The zeal of the monks and their visitors was stirred up by the ceremony, and the house of Saint Peter at Gloucester became a special seat of vision and prophecy. One godly brother[768] saw in the dreams of the night the Lord sitting on his throne, with the hosts of heaven and the choirs of the saints around him. A fair and stately virgin stood forth and knelt before the Lord. She prayed him to have pity on his people who were ground down beneath the yoke of King William of England. The dreamer trembled, and understood that the suppliant was the holy Church of Christ, calling on her Lord and Saviour to look down on all that her children bore from the lusts and robberies and other evil deeds of the King and his followers.[769] Serlo, filled with holy zeal, set down the vision in writing, and sent the message of warning to the King.[770]
[Sidenote: Abbot Fulchered’s sermon at Gloucester. August 1, 1100.]
But the visions of the night were not all. A more open voice of prophecy, so men deemed, was not lacking. A few days after the monk’s vision, on the day of Lammas, a crowd of all classes was gathered in Saint Peter’s church at Gloucester to keep the feast of Saint Peter-in-Chains.[771] Fulchered, Abbot of Earl Roger’s house at Shrewsbury, once a monk of Earl Roger’s house at Seez, an eloquent preacher of the divine word, was chosen from a crowd of elders[772] to make his discourse to the people. A near neighbour of the terrible son of his own founder, none could know better than he under what woes the land was groaning. Fulchered mounted the pulpit of the newly-hallowed minster, and the spirit of the old prophets came upon him.[773] In glowing words he set forth the sins and sorrows of the time, how England was given as an heritage to be trodden under foot of the ungodly. Lust, greediness, pride, all were rampant, pride which would, if it were possible, trample under foot the very stars of heaven.[774] The words have the ring of the words of Eadward on his deathbed; but Eadward had to tell of coming sorrow, and of only distant deliverance. Fulchered could tell of a deliverance which was nigh, even at the doors. A sudden change was at hand; the men who had ceased to be men should rule no longer.[775] And then in a strain which seems to carry us on to the days of Naseby and Dunbar, he told how the Lord God was coming to judge the open enemies of his spouse. He told how the Almighty would smite Moab and Edom with the sword of vengeance, and overthrow the mountains of Gilboa with a fearful shaking. “Lo,” he went on, “the bow of wrath from on high is bent against the wicked, and the arrow swift to wound is drawn from the quiver. It shall soon smite, and that suddenly; let every man that is wise amend his ways and avoid its stroke.”[776]
[Sidenote: The alleged dream of the King.]
[Sidenote: Exhortation of Gundulf.]
Such is the report of Abbot Fulchered’s sermon, as it is told us by one who no doubt set down with a special interest the words of the first prelate of the minster into which the humble church of his own father had grown.[777] Other stories tell us how on the night of that same Wednesday a more fearful dream than that of the monk of Gloucester disturbed the slumbers of some one. In the earlier version the seer is a monk from beyond sea; in its later form the terrible warning is vouchsafed to the King himself.[778] The story, as usual, puts on fresh details as it grows; but its essential features are the same in its simplest and in its most elaborate shape. The King, with his proud and swelling air, scorning all around him, enters a church. In one version it is a chapel in a forest; in another it is a minster gorgeously adorned. Its walls were robed with velvet and purple, stuffs wrought by the skill of the Greek, and with tapestry where the deeds of past times lived in stitch-work, like the tale of Brihtnoth at Ely and the newer tale of William at Bayeux.[779] Here were goodly books, here were the shrines of saints, gleaming with gold and gems and ivory, a sight such as the eyes of the master and spoiler of so many churches had never rested on. At a second glance all this bravery passed away; the walls and the altar itself stood bare. At a third glance he saw the form of a man lying bare upon the altar. A cannibal desire came on him; he ate, or strove to eat, of the body that lay before him. His victim endured for a while in patience; then his face, hitherto goodly and gentle as of an angel, became stern beyond words, and he spoke――“Is it not enough that thou hast thus far grieved me with so many wrongs? Wilt thou gnaw my very flesh and bones?” One version gives the words another turn; the stern voice answers simply, “Henceforth thou shalt eat of me no more.” In those accounts which make the King the dreamer, Rufus tells the vision to a bishop――one tale names Gundulf――who explains the easy parable. The exhortation follows, to mend his ways, to hold a synod and to restore Anselm. The King, in one account, in a momentary fit of penitence, promises to do so. But his better feelings pass away; in defiance of all warnings, he goes forth to hunt on the fatal ground, the scene of the wrong and sacrilege of his father――in some of these versions the scene of further wrong and sacrilege of his own.
[Sidenote: William at Brockenhurst. August 1, 1100.]
[Sidenote: His companions.]
[Sidenote: Henry.]
[Sidenote: Walter Tirel.]
[Sidenote: His father the Dean of Evreux.]
[Sidenote: His lordships and marriage.]
The details of some of these stories I shall discuss elsewhere. If they prove nothing else, they prove at least the deep impression which the Red King’s life and the Red King’s end made on the men of his own days and of the days which followed them. One thing is certain; on the first day of August, while Fulchered was preaching at Gloucester, King William was in the New Forest, with his head-quarters seemingly at Brockenhurst.[780] He had with him several men whose names are known to us, as Gilbert of Laigle, once so fierce against William’s cause at Rouen, Gilbert and Roger of Clare, the former of whom had won his forgiveness by his timely revelations on the march to Bamburgh.[781] Henry, Ætheling and Count, if not one of the party, was not far off; he too had, if not his visions, at least his omens.[782] But chief among the company, nearest, it would seem, to the King in sportive intercourse, was one who was perhaps his subject in Normandy by birth, perhaps his subject in England by tenure, but whose chief possessions, as well as his feelings, belonged to another land.[783] This was a baron of France, whom we once before heard of in better company, but whom the fame of the Red King’s boundless liberality had led into his service. In days before the stern laws of Hildebrand were strictly enforced, a churchman of high rank, Fulk, Dean of Evreux, was, seemingly by a lawful marriage, the father of a large family. Walter, one of his sons, bore the personal surname of Tirel, Tyrell, in many spellings, pointing perhaps to his skill in drawing the bow. He became, by whatever means, lord of Poix in Ponthieu, and of Achères by the Seine between Pontoise and Poissy; at the former of these lordships, it would seem, he had once been the host of Anselm.[784] He was not, in the days of the Survey at least, a land-owner of much account in England. A small lordship in Essex, held under Richard of Clare, is the only entry under any name by which he can be conceived to be meant. He had married a wife, Adelaide by name, of the great line of Giffard, who seems to have lived till the latter days of King Henry. He was now a near friend of the Red King’s, a special sharer with him in the sports of the forest, so much so that, when legend came to attribute the laying waste of Hampshire to the younger instead of the elder William, Walter Tirel was charged with having been the adviser of the deed.[785]
[Sidenote: Gab of the King and Walter Tirel.]
[Sidenote: Walter jeers at the king.]
[Sidenote: William’s alleged subjects and allies.]
[Sidenote: The King’s answer; he will keep Christmas at Poitiers.]
[Sidenote: Angry words of Walter.]
On the Wednesday of Fulchered’s sermon, the King and his chosen comrade were talking familiarly. Walter fell into that kind of discourse which is called in the Old-French tongue by the expressive words gaber and gab.[786] He began to talk big, to jeer at the King for the small results of his own big talk. But the matter of the discourse sounds a little strange, if it was really uttered at a moment when such great preparations were making for the defence of Normandy, for the purchase of Aquitaine, perhaps for the conquest of Anjou, to say nothing of schemes greater and further off. The lord of Poix asked the King why he did nothing; with his vast power, why did he not attack some neighbour? Great as the Red King’s power was, Walter is made to speak of it as a good deal greater than the truth, so much so indeed that we can read the speech only as mockery. All William’s men were ready at his call, the men of Britanny, of Maine,[787] he adds of Anjou. The Flemings held of him――we have heard of his dealings with their Count;[788] the Burgundians held him for their king; Eustace of Boulogne would do anything at his bidding.[789] Why did he not make war on somebody? Why did he not go forth and conquer some land or other? The King answers that he means to lead his host as far as the mountains――the Alps, we may suppose, are meant. He will thence turn back to the West, and will keep his next Christmas feast at Poitiers.[790] The mocking vein of Walter Tirel now turns to anger; he bursts forth in wrathful words. It would be a great matter indeed to go to the mountains and thence back to Poitiers in time for Christmas. Burgundians and French would indeed deserve to die by the worst of deaths, if they became subjects to the English.[791]
[Sidenote: Illustrative value of the story.]
This talk, put into the mouth of the King and his chosen comrade by a writer of the next generation, is in every way remarkable. The King’s boast that he would keep Christmas at Poitiers is found also in an earlier writer, and it is almost implied in his preparations for taking possession of Aquitaine.[792] The words about French and Burgundians becoming subject to the English might sound more in harmony with the next generation; but we have already seen examples which show that, even so soon after the Norman Conquest of England, the English name was beginning to be applied on continental lips to all the subjects of the English crown. The armies of William Rufus were English in the same sense in which the armies of Justinian were Roman. The threat of a King of England, speaking on English ground, to overrun all the provinces of Gaul is conceived as calling forth a feeling of patriotic anger in the lord of Poix and Achères. Yet, while we might have expected such an one to fight valiantly for Ponthieu or the Vexin against a Norman invader, we might also have expected him to be quite indifferent to the fate of Poitiers, indifferent at all events to its transfer from the Aquitanian to the Norman William. The speech is followed by words which imply that the King’s boast was taken more seriously than it was meant, and which almost suggest a plot on Walter’s part for the King’s destruction.[793] In the crowd of conflicting tales with which we are now dealing, we must not insist on any one as a trustworthy statement of undoubted facts; but the dialogue which is put into the mouths of William Rufus and Walter Tirel is almost as remarkable if we look on it as the invention of the rimer himself as if we deem it to have been, in its substance, really spoken by those into whose mouths it is put.
[Sidenote: Last day of William Rufus. August 2, 1100.]
[Sidenote: Statement of the Chronicle.]
[Sidenote: Other versions; Walter Tirel mentioned in most.]
[Sidenote: Ralph of Aix.]
[Sidenote: The charge denied by Walter.]
[Sidenote: Estimate of the received tale.]
[Sidenote: The statement of the Chronicle the only safe one.]
[Sidenote: Wonder that he was not killed sooner.]
Of the events of the next day we may say thus much with certainty; “Thereafter on the morrow after Lammas day was the King William in hunting from his own men with an arrow offshot, and then to Winchester brought and in the bishopric buried.”[794] These words of our own Chronicler state the fact of the King’s death and its manner; they suggest treason, but they do not directly assert it; they name no one man as the doer. Nearly all the other writers agree in naming Walter Tirel as the man who drew the bow; but they agree also in making his act chance-medley and not wilful murder. Yet it is clear that there were other tales afloat of which we hear merely the echoes. One tradition attributed the blow, not to Walter Tirel, but to a certain Ralph of Aix.[795] As the tale is commonly told, the details of the King’s death could have been known from no mouth but that of Walter himself; yet it is certain that Walter himself, long after, when he had nothing to hope or fear one way or the other, denied in the most solemn way that he had any share in the deed or any knowledge of it.[796] The words of the Chronicler, though they suggest treason, do not shut out chance-medley; they leave the actor perfectly open. There is nothing in the received tale which is in the least unlikely; but it is the kind of tale which, even if untrue, might easily grow up. William may have died by accident by the hand of Walter Tirel or of any other. He may also have died by treason by the hand of Walter Tirel or of any other. In this last case there were many reasons why no inquiries should have been made, many reasons why the received tale should be invented or adopted. It was just such a story as was wanted in such a case. It satisfied curiosity by naming a particular actor, while it named an actor who was out of reach, and did not charge even him with any real guilt. In favour of the same story is the statement, which can hardly be an invention, that Walter Tirel fled after the King’s death. But this was a case in which a man who was innocent even of chance-medley might well flee from the fear of a suspicion of treason. And Walter’s own solemn denial may surely go for as much as any mere suspicion against him. Guesses in such a case are easy; the slayer may have been a friend of Henry, a friend of Anselm, a man goaded to despair by oppression――all such guesses are likely enough in themselves; there is no evidence for any of them. All that can be said is that the words of the Chronicle certainly seem to point out the actor, whether guilty or only unlucky, as belonging to the King’s immediate following. “The King William was in hunting from his own men by an arrow offshot.” Beyond that we cannot go with certainty. But the number of men of every class who must have felt that they would be the better, if an arrow or any other means of death could be brought to light on the Red King, must have been great indeed. The real wonder is, not that the shaft struck him in the thirteenth year of his reign, but that no hand had stricken him long before.
[Sidenote: Accounts of the King’s last day.]
Of the last day of the Red King, Thursday, the second day of August, we have two somewhat minute pictures which belong to different hours of the day. There is no contradiction between the two; the two may be read as an unbroken story; but we have that slight feeling of distrust which cannot fail to arise when it is clear that he who records the events of the afternoon knew nothing of the events of the morning. The details of such a day would be sure to be remembered; for the same reason they ran a special chance of being coloured and embellished. We shall therefore do well to go through the details of the earlier hours of that memorable day as we find them written, not forgetting the needful cautions, but at the same time not forgetting that the tale has much direct evidence for it and has no direct evidence against it.[797]
[Sidenote: Morning of August 2.]
[Sidenote: William’s dreams.]
[Sidenote: Robert Fitz-hamon tells the monk’s dream.]
[Sidenote: William’s mocking answer.]
[Sidenote: His disturbance of mind.]
[Sidenote: His morning.]
The King then, even according to those who do not assign the specially fearful vision to himself, passed a restless night, disturbed by dreams which, on this milder showing, were ugly enough. He dreamed that he was bled――a process which in those days seems to have passed for a kind of amusement――and that the blood gushed up towards heaven, so as to shut out the light of day.[798] He woke suddenly with the name of our Lady on his lips; he bade a light to be brought, and bade his chamberlains not to leave him.[799] He remained awake till daybreak. Then, according to this version, came Robert Fitz-hamon, entitled to do so as being in his closest confidence,[800] and told him the dream of the monk from beyond sea. William was moved; but he tried to hide his real feelings under the usual guise of mockery; “He is a monk,” he said with his rude laugh, “he is a monk; monklike he dreams for the sake of money; give him a hundred shillings.”[801] Here we see the boasted liberality which recklessly squandered with one hand what was wrung from the groaning people with the other. Seriously disturbed in mind, William doubted whether he should go hunting that morning; his friends urged him to run no risk, lest the dream should come true. He therefore, to occupy his restless mind, gave the forenoon to serious business;[802] there was enough of it on hand, if he was planning a march to Rome or even a march to Poitiers. The early dinner of those days presently came; he ate and drank more than usual, hoping thus to stifle and drown the thoughts that pressed upon him.[803] In this attempt he seems to have succeeded; after his meal he went forth on his hunting.
[Sidenote: He sets forth to hunt.]
[Sidenote: The new arrows.]
[Sidenote: He gives two of them to Walter Tirel.]
[Sidenote: Abbot Serlo’s letter.]
[Sidenote: William’s mockery.]
[Sidenote: His sneers at English regard for omens.]
At this point we take up the thread of the other story. The King, after his meal, has regained his spirits, and, surrounded by his followers and flatterers, he is making ready for the chase. He was putting on his boots――boots doubtless of no small price――when a smith drew near, offering him six new catapults, arrows, it would seem, designed, not for the long bow, but for the more deadly arbalest or cross-bow.[804] The King joyfully took them; he praised the work of the craftsman; he kept four for himself, and gave two to Walter Tirel. “Tis right,” he said, “that the sharpest arrows should be given to him who knows how to deal deadly strokes with them.”[805] The two went on talking and jesting; the flatterers of the King joined in admiringly. Suddenly there came a monk from Gloucester charged with a letter from Abbot Serlo. The letter told the dream of the monk, in which the Holy Church had been seen calling on her Lord for vengeance on the evil deeds of the King of the English. The letter was read to the King[806]――there was a future king not far off who could read letters for himself. William burst into his bitter laugh; he turned to his favourite comrade; “Walter, do thou do justice, according to these things which thou hast heard.” “So I will, my lord,” answered Walter.[807] Then the King talks more at length about the Abbot’s letter. “I wonder at my lord Serlo’s fancy for writing all this; I always thought him a good old abbot. ’Tis very simple of him, when I have so much business about, to take the trouble to put the dreams of his snoring monks into writing and to send them to me all this way. Does he think I am like the English, who throw up their journey or their business because of the snoring or the dreams of an old woman?”[808] This speech has a genuine sound; it should be noticed as being the only speech put into the mouth of William Rufus which can be construed as expressing any dislike or scorn for his English subjects as such. Yet the words are rather words of good-humoured raillery than expressive of any deeper feeling. The Red King oppressed and despised all men, except his own immediate following. Practically his oppression and scorn must have fallen most heavily on men of native English birth; but there is no sign that he purposely picked them out as objects of any special persecution.
[Sidenote: William and his companions go to the hunt.]
[Sidenote: The King and Walter Tirel.]
[Sidenote: The King shot by an arrow.]
[Sidenote: Various versions.]
[Sidenote: Alleged devotion of the King at the last moment.]
In the version which records this speech the sneer at the English regard for omens are the Red King’s last recorded words. He now mounted his horse and rode into a wooded part of the forest to seek his sport, the sport of those to whom the sufferings of the wearied, wounded, weeping, beast are a source of joy. Count Henry the King’s brother,[809] William of Breteuil, and other nobles, went forth to the hunt, and were scattered about towards different points. The King and the lord of Poix kept together, with a few companions, some say; others say that they two only kept together.[810] The sun was sinking towards the west when an arrow struck the King; he fell, and his reign and life were ended. This is all that we can say with positive certainty. That the arrow came from the bow of Walter Tirel is a feature common to nearly every account; but all the details differ. In one highly picturesque version, not only the King and Walter Tirel,[811] but a company of barons are in a thickly wooded part of the forest near a marsh. The herd of deer comes near; the King gets down from his horse to take better aim; the barons get down also, Walter Tirel among them. Walter places himself near an elder-tree, behind an aspen. A great stag passes by; an arrow badly aimed pierces the King; by whose hand it was sent the teller of the tale knew not; but the archers who were there said that the shaft came from the bow of Walter Tirel. Walter fled at once; the King fell. He thrice cried for the Lord’s body. But there was none to give it to him; the place was a wilderness far from any church. But a hunter took herbs and flowers and made the King eat, deeming this to be a communion. Such a strange kind of figure of the most solemn act of Christian worship was not unknown.[812] Our author charitably hopes that it might be accepted in the case of the Red King, especially as he had received holy bread――itself a substitute of the same kind――the Sunday before.
[Sidenote: Another version;]
[Sidenote: William unwilling to go to the hunt.]
[Sidenote: He is shot by accident by a knight unnamed.]
[Sidenote: He dies penitent.]
In this version there is no mention of the warning dreams either of the King or of any other person. The scene in the wood follows at once on the boasting discourse with Walter Tirel. In another version the King has the frightful dream; he receives, and receives in a good spirit, the warning interpretation of the Bishop.[813] His companions, knights and valets, make ready for the chase; they are mounted on their horses; the bows are ready; the dogs are following; the dogs bark; the horns blow; all is ready that could stir up the soul of the hunter. The King is unwilling to stir; his companions tempt him, entreat him, jeer at him; it is time to set out; he is afraid. He tells them solemnly that he is sick and sad a hundredfold more than they wot of. The end is come; he will not go to the forest. They think that he is mocking, and at last constrain him to come. The chase is described; the King seems to be alone with one unnamed companion. The King calls on his comrade to shoot; he is frightened as being too near the King. He shoots; the devil guides the barbed arrow so that it glances from a bough, and pierces the King near the heart. He has just strength enough to bid the knight to flee for his own life, and to pray to God for him who has lost his life by his own folly, and who has been so great a sinner against God. The knight rides off in bitter grief, wishing a hundred times that he had himself been killed instead of the King.
[Sidenote: Tenderness towards Rufus in these two versions.]
[Sidenote: Other versions mention Walter Tirel.]
In these versions, both written in the Red King’s own tongue, the details are very remarkable. They seem to come from a kind of wish, like the feeling which strewed flowers on the grave of Nero, to make the end of the oppressor and blasphemer one degree less frightful. Other versions know nothing of this conversion at the last moment. In one of them, the two, the King and Walter, are alone; the King shoots at a stag; he hits the beast, but only with a slight wound. The stag flies; the King follows him with his eyes, sheltering them with his hand from the sun’s rays. Walter Tirel meanwhile aims at another stag, misses him, and strikes the King. Rufus utters no word; like Harold, he breaks off the shaft of the arrow; he falls on the ground, and dies. Walter comes up, finds him lifeless, and takes to flight.[814] Or again, the stag comes between his two enemies; Walter shoots; the King at the same moment shifts his place; Walter’s arrow flies over the stag’s back, and pierces the King.[815] In another version the arrow, as we have already heard, glances from a tree;[816] in another the King stumbles and falls upon it.[817] In later but not less graphic accounts the string of the King’s bow breaks; the stag stands still in amazement; the King calls to Walter, “Shoot, you devil,” “Shoot, in the devil’s name; shoot, or it will be the worse for you.” Walter shoots; his arrow, perhaps by a straight course, perhaps by glancing against a tree, strikes the King to the heart.[818]
[Sidenote: Dunstable version.]
[Sidenote: The dream with new details.]
[Sidenote: The prior of Dunstable warns the King.]
[Sidenote: The King shot by Ralph of Aix.]
In all these versions the arrow comes from the bow of a known companion, and in all but one that companion is said to be Walter Tirel. In another form of the story the general outline is the same, but the persons are different. The vision which in the other version is seen at Gloucester is moved to Dunstable, and is seen there by the prior of that house. The change of place is unlucky, as the priory of Dunstable was not yet founded.[819] The Prince on his throne, and the fair woman complaining of the deeds of William Rufus, are seen, with some differences of detail, but quite a new element is brought in. A man all black and hairy offers five arrows to the Prince on the throne, who gives them back again to him, saying that on the morrow the wrongs of the suppliant woman shall be avenged by one of them. The Prior has the vision explained to him much as in the other versions of the story, but with the addition that, unless the King repented, the woman――the Church――would be avenged by one of the arrows on the morrow. The Prior starts from his sleep, and midnight as it was, he sets out at once on a journey to the New Forest, as swift and headlong as the King’s own ride to Southampton the year before. He reaches the place at one in the afternoon, and finds the King going forth to hunt. As soon as William sees him, he says that he knows why he is come, and orders forty marks to be given to him. For, it is added, the King, who destroyed other churches throughout all England, had a love for the church of Dunstable and its prior, and had even built the minster there at his own cost. The Prior says that he has come on much greater and weightier matters; he takes the King aside; he tells him his dream, and warns him on no account to go into the forest, but at once to begin to repent and amend his ways. The Prior has hardly ended his discourse when a man, like the man whom he had seen in his dream, comes and offers the King five arrows, like the arrows of the dream. The King gives them――not to Walter Tirol, who is not mentioned, but to Ralph of Aix, to take with him into the forest. The Prior meanwhile prays him not to go, but in vain. He goes into the wood, and is presently shot with one of those arrows by the hand of Ralph. No details are given, nor is it implied whether the King’s death was an act of murder or of chance-medley.
[Sidenote: Impression made at the time by the death of Rufus.]
[Sidenote: Its abiding memory.]
[Sidenote: Local traditions.]
[Sidenote: Impressive character of the death of Rufus.]
[Sidenote: Rufus and Charles the First.]
[Sidenote: The words of the Chronicle.]
[Sidenote: End and character of Rufus.]
[Sidenote: Judgement on the reign of Rufus.]
These varying tales, whose very variety shows the impression which the event made upon men’s minds, may make us glad to come back to the safe statement of the Chronicler, that the Red King was shot from his own men. The place and circumstances of the death of Rufus were such as could not fail to stamp themselves upon men’s minds. We see the proud and godless King, in the height of his pride and godlessness, with his heart puffed up with wilder plans and more swelling boasts than any of his plans and boasts in former years. He goes forth, in defiance of all warning――for some kernel of truth there must surely be in so many tales of warning――to take his pleasure in the place which men had already learned to look on as fatal to his house, the place where his brother had died by a mysterious death, where his nephew had died only a few weeks before his own end. He goes forth, after striving first to quiet his restless soul with business, and then to quench all thoughts and all warnings in the wine-cup. In the midst of his sport, he falls, by what hand no man knows for certain. One writer rejoices to tell us how the oppressor of the Church died on the site of one of the churches which had been uprooted to make way for his pleasures.[820] Others rejoice to tell how the King whose life and reign had been that of a wild beast, perished like a beast among the beasts.[821] And the impression was not only at the time; it has been abiding. The death of William Rufus is one of those events in English history which are familiar to every memory and come readily to every mouth. His death lives in the thoughts of not a few who have no clear knowledge of his life. The arrow in the New Forest is well known to many who know nothing of the real position of the Red King’s reign in English history. The name of Walter Tirel springs readily to the lips of many on whose ears the names of Randolf Flambard and Robert of Bellême, of Helias of Maine and Malcolm of Scotland, nay the name of Anselm himself, would fall like unwonted sounds. No keener local remembrance can be found than that which binds together the name of Rufus and the name of the New Forest. At the scenes of the great events of his reign, at Rochester and Bamburgh and Le Mans, local memory has passed away, and the presence of the Red King has to be called up by book-learning only. In a word, in popular remembrance William Rufus lives, not in his life but in his death. Nor is this wonderful. In the widest survey of his reign, we can only say that his death was the fitting ending of his life; in a life full of striking incident, it is not amazing that the last and most striking incident of all should be the best remembered. Of all the endings of kings in our long history, the two most impressive are surely the two that are most opposite. There is the death of the king who fell suddenly in the height of his power, by an unknown hand in the thickest depths of the forest; and there is the death of the king who, fallen from his power, was brought forth to die by the stroke of the headsman, before the windows of his own palace, in the sight of his people and of the sun. The striking nature of the tale is worthy of its long remembrance; but one could almost wish that the name of the supposed actor in the death of Rufus had never attached itself to the story. The dark words of the Chronicle are in truth more impressive than the tale, true or false, of Walter Tirel. Rufus was shot in his hunting from his own men. That is enough; his day was over. A life was ended, stained with deeds which, in our history at least, stand out without fellow before or after, but a life in which we may here and there see signs of great powers wasted, even of momentary feelings which might have been trained into something nobler. As it is, the career of William the Red is one of which the kindest words that we can say are that he always kept his word when it was plighted in a certain form, and that he was less cruel in his own person than many men of his time, than some better men than himself. But, however we judge of the man, there is but one judgement to be passed on the reign. The arrow, by whomsoever shot, set England free from oppression such as she never felt before or after at the hand of a single man.
[Sidenote: Alleged final penitence of Rufus.]
[Sidenote: The other version prevails.]
[Sidenote: Accounts of William’s burial.]
One tale of the death of Rufus, it will be remembered, charitably describes him as seeking at the last for the mercy of the God whom he had so often defied. Others paint him as stubborn to the end, and put the name of the fiend in his mouth as his last words. The latter version is the one which left its abiding remembrance; it is the one which all men accepted at the time as the true picture of the oppressor whose yoke was broken at that memorable Lammas-tide. But the versions which try to assert a repentance for William Rufus at the last moment try also to claim for him a solemn and honourable burial amid the tears of mourning friends. One story goes so far as to place at the head of the assembly the late Bishop of the diocese, Walkelin of Winchester, whose body was already resting in the Old Minster, while the revenues of his see were in the hands of the King. This version gives us a vivid picture of the scene which followed the King’s death.[822] A company of barons gather round the corpse. There were the sons of Richard of Bienfaite, pointedly distinguished, the one as Earl, the other only as Lord.[823] There were Gilbert of Laigle and Robert Fitz-hamon, names familiar to us, and William of Montfichet, a name afterwards well known, but which is not enrolled in Domesday. These lords weep and rend their hair; they beat themselves and wish they were dead; they could never have such another lord. Gilbert of Laigle at last bids them turn from vainly lamenting the lord who could not come back to them to paying the last honours to what was left of him. The huntsmen make a bier; they strew it with flowers and fern; they lay it on two palfreys; they place the corpse on the bier and cover it with the new mantles of Robert Fitz-hamon and William of Montfichet. Then they bear him to the minster of Saint Swithhun, where bishops, abbots, clerks, and monks, a goodly company, are come together. Bishop Walkelin, strange to say, watches by the body of the King till the morning. Then it is buried with such worship, such saying of masses, as no man had ever heard before, such as no man would hear again till the day of doom.
[Sidenote: The genuine story.]
[Sidenote: Popular canonizations.]
[Sidenote: Popular excommunication of Rufus.]
[Sidenote: He is buried in the Old Minster without religious rites.]
[Sidenote: Fall of the tower. 1107.]
Such is the tale of those who would soften down the story; but the version which bears on it the stamp of truth gives us quite another picture. The King, forsaken by his nobles and companions, lay dead in the forest, as little cared for as his father had been when he lay dead in his chamber at Saint Gervase. Those who had been his comrades in sport hastened hither and thither to their own homes, to guard them against troubles that might arise, now that the land had no longer a ruler. Only a few churls of the neighbourhood, men of the race at whom Rufus had sneered for heeding omens and warnings, were, now that omens and warnings had proved too true, ready to do the last corporal work of mercy to the oppressor. They laid the bleeding body on a rustic wain; they covered it as they could, with coarse cloths, and then took it, dripping blood as it went, to the gates of Winchester. He who had so dearly loved the sports of the woods was himself borne from the woods to the city, like a savage boar pierced through by the hunting-spear.[824] And now took place one of the most wonderful scenes that our history records.[825] That history records not a few cases of popular canonization; neither pope nor king could hinder Earl Waltheof and Earl Simon from working signs and wonders on behalf of the folk for whom they had died.[826] But nowhere else do we read of a popular excommunication. William Rufus, as I have more than once remarked, had never been openly cut off from the communion of the Church. He had died indeed unshriven and unabsolved, but so had many a better man in the endless struggles of those rough days. There was no formal ground for refusing to his corpse or to his soul the rites, the prayers, the offerings, which were the portion of the meanest of the faithful. But a common thought came on the minds of all men that for William Rufus those charitable rites could be of none avail. His foul life, his awful death, was taken as a sign that he was smitten by a higher judgement than that of Popes and Councils. A crowd of all orders, ranks, and sexes, brought together by wonder or pity――we will not deem that they came in scorn or triumph――met the humble funeral procession, and followed the royal corpse to the Old Minster. The dead man had been a king; the consecrating oil had been poured on his head; his body was therefore allowed to pass within the hallowed walls, and was laid with all speed in a grave beneath the central tower. But in those rites, at once sad and cheerful, which accompany the burial of the lowliest of baptized men, the lord of England and Normandy had no share. No bell was rung; no mass was said; no offerings were made for the soul which was deemed to have passed beyond the reach even of eternal mercy. No man took from the hoard which Rufus had filled by wrong to win the prayers of the poor for him by almsgiving. Men deemed that for him prayer was too late; no scattering abroad of the treasure by the hands of others could atone for the wrong by which the treasure had first been brought together. Many looked on; but few mourned. None wept for him but the mercenaries who received his pay, and the baser partners of his foul vices. They would gladly have torn his slayer in pieces, but he was already far away out of their reach. Thus unwept, unprayed for, a byeword, an astonishment, and a hissing, the Red King lay beneath the pavement of the minster of St. Swithhun. A few years later the tower under which he lay crumbled and fell. Men said that it fell because so foul a corpse lay beneath it.[827]
[Sidenote: Portents at William’s death.]
[Sidenote: Dream of Abbot Hugh of Clugny. July 31, 1100.]
[Sidenote: Vision of Anselm’s doorkeeper. August 1.]
[Sidenote: News brought to Anselm’s clerk. August 2.]
[Sidenote: Vision of Count William of Mortain. August 2.]
But as portents had gone before the fall of the Red King, so portents did not wait for the crumbling of Walkelin’s tower to startle men in strange ways with the news that he had fallen. That news, so say the legends of the time, was known in strange ways in far-off places, long before the tidings could have been brought by the utmost speed of man; sooner, it would seem, than the moment when the arrow hit its designed or unwitting mark. Already on the last day of July, the holy abbot Hugh of Clugny was able to tell Anselm that he had seen in a dream the King of the English brought before the throne of God, accused, judged, and condemned to eternal damnation.[828] The next day, the night of the kalends of August, a bright youth stood before Anselm’s door-keeper at Lyons, as he strove to sleep, and asked if he wished to hear the news. The news was that the strife between King William and Archbishop Anselm was over.[829] The next day, the day of the King’s death, one of the Archbishop’s clerks was at the matin service, singing with his eyes shut. He felt a small paper put into his hand and a voice bade him read. He looked up; the bearer of the paper was gone; but he read the words, “King William is dead.”[830] Within our own island the news was said to have been spread abroad in yet stranger ways. At the same hour when King William went forth to hunt in the New Forest, his cousin Count William of Mortain went forth for his sport also in some of his hunting-grounds in Cornwall. He too found himself by chance alone, apart from any of his comrades. No archer from Poix crossed his path, but a sight far more fearful. A huge goat, shaggy and black, met him, bearing on his back a king――how was his kingship marked?――black and naked, and wounded in the midst of his breast. The Count adjured the beast in the holiest name to say what all this meant.[831] The power of speech was not lacking to the monster. “I bear,” he answered, “your king, rather your tyrant, William the Red, to his doom. For I am the evil spirit, I am the avenger of the wickedness with which he raged against the Church of Christ, and I brought about his death, at the bidding of the blessed Alban, protomartyr of England, who made his moan to the Lord, because this man sinned beyond measure in the island which he had been the first to hallow.”[832] From what mint this wild tale comes it is needless to add. The house of Saint Alban was only one of thirteen abbeys which the King had kept vacant to receive their revenues.[833] But the other twelve were less rich in that special growth both of legend and of genuine history which adorns the house of the protomartyr.
§ 2. The First Days of Henry.
August 2――November 11, 1100.
[Sidenote: Vacancy of the throne.]
[Sidenote: Claims of Robert by the treaty of 1091.]
[Sidenote: Such claims little regarded.]
[Sidenote: Choice confined to the house of the Conqueror.]
[Sidenote: No thought of either Eadgar.]
[Sidenote: Choice between Robert and Henry.]
[Sidenote: Claims of Henry; the only son of a king.]
[Sidenote: His personal merits.]
[Sidenote: Speedy election of Henry.]
The throne was again vacant; and now came the question which Englishmen knew so well whenever the throne was vacant, Whom should they choose to fill it? There was indeed an instrument in being, dated nine years before, by which it had been agreed that, if either Robert or William died without lawful issue, the survivor should succeed to the dominions of his brother.[834] But Englishmen had never allowed their most precious birthright to be thus lightly signed away beforehand. And many men of Norman birth must by this time have put on the feelings of Englishmen on this point as on many others. With the great mass of both races there could have been no doubt at all as to the right man to place upon the vacant throne. By this time, we may be sure, all thought had passed away of choosing outside the line of the Conqueror; and if such a thought had come into the head of any man, there was no candidate who could have been brought forward. The elder Eadgar was far away on his crusade, and no one was likely to think of sending to Scotland to offer the crown to his nephew. His nieces were near at hand; but the thought of a female ruler did not come into men’s minds till the next generation. Within the house of the Conqueror there were two claimants. Robert had whatever right the treaty could give him, a better right undoubtedly than any which he could put forward as the eldest son of his father. But a paper claim of this kind went for little when the man who asserted it was far away, and when, had he been at hand, everything except the letter of the treaty was against him. It went for naught when there, on the very spot, was the man whom every sign marked out for kingship. There among them was the only man――unless indeed they had gone to Norway to seek for the younger Harold――who was the son of a crowned King of the English. There was the one man of the reigning house who, born on English soil of the Norman stock, could be looked on as a countryman by Normans and English alike. There was the man who, while his brothers had, in different ways, so deeply misgoverned on their several sides of the sea, had shown, by his wise rule of a small dominion, how far better suited he was than either of them to be entrusted with the rule of a mighty kingdom. The Count of the Côtentin, Henry the Ætheling, Henry the Clerk, was the man whose name spoke alike to English and to Norman hearts. To the Normans he was the son of their conquering Duke, the descendant of the dukes that had been before him, the man who had made one spot of Norman ground prosperous while anarchy tore the rest in pieces. To the English he was their own Ætheling, the one son of their king, their countryman, as they fondly deemed, speaking the tongue of Ælfred, sent to renew the law of Eadward. With such a candidate at their doors, the bit of diplomatic parchment was torn to the winds. No time was to be lost; the land could not go without a king. The work was done speedily and decisively. The record which tells how the late king died in the midst of his unright, without shrift, without atonement, goes on to say, “On the Thursday was he slain and on the morrow was he buried; and, after that he buried was, the Witan that nigh at hand were his brother Henry to king chose.”[835]
[Sidenote: Story of Henry on the day of William’s death.]
[Sidenote: Henry hastes to Winchester.]
[Sidenote: William of Breteuil maintains the claim of Robert.]
[Sidenote: Popular feeling for Henry.]
[Sidenote: Formal meeting for the election. August 3.]
On the day of the Red King’s fall Count Henry was hunting in the New Forest, but not in the same immediate part of it as his brother. The tale ran that the string of his bow broke, that he went to the house of a churl to get wherewithal to mend it. While the bowstring is mending, an old woman of the house asks one of the Count’s companions who his master was. He answers that he is Henry, brother of the king of the land. She tells them that she knows by augury that the King’s brother shall soon be king himself, and bids them remember her words.[836] Henry turns again to his sport, but, as he draws near to the wood, men meet him, one, two, three, then nine and ten, telling him of the King’s death.[837] In this account, he goes in grief to the place where the corpse lay;[838] a more likely version carries him straight to the hoard at Winchester, where, as lawful heir of the kingdom, he demands the keys at the hands of the guard.[839] The tale reminds us of Cæsar and Metellus.[840] William of Breteuil withstands the demand. He pleads the elder birth of Robert and the homage which both Henry and himself had done to him. Robert had waged wars far off for the love of God; he was now on his way to take his crown and kingdom in peace.[841] A fierce strife arose; a crowd swiftly gathered, and it was soon seen on which side the feelings of the people lay. Men pressed together from all quarters to swell the company of him who in their eyes was the lawful heir claiming his right. The voice of England――so much of England as had heard the news――rose high against the stranger who dared to withstand the English Ætheling, the son of a crowned king born in the land. Thus, four-and-thirty years after the great battle, Englishmen still looked on the son of William Fitz-Osbern, nay on the son of William the Great born to a duke in Normandy, as outlandish men. But the son of William the Great, born to a king in their own land, they claimed as their own countryman. Strengthened by the favour of the people, the Ætheling put his hand on his sword’s hilt; he would endure no vain excuses to keep him out of the inheritance of his father.[842] A stop seems to have been put to this open strife, perhaps by night, perhaps by the coming of the lowly funeral pomp of the fallen king on the Friday morning. The unhallowed ceremony over, the Witan came together in a more regular assembly for the formal choice of a king.
[Sidenote: Division of the assembly;]
[Sidenote: English and Norman supporters of Henry;]
[Sidenote: supporters of Robert.]
[Sidenote: Comparison with the assembly after the death of Cnut. 1035.]
[Sidenote: The divided kingdom now impossible.]
[Sidenote: Henry chosen;]
[Sidenote: influence of Henry Earl of Warwick.]
The place of their meeting, whether in the minster or in the king’s palace, is not recorded.[843] Wherever it was, other voices were now to be heard besides those of the Englishmen of Winchester and the coasts thereof. These called with one voice for their own Ætheling; but the voices of the Norman lords were by no means of one accord. Some of the immediate companions of the late king had hastened at once on his fall to pledge themselves to the cause of Henry. But in the assembly which now came together a strong party, Normans we may be sure to a man, supported the cause of Robert. There are few assemblies of which we would more gladly hear the details than of this, in which the claims of two candidates for the crown were debated, not without fierce strife, but at least without bloodshed. We are reminded of the assembly which, sixty-five years before, peaceably decided between the claims of Harthacnut and the first Harold.[844] But then the question was settled by a division of the kingdom; now such a thought is not breathed. The Conqueror had made England a realm one and indivisible; it was doubtful to which of his sons it was to pass, but, to whichever it passed, it was to pass whole. Unluckily, when debates concerned the kingdom only, without touching any ecclesiastical question, no Eadmer or William Fitz-Stephen was found to report them. We know only the result. Henry was chosen, and he largely owed his election to one special friend. This was his namesake Henry, Earl of Warwick, the younger son of the old Roger of Beaumont and brother of the more famous Count of Meulan, soon to be Earl of Leicester. Earl Henry and his wife Margaret of Mortagne bear a good character among the writers of their time, and they seem to have been designed for a more peaceful age than that in which their lot was cast. Chiefly by the influence of Henry of Warwick, Henry of Coutances and Domfront was chosen to the English crown. The work was almost as speedy as the burial of Eadward, the election and the crowning of Harold. Quite as speedy it could not be, when the Gemót of election was held at Winchester, while the precedents of three reigns made it seem matter of necessity that the unction and coronation should be done at Westminster. Before the sun set on the day after the death of Rufus, England had again, not indeed a full king, but an undisputed king-elect.
[Sidenote: The hoard opened to the king-elect.]
[Sidenote: He grants the bishopric of Winchester to William Giffard.]
[Sidenote: Consecrated 1107; died 1129.]
Against a king-elect the gates of the hoard could no longer be shut. Not five thousand pounds only, but the whole treasure of the kingdom was now Henry’s. His first act was to stop one of the many sources by which the hoard was filled. One of them was found in the revenues of the vacant bishopric of the city in which they were met. Henry, still only chosen and not crowned, took on him to do one act of royal authority which all men would hail as a sign that the new reign was not to be as the last. As the uncrowned Ætheling Eadgar had confirmed the election of Abbot Brand by the monks of Peterborough,[845] so the uncrowned Ætheling Henry bestowed the staff of the see of Winchester on the late king’s Chancellor, William Giffard, doubtless a kinsman of the aged Earl of Buckingham. In his appointment we may perhaps see a wish on the part of a king who was emphatically the choice of the English people to conciliate at once the Norman nobles and the royal officials.[846] But seven years were to pass before the bishop-elect appointed by the king-elect became a full bishop by the rite of consecration. And what we should hardly have looked for in a minister of the Red King, some of those years were years of confessorship and exile endured by the new prelate on behalf of an ecclesiastical principle.[847]
[Sidenote: Need for hastening the coronation.]
[Sidenote: Henry crowned at Westminster. August 5, 1100.]
[Sidenote: Form of his oath.]
[Sidenote: He swears to undo the evils of his brother’s reign.]
[Sidenote: Joy at Henry’s accession.]
But Henry, Ætheling and Count, was not long to remain a mere king-elect. The interregnum ended on the fourth day. It was not a time to tarry; it was needful that the land should have a full king at the first moment that the rite of his hallowing could be gone through. It was known that Robert was on his way back from Apulia, and Henry and his counsellors feared lest, if the Duke should show himself in England or even in Normandy before the crown was safe on the new king’s brow, the Norman nobles in England might repent of an election in which it is clear that they had not very heartily agreed.[848] From Winchester therefore Henry went to London with all speed, in company with Count Robert of Meulan, who kept under the new reign the same post of specially trusted counsellor which he had held during the reign of Rufus.[849] On the Sunday after that memorable Thursday, Count Henry was admitted to the kingly office in the West Minster. As the Primate was far away, the rite of consecration was performed by the highest suffragan of his province, Maurice Bishop of London.[850] The form of Henry’s coronation oath seems, like the oaths of his father and his brother,[851] to have had a special reference to the circumstances of the time. It is the oath of a reformer, of a king who has to bring back right after a season of wrong. As the memory of Rufus had been branded in his burial as the memory of no other king ever was, so it was branded no less in the coronation rites of his successor. The new king swore, as usual, to hold the best law that on any king’s day before him stood; but he swore further to God and to all folk to put aside the unright that in his brother’s time was.[852] These weighty promises made, Bishop Maurice of London hallowed Henry to king, and, according to the great law of his father, all men in this land bowed to him and sware oaths and became his men.[853] The work was now done; the diplomatic meshes of nine years before had been broken asunder by the strong will of the English people. England had again a king born on her own soil, a king of her own rearing, her own choosing, King of the English in a truer sense than those who went either before him or after him for some generations. Great was the gladness as the news spread through the length and breadth of the land. The long hopes of the English, the dark sayings of the Britons, were fulfilled in the coming of the king sworn before all things to undo the wrongs of the evil time. The good state was brought back; the golden age had come again; the days of unlaw had passed away; the Lion of Justice reigned.[854]
[Sidenote: He puts forth his Charter.]
[Sidenote: Its provisions.]
[Sidenote: The Church to be free;]
[Sidenote: ecclesiastical vacancies.]
Before the Sunday of his consecration had passed, King Henry had put the solemn promises which he had made before the altar into the shape of a legal document. That very day he set forth in writing that famous charter which formed the groundwork of the yet more famous charter of John.[855] I have commented on its main provisions elsewhere, and I have tried to show how it at once establishes the new doctrines as to the tenure of land, and promises to reform the abuses to which they had already led.[856] I will now go through its main provisions in order. First, Henry, King of the English, does his faithful people to wit that he has been crowned king by the common counsel of the barons of the whole realm of England.[857] He had found the realm ground down with unrighteous exactions. For the fear of God and for the love which he has to his people, he first of all makes the Church of God free. He will not sell the Church nor put her to farm.[858] When an archbishop, bishop, or abbot, dies, he will take nothing during the vacancy from the demesne of his church or from its tenants. And he will put away the evil customs with which the realm of England was oppressed, which evil customs he goes on to set down in order.
[Sidenote: Reliefs.]
Secondly, he touches the question of reliefs. The heir of lands held in chief of the crown shall no longer, as was done in his brother’s time, be constrained to redeem his land at an arbitrary price; he shall relieve it by a just and lawful relief.[859] And as the King does by his tenants-in-chief, he calls on his tenants-in-chief to do in their turn by their under-tenants.
[Sidenote: Marriage.]
Thirdly, he comes to the abuse of the lord’s rights in the matter of marriage.[860] He will take nothing for licence of marriage, nor will he meddle with the right of his tenants to dispose of their daughters or other kinswomen, unless the proposed bridegroom should be the King’s enemy. The rights of the childless widow are also secured.
[Sidenote: Wardship.]
The fourth clause touches the case of the widow with children. The mother herself or some fitting kinsman shall have the wardship.[861] And as the King does by his barons, so shall they do in the case of the daughters and widows of their men.
[Sidenote: The coinage.]
Fifthly, the coinage is to be brought back to the state in which it was in the days of King Eadward, and justice is denounced against false moneyers and other retailers of false coin.[862] Sharp justice it was, as we know from the annals of Henry’s reign.
[Sidenote: Debts and suits.]
Sixthly, The King forgives all debts owing to his brother, and stops all suits set on foot by him. This is not the first time in which it is presumed that claims made by the crown must be unjust. Henry excepts debts arising out of the ordinary farming of the crown lands; he excepts also anything that any man had agreed to pay for the inheritances or other property of others.[863] Does this refer to property confiscated and sold by the King? Payments which had been made in relief for a man’s own inheritance are specially forgiven.[864]
[Sidenote: Wills.]
Seventhly, he confirms the free right of bequest of personal property. If a man, through warfare or sickness, dies intestate, his wife, children, kinsfolk, and lawful men, are to dispose of his money as they may think best for his soul.[865]
[Sidenote: Amercements.]
The eighth provision goes back a step further than the others. It cancels the practice of both Williams, and goes back in the most marked way to earlier times. If one of the King’s barons or other men incurred forfeiture, he should not bind himself to be at the King’s mercy, as had been done in the time of his father and brother; he should be fined a fixed amount according to custom, as was done in the days of the kings before his father.[866]
[Sidenote: Murders.]
Ninthly, the King forgives all murders up to the day of his coronation. That is to say, he forgives all payments due from the hundreds according to the special law made by his father for the protection of his foreign followers.[867] For the future the payment shall be according to the law of King Eadward.[868]
[Sidenote: The forests.]
Tenthly comes the one illiberal provision in the document. “By the common consent of my barons, I have kept the forests in my own hands, as my father held them.”[869] Here, where the King’s personal pleasure was concerned, we hear nothing of the law of King Eadward or of the practice of yet earlier kings.
[Sidenote: Privilege of the knights.]
[Sidenote: Effect of the provision.]
[Sidenote: Growth of the country gentry.]
[Sidenote: Policy of Henry towards the second order.]
The eleventh clause is a remarkable one. It does not speak, like the others, of reforming abuses or of going back to the practice of some earlier time. The King, of his own free will, bestows a certain privilege on one class of his subjects. Knights who held their lands by military service are to be free, as far as their demesne lands are concerned, from all gelds and other burthens. This the King grants to them as his own gift. In return for so great a boon, he calls on them to stand ready with horses and arms for his service and the defence of his kingdom.[870] This boon seems meant for a class whom it was very important for Henry to attach to his interest, the men namely of both races who were of knightly rank but not higher. Many of them were his tenants-in-chief; those who held only of other lords were still his men by virtue of the law of Salisbury. It was his policy to strengthen both classes in opposition to the great nobles whom he knew to be disaffected to him. It may not be too much to see in this clause of Henry’s charter an important stage in the developement of an idea which is peculiar to England, the idea of the gentleman who has no pretensions to be a nobleman. The knights of Henry’s charter are the representatives of the thegns of Domesday, the forerunners of the country gentlemen of later times. Holding a place between the great barons and the mass of the people, and again between the greatest and the smallest of the king’s tenants-in-chief――largely Norman by descent, but also largely English――they were well suited to become the leaders of the people, as they worthily showed themselves in our early parliaments. Their existence and importance, as a class separate from the great barons, did much to establish that distinctive and happy feature of English political life, which spread freedom over the whole land, instead of shutting it up within a few favoured towns. The existence of the knight, as something separate from the baron, secured, not only his own freedom, but the freedom of land-owners smaller than himself. It helped to hinder the growth of the hard and fast line which in France divided the gentilhomme from the roturier. It was part of the policy of Henry to raise particular men of this second rank, while he broke the power of the great barons of the Conquest. This clause shows that it was also his policy to strengthen and to win to his side this class as a class.
[Sidenote: The King’s Peace.]
[Sidenote: The Law of Eadward.]
[Sidenote: The Conqueror’s amendments.]
[Sidenote: The alleged Laws of Henry.]
Of the other three clauses of the charter, the first two are general, the last is temporary. The twelfth clause establishes firm peace through the whole kingdom. The thirteenth expresses that mixture of old things and new which marks the time. Henry lays down the great basis of all later English jurisprudence; “I restore to you the law of King Eadward, with those amendments which my father made with the consent of his barons.”[871] The law of Henry was to be the old law of England, traditionally called by the name of the king to whose days men looked back as to the golden age, but modified by the changes, or rather additions, which were brought in by the few genuine statutes of the Conqueror.[872] Here, as throughout, Henry sets forth his full purpose to reign as an English king, and he carefully puts forward the nature of his kingship as a strict continuation of the kingship of Eadward and of the kings before Eadward. We have seen that the collection which goes by the name of the Laws of Henry is no real code of Henry’s issuing.[873] But it breathes the spirit of this clause and of the other clauses of the charter. It shows how English, in theory at least, the government of Henry was meant to be.
[Sidenote: Amnesty.]
The fifteenth and last clause is a kind of amnesty for any irregularity which might have happened during the short interregnum. Two days and parts of two other days had passed after the peace of King William――if we may so speak of the days of unlaw――had come to an end, and before the peace of King Henry had begun. If any man had during that time taken anything which belonged to the King or to any one else, he might restore it without any fine; if he kept it after the proclamation, he was to be heavily fined.[874]
[Sidenote: Witnesses to the charter.]
Such was the famous charter of Henry, the document to which Stephen Langton appealed as the birthright of English freemen.[875] It was witnessed on the day of the crowning by the bishop who had officiated, Maurice of London, by Gundulf Bishop (of Rochester), William Bishop-elect (of Winchester), Henry Earl (of Warwick), Simon Earl (of Northampton), Walter Giffard, Robert of Montfort, Roger Bigod, and Henry of Port.[876] Such names look forward and backward. There is already a Bigod, forefather of the Earl who would neither go nor hang.[877] There is a Simon, and if the likeness of names is merely accidental, the tradition is carried back in another way when we remember that Earl Simon of Northampton was the son-in-law of Waltheof.[878] The fewness of the names may perhaps show that the coronation of Henry, celebrated as it was amidst a burst of popular joy, was but scantily attended by the great men of the realm. The whole thing was almost as sudden as the death of Eadward and the election of Harold, and it did not, like those events, happen while the Witan were actually in session. The summons, or even the news, could have gone through a very small part only of the kingdom. One would be glad to know how men heard in distant shires, in Henry’s own Yorkshire for instance, not only that the oppressor was gone, but that the new king was crowned, pledged by his oath and his seal to give his land a new time of peace and righteousness.
[Sidenote: Appointments to abbeys.]
[Sidenote: Saint Eadmund’s and Ely.]
[Sidenote: Herlwin Abbot of Glastonbury. 1100-1120.]
[Sidenote: Faricius Abbot of Abingdon. 1100-1117.]
The new King had taken upon himself to undo the evils of his brother’s reign, to bring back the days of Eadward, to reign as an English king. One step towards the restoration of the good state was to fill the churches which his brother had sacrilegiously kept vacant. The see of Winchester he had filled already; he now began to fill the thirteen abbeys which Rufus had held in his hands on the day of his death. Several were filled before the year was out; two at least were filled on the very day of his coronation. These were the abbey of Saint Eadmund, void by the death of its abbot Baldwin, and that of Ely, which had stood void for seven years since the death of the aged abbot Simeon.[879] The staff of Saint Eadmund was now placed in the hand of Robert, a young monk of Bec, who is described as a son, seemingly a natural son, of Earl Hugh of Chester.[880] That of Ely was given to Richard, another monk of Bec, son of Richard of Clare.[881] In these appointments and in some others we again see the need in which Henry stood of pleasing the great nobles, even at the cost of sinning against ecclesiastical rule. In the case of the appointment to Saint Eadmund’s we are distinctly told that the King’s nomination was made against the will of the monks, and a little later Anselm thought it his duty to remove both Robert and Richard from their offices. Two other prelates, appointed before any long time had passed, are of greater personal fame. The name of Herlwin of Caen, who now received the staff of Glastonbury, lives in local memory as a great builder.[882] And the Italian Faricius, now placed in the vacant stall of Abingdon, figures among the most renowned abbots of his house, famous amongst his other merits for his skill in the healing art. Oddly enough, his skill in this way kept him back from higher honour. Had Faricius been less cunning in leechcraft, he might have been Archbishop of Canterbury.[883]
[Sidenote: Anselm and Flambard.]
[Sidenote: Flambard imprisoned in the Tower.]
[Sidenote: The King’s inner council.]
[Sidenote: Roger, afterwards Bishop of Salisbury.]
But to undo the evils of the days of unlaw and to reign as an English king, something more was needed than to put men of Norman, or even Italian, birth in possession of English abbeys. Towards carrying out the former of these objects, Henry had a criminal to punish and a sufferer to restore. Towards carrying out the second, he had a wife to marry. These three events pretty well filled up the rest of the year. Henry had two bishops to deal with, who needed to be dealt with in two very different ways. They were between them the living representatives of the late rule of unright. The one was the embodiment of what its agents did, the other was the embodiment of what its victims underwent. The King had promised to put away the unrighteousnesses of his brother and of Randolf Flambard; he began by putting away their surviving author. By the advice of those about him, the Bishop of Durham, the dregs of wickedness, as he is called in the vigorous words of one of our writers, was sent as a prisoner to the Tower of London.[884] This was most likely not the first case, but it is the first recorded case, in which the great fortress of the Conqueror was used as a state-prison for great and notable offenders. Randolf Flambard heads the long list of its unwilling inmates, few of whom better deserved their place there than he did. We hear nothing of any claim of ecclesiastical privilege on behalf of the man who had brought God’s Church low. Flambard was not allowed the advantage of any of the legal subtleties which his predecessor in his see had known how to play off so skilfully, and which, one would think, he could have played off more skilfully still. We do not even hear whether the Bishop of Durham was summoned before any court of any kind. The accounts read rather as if his imprisonment was simply a stretch of the royal power in answer to a popular demand. The Tower may even have been the best place for Flambard’s safety, as it was the best place for the safety of Jeffreys, as understood by Jeffreys himself.[885] The words which say that the act was done by the advice of those about the King are also worthy of notice. The King’s inner council must certainly have contained the two Beaumont brothers, the subtle Count of Meulan and the upright Earl of Warwick. It contained Roger the Bigod, more honoured in his descendants than in himself. It contained too some of Henry’s old friends from his Norman fief, Richard of Redvers and Earl Hugh of Chester. We are told that as soon as the news of the death of Rufus was known in Normandy, several of the great men who were there, specially the Earls of Chester and Shrewsbury, hastened to England to acknowledge Henry.[886] We do not find Robert of Bellême among Henry’s inner counsellors; we do find Hugh of Avranches. And to the list we may also most likely add the bishop-elect of Winchester, William Giffard, a tried court official, though one who afterwards showed that he could suffer for a principle. And a man who was to be more famous than all of them, the patriarch of the long line of English Justiciars and Judges, the poor clerk who was to be presently the all-powerful Bishop Roger of Salisbury, may have already given his voice among men who were as yet so far above him in worldly place.
[Sidenote: The news of the King’s death brought to Anselm.]
We are told that the imprisonment of the Bishop of Durham was one of two acts which the new King did in order that nothing might be wanting to the universal joy at his accession.[887] The other was the recall of the Archbishop of Canterbury. We have seen that, in legendary belief at least, the death of Rufus was very speedily made known, if not to Anselm himself, at least to his friends.[888] The news was presently brought to him in a more ordinary way by two monks, one of Bec, one of Canterbury. His head-quarters were now at Lyons, but he was at the moment staying at a monastery called God’s House.[889] There the messengers met him, and told him that King William was dead. Anselm was overwhelmed at the tidings, and burst forth into the bitterest weeping. Those who stood by wondered; but he told them with a voice broken with sobs that, by the truth which a servant of God ought not to transgress, he would far rather have died himself than that William should die as he had died.[890]
[Sidenote: He is invited to come back by his own monks,]
[Sidenote: and by the King.]
[Sidenote: Importance of Henry’s letter.]
[Sidenote: Its popular language.]
[Sidenote: Signatures to the letter.]
Anselm now went back to Lyons, where another monk of Canterbury met him, bringing with him a formal letter from the convent of the metropolitan church, praying him, now that the tyrant was dead, to come back without delay to comfort his children.[891] He took counsel with his friend Archbishop Hugh, and by his advice began his return to England, to the great grief, we are told, of the whole city of Lyons and all the lands thereabouts.[892] He had not reached Clugny when he was met by a still more important bearer of tidings. A messenger came in the name of the new King of the English and his lords, bearing a royal letter, calling on Anselm to come back, and even blaming his delay in not coming sooner.[893] We have its text, every word of which deserves to be studied, as showing how popular the constitution of England still was in theory, and what was the kind of language which had to be used by one who was called on to play the part of a popular king. Henry, in setting forth his right to the crown, uses more popular language than is to be found in the charter itself. There he spoke of the choice of the barons; in the letter to Anselm he tells the Archbishop that his brother King William is dead, and that he is chosen king by the will of God and by the clergy and people of England.[894] He excuses his hasty coronation in the Archbishop’s absence on the ground of the urgency of the time. He would more gladly have received the blessing at his crowning from him than from any one else; but the necessity of the moment forbade; enemies had arisen against him and against the people whom he had to rule; his barons therefore and his whole people had thought that the coronation could not be delayed. He had therefore, against his will, received the rite from Anselm’s vicars, and he trusted that Anselm himself would not be displeased.[895] Himself and the whole people of England, all whose souls were entrusted to Anselm’s care, prayed him to come back with all speed to give them the benefit of his counsel.[896] He committed himself and the whole people of England to the counsel of Anselm and of those who ought to consult with Anselm for the common good.[897] He would have sent messengers with money of his own for Anselm’s use; only since the death of his brother the whole world is so stirred against the kingdom of England that he could not send any one with any safety.[898] Anselm is earnestly prayed not to pass through Normandy, but to sail from Whitsand and land at Dover. There some of the King’s barons shall be ready to meet him with money which will enable him to pay anything that he may have borrowed.[899] The letter ends in a pious and imploring strain; “Hasten then, father, to come, lest our mother the church of Canterbury, so long tossed and desolate for your sake, should any longer suffer the loss of souls.” The signatures to the letter should be noticed. It is said to be signed by other bishops and barons as well, but the actual names are Gerard Bishop of Hereford, William Bishop-elect of Winchester, William of Warelwast, of whom we have heard so often, Henry Earl of Warwick, in some sort a milder king-maker, Robert Fitz-hamon, and his brother Hamon the dapifer.[900] It is worth notice that the Achitophel of Meulan does not set his name either to this letter or to the charter. Was it to give as national a character as might be to both documents that Robert, as yet only a French count and not an English earl, abstained from putting his name to them? One can fancy no other reason for its absence from the earlier document. By the time the letter to Anselm was sent, the Count of Meulan’s presence may well have been needed in Normandy.
[Sidenote: Dangers of the King and kingdom.]
[Sidenote: Intrigues of the Norman nobles with Duke Robert.]
[Sidenote: Renewed anarchy in Normandy on William’s death.]
The dangers which, according to King Henry’s letter, beset the kingdom of England may have been somewhat exaggerated in his picture of them; but they were perfectly real. And no description of them could be better than that which the King gave when he spoke of them specially as dangers which beset the King and the people whom he had to rule. It was most truly the King and the people of England who were threatened by the intrigues of the great Norman nobles with the restored ruler of Normandy――if ruler he may be called. The effects of the Red King’s death were exactly opposite in Normandy and in England. In England his reign of unright was at once changed for a rule as strong and more righteous. In Normandy, which had seen the better side of him, where he had brought back peace of some kind after the anarchy of Robert’s first reign, anarchy came back again the moment the news of his death came. Within a week the forces of Evreux and Conches were again in motion, this time indeed not in order to attack one another, but for a joint raid against the lands of the Norman Beaumont, the possessions of the Count of Meulan. The Count, we are told, had abused his influence with Rufus to do both of them some wrongs, which, while Rufus lived, they were unable to avenge.[901] They now took the law into their own hands; so did everybody else. Normandy again became the same confused field of battle, with every man’s hand against every other man, which it had been before William the Red at least did it the service of putting one tyrant in the room of many.[902]
[Sidenote: Return of Robert to Normandy. September, 1100.]
[Sidenote: His renewed no-government.]
[Sidenote: Henry keeps his own fief.]
[Sidenote: War between Henry and Robert.]
[Sidenote: Intrigues of the Normans in England with Robert.]
[Sidenote: Return of Anselm. September 23, 1100.]
To this disturbed land Duke Robert came back in the month of September, bringing with him his wise and beautiful Duchess from Conversana. They went to Saint Michael in-Peril-of-the-Sea to give thanks for their safe return,[903] and Robert was held to have again taken possession of his duchy. The English Chronicler says that he was received blithely;[904] it was certainly not the interest of those whom a ruler like Henry would have checked in their evil ways to make any opposition to his fresh acknowledgement. As soon as Robert was again in his native land, all the energy and conduct which he had shown in the East once more forsook him. The old idleness, the old wastefulness, came back again. He had already squandered all the money which he had received from his father-in-law; luckily the death of Rufus relieved him from the necessity of repaying the sum for which the duchy had been temporarily pledged. It had not been alienated for ever, and Henry had no claim to it during Robert’s life. Robert therefore had no difficulty in taking possession――such possession as he could take――of all Normandy, except the districts which formed the fief which Rufus had granted to Henry. There, in the lands of Coutances, Avranches, and Bayeux, King Henry’s men still kept the land for him, and withstood all Robert’s attempts to dislodge them.[905] A border warfare thus began between the brothers almost from the first moment of the reign of Henry, the second reign of Robert. And it would seem that, though there was no open outbreak till the next year, the turbulent Norman nobles in England were, from the very beginning, making Robert the centre of their intrigues against a prince whose rule was eminently inconvenient for them.[906] The Lion of Justice was exactly the kind of ruler for whom they did not wish; Robert, who would put no check upon them, was far more to their tastes. Could they only put him on the throne, they might have their own way in all things in England as well as in Normandy. The same schemes which disturbed the second year of the reign of Rufus disturbed the reign of Henry from the very beginning. It was in the midst of all these disorders, directly after Robert’s return, that Henry’s letter was sent to Anselm. It was therefore not without reason that the King warned the Archbishop not to come back through Normandy, but to make his way to Whitsand. To Whitsand Anselm accordingly came, and crossed safely to Dover a few days before Michaelmas.[907] The whole land from which he had been now nearly three years absent received him with a burst of universal joy.[908]
[Sidenote: Connexion of Anselm with Norman history.]
The chief points in the primacy of Anselm had all along had a singular connexion, by way of coincidence at least, with the changes of things in the Norman duchy. It was when William was making ready for his second Norman expedition that Anselm had first drawn on himself the Red King’s anger by the alleged smallness of his gift towards its cost.[909] It was just before the King set out that the Primate had given him his most memorable rebuke.[910] The return of William was at once followed by the interview at Gillingham[911] and the great assembly at Rockingham. The collection of money for the final occupation of the duchy did not directly lead to the second dispute;[912] but the connexion of time is still marked. Rufus comes back from Normandy to find fault with Anselm’s contingent of troops for the Welsh war;[913] and he does not go again to the mainland for the French and Cenomannian wars till after he has driven Anselm from England. Now that the Red King is dead, everybody seems to come back to his old place. Robert comes back to Rouen; Anselm to Canterbury. And along with them, a third actor in our story, whom, like them, Rufus had dispossessed, came back also. Before the year was out, Maine was again free; Helias had won back city and castle without slash or blow.
[Sidenote: Helias returns to Le Mans.]
[Sidenote: The King’s garrison holds out in the royal tower.]
[Sidenote: Helias calls in Fulk of Anjou.]
[Sidenote: Siege of the tower;]
[Sidenote: courtesies between besieged and besiegers.]
[Sidenote: Conference between Walter and Helias.]
[Sidenote: The garrison know not whose men they are.]
[Sidenote: A truce is made; they apply to Robert,]
[Sidenote: and to Henry.]
[Sidenote: Surrender of the castle.]
As soon as the news of his enemy’s fall reached the Count of Maine in some of those southern possessions from which he had never been driven, he at once gathered a force and marched to Le Mans. But no force was needed; the loyal city received its banished prince with all joy.[914] But possession of the city did not give Helias possession of the royal tower; that was still held by the garrison which had been placed in it by the Red King. One of their commanders was a man whom we know already, Walter of Rouen, the son of Ansgar.[915] The castle was well provided with arms and provisions, and all that was needed for defence. Helias, before undertaking a siege, sought the alliance and help of Fulk of Anjou, whom he acknowledged as over-lord of Maine.[916] The two counts sat down before the castle of the Conqueror; but no strictly warlike operations followed. Besieged and besiegers seem to have been on the most friendly terms. They sometimes exchanged threats, but more commonly jokes. It was agreed between the two parties that Count Helias should, whenever he chose, put on a white tunic, and should, by the name of the White Bachelor, be received within the tower.[917] Such was the chivalrous confidence shown on both sides that the Count of Maine went in and out as he chose, and much that was sportive and little that was hostile went on between the two parties. At last Walter and his colleague Haimeric[918] opened their minds to Helias. They were in exactly the opposite case to the Confessor when he told the churl that he would hurt him if he could.[919] They explained to their supposed enemy that they could hurt him if they would, but that they had no mind to do so. The ground and the defences of the castle gave them the stronger position. They were not afraid of his artillery, and they could shower down stones and arrows upon him at pleasure.[920] But they had no mind to fight against one for whom they had a deep regard, especially as they did not know for whom they were fighting. They had been the men of the late King William; they did not now know whether they were the men of King Henry of England or of Duke Robert of Normandy. They proposed a truce, during which they might send messengers to both their possible lords; when they got answers, they might settle what to do.[921] The messenger came to Robert, and asked him whether he wished to keep the royal tower of Le Mans or not. If he wished to keep it, he must send a strong force to rescue it from its Angevin and Cenomannian besiegers. The Duke, tired, we are told, with his long journeyings and more anxious for the repose of his bed than for the labours of war,[922] is made to give two somewhat contradictory reasons for leaving matters alone. On the one hand, he was satisfied with the duchy of Normandy; on the other hand, the nobles of England were inviting him to come and take the crown of that kingdom. He told them that they had better make an honourable peace with the besiegers. The messenger, without going back to Le Mans, crossed to England, and told King Henry exactly how matters stood. Henry was too busy at the moment to meddle in affairs beyond the sea.[923] He rewarded the messenger, he sent his thanks to the garrison, and left them to their own discretion. When the answer came, a message was sent to the White Bachelor, asking him to visit the tower. The day was now come when he might rejoice in the possession of that for which he had long wished. If he had any money in his hoard, he might now make a fine bargain. He asked what they meant. They told him that he had not conquered them, that they were quite able to withstand him, but that they had no lord to serve and were quite willing to give up the castle to him. They knew his worth and valour; they chose him of their own free will, and made him that day truly Count of Maine.[924] They gave up the castle and all that was in it; Helias of course treated them with all honour, and gave them a strong guard to shelter them from any attacks on the part of the citizens whose houses they had burned the year before.[925]
[Sidenote: Last reign of Helias. 1100-1110.]
[Sidenote: His friendship for Henry.]
[Sidenote: His second marriage. 1109.]
[Sidenote: Later fortune of Maine.]
[Sidenote: Descent of the Angevin kings from Helias.]
Thus, after all struggles, Helias of La Flèche was at last undisputed lord of the Cenomannian city and county. He reigned, in all honour and seemingly in perfect friendship with Bishop Hildebert,[926] for ten years longer. He was the firm friend, and in some sort the vassal, of King Henry of England, and did him good service at Bayeux and at Tinchebrai.[927] Under his second reign Maine seems to have been peaceful; but there must have been some wars and fightings on its borders, as we find Rotrou Count of Perche a prisoner in the Conqueror’s tower.[928] The year before his death Helias married a second wife, Agnes, the daughter of Duke William of Aquitaine and widow of Alfonso King of Gallicia.[929] But his only child was Eremberga, the daughter of his first wife Matilda of Château du Loir. Helias, as he was the worthiest, was also the last, of the counts who held Maine as a separate sovereignty, and who had for some generations filled no small place in their own quarter of the world. Maine became the heritage of his daughter, and passed to her husband the younger Fulk, Count of Anjou and King of Jerusalem,[930] and to her son Geoffrey Plantagenet. Thus Maine became an appendage to Anjou, to Normandy, to England. And every sovereign of England, from the first Angevin king onwards, could boast that he had in his veins, besides the blood of William and Cerdic, the blood, less famous it may be, but assuredly not less worthy, of Helias of Le Mans.
[Sidenote: Meeting of Anselm and Henry;]
[Sidenote: beginning of fresh difficulties.]
[Sidenote: Changes in Anselm.]
[Sidenote: Comparison of the dispute between Anselm]
[Sidenote: and Rufus and the dispute between Anselm and Henry.]
[Sidenote: Henry calls on Anselm to do homage.]
Anselm landed in England after Helias had been received at Le Mans, but before he had won back the royal tower. The King and the Primate soon met, and difficulties at once arose between them. The truth is that Anselm had come back, in some things, another man. Or rather the man was the same; his gentleness, his firmness, his perfect single-mindedness, had not changed a whit. But he had learned doctrines at Rome and at Bari which had never been revealed to him at Bec or at Canterbury. The tale of Anselm’s dispute with Henry, his second banishment, his second return, goes beyond the prescribed limits of our story, and I have pointed out its leading features elsewhere.[931] There is hardly anything in which the difference between William Rufus and Henry the First stands out more strongly. But we are here concerned only with the very earliest stage of the dispute, if indeed it is to be called a stage of the dispute at all. Henry and Anselm met at Salisbury. The King received the Archbishop with joy; he again excused himself by the necessities of the time for having received the royal unction from another prelate. Anselm fully admitted his excuses.[932] There was less agreement between them on the next point which the King started. Henry called on Anselm to do homage to him after the manner of his predecessors, and, in the language of the time, to receive again the archbishopric at his hands.[933]
[Sidenote: Phrase of receiving the archbishopric.]
[Sidenote: Effect of the new teaching on Anselm’s mind.]
This last phrase has, I think, sometimes been misunderstood. It has nothing in common with the fresh commissions which the bishops of Edward the Sixth’s day took out after the death of Henry the Eighth. It has nothing whatever to do with the spiritual office; in this phrase, as in so many others, by the “archbishopric” is to be understood simply the temporalities of the see. These were at this moment in the King’s hands through their seizure in the days of Rufus. Since then a new reign had begun; England had a new king; her inhabitants had a new lord; for the archbishop, like any other subject, to become the man of the new king was simply according to the law of Salisbury. For him to receive back his lands was his right; for him to receive them as a fief was no more than he had already done at the hands of the Red King. Anselm had then done without scruple all that he was now asked to do. But since then the decrees of Piacenza and Clermont, above all the decrees of Bari and Rome, where he had been himself present, had been put forth. And by those decrees the ancient customs of England were condemned, and the censures of the Church were denounced against all who should conform to them. Anselm deemed it his duty, in all single-mindedness, to obey the bidding of Rome rather than the law of England. We may regret, but we can neither wonder nor blame. Anselm, after all, was not an Englishman; he could not help looking at things with œcumenical rather than with insular eyes. He fairly told the king’s counsellors how matters stood; he was bound by the new decrees. If Henry would accept them, there might be perfect peace between them.[934] If not, he himself could be of no use in England; he would have to refuse to communicate with any to whom the King might give bishoprics or abbeys in the ancient fashion; he could not stay in England on the terms of disobeying the Pope. He asked of those to whom he spoke that the King would consider the matter, and tell him his decision, that he might know which way to turn himself.[935]
[Sidenote: Difficulties of Henry.]
[Sidenote: A truce made till Easter;]
[Sidenote: the Pope to be asked to allow the homage.]
[Sidenote: No personal scruple on Anselm’s part.]
[Sidenote: Effects of the reign of Rufus.]
[Sidenote: Abasement of the kingly power.]
Henry was now, at the very beginning of his reign, in a great strait. He was naturally unwilling to give up one of the chief flowers of his crown, one which had been handed down from all the kings before him.[936] To give up the investiture of the churches and the homage of their prelates would be to give up the half of his kingdom. On the other hand, he felt that it would not do to quarrel with the Archbishop at the very moment of his return to England, or to allow him to leave England while he himself was not yet firm on his throne. He feared――doing Anselm, we may be sure, utter injustice――that, if Anselm left England, he might go to Robert, and take up his cause. It would be perfectly easy, as he knew very well, to persuade Robert to accept the new decrees. And on those terms, Anselm might, so the words run, make Robert King of England[937]――that is, he might bestow on him a consecration more regular than that which Henry had himself received from the Bishop of London. It was therefore agreed on both sides to make a truce or adjournment of all questions till the next Easter. Meanwhile both King and Archbishop should send messengers to the Pope, to pray him so to change his decrees as to allow the ancient customs of the kingdom to stand.[938] We here see, on the one hand, that Anselm still had no kind of scruple of his own about the homage and investiture; it was with him simply a question of obedience to a superior. Let Paschal withdraw the decrees of Urban, and Anselm was perfectly ready to do by Henry as earlier archbishops had done by earlier kings. On the other hand, we see how the temporal power had been weakened and the spiritual power strengthened through the late King’s abuse of the temporal power. Rufus had given the foreign dominion a moral advantage, of which Henry now felt the sting. Men had come to look on the King as the embodiment of wrong, and on the Pope as the only surviving embodiment of right. The King of the English was driven to ask the Bishop of Rome to allow the ancient laws of England to be obeyed. True this was while the King’s hold on his crown was still weak; when his position was more assured, he took a higher tone; but it marks the change which had happened that an English king, and such a king as Henry, should be driven so to abase himself even for a moment.
[Sidenote: The truce agreed to; provisional restoration of the Archbishop’s temporalities.]
By the terms of the truce, things were to remain as they were for the present. Anselm was to be restored to his temporalities without homage or other conditions; but, if Paschal could not be brought to yield on the matter of the decrees, they were to pass to the King again.[939] Anselm looked on all this as useless; he knew the temper of the papal court better than the King and his friends did. But he agreed for the sake of peace; he wished to avoid the slightest suspicion of any wish to disturb the King in the possession of his kingdom.[940] The truce was therefore agreed to; the messengers were sent, and Anselm, when the court broke up, went once more in peace to his metropolitan city or to some other of his many houses.
[Sidenote: Reformation of the court.]
[Sidenote: Personal character of Henry.]
[Sidenote: Henry’s mistresses and children.]
[Sidenote: Robert Earl of Gloucester.]
[Sidenote: Henry son of Nest.]
[Sidenote: Matilda Countess of Perche.]
[Sidenote: Robert son of Eadgyth.]
[Sidenote: Henry’s daughter by Isabel of Meulan.]
[Sidenote: Richard son of Ansfrida.]
[Sidenote: Story of his mother and her husband Anskill.]
[Sidenote: Henry’s son Richard.]
But, besides settling the affairs of his Church and realm, Henry had other more distinctly domestic and personal duties to discharge. He had to reform the household which he had inherited from his brother; he had also――so we are told that the bishops and others strongly pressed upon him――to reform his own life.[941] The vices of Henry were at least not the vices of Rufus; inclination as well as duty led him to cleanse the court of its foulest abuses, to make a clean sweep of the works of darkness.[942] But it was only in a wholly abnormal state of things that Henry the First could have been hailed as a moral reformer. His private life was very unlike the life of his father. Unmarried, like both of his brothers till the recent marriage of Robert, he was already the father of several children by mothers of various nations. Of his eldest and most famous son, Robert, afterwards the renowned Earl of Gloucester, the mother is unknown; but she appears to have been French.[943] The British Nest, of whom we have often heard, the daughter of Rhys ap Tewdwr, had, before her marriage with Gerald of Windsor, borne a son to Henry who bore his own name.[944] Two of his mistresses bore the characteristic English name of Eadgyth. One was the mother of Matilda Countess of Perche, who died in the White Ship;[945] the other, who afterwards, like Nest, obtained an honourable marriage with the younger Robert of Ouilly, was the mother of a Robert who plays a part in the civil wars forty years later.[946] His birth therefore most likely came long after the times of which we are speaking, as did the birth of the daughter whom Henry is said to have had by a woman of a Norman house of the loftiest rank, Isabel, daughter of his chief counsellor, Robert Count of Meulan and Earl of Leicester.[947] The list of Henry’s natural children is not yet exhausted――we have no account of the mother of the valiant Juliana; but the birth of one who is second in personal fame to Earl Robert of Gloucester had already taken place, and it is connected with a characteristic story which is worth telling. A wealthy man of Berkshire, Anskill by name, was one of the chief tenants of the church of Abingdon. As far as his name is concerned, he might be Norman; he might be English or rather Danish. His enemies brought a charge against him to the Red King, who caused him to be kept in so sharp a prison that before long he died of his hardships.[948] He left a widow, whose name is given as Ansfrida, and a son named William. The King then seized on the manor of Sparsholt, which Anskill had held of the abbey, and gave it――or perhaps only its wardship――to one of his officers named Toustain, without reserving any service to the Church.[949] By this grant both the young William and the church of Abingdon were wronged. For the wardship of its tenant would even, by Flambard’s own law, go to the abbey. The widow, by what instinct we are not told, betook herself to Henry to ask his intercession with his brother the King. Young William did not get back his land, which was recovered for the abbey at a later time. But his mother presently gave him a half-brother, Richard, who afterwards distinguished himself in the French wars, and died in the White Ship.[950] The interest of Henry, if it did not get back Sparsholt for its lawful tenant, was enough to secure for his new mistress the safe possession of her dower, and to provide for her legitimate son by an advantageous marriage.[951] Ansfrida herself was in the end buried in the minster of Abingdon with honours of which Saint Hugh would hardly have approved, and her lawful son did not fail to give gifts to the place of his mother’s burial.[952]
[Sidenote: Henry is exhorted to marry.]
[Sidenote: He seeks for Eadgyth daughter of Malcolm.]
[Sidenote: Policy of the marriage.]
[Sidenote: Eadgyth looked on as English.]
[Sidenote: Henry’s descent from Ælfred.]
Henry then, if he was fully entitled to reform the worst abuses of his brother’s household, stood in some need of reformation himself. His counsellors exhorted him to mend matters by giving himself a wife and his kingdom a queen. He had not far to look for one when policy and inclination led him the same way. Notwithstanding all his irregularities, we are told that he had long loved Eadgyth or Matilda, the daughter of Malcolm, and it is further implied that his love was returned on her part.[953] It is not clear where she was at this moment, but seemingly no longer with her aunt Christina in her monastic shelter at Romsey.[954] She was now about twenty years old, some say of remarkable beauty, at all events of a pleasing face, and mistress of an amount of learning which must have equalled or exceeded that of her clerkly lover.[955] She had no great worldly possessions;[956] but she came of a stock which made a marriage with her the most politic choice which the King could make at the moment. Eadgyth had lived so long in England that men seem to have forgotten that she was the daughter of Malcolm, and to have remembered only that she was the daughter of Margaret. As such she was held to be of the right kingly kin of England,[957] marked out as the most fitting bride for a king whose purpose was to reign as an Englishman. True she came of the blood of Cerdic only by the spindle-side, and by the spindle-side Henry came of the blood of Cerdic himself.[958] But no one was likely to remember that a daughter of Ælfred was a remote ancestress of Henry’s mother, while everybody remembered that Eadgyth was the daughter of Margaret, the daughter of Eadward, the son of Eadmund, the son of Æthelred, the son of Eadgar. It was for the English King to take an English Lady, and to hand on the English crown to kings born in the land and sprung of the true blood of its ancient princes.
[Sidenote: Objections made to the marriage.]
[Sidenote: Eadgyth said to have taken the veil.]
[Sidenote: Anselm holds an assembly to settle the question.]
[Sidenote: Eadgyth declared free to marry.]
So thought the people; so thought the King; so seemingly thought the daughter of Malcolm herself. But not a few mouths were opened to denounce the marriage as contrary to the laws of the Church. Eadgyth, they alleged, was a consecrated virgin, and a marriage with her would be sacrilege. She had, they said, taken the veil at Romsey, when she was dwelling there with her aunt Christina.[959] She appealed to the Archbishop, to whom all looked to decide the matter.[960] She told her story, as we have already heard it, and called on Anselm to judge her cause in his wisdom. The Archbishop called together at Lambeth――the manor of his friend the Bishop of Rochester――an assembly of bishops, abbots, nobles, and religious men, before whom he laid the matter, and the evidence bearing on it.[961] There was the evidence of the maiden herself; there was the evidence of two archdeacons, William of Canterbury and Humbald of Salisbury, whom Anselm had sent to the monastery, and who, after inquiries among the sisters, reported that there was no ground to think that Eadgyth had ever been a veiled nun.[962] The Archbishop then left the assembly, and the rest, who are spoken of as the Church of England gathered into one place,[963] debated the question in his absence. Much stress was laid on the case of those women who, in the first days of the Conquest, had sought shelter in the cloister from shame and violence, but who had not taken religion upon themselves.[964] The late Archbishop had declared them free to marry, and the judgement of the assembly was that the same rule applied to the case of the daughter of Malcolm.[965] Anselm came back, and the debate and the decision were reported to him. He declared that he assented to the judgement, strengthened as it was by the great authority of Lanfranc.[966] Then Eadgyth herself was brought in, and heard with a pleased countenance all that had passed.[967] She then offered to confirm all that she had said by any form of oath that might be thought good. She did not fear that any one would disbelieve her; but she wished that no occasion should be left for any one to blaspheme.[968] Anselm told her that no oath was needed; if any man out of the evil treasure of his heart should bring forth evil things, he would not be able to withstand the amount and strength of the evidence by which her case was proved.[969] He gave her his blessing,[970] and she went forth, we may say, Lady-elect of the English.
[Sidenote: Other versions of the story.]
[Sidenote: Anselm made to object.]
[Sidenote: Story of Rufus and the Abbess.]
[Sidenote: Decision in favour of the marriage.]
[Sidenote: Anselm’s scruples and warning.]
In another version, also contemporary but not resting on the same high authority, things are made to take another turn. The King bids Anselm perform the marriage rite between himself and the nameless daughter of Malcolm, called in this version David.[971] Anselm refuses on the ground that, having worn the veil of a nun, she belonged to a heavenly, not to an earthly bridegroom. The King says that he has sworn to her father to marry her, and that he cannot break his oath, unless it can be shown by a canonical judgement that the marriage is unlawful.[972] Anselm is therefore bidden to summon the Archbishop of York, and the rest of the bishops, abbots, and other ecclesiastical persons of all England, to come together and examine the matter.[973] The Abbess is brought before them, and she tells the story of the Red King’s visit to her flowers.[974] The King bids Anselm call on the synod for its judgement. The assembled fathers debate; canons are read, and it is judged that the maiden is free to marry, chiefly on the ground that, if she was veiled, it was while she was under age and without her father’s consent.[975] The King asks Anselm whether he objects to this decision; Anselm says that he has no fault to find with it. Henry then asks Anselm to marry them at once. Anselm pleads that, though the judgement is right, yet, as the maiden had somehow or other worn the veil, it were better that she should not marry; there were others, daughters of kings and counts, one of whom the King might marry instead. Henry still insists; Anselm performs the ceremony; but with a warning that England would not rejoice in the offspring of the marriage.[976] The fate of the White Ship and the wars of Stephen and Matilda are quoted as a proof of Anselm’s prophetic power.
[Sidenote: Later fables.]
The tone of this story is quite unlike that of the more trustworthy version; yet there is perhaps no actual contradiction between them. But the foreign writer stumbles greatly in his names and pedigrees, and writes by the light of forty years later. We may see in his version the beginnings of the wild stories of later times, where Eadgyth is pictured as forced into the marriage against her will, and even as devoting her future offspring to the fiend.[977]
[Sidenote: Marriage of Henry and Eadgyth. November 11, 1100.]
[Sidenote: She takes the name of Matilda.]
[Sidenote: The wedding and coronation.]
[Sidenote: Anselm’s speech.]
[Sidenote: Objections not wholly silenced.]
A few days later, on the feast of Saint Martin, the marriage was celebrated by Anselm, and Matilda, as we must now call her, was hallowed to Queen.[978] It is only a guess that this was the time of her change of name. One hardly sees its motive; it was Henry’s policy at this moment to be as English as possible, and the name of his bride was one of the few English names which the Normans now and then adopted. Could it be Henry’s abiding reverence for his mother which made him wish to place another Matilda on his throne? Be this as it may be, the new Queen bears no other name. All the great men of the kingdom and a crowd of folk of lower degree came together to her wedding and crowning. At the door of the West Minster, as the multitude thronged towards the King and his bride, the Archbishop stood on high and harangued the people. He told them how the whole matter had been settled, and on what grounds. And he once again called on any one who had aught else to say against the marriage to stand forth and say it.[979] The only answer was a general shout of assent to the judgement and the marriage.[980] The rite was done. But there were still some who blamed Anselm for the course that he had taken;[981] and years afterwards the validity of Matilda’s marriage, and the consequent legitimacy of her children, was called in question by those whose political objects it suited to do so.[982]
[Sidenote: Novelty of a queen.]
[Sidenote: Regular life of the King and Queen.]
[Sidenote: “Godric and Godgifu.”]
[Sidenote: 1100-1118.]
[Sidenote: Children of the marriage.]
[Sidenote: William;]
[Sidenote: the Empress Matilda.]
[Sidenote: Later life of Henry and Matilda.]
[Sidenote: Her character.]
[Sidenote: “Good Queen Mold.”]
It is somewhat singular that Matilda practically stepped into the place of the Lady whose name she had forsaken. There had been no queen constantly living in England since the elder Eadgyth. The elder Matilda had been but little in England; William Rufus had been pre-eminently the “bachelor king.” It must have been a wonderful change when the riot and foul excess of the Red King’s court gave way to a household presided over by a devout and virtuous woman. For a time at least Henry as well as his wife lived a sober and regular life. As a generation back the strict conduct of Henry’s father had called forth the jeers of the profligate scoffers of his day, so now the profligate scoffers of another generation jeered at the decorous court of Henry and Matilda, and mocked the English King and his English Lady by the characteristic English names of Godric and Godgifu.[983] The married life of Matilda reached over eighteen years only; of her two children, both born early in her wedlock, she did not live to see her son, the Ætheling William, cut off in the White Ship; she did live to see her daughter of her own name raised to a place which had never before been filled by a daughter of England, sitting as a crowned Augusta in the seat of Livia and Placidia.[984] After a while Henry seems to have fallen back into his old courses; some at least of his natural children must have been born after his marriage; and the same kind of language which was used about his first marriage was used about his second.[985] The Queen, for whatever reason, ceased to follow the endless wanderings of the court; and lived in all royal pomp at Westminster.[986] Her piety rivalled that of her mother; it was shown in all the usual forms of the time; and her brother David, not an undevout prince, went so near to a scoff as to ask his sister whether King Henry would care to kiss the lips which had kissed the ulcers of the lepers.[987] Her boundless liberality to the poor, to clerks, scholars, and strangers of every kind, was perhaps not the less amiable for a manifest touch of vanity.[988] We read that the means for her lavish bounty in this way had to be found by harsh exactions from her tenants; but, here as ever, the blame is laid upon the reeves rather than on their mistress.[989] The memory of “good Queen Mold” was long cherished, and we can hardly doubt that her presence by Henry’s side did much to help the fusion of Normans and English in her husband’s kingdom.
[Sidenote: Guy of Vienne comes as Legate.]
[Sidenote: Earlier Legates.]
[Sidenote: Guy’s pretensions not acknowledged.]
Two ecclesiastical events wind up the last year of the eleventh century. One of them showed that there were limits to Anselm’s submission to the see of Rome. Guy Archbishop of Vienne came into England, professing to be papal Legate throughout all Britain. Legates had been seen in England before, but not with such a commission as superseded the authority of an acknowledged Primate. They had come both under Eadward and under William the Great; but they came in the doubtful days of Stigand, and the last time they came to set Stigand finally aside.[990] One Legate had come under William the Red; but it was to bring the pallium to Anselm.[991] But now all men were amazed at a foreign prelate claiming to exercise powers which had hitherto been held to belong to none but the Patriarch of the island world.[992] Legates waxed mightier before Henry’s reign was out;[993] this time Guy went back as he came. We get no details; but we read that no one acknowledged him as Legate, and that he was not able to discharge any legatine function.[994]
[Sidenote: Death of Archbishop Thomas. November 18, 1100.]
[Sidenote: The see of York given to Gerard of Hereford. Archbishop 1100-1108.]
The other event was the death of Archbishop Thomas of York, after an episcopate of thirty years. He died a few days after the King’s marriage, leaving a good name behind him as the honoured rebuilder of his church and legislator of its chapter.[995] This was the first prelacy which had fallen vacant since Henry’s accession. To deal with the vacant see after his brother’s fashion would have been in the teeth of all the new King’s promises. He therefore soon gave the church of York another shepherd. But his choice fell on a man of a character widely different from either Thomas or Anselm. The new archbishop was Gerard Bishop of Hereford, of whom we have already heard a good deal, and heard some things that are passing strange.[996] He held the throne of the northern metropolis for eight years, and, when he died, he had some difficulty in finding a resting-place in his own minster.[997]
§ 3. The Invasion of Robert.
January-August, 1101.
[Sidenote: Likeness of the years 1088 and 1101.]
[Sidenote: Action of the Bishop of Durham,]
[Sidenote: of the sons of Earl Roger.]
[Sidenote: Plots to give the crown to Duke Robert.]
[Sidenote: A party in Normandy for Henry.]
The first year of the twelfth century was a stirring time for England, though it was not crowded with great and striking events like the last year of the eleventh. It reads like an earlier chapter of our story coming over again. We have now again to tell well nigh the same tale which we told at the beginning of the reign of Rufus. Again we have a Norman rebellion on English soil; again we have a Norman invasion; again the English people cleave steadily to the king whom they have chosen; again the Primate and the bishops in general take the side which was at once the side of the King and of the people. And, as if to make the likeness square in the smallest details, a bishop set free from bonds is the foremost stirrer up of mischief, and again three sons of Earl Roger are the most active leaders of the revolt. The part of Bishop Odo of Bayeux in the former rebellion is in the present played to some extent by Bishop Randolf of Durham; the part of Robert of Bellême is played again in more than all its fulness by Robert of Bellême himself. There is again a party eager to place the Duke of the Normans on the throne of England; but this time that party is balanced by another which in the other tale does not appear till later, a party eager to place the King of the English in the ducal chair of Normandy.
[Sidenote: Character of Robert and Eadgar.]
[Sidenote: Robert as crusader.]
[Sidenote: His relapse on his return to Normandy.]
[Sidenote: His renewed misgovernment.]
Robert, like his chosen companion Eadgar, could play an active and honourable part anywhere save in his own country. Both alike show to far greater advantage in Palestine and in Scotland than in Normandy or in England. The seeming inconsistency is not hard to understand. Neither of them perhaps lacked mere capacity――Robert certainly did not. And Robert most certainly did not lack generous feeling. But both lacked that moral strength without which mere feeling and mere capacity can do very little. Such men can act well and vigorously now and then, by fits and starts, when some special motive is brought to bear upon them. They can act better on behalf of others than they can on behalf of themselves, because, when they act for others, a special motive is brought to bear upon them. Their own cause they may, if they like, neglect or betray――forgetting that, when a prince betrays his own cause, he commonly betrays the cause of many others; but it is a point of honour not to betray or to neglect the cause of another which is entrusted to them. Thus it was that both Robert and Eadgar, who could do nothing for themselves, could do a good deal for others, whether as counsellors, as negotiators, or as military commanders. The crusade had brought out all Robert’s best qualities; but we have seen that, even on the crusade, he had yielded to any great and sudden temptation. Amidst so many noble and valiant comrades, he could not shrink from the siege or the battle; and, once brought up to the siege or the battle, he showed himself, not only a daring soldier, but a skilful captain. But at Laodikeia he had been the same man that he was at Rouen. Now that he was again at Rouen, Antioch and Jerusalem passed away; it was all Laodikeia with him. The dream of winning the English crown floated before his eyes, and at last stirred him up to action. Otherwise he sank into his old listlessness, his old lavishness, his old vices and follies of every kind. It may be an overdrawn picture which paints him as lying in bed till noon, and neglecting to attend mass, because he had no clothes to go in; the base persons of both sexes who surrounded him had carried them all off. Some odd chance that happened once must have been spoken of as a habit.[998] But there is no ground for doubting the general description of Robert’s misgovernment or rather no-government, both before he went to the crusade and after he came back from it.
[Sidenote: Parties in England and Normandy.]
[Sidenote: Henry’s strict rule distasteful to the Norman nobles.]
It may at first sight seem a paradox that there should be at the same moment a party in Normandy anxious to hand over the duchy to Henry and a party in England anxious to hand over the kingdom to Robert. But quiet men in Normandy, who wished their country to enjoy some peace, would naturally wish to place it under the rule of Henry, while the kind of men who, at the accession of Rufus, had wished to bring Robert into England would equally wish to bring him now. They had perhaps already found out that where Henry reigned none might misdo with other, and to misdo with other was to a large part of the Norman nobles the very business of life.
[Sidenote: Their plots against him.]
[Sidenote: Robert of Bellême and his brothers.]
[Sidenote: Robert of Pontefract.]
[Sidenote: Ivo of Grantmesnil.]
[Sidenote: Earl Walter.]
[Sidenote: Duke Robert’s grants to Robert of Bellême.]
[Sidenote: He gives back Gisors to Pagan.]
The greater part of those nobles were now beginning to plot against the King. The estates which most of them held in Normandy gave them special opportunities for so doing, by giving them excuses for going to and fro between England and Normandy. Of this they were not slow to take advantage. The three sons of Earl Roger of Shrewsbury, Robert of Bellême and his brothers Arnulf and Roger, were busy in this work; so was Robert the son of Ilbert of Lacy, beginning to be known as Robert of Pontefract; so was Ivo of Grantmesnil, son of the deceased Sheriff of Leicestershire, himself best known as the rope-dancer of Antioch. And we are somewhat surprised to find on the same list, now at the very end of his long life, the aged Walter Giffard, lord of Longueville and Earl of Buckingham. All these were in secret communication with the Duke.[999] But none of them, Robert of Bellême least of all, was inclined to serve the Duke or any other lord for naught. Duke Robert distributed castles and lands among them, and promised to give them greater gifts still when he should be king of England.[1000] To Robert of Bellême he granted the forest of Gouffers, and the castle of Argentan of whose siege we heard seven years before;[1001] he further confirmed him in a claim very dear to the house of Bellême, by granting him the ducal right of advowson over the bishopric of Seez.[1002] And, strangest of all, the Duke gave back the fortress of Gisors, the bulwark of his duchy, to its former holder Theobald or Pagan, because he had once hospitably entertained him.[1003] Did not Robert of Bellême ask that, if his own master-piece of engineering was to pass out of the hands of the prince, it should pass into no hands but his own? Thus Duke Robert’s way of making ready for the conquest of England was to squander the resources of Normandy. Every inch of his territory, every stone of his fortresses, stood ready to be granted away, almost to any one who would take the trouble to ask for them.
[Sidenote: Christmas Gemót at Westminster. 1100-1101.]
[Sidenote: Escape of the Bishop of Durham.]
[Sidenote: Adventures of his mother.]
[Sidenote: His reception by Duke Robert; he stirs him up against Henry.]
Things were thus brewing through the winter without any open outbreak. At Christmas King Henry wore his crown at Westminster.[1004] That was a better place than Gloucester for watching movements beyond the sea. And soon after the feast and assembly the cause of Robert was strengthened by an unexpected helper, whose coming seems to have put a new life into his supporters. The Bishop of Durham, Randolf Flambard, suddenly showed himself in his native land of Normandy. We saw him but lately shut up, to the joy of all men, in the Conqueror’s Tower. His keeper, William of Mandeville, may have been negligent; at all events his captivity was easy.[1005] The King clearly did not mean it to be harsh, as he allowed him two shillings a day for his keep. Flambard, with all his sins, was a pleasant and liberal companion, and he kept many friends, even in his fall.[1006] He was allowed the company of those friends; with them he made merry in his prison, and gave costly banquets to them and to his keepers.[1007] At last the means of escape were given to him; a rope was brought hidden in a vessel of water or wine. The Bishop made a feast for his keepers, and plied them well with the wine. When they were snoring in their drunken sleep, Flambard tied his rope to the small column which divided one of the double windows usual in the architecture of his day.[1008] Even at such a moment, he did not forget that he was now a bishop; he took his pastoral staff with him, and began to let himself down by the rope. But he had forgotten another, and at that moment a more useful, part of the episcopal dress. He left his gloves behind; so his hands suffered sadly in his descent. Moreover the Bishop was a bulky man and his rope was too short; so he fell with a heavy fall, and lay groaning and half dead.[1009] But his friends and followers were at the foot of the Tower ready to help him. How they came there it is not easy to see, unless there was treason in the fortress; they should surely have been kept out by the wall with which Rufus, at such cost to his people, had surrounded his father’s Tower.[1010] So however the tale is told. The Bishop’s faithful helpers had got good horses ready and his treasure all safe. They set sail for Normandy; Flambard went in one ship, his witch mother with the treasure in another. This second vessel was seized by pirates and the treasure carried off; the old woman and the crew reached Normandy despoiled and sad.[1011] Flambard made his way to the court of Duke Robert, became his chief counsellor, and worked hard to stir him up by every means to an invasion of England.[1012]
[Sidenote: Easter Gemót. April 21, 1101.]
[Sidenote: The questions between the King and Anselm adjourned.]
[Sidenote: Growth of the conspiracy.]
[Sidenote: The few faithful.]
Meanwhile King Henry held the Easter feast at Winchester. The only recorded business of the meeting is that, as the messengers who had been sent to the Pope had not come back, the matters in dispute between the King and the Archbishop were adjourned till their return.[1013] But meanwhile most of the chief men of Norman birth in England were, of their mickle untruth, the Chronicler says, plotting with the Duke against the King.[1014] Any excuse was enough for treason; if Henry refused to make lavish grants after the manner of his brother, the refusal made another traitor.[1015] Instead of a list of the conspirators, we get a list of the few who remained faithful. These were the two Beaumont brothers, Roger Bigod, Henry’s old friend Richard of Redvers, and the lord of Gloucester and Glamorgan, Robert Fitz-Hamon.[1016] To these we ought surely to add old Earl Hugh; but he was drawing near to the end of his days. The rest sent secret messages to Robert, and mocked openly at Godric and Godgifu. It would seem however that there was as yet no open rebellion on English ground.
[Sidenote: Whitsun Gemót. June 9, 1101.]
[Sidenote: Popular character of the assembly.]
[Sidenote: Advice of Robert of Meulan.]
[Sidenote: Mediation of Anselm.]
[Sidenote: Renewed promise of good laws.]
[Sidenote: The Church and the people for Henry.]
[Sidenote: England united against Norman invasion.]
The King next kept the Whitsun feast; the place is not mentioned, but it was doubtless Westminster; and the malecontents do not seem to have followed the old tactics of refusing to appear in the assembly. This Pentecostal gathering is spoken of as a vast assemblage both of the nobles and of the people in general.[1017] In an assembly held close to London the popular element would, as in the days of Stephen, be better able to make itself felt than at Winchester and Gloucester. And it was on the popular element that the King relied. We are told that his subtle counsellor from Meulan taught him that, at such a moment as this, he must be lavish of promises, even to the length of promising London or York, if they should be asked for.[1018] He must promise now, and, when peace comes again, he may take all back again.[1019] In the assembly, King and nobles met with mutual suspicions. The common voice of all ranks put Anselm forward as the mediator between the nation and its sovereign. It was indeed his constitutional place, a place which in the late reign Anselm had never been able to fill, but in which he was now called on to act, and in which he acted honourably and vigorously. A second promise of good laws was the result.[1020] Parties were now divided very much as they had been at the beginning of the reign of Rufus. Anselm played the part of Lanfranc; the bishops were all loyal; the English people clave unswervingly to the king of their own choice, the king born on their own soil, the king who could speak to the hearts of Englishmen in the English tongue. They, we are emphatically told, knew nothing of the rights of any other prince.[1021] They were for the English king, son of a king; they had no part or lot in the foreign duke, son of a duke. And it is implied that, not only the English by descent, but that men of all classes and all races, except the few great men who had a vested interest in anarchy, were with one consent steady in their loyalty to the King and ready to fight for him against any invader. There was again an united nation, a nation perhaps more united than it had been five-and-thirty years before, ready to withstand the new, the last attempt, at a Norman conquest of England. If a few earls and great lords played a game of yet more active treason than had been played by Eadwine and Morkere, they were not able, as Eadwine and Morkere had been able, to keep back any part of the force of England from joining the national standard.
[Sidenote: Importance of the campaign of 1101.]
[Sidenote: Fusion of Normans and English under Henry.]
[Sidenote: Last opposition of Normans and English.]
[Sidenote: Warfare of 1102.]
[Sidenote: Peace of King Henry. 1102-1135.]
[Sidenote: English feeling about Tinchebrai. 1106.]
The campaign which now followed, if campaign is the right word when armies merely look at one another without fighting, marks an important stage in the process which it was the work of Henry’s reign finally to carry out, the fusion of Normans and English in England. The siege of Rochester was the last time when Normans and Englishmen, by those names, met in arms as enemies on English ground. Now, at Pevensey and at Portsmouth, we for the last time hear of Englishmen on English ground spoken of in such a way as to imply that there were other dwellers in England who were not English. In the first year of Henry such language was still true; to go no further, the chief counsellor of the King was the man who had been the first to break down the English barricade on Senlac. Long before the last year of Henry, the men who had fought on Senlac on either side had passed away; the sons and grandsons of the conquerors had put on the nationality of the conquered. The struggle which did not come to blows this year did come to blows in the next; the fighting which was found not to be needed against Robert of Normandy was found to be needed against Robert of Bellême. Then for thirty-three years there was peace in the island, though there was often war on the mainland. Englishmen believed that the old score was wiped out when they won Normandy for an English king; and the belief, if partly a delusion, was not wholly so. On English ground the distinction of races died out during the long peace of Henry; when the anarchy came, men tore one another in pieces on other pretences. But now Englishmen still go forth to withstand a Norman invasion, Englishmen marked off by the English name, not only from men of other lands, but also, though for the last time, from men who were not English within the English kingdom itself.
[Sidenote: Robert’s fleet. July, 1101.]
[Sidenote: Henry’s levy.]
[Sidenote: Anselm and his contingent.]
[Sidenote: The English at Pevensey.]
[Sidenote: William Count of Mortain.]
[Sidenote: The English fleet sent out.]
[Sidenote: Some of the crews desert to Robert.]
[Sidenote: Alleged agency of Flambard.]
Meanwhile the exhortations of the Bishop of Durham had had their effect on the sluggish mind of the Norman Duke. In the course of July the fleet which was to win England for Robert was ready at Tréport.[1022] The ducal navy bore the force that was designed for the new conquest, horsemen, archers, and foot-soldiers of other kinds. King Henry meanwhile brought together the hosts of England. As of old, the fyrd flocked together from all parts, pressing on with a good will to the defence of England and her King. Henry now, like his brother thirteen years before, had on his side the two great moral powers, the people and the Church. There was no need this time to throw scorn on the men who came as the military contingent of the see of Canterbury. With them Anselm came in person,[1023] not surely to wield weapons with his own hands; but doubtless to bring about peace, if so he could, and, failing that, to exhort his flock to the last and most terrible of duties, to fight without flinching in a righteous war, when peace has become hopeless. It was not Anselm’s first sight of warfare; but he might now learn the difference between Duke Roger’s war of aggression against Capua, and the war which the English people were ready to wage for their native land and their native king.[1024] The King and the Primate, the national force ready to act at their bidding, the stranger nobles ready to betray them to the invader, gathered once more on the old battle-ground of Pevensey.[1025] There two invading Norman fleets had already shown themselves, with widely different results from their invasions. The third was looked for on the same spot, perhaps all the more because of the very doubtful faith of the new lord of Pevensey, Count William of Mortain. For that same reason it was all the more needful to secure such a post against the invaders. At Pevensey then, under the ancient walls and the new donjon, the army came together, waiting for the coming of the hostile fleet. But Henry took means to check them on their voyage. He sent forth his ships to watch the coasts, to watch the enemy and to hinder them from landing.[1026] But here we are met with a somewhat strange fact. This is not the first time that we have found Englishmen at sea less faithful than Englishmen on land. Tostig found allies among the sailors who were sent to meet him;[1027] so now did Robert. Some of the crews threw aside their allegiance, joined the invaders, and guided them to land. This piece of treason is attributed to the craft and subtlety of the Bishop of Durham, perhaps only, as in the case of Eadric, from the general belief that, whatever mischief was done, he must have been the doer of it.[1028]
[Sidenote: Coming of Robert and his fleet.]
[Sidenote: Comparison with his former attempt.]
[Sidenote: Comparison of Harold and Henry.]
[Sidenote: Robert lands at Portchester. July 20, 1101.]
[Sidenote: Portchester castle and church.]
[Sidenote: Robert marches to besiege Winchester.]
[Sidenote: He declines to attack the city because of the Queen.]
This time the landing-place was not Pevensey, but it was a kindred spot. One writer contrasts Robert’s invasion with that of his father. William made his way into the land by his own strength, Robert only by the help of traitors.[1029] But it might have been only fair to contrast Robert’s former attempt, when he sent others to land at Pevensey, but made no attempt to land anywhere himself, and this present attempt, when he came in his own person and actually landed on English ground. And the first and the third invasion have one point of likeness as distinguished from the second. The second invasion, that in the days of Rufus, was beaten back, because the attempt was made on Pevensey when Pevensey was well defended. But as the Conqueror was able to land at Pevensey because Harold was far away in Yorkshire, so, because Henry was carefully guarding Pevensey, Robert was able to land elsewhere. The traitors guided his fleet along the narrow seas which had seen the Saxon landings which came next after those which made Anderida a wilderness. As the father had made his way to England almost in the wake of Ælle and Cissa, so the son made his way into England more nearly in the wake of Cerdic and Cynric. The Norman fleet sailed up the haven of Portsmouth, and the Duke and his army landed as safely beneath the Roman walls of Portchester as his father and his army had landed beneath the Roman walls of Pevensey. Those walls at least were there; the massive keep most likely was not yet; the priory of Austin canons, whose church, little altered, still abides within the castle walls, was the work of Henry himself.[1030] From Portchester the invader naturally marched towards Winchester; there was the royal seat; there was the royal hoard. He pitched his camp in a fit place for a siege;[1031] but, in one of his fits of generosity, he refused, on a purely personal ground, to attack the city. His godchild and sister-in-law Queen Matilda was already lying there in child-bed of her first child, either the Ætheling or the future Empress. Was the West-Saxon capital her morning-gift also, as it had been with Emma and the elder Eadgyth? When Robert heard of the Queen’s case, he turned away, saying that it would be the deed of a villain to assault the city at such a time.[1032]
[Sidenote: Estimate of his conduct.]
In this story we see the better side of Robert, that spirit of true personal kindliness, which, like his dealings with his brother Henry at the siege of Saint Michael’s Mount, calls forth a personal liking for him in spite of all his follies and vices. But one and the same fallacy runs through all these stories of passing personal generosity. War cannot be carried on without causing much distress to many people, to besieged garrisons suffering from thirst, to women in child-bed, and others. Therefore war should never be undertaken, except for some public object so great and righteous as to outweigh the distress caused to individuals. Therefore too he who is carrying on a war on what he believes to be adequate grounds, should not turn aside from any operation which will promote the cause which he has in hand, merely on account of the distress which it may cause to individuals. We can hardly fancy that Robert himself would have turned away from the siege of Jerusalem or Antioch out of thought for any single person, even a brother or sister. He would have felt such an act to be treason to the common cause of Christendom. At Saint Michael’s Mount and at Winchester he had no cause to betray; he was simply fighting for his own interests, which he might, if he chose, forbear to assert. The morality of his age, perhaps the military morality of any age, fails to see that what this proves is that he should not have been attacking Winchester or the Mount at all. Unless war is so high a duty as to outweigh all personal considerations, it is a crime.
[Sidenote: Personal character of the chivalrous feeling.]
Again, in all these stories we see how the chivalrous spirit thinks of those only whose rank or kindred or some other personal cause brings their distress directly home to its thoughts. Others on the Mount were thirsty besides Henry; Winchester must have contained other women in child-bed besides Matilda. But Robert thinks only of those who are personally connected with himself. Of course that abstract way of looking at the matter which strict morality dictates is quite foreign to the notions of the eleventh century or of many later centuries, and must therefore not be pressed too far. And undoubtedly the personal kindliness which is always shown by Duke Robert is quite enough to put him on another moral level from a monster like Robert of Bellême. It is also enough to put him on another level from William Rufus, whose generosity is simply a form of pride. Yet, after all, the Red King’s abiding duty and reverence towards his father, alive and dead, comes nearer to a moral principle than Robert’s momentary outbursts of kindly feeling.
[Sidenote: Robert’s march from Winchester.]
[Sidenote: The armies meet near Alton.]
[Sidenote: Desertion of the Earls of Shrewsbury and Surrey.]
[Sidenote: William of Warren’s enmity to the King.]
[Sidenote: His jests on the King’s love of hunting.]
[Sidenote: Doubtful truth of other nobles.]
[Sidenote: Death of Earl Hugh. July 26, 1101.]
From Winchester Robert is said to have turned towards London, under the belief that Henry was there.[1033] This is somewhat strange, as one would think that the sea-faring men who had guided him to Portchester must both themselves have known, and would take care to let him know, that the King was at Pevensey. But nothing would be more natural than that Robert should march on London while the King was known to be elsewhere. And the point where, in the only account which attempts any geographical detail, the armies are said to have met, suggests a march of Robert towards London, and a march of Henry from Pevensey designed to meet him on the road before he should reach London. Robert was by the wood of Alton when news was brought to him that his brother’s force was near, on the other side of the wood.[1034] This seems a likely point for the armies to meet, when the one was going north-east from Portchester and the other going north-west from Pevensey. Wherever the spot was, the two hosts met face to face and made ready for battle. But, either then or earlier, many of the Norman barons in Henry’s army openly forsook the King’s cause and went over to the invaders. Two of the traitors are mentioned by name. Robert of Bellême, who was a little time before plotting in Normandy in his character of lord of Montgomery, must now have been again in England to work this open treason in his character of Earl of Shrewsbury. The other was the King’s cousin, the Earl of Surrey, the younger William of Warren, who is spoken of as a bitter personal enemy of the King.[1035] Henry had, even in his charter of liberties, kept the forests in his own hands; for, besides his wars, his studies, and his love-intrigues, he found time for an indulgence in hunting, which even surpassed, it would seem, the measure of his fellows. This drew on him the mockery of Earl William, who jeered at his deer-slaying exploits, and bestowed on him the nickname of Hartsfoot.[1036] To mockery he now added treason, and Henry did not forget either. While these great lords forsook the King, other Norman nobles still clave to him outwardly, but only with a feigned heart. His trust was in the small band of faithful Normans, in the Primate and the bishops, and above all in the English people. One of his oldest Norman friends was gone; Earl Hugh had ended his long and turbulent life as a three-days’-old monk in the house of Saint Werburh, the house which was the joint work of himself and Anselm.[1037]
[Sidenote: Anselm’s energy on the King’s side.]
[Sidenote: Henry’s promises to Anselm.]
[Sidenote: Zeal of the English.]
[Sidenote: Exhortation of the King.]
Meanwhile every motive of religion, loyalty, and patriotism, was brought to bear on the minds of the royal army. While some among the barons were openly falling off, while the good faith of others was doubtful, the King put his whole trust in Anselm only. The Primate was set to exhort, publicly and privately, all whose defection was feared.[1038] And exhort he did, and with good success, hindering at least any further open revolt. Robert himself was alarmed at the threat of excommunication which Anselm held over him.[1039] In the belief of Anselm’s biographer, the King at this moment owed his crown to the Archbishop.[1040] It is added that, in this moment of danger, Henry promised, not only to let Anselm exercise his full jurisdiction undisturbed, but also to obey in his own person all the decrees and orders of the Apostolic See.[1041] The former part of the promise Henry cannot be fairly charged with breaking; the latter engagement, if it was ever made at all, must surely have been made under some qualification, or else it must be referred to the same class of promises as the suggested grants of London and York. Still there can be no doubt that Anselm served the King well and loyally, and that his help went far to keep many wavering souls in their allegiance. But the mass of the English army hardly needed exhortation to keep them in their duty. They would perhaps be more deeply stirred by the voice of the King himself than even by that of the Primate. Never yet since the day of Senlac had Englishmen harnessed for the battle heard a crowned king call on them in their native tongue. But now we see Henry marshalling his ranks in the old tactics, and speaking to his Englishmen as Brihtnoth or Harold might have spoken. The lifeless Latin catches some spark or echo from the song of Maldon, when King Henry rides round the wedge of warriors, and bids them meet the charge of the Norman knights by standing firm in the array of the ancient shield-wall. No wonder that their hearts were stirred; no wonder that they shouted loud for the battle, and told their King with one voice that they were ready for the work, and feared not a Norman in the invading host.[1042]
[Sidenote: Negotiations between Henry and Robert.]
[Sidenote: Message of Henry.]
[Sidenote: Robert’s answer.]
[Sidenote: His claim of elder birth.]
[Sidenote: Personal meeting of the brothers.]
[Sidenote: They agree on terms.]
But the merits of the Norman lance and the English battle-axe were not again to be put to the trial on English ground. Harold and William had tried negotiation before the final appeal to arms; how much more then should the brothers Henry and Robert? The King of the English first sent a herald to the invader to ask why he had dared to enter his kingdom in arms. Robert sent word back again that it was the kingdom of his father which he had entered, and that he demanded it as his due by the right of elder birth.[1043] In English ears this appeal to the new-fangled notions of other lands must have sounded meaningless. To whom could a crown be due but to him to whom the folk of his land had given it? What was Robert and his elder birth to them? He, the stranger-born, might, for aught they knew, be the eldest son of Duke William of Normandy; but King Henry, the countryman of his people, was the only son of King William of England. Other messages followed; wise men on both sides sought to bring about a reconciliation between the brothers; others sought war rather than peace.[1044] We read on the one hand that, after many messages had gone to and fro, the King found that he could trust no negotiator but himself.[1045] Yet we hear also of Henry being represented by Robert Fitz-hamon, who was surely faithful, while the representatives of Robert are somewhat strangely said to have been two of Henry’s own rebels, the Earl of Shrewsbury and the lord of Cornwall.[1046] However this may be, those on both sides who shrank from a war of brothers brought about a personal interview between the rival princes. Nothing could be more to the advantage of the calm genius of Henry. Robert, able to negotiate for others, was sure not to be able to negotiate for himself. The hosts of Normandy and England stood marshalled in all their pride of war, while the King and the Duke went forth alone into the plain between them. The brothers talked together; after a while they embraced and kissed.[1047] Terms of agreement had been come to which were to save the blood of the subjects of both.
[Sidenote: The treaty of 1101.]
[Sidenote: Robert gives up all claim to England; Henry gives up his Norman possessions.]
[Sidenote: He keeps Domfront.]
[Sidenote: Henry and Helias neighbours.]
[Sidenote: Yearly payment to Robert.]
[Sidenote: Stipulation as to the succession.]
[Sidenote: Dying out of the legitimate male line of both brothers.]
[Sidenote: Natural sons of Henry.]
[Sidenote: Earl Robert.]
[Sidenote: Richard.]
[Sidenote: Henry released from his homage to Robert.]
[Sidenote: Each prince to restore the partisans of the other.]
[Sidenote: The treaty sworn to.]
[Sidenote: Robert and his army go back. Michaelmas, 1101.]
[Sidenote: Mischief done by the Norman army.]
By the treaty now sworn to Robert gave up all claim to the kingdom of England. Henry, on his part, gave up to Robert his county of Coutances, and all that he possessed within the borders of Normandy. One continental possession alone, a small and isolated one, he kept. He might give up the lands which he had once bought of Robert and which he had afterwards received in fief of William. But he could not give up the town and castle of Domfront, whose people had of their own free will chosen him as their lord, and had received his oath never to give them over to any other lord. Domfront therefore, the border post of Normandy and Maine, once the solitary possession of the wanderer, now remained the solitary continental possession of the island king.[1048] Thus, in his small dominion on the mainland, Henry had in a neighbour his friend and ally Count Helias, a neighbourhood which had some influence on the events of a few years later. Besides the territorial cessions, the Duke was to receive a yearly payment of three thousand pounds from his brother. The vain provision was again inserted that, if either brother died without lawful issue in the lifetime of the other, the survivor should succeed to his dominions. Such a provision might seem even vainer than ever, now that both brothers were lately married to young and fruitful wives. Yet it is strange to look forward, and to see how each brother outlived his son, and how short a time the younger brother outlived the elder. Neither Robert nor Henry could have dreamed that the succession of both would pass to the son of their sister at Chartres. Anyhow the arrangement shut out those who afterwards showed themselves to be, in personal qualities, the most worthy to reign. These were the natural sons of Henry. Robert, the son of the unknown French mother, came to fill no small place in history as the renowned Earl of Gloucester; and the short life of Richard, the son of the Berkshire widow, showed him as a gallant soldier and something more. Thus the relations and the succession of the two states of Normandy and England were settled. But a personal matter still remained between the princes. At some earlier time, most likely when he first received the Côtentin, Henry had become the man of Robert. But now Henry was a king; Robert was to remain only a duke. It was not becoming for a crowned and anointed king to be the man of a mere duke. Henry was therefore released from all personal obligations of homage towards his brother. Lastly, a provision borrowed from the elder treaty was inserted, seemingly only for form’s sake. Each prince bound himself to restore the lands and honours of all men who had suffered forfeiture for supporting the cause of the other. The treaty thus agreed to was, like the elder one, confirmed by the oaths of twelve of the chief men on each side.[1049] Part of the Duke’s army at once left England; part stayed till he himself went back at Michaelmas. He tarried till then as his brother’s guest, treated with all honour, and enriched with many gifts. But it is recorded that the part of his army which stayed with him did much harm in the land.[1050]
§ 4. The Revolt of Robert of Bellême.
1102.
[Sidenote: Continued disloyalty of the Norman nobles.]
[Sidenote: Henry’s plan for breaking the power of the great barons.]
King Henry was now made fast in his kingdom; but he still had enemies to strive against. The allegiance of many of the chief men of Norman birth in England was still not a little doubtful. They had to be fully brought under the royal power before either the King or his kingdom could be safe. Henry, there can be little doubt, cold and calculating as he was, formed a settled plan for breaking the power of those great barons who, at least if they joined together, might easily make themselves dangerous to the peace of the land. It was not his policy to hurry, nor to make over-many enemies by attacking all the dangerous men at once. The work was to be done bit by bit; opportunities were to be found as they offered themselves, to settle matters with those who had been traitors once and who were likely to be traitors again.
[Sidenote: The treaty does not apply to Flambard.]
[Sidenote: Death of Gilbert Bishop of Lisieux. August, 1101.]
[Sidenote: Fulcher, Flambard’s brother, holds the see. June 1102-January 1103.]
[Sidenote: Flambard receives the revenues under cover of his son.]
To some of the most dangerous traitors of all the provisions of the late treaty did not apply. The Bishop of Durham had lost nothing in the cause of Duke Robert. He had been imprisoned, and his temporalities had been seized, on the ground of his old offences, before Robert’s claims had been heard of. He had no claims to restoration, nor did he as yet find any favour. He went back to Normandy, and there, in his banishment to his native land, he found means to provide for himself at the cost of one of its bishoprics. Gilbert Maminot, the skilful leech whom the Conqueror had placed in the see of Lisieux,[1051] died in August, while Duke Robert was in England. The see was not filled till the next June, when it was given to Flambard’s brother Fulcher, who was consecrated and held the bishopric with a good reputation for liberality till his death seven months later. Then Flambard caused the see to be bestowed on a young son of his own, Thomas by name. As far as a not very intelligible account can be made out, Thomas remained unconsecrated, while his father received the revenues. It was not till after Henry’s conquest of Normandy that a more regular appointment to the bishopric was made.[1052]
[Sidenote: Banishment of the Earl of Surrey.]
[Sidenote: His restoration.]
Earl William of Warren too paid the penalty of rebellion, rebellion aggravated by personal gibes against the King. If our accounts are correct, he was disinherited so soon that he went away to Normandy in company with Duke Robert. He is said to have had other companions in the same case.[1053] He was afterwards restored at Robert’s intercession; but the chronology is confused, and we may guess that his fall did not happen quite so soon as is said. If he did suffer forfeiture directly after the treaty, it must have been on some other ground, and not that of taking Robert’s side during the quarrel, which would have been covered by the treaty. On Earl William chastisement had a good effect; he came back to be a loyal subject and special friend of King Henry during the rest of his reign.[1054]
[Sidenote: Henry’s rewards and punishments.]
[Sidenote: Banishment of Robert Malet;]
[Sidenote: of Robert of Pontefract.]
[Sidenote: Private war unlawful in England.]
[Sidenote: Ivo of Grantmesnil harries his neighbours’ lands.]
[Sidenote: His trial, and conviction.]
[Sidenote: He asks help of Robert of Meulan.]
[Sidenote: Bargain between them.]
Other dangerous persons were got rid of one by one, as occasion served. Henry rewarded bountifully all who served him faithfully; but no enemy escaped him; no traitor avoided forfeiture or heavy fines.[1055] Forfeiture came before long on some men who were, after the earls, among the greatest of the men of Norman birth in England. Such was Robert Malet, son of the gossip of King Harold, a man great in the east of England. Such was one equally great in the north, Robert of Pontefract, the son of Ilbert of Lacy. Charges were brought against them in the King’s court, and forfeiture and banishment followed.[1056] In another case we know the exact nature of the charge, nor can we condemn the punishment, except so far as it was turned to the private advantage of a favourite. It was our boast in England that we needed not the Truce of God, that, alike before and after King William came into England, private war, the dearest privilege of the continental noble, was always a crime against the law.[1057] But now Ivo of Grantmesnil, the rope-dancer of Antioch, took upon him to bring the licence of Normandy into England, and to lay waste the lands of some of his neighbours. This was a deed which could not be passed by in the days of the King who had come to make peace in the land. A trial, and a huge fine on conviction, followed.[1058] Ivo, on the verge of ruin, betook himself to Count Robert of Meulan. Let the Count reconcile him to the King, and he would again go to the crusade, and try to wipe out the shame of his former pilgrimage.[1059] A bargain was struck; Count Robert was to give Ivo five hundred marks towards his journey to Palestine, and was in return to take possession of all Ivo’s lands for fifteen years. Then they were to go back to his son Ivo, now a child, who was to marry the Count’s niece, the daughter of the Earl of Warwick.[1060] The elder Ivo went on his second crusade with his wife, the daughter of Gilbert of Ghent, and died on his pilgrimage. With him ended the short-lived greatness of the house of Grantmesnil in England. The inheritance of his father and grandfather passed away from the younger Ivo to swell the fortunes of the chief counsellor of the King.[1061]
[Sidenote: Origin of the earldom of Leicester.]
[Sidenote: Ivo’s relations with Leicester.]
[Sidenote: Other lords in Leicester.]
[Sidenote: Robert Earl of Leicester. 1103.]
[Sidenote: Dies, 1118.]
[Sidenote: His college at Leicester. 1107.]
[Sidenote: Its endowments transferred to Leicester abbey. 1143.]
[Sidenote: 1530.]
The subtlety of the Count of Meulan was famous, and it enabled him to change his fifteen years’ possession of the lands of Ivo of Grantmesnil into a great hereditary earldom. A chief part of Ivo’s position came from his relations to the town of Leicester. He had succeeded his father as Sheriff of the shire and farmer of the royal revenues. He was also castellan of the fortress above the Soar, the fortress which the elder Eadmund won back for England and for Christendom,[1062] where a mound older than Æthelflæd[1063] looks down on the church of Robert of Meulan and the hall of Simon the Righteous. But the lordship of the house of Grantmesnil over the old Danish borough was not complete; besides the King and the Bishop of Lincoln, some rights in Leicester belonged to Earl Simon of Northampton.[1064] The cunning Count of Meulan contrived to unite all claims in himself, and became the first of the Earls of Leicester,[1065] that title which has passed to so many names, and which has drawn to itself alike the glory of a Montfort and the shame of a Dudley. Earl Robert kept his office and his prosperity for the remaining fifteen years of his life, and then died, fifty-two years after the great battle, with the wrongs of Ivo of Grantmesnil upon his conscience.[1066] Married, as we have seen, somewhat late in life,[1067] he was the father of two sons, both of whom were brought up with such care that they could, while still young, hold logical disputations with cardinals.[1068] Of these brothers, Robert, the elder, became a prosperous Earl of Leicester in England, while his brother Waleran became an unlucky Count of Meulan beyond the sea.[1069] Of one of his daughters we have already heard as helping to swell the irregular household of King Henry.[1070] The Earl himself remained the King’s counsellor, keeping on friendly terms with Anselm, while cleaving steadfastly to the ancient law of England in the matter of investitures.[1071] He too was an ecclesiastical benefactor, though on no very great scale. He founded or restored a college of canons within the castle of Leicester, where the small church of his building may still be seen embedded in the greater fabric into which it has grown.[1072] But the greater part of its endowments were taken by the second Earl Robert to enrich the abbey of our Lady of his own foundation, the abbey where a more famous cardinal than those with whom its founder had disputed came to lay his bones.[1073]
[Sidenote: Christmas Gemót. 1101-1102.]
[Sidenote: Danger from Robert of Bellême.]
[Sidenote: The King watches him.]
[Sidenote: Easter Gemót. April 6, 1102.]
[Sidenote: Robert asks a licence to be accompanied by his men.]
[Sidenote: The licence is given.]
[Sidenote: Robert does not come.]
[Sidenote: The King’s proclamation.]
[Sidenote: He again summons Robert, who refuses to come.]
[Sidenote: The war begins.]
King Henry had thus overthrown several of his open or secret enemies, and he doubtless wore his crown at the Christmas Gemót at Westminster with a greater feeling of safety. But the greatest work of all had still to be done. There was still one man in England whose presence was utterly inconsistent with the rule of any king whose mind was to give peace to his kingdom. Peace, in Henry’s sense of the word, could not be in a land where Robert of Bellême was, to say the least, the mightiest man after the King. Henry knew his man; he knew that, sooner or later, the struggle must come between himself and such a subject. For a whole year he kept his eye upon the Earl of Shropshire and all his doings. Spies sent from the King watched all that he did; every blameworthy act was carefully reported and set down in writing.[1074] A bulky volume, one would think, must have been added to the library of the learned King. At last the moment came when Henry thought that it was time to act, and the form of action which he took was one which followed more than one precedent in earlier reigns. The Easter Gemót was to be held at Winchester. The King summoned Earl Robert to appear before the Assembly, and to answer openly on forty-five distinct charges of offences done either against the King or against his brother the Duke.[1075] We do not read that Robert, like others in the like case on earlier occasions, demanded a safe-conduct to go and to return; but we do read that he demanded――and it is implied that the demand was an usual one――a licence to come accompanied by his men. They were to serve, we may suppose, either as compurgators or as defenders by the strong hand, as things might turn out.[1076] The demand was granted; Earl Roger set forth; the King and his barons were waiting for his coming at Winchester; but he came not. On the road he changed his mind; he knew that the result of any legal trial must be against him; he deemed, and doubtless with truth, that he would be safer in his own strong castles than he could be in the King’s court. He fled, we are told, breathless and afraid, a description which does not savour much of the fierce lord of Bellême. But at any rate the King’s messenger had to report that the Earl of Shropshire had gone elsewhere, and was not on his way to obey the King’s summons.[1077] Henry did not hurry; he put forth a proclamation, declaring that the Earl, lawfully charged with various crimes, had not come to make his defence, and that, if he did not come at once to do right――to abide his trial――he would be declared an outlaw.[1078] Along with the issue of the public proclamation, the King, clearly anxious to give no occasion for any man to say that the Earl had been harshly or informally treated, sent him a second personal summons to appear before the Assembly. This time Robert directly refused to come,[1079] and open war broke out. The work of King Henry, as we have already heard, was to destroy the ungodly within his kingdom.[1080] He had to begin by doing that useful work on an offender whose ungodliness was on the grandest scale of all.
[Sidenote: Greatness of Robert’s possessions.]
[Sidenote: His acquisition of Ponthieu.]
[Sidenote: His brothers Arnulf and Roger.]
[Sidenote: Wide range of warfare and negotiation.]
[Sidenote: Welsh alliance of Robert.]
The overweening greatness of the house of Montgomery or Bellême, and the personal energy of its members, is shown in the range both of warfare and of negotiation which was opened by what was in its beginning a mere legal process on the part of the King of the English against an offending subject. We must always remember that, whatever Robert was at Shrewsbury or at Montgomery, at Bellême he was something more than an ordinary vassal of either king or duke. He had lately increased his continental power by taking possession of the county of Ponthieu, the inheritance of his son, who bore the name of his own maternal grandfather, the terrible William Talvas.[1081] The Earl of Shrewsbury was thus entitled to deal with princes as one of their own order. He and the two best known of his brothers, those whom we have already seen leagued with him, Arnulf of Montgomery, lord of Pembroke, and Roger of Poitou, once lord of the land between Mersey and Ribble, were now again firmly joined together against the King.[1082] And they contrived to draw no small part of Northern Europe into a partnership in their private quarrel. That Robert of Bellême should be able to get together a large body of Welsh allies is in no way wonderful. He was indeed the sternest enemy of their nation; but, among that divided people, enmity on the part of one tribe or dynasty was a claim to support on the part of another, and all tribes and dynasties forgot every enmity and every wrong when there was a chance of harrying the fields and homes of the Saxon. Welsh allies of the rebel Earl play an important part in the story, and the more distant powers of Ireland and Norway are also brought within its page.
[Sidenote: Revolt in Gwynedd.]
[Sidenote: Settlement of Gruffydd and of Cadwgan and his brothers.]
[Sidenote: Robert calls on the Welsh for help;]
[Sidenote: his gifts and promises.]
Just at this time the Welsh seem to have been stronger and more united than usual. We have seen that their momentary subjugation after the death of Earl Hugh of Shropshire had led to a successful movement while his successor was busy on the continent.[1083] The men of Gwynedd could not bear Norman rule; whether it took the form of law or of unlaw, it was equally against the grain. Their leader now was Owen son of Edwin, who, we are told, had been the first to bring the French into Mona.[1084] This was before the end of the year of Earl Hugh’s death; it was in the next year that Cadwgan and Gruffydd came back from their Irish shelter.[1085] The phrase of the Welsh writer, that they came to terms with “the French,” must be understood as referring to their relations with Robert of Bellême. Cadwgan kept Ceredigion and a part of Powys, for which he and his brothers Jorwerth and Meredydd became the men of the Earl of Shropshire. Gruffydd seems to have held Anglesey as a wholly independent prince; there is at least no mention of vassalage in his case.[1086] Earl Robert now called on his British vassals to help him in his struggle with the King. As there is no sign that they had become the men either of King Henry or of any earlier king, the law of Salisbury did not apply to them. The promises of Robert of Bellême were splendid; so were his gifts; he almost seems to have won the help of the Britons by a promised restoration of complete freedom to their country.[1087] In the allies thus drawn to his banners he professed the most boundless trust. He put into their hands――so the Welsh writer tells us――his wealth and his cattle, perhaps also, what a Norman lord would specially value, the horses of noble breed which he had brought over from Spain, and whose race flourished in the land of Powys long after.[1088] A great and motley host was thus got together, which entered zealously into the cause of the Earl, and did not pass by so good an opportunity of finding great spoil.[1089]
[Sidenote: Arnulf’s dealings with Murtagh.]
[Sidenote: Negotiation with Magnus.]
[Sidenote: Murtagh sends his daughter to Arnulf.]
Meanwhile the Earl’s brother Arnulf at once strengthened the castle of Pembroke and looked further for allies than the land of Ceredigion and Powys. By the hands of his steward at Pembroke, Gerald of Windsor, he sent to Ireland to King Murtagh, to ask for the king’s daughter in marriage and for help in the struggle.[1090] From what followed, and from the connexion between Murtagh and Magnus, we can hardly doubt that the negotiations of Arnulf reached to Norway as well as to Ireland, and that Magnus himself was a party to the course which was at once followed by Murtagh. The Irish king promised his daughter to the lord of Pembroke, in some sort his neighbour, and actually sent her to her affianced husband on board a great fleet designed to support the rebel cause.[1091]
[Sidenote: Henry’s negotiation with Duke Robert.]
[Sidenote: Duke Robert besieges Vignats.]
[Sidenote: Treason of Robert of Montfort and others.]
[Sidenote: Victory of the besieged.]
[Sidenote: Ravage of the Hiesmes.]
King Henry had thus plenty of foes to strive against in his work of bringing back the reign of law and order in his kingdom. But he too could negotiate beyond sea; he could stir up a diversion against the Count of Bellême and Ponthieu, which might do something to weaken the power of the Earl of Shropshire and lord of Arundel. The King sent letters to his brother Duke Robert, setting forth how Earl Robert had incurred forfeiture in the dominions of both of them, and how he had treasonably refused to appear in the general Assembly of England. He called on his brother to do as he was doing himself, and to smite the man who was a traitor to both his lords with the vengeance that was his due.[1092] The Duke attempted something after his fashion, that is his fashion in Normandy and not his fashion in Syria. The man who had been foremost in the crusading host had on his native soil sunk again into the feeble and half-hearted ruler whom we knew of old. Yet he did make an attempt to subdue the castles which held out for Robert of Bellême in the land of Hiesmes. He laid siege to Vignats, a castle lying south-east of Falaise, on a height looking to the north, not far from one of the tributaries of the Dive. It was an old possession of the house of Talvas, and in the next generation it became the site of an abbey of Benedictine nuns.[1093] It was now held on behalf of Robert of Bellême by a captain named Gerard of Saint Hilary. The garrison, if their state of mind is rightly described, wished the besiegers to make a fierce assault that they might have an excuse for surrendering without dishonour.[1094] But, under the generalship of Duke Robert on Norman ground, no fierce assault followed. There were even traitors in the Duke’s camp. Robert of the Norman Montfort, whom we have heard of in the wars of Maine,[1095] and other lords in the Duke’s army, being, it would seem, in league with the rebels, burned their quarters and fled, no man pursuing them. They even constrained the loyal part of the army to flee with them.[1096] It was not wonderful then that the garrison of Vignats plucked up heart, made a vigorous sally, and chased the voluntary fliers with loud shouts.[1097] A war followed, in which the whole land of Hiesmes was laid waste. Not only Vignats, but Fourches, Argentan, and Château-Gonthier further down the river, were all held by the rebels. The loyal lords on both sides of the Oudon, Robert of Grantmesnil, the other son of the old Sheriff of Leicestershire, his brother-in-law Hugh of Mont-Pizon, and his other brother-in-law, Robert of Courcy, strove in vain to defend their lands. But the rebels were too strong for them, and the whole of that district of Normandy was laid waste with havoc of every kind.[1098]
[Sidenote: Robert of Bellême strengthens his castles.]
[Sidenote: Works at Bridgenorth.]
[Sidenote: The King’s plans.]
[Sidenote: He besieges Arundel.]
[Sidenote: Truce with the besieged.]
[Sidenote: Robert and Arnulf harry Staffordshire.]
[Sidenote: Terms of the surrender of Arundel.]
King Henry managed matters better in his island. The rebel Earl put all his castles in a state of defence. Arundel, Shrewsbury, and Tickhill, were all garrisoned, all supplied with provisions. So too was the Castle by the Bridge, where, as well as at Careghova, the works, still, it would seem, not wholly finished, were pressed on by day and night.[1099] The King had to choose which fortress he would attack first. His plan seems to have been first to cut off Robert’s outlying possessions, before he made any attack on the strongholds of his power on the Welsh border. And, first of all, he led his force――the host of England it is emphatically called――to the siege of the Earl’s great South-Saxon castle, that which lay open to the chance of help from the supporters of the rebel cause in Normandy.[1100] The King marched to Arundel; he set up, after the usual fashion, two evil neighbours to keep the fortress in check.[1101] He then gave part of his army leave of absence while the work of blockade went on.[1102] The zeal of the defenders of Arundel in the cause of their rebel lord does not seem to have been strong; but they had a keen sense either of the honour of soldiers or of the duty of vassals. This last, to be sure, was a mistaken sense, according to the laws of England, above all according to the great law of Salisbury. They craved a truce, during which they might ask Earl Robert either to send them help or to give them leave to surrender. Robert was far away in his Mercian earldom, busy on two works. The defences of Bridgenorth were strengthening day by day, and Robert and Arnulf, at the head of their Gal-Welsh and Bret-Welsh forces――it is significantly hinted that Englishmen had no share in the evil work――were harrying the neighbouring parts of Staffordshire. A great booty of cattle, and some human captives, were carried off into Wales, the price of the help given by Cadwgan and his brother.[1103] The messengers from Arundel found their lord at some stage of these employments, and set forth to him the danger in which they stood from the King’s leaguer. Mournful, but feeling himself unable to send help to so distant a post, Robert of Bellême gave his garrison of Arundel full leave to make what terms they could with the King.[1104] They surrendered at once and with great joy; but they honourably stipulated that their lord Earl Robert should be allowed to go safe into Normandy. The King received them graciously and rewarded them with rich gifts.[1105] Arundel passed into the royal hands, to become in the next reign the seat of a more abiding earldom in the hands of the famous houses of Aubigny and Fitzalan, and to pass through them to the more modern, but perhaps more English, line of Howard.[1106]
[Sidenote: Surrender of Tickhill.]
[Sidenote: Question of the King’s presence.]
[Sidenote: Action of Robert Bloet.]
[Sidenote: Later history of Tickhill.]
The surrender of Arundel took away all fear lest any help should come to Robert of Bellême from his Norman partisans. But before the King made any movement towards the lands on the Severn, he marched far to the north-east, to the lands watered by the tributaries of the northern Ouse, on the borders of Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire. Here the mound of Tickhill was still held for the rebel Earl, and the new gate-house of his predecessor’s building still frowned defiance in the teeth of any advancing enemy.[1107] But Tickhill proved yet an easier conquest than Arundel. It needed no Malvoisin, no messages sent to Shrewsbury or Bridgenorth, to persuade its garrison to surrender. According to one version, the siege was not even deemed worthy of the royal presence. While Henry himself marched to the greater enterprise at Bridgenorth, a spiritual lord was deemed to be captain enough for the siege of Tickhill. The work to be done there was entrusted to the hands of Bishop Robert of Lincoln.[1108] According to another version, which is perhaps not quite inconsistent with the other, the King himself appeared before Tickhill, and the garrison at once marched forth with all readiness to meet their natural lord――cynehlaford to Normans and Englishmen alike, cynehlaford above all to Yorkshiremen, if he was really born in their shire――and received him with all fitting joy.[1109] The castle of Tickhill or Blyth passed back again for a while to the kinsfolk of its former owner, and afterwards became a possession of the Crown.[1110] A collegiate chapel was founded within its walls by the first Queen Eleanor, and in the reign of her son Richard the ground between Tickhill and Blyth became the special scene of fantastic displays of chivalrous rashness.[1111] There was no licensed tournament-ground at Tickhill or elsewhere in the days of the King who made peace for man and deer.[1112]
[Sidenote: Henry’s Shropshire campaign. Autumn, 1102.]
[Sidenote: Robert of Bellême at Shrewsbury.]
[Sidenote: Defence of Bridgenorth.]
[Sidenote: The three captains.]
[Sidenote: Robert son of Corbet.]
[Sidenote: Robert Neville?]
[Sidenote: Wulfgar the huntsman.]
[Sidenote: Action of the Welsh princes.]
The more distant possessions of the rebel Earl were thus brought under the King’s obedience. The peace of King Henry reigned in Sussex, in Yorkshire, and in Nottinghamshire. Now came the time for attacking the special strongholds of Robert’s own earldom; the stage of attacking himself was to come last of all. After the surrender of Arundel and Tickhill, the King allowed his men a breathing-time;[1113] then, in the course of the autumn, he gathered together the forces of all England for the final overthrow of the rebellion. Robert of Bellême had chosen his capital of Shrewsbury as the post which he would defend himself. His new fortress of Bridgenorth he placed in the hands of three chosen captains, at the head of eighty mercenary knights, attended doubtless by a fitting following of lower degree.[1114] Of the three leaders, Robert son of Corbet――a name which was to become abiding in those parts――was a hereditary follower of the house of Montgomery; he appears in Domesday as the holder of a large estate under Earl Roger.[1115] To another captain, Robert de Nova Villa, we have no certain clue; Neuvevilles and Newtons abound in Normandy and England; he may or he may not have been a forefather of the historic Nevilles. The third awakens more interest; his name seems to be English; he is Wulfgar the huntsman.[1116] Nor is there the slightest reason to think that Robert of Bellême would reject the services of a born Englishman in any post, if the man himself seemed likely to suit his purpose. These three, with the regular force at their command, had to defend the Castle by the Bridge; the Welsh princes, Cadwgan and Jorwerth, with their less disciplined bands, were planted in the neighbourhood, to annoy the King’s troops, as they might find occasion.[1117]
[Sidenote: Robert of Bellême seizes the land of William Pantulf.]
[Sidenote: He rejects his services.]
[Sidenote: William Pantulf joins the King.]
[Sidenote: He commands at Stafford;]
[Sidenote: his services.]
But, while Earl Robert knew how to make use of the services of Robert the son of Corbet, he had the folly to make an enemy of another old follower of his father. He had already, for what cause we are not told, seized the lands of William Pantulf, who appears in Domesday as holding under Earl Roger a great estate in Shropshire, a small one in Staffordshire, and an empty house in the town of Stafford.[1118] He was a tried and valiant warrior, and he now, forgetting his late wrongs, offered his services to the son of his old benefactor in his time of need. Earl Robert thrust him aside with scorn, on which William betook himself to the King, by whom his merits were better valued. Henry had known him of old, and now gladly received him. William Pantulf was sent at the head of two hundred knights, to command the castle of Stafford, a castle which had risen and fallen in the days of the Conqueror, and which must have by this time risen again.[1119] The local knowledge and interest of William Pantulf in the two neighbouring shires seems to have stood him in good stead. He acted vigorously against the lord who had scorned him, and no one, we are told, did more towards bringing about the final overthrow of the proud Earl.[1120]
[Sidenote: Relation of Normans and English.]
[Sidenote: Division of feeling in the army.]
[Sidenote: Siege of Bridgenorth.]
[Sidenote: The King builds a Malvoisin.]
[Sidenote: The great men lean to Robert of Bellême.]
And now we get one of our most instructive pictures of the time, and of the difference of feeling among men of the time. We distinctly see the difference of feeling between Normans and English. But they are no longer labelled as Normans and English, as they were only a year before. They are spoken of simply as different classes in one army. Six-and-thirty years after the day of Senlac, we are but seldom dealing with the men who fought for Harold or for William; we have come to their sons or even their grandsons. But the great men of the army and the small men, of whom the former class would be all but wholly Norman, while the latter would be Normans and English intermingled in various proportions, had quite different views as to the proper policy for King Henry to follow. And King Henry’s own views agreed with the views of the small men, and not with the views of the great. The army was gathered before Bridgenorth, and a regular siege was opened. The King brought up his engines of war; he built a fort to check the approach of any relief to the castle[1121]――was it on Oldbury, was it on the northern side, beyond the surviving gate of the town, or did it guard the river from the opposite side of the bridge? The siege lasted three weeks;[1122] and the course of events shows that it cannot have been at any very late stage of it that King Henry found that he had in his camp two widely different classes of men. There were in it men who were working honestly in his service, men who strove heartily for his success, knowing that the interests of King and people were the same. There were also men there to whom the interests of their own order were dearer than those of either King or people, and who feared that the overthrow of the power of the Earl of Shropshire might tend to the lessening of their own power, perhaps of their own possessions. We have seen the same division of feeling before the walls of Rochester;[1123] we now see it beneath the cliff of Bridgenorth. The earls and great men of the kingdom who were in the army came together in separate consultations. They argued that it was not for their interest that the power of Robert of Bellême should be utterly broken. If the King dealt so with the greatest of his nobles, he might deal in the like sort with the rest, and might tread them under his feet like servants and handmaidens.[1124] It would suit them far better to bring about a peace between the King and the Earl. It would have been, one may guess, a peace by which Robert of Bellême should keep his earldom and the castles within his earldom, but should leave to the King the castles and lands which the King had already won. In this way they would put an end to disputes, and would make both the King and the Earl their debtors.[1125]
[Sidenote: The smaller men, Normans and English, faithful to the King.]
[Sidenote: Meeting of the nobles.]
[Sidenote: Gathering of the mass of the army.]
[Sidenote: Appeal of the army to the King.]
[Sidenote: Henry’s faith pledged for Robert’s life.]
So reasoned the great men, the Norman nobles, the men to most of whom Robert of Bellême was a countryman and a comrade, and none of whom were likely to have felt the grip of his iron claws[1126] in their own persons. So reasoned not the sons of the soil; so reasoned not men of any race who were lowly enough to feel that in the power of the King――that is in Henry’s days, the power of law――lay their only hope of shelter against smaller oppressors. The great men came together in a field――perhaps in the meadows beside the Severn――and there held a parliament with the King――a meeting, one might say, of the Witan from which the land-sitting men were shut out――and earnestly pressed peace upon the King.[1127] Henry’s own feelings were clearly the other way; and those who were shut out from the counsels of the great ones now came to his help. Three thousand men of the mass of the army, men seemingly of the shire most nearly concerned, who were stationed on one of the neighbouring hills, knew, by whatever means, the counsel of the leaders, and were minded to have their voice in the matter too.[1128] If the King chose to hold a military Gemót, an assembly of the armed nation,[1129] they had a right to be heard as well as men of higher degree. At Rochester too the English soldiers had spoken their minds; but to the Red King they must have spoken them through an interpreter. But Henry knew the tongue of his people, and we may fancy him not unwilling to listen to counsels which he could hear and weigh, while the mass of those of whom he had reason to be jealous understood not what was said. A vigorous speech, which doubtless fairly represents the feelings of the moment, is put into the mouths of the three thousand or their leaders; “Lord King Henry, trust not those traitors. They do but strive to deceive you, and to take away from you the strength of kingly justice. Why do you listen to them who would have you spare the traitor and leave unpunished the conspiracy of those who seek your death? Behold we all stand by you faithfully; we are ready to serve and help you in all things. Attack the castle vigorously; shut in the traitor on all sides, and make no peace with him till you have him alive or dead in your hands.”[1130] The speakers do not call, as the English before Rochester called in the case of Odo, for the judicial death of the traitor. The faith of Henry was pledged to the garrison of Arundel that Robert of Bellême should be allowed to go safe into Normandy.[1131] But the three thousand clearly cherished a hope, perhaps that Robert’s own men might turn against him, certainly that, when Bridgenorth should fall and Shrewsbury should be beleagued, then some lucky bolt from an arrow or a mangonel might light on him before the time of surrender came, or, best of all for those who had felt his iron claws, that he might fall beneath one of their own axes in a sally or a storm.
[Sidenote: Henry seeks to detach the Welsh from Robert.]
[Sidenote: Dealings of William Pantulf with Jorwerth.]
[Sidenote: Henry’s great promises to Jorwerth.]
[Sidenote: Jorwerth makes the Welsh change sides.]
The King listened to the counsels of his advisers of lower degree, but of more honest hearts. King and people were one, and the designs of the traitors in the camp were brought to naught.[1132] First of all, Henry determined to weaken the strength of Robert, and no doubt to relieve his own army from a never-ending annoyance, by detaching the Welsh force from the cause of the rebels. William Pantulf, who was doubtless well known to the Britons, acted as the King’s agent with Jorwerth son of Bleddyn. We are not told why he was thought more easy to win over than his brothers; but it seems plain that the negotiation was carried on with him only, unknown to Cadwgan and Meredydd.[1133] The King invited Jorwerth to his presence, with the assurance that he would do more for him than Earl Robert and his brothers could do.[1134] Jorwerth came; the gifts of King Henry were acceptable; his promises were magnificent indeed. As long as Henry lived――it was wise not to bind his successor――the British prince should have, free of all homage and all tribute, Powys, Ceredigion, half Dyfed with the castle of Pembroke, the vale of Teifi, Kidwelly, and Gower.[1135] Such a dominion would give its holder a seaboard on two seas; it would leave under English rule little beyond the central and southern lands of Brecheiniog, Gwent, and Morganwg, and the outlying land of Pembroke, which would thus be most distinctly “Little England beyond Wales.” We are not told what was to be the fate of Cadwgan when Jorwerth received this great inheritance; but Jorwerth himself naturally caught at such a prospect. And it seems that his power over his countrymen was so great that, while his brothers knew nothing of what was going on, Jorwerth was able to turn the whole British force which had come to the Earl’s help to the side of the King. The Welshmen now harried the lands of the Earl and his friends instead of those of his enemies, and carried off a vast booty.[1136] In any case the lands of some one were harried, and for the Britons that was doubtless enough.
[Sidenote: Henry’s dealings with the captains at Bridgenorth.]
[Sidenote: Mediation of William Pantulf.]
[Sidenote: The captains promise to surrender.]
Having thus relieved himself of the enemy who hung upon his flanks, Henry began to deal directly with the defenders of Bridgenorth. Three of the leaders――we may safely guess that Roger son of Corbet, Robert of Neville, and Wulfgar, are the three meant――were invited to the King’s presence. They doubtless had a safe-conduct for that once; but they had to take back an ugly message to their comrades. The King swore in the hearing of all men that, unless they surrendered the castle within three days, he would hang every man of the garrison that he could catch.[1137] The three captains, whose necks were in as much danger as those of their followers, began to consult for their own safety. They asked William Pantulf, as their neighbour, to act as a mediator between them and the King.[1138] At their request, he came to them, and made them a set speech on the duty of surrendering the castle to the lawful king. And his eloquence was backed by one special argument which shows that, in one point at least, Henry had made some progress in the school of Rufus. William was commissioned to swear in the King’s name that submission should be rewarded by an addition to the estates of each of the captains of lands of a hundred pounds’ worth.[1139] Moved, we are told, by a sense of the common good, the captains agreed, and, to avoid all further danger, submitted to the King’s will.[1140] They were allowed to send a message to Earl Robert to say that they could hold out no longer against the invincible power of King Henry.[1141]
[Sidenote: Position of Robert.]
[Sidenote: His dealings with Ireland and Norway.]
[Sidenote: Arnulf goes to Ireland.]
[Sidenote: Magnus in Anglesey.]
[Sidenote: His castle-building in Man.]
[Sidenote: Robert vainly asks help of Magnus.]
[Sidenote: Failure of the Irish scheme.]
[Sidenote: Robert of Bellême left alone.]
Robert of Bellême was now nearly at the end of his hopes and of his wits. His distant castles were lost; Bridgenorth, his own work, his newest work, was as good as lost; William Pantulf, able and active, had turned against him; his Welsh allies had failed him; Cadwgan and Meredydd were still at his side;[1142] but they were useless guests now that Jorwerth had turned the whole power of the Britons to the other side. He still held Shrewsbury; but it was hard to defy the strength of the whole kingdom from within the walls of a single fortress. In his despair, he caught at the hope of making his peace with the King;[1143] he caught also at the most distant chances of stirring up enemies against the King. The Britons had proved a broken reed; he would try the Irish and the Northmen. The Irish fleet was said to be actually coming; Arnulf was sent, or went of his own accord, to hasten the pace of these new allies, who, beside such help as they might give to Robert, were to bring Arnulf himself a wife who might one day give him a crown. But as Arnulf took his own men with him, Robert was yet further weakened by his going.[1144] At this moment one more chance seemed to offer itself. The Norwegian King was once more afloat, and that for the last time. His course was much the same as on his former voyage. He sailed by the Orkneys and the Sudereys to Man, and thence once more to Anglesey.[1145] Here, we are told, he busied himself in cutting down timber for the repair of certain castles in Man which he had formerly destroyed. It must have been at this stage of the voyage of Magnus that Earl Robert sent a message craving help at his hands. It must have cost Robert somewhat of an effort to ask help of the slayer of his brother, and, unless we attribute to the Norwegian King a general interest in confusion everywhere, it is hard to see on what ground Magnus could be expected to help Robert of Bellême against King Henry. The Northman refused all help. It would seem too that the Irish alliance came to nothing; one version at least makes this the moment when the daughter of Murtagh was given to Sigurd the son of Magnus, and not to Arnulf of Montgomery.[1146] Every chance of help far and near had failed the once mighty lord of so many lands and castles; his old friends had turned against him; his strivings to win new friends had failed. As far as England was concerned, Earl Robert seemed to be left alone on the mound of Shrewsbury.
[Sidenote: Divisions in Bridgenorth;]
[Sidenote: the captains and the townsmen for surrender;]
[Sidenote: the mercenaries wish to hold out.]
[Sidenote: They are overpowered.]
[Sidenote: Surrender of Bridgenorth.]
[Sidenote: The mercenaries march out with the honours of war.]
And yet for a moment one hope seemed left to him. The message of the three captains which announced the speedy surrender of Bridgenorth was premature. Roger, Robert, and Wulfgar, had promised more than they could do at the moment. There was a wide difference of interest between two classes of men who stood side by side on the height of Bridgenorth. The captains and the burgesses of the town――for such a class had already in the space of four years sprung up at the gate of Earl Robert’s castle[1147]――were of one mind, the mercenary soldiers were of another. The three captains, the townsmen, and doubtless any of the Earl’s soldiers of whatever rank who were English by birth or settlement, any who had any stake on English soil, were eager to come to terms with the King. So to do was their manifold interest and manifest duty; it was a special interest and duty of the captains who had promised so to do, and who looked for such rich rewards for so doing. But to the mercenary soldiers of Earl Robert, professional fighting men picked out from many lands, things had another look. They had no stake in England; they cared nothing for King Henry and for the peace of his kingdom. The more the peace of England was likely to be disturbed, the better it would be for them. Any glimmering of duty which found a place in their minds would be a feeling of rude faithfulness to the master whom they served, the rebel Earl whose bread they had eaten. The mercenaries therefore cried out loudly against the submission to which, without taking them into their counsels, the captains and the townsmen had agreed. They seized their arms, and strove to hinder the carrying out of the surrender which had been promised.[1148] But the captains, with the townsmen and the loyal party in the garrison, were too strong for them; they were themselves made prisoners and shut up within some one part of the castle.[1149] The surrender was now carried out; the gates were opened; the royal troops marched up the path which led to the castle, and the banner of England again floated over the height crowned by the stronghold of Æthelflæd.[1150] The joy of the men of Bridgenorth was great, and on that day of deliverance no man was inclined to harshness. King Henry could honour the faithfulness of the Earl’s mercenaries to their own lord, even though that faithfulness was, in the eye of the law, treason to himself and his kingdom. They were allowed to go forth with the honours of war, with their arms and their horses. Whither they went we are not told. They may even have entered the King’s service. The prudence of Henry might be trusted not to let them go anywhither where they were likely to be dangerous. And, as they came forth between the ranks of the besiegers, they were allowed to tell their tale in the hearing of all men. It was not, they said, to be turned to the shame of their calling that the Castle by the Bridge had been given up without a blow. They were guiltless; the deed was done by the guile of faithless captains and of unwarlike townsmen.[1151] King and people might admire, in truth there is something to admire, in the mistaken faithfulness of these men, even to an evil cause. But King and people had still work on their hands; the arch-enemy had still to be found, alive or dead, in the last stronghold which held out for him.
[Sidenote: Robert still holds Shrewsbury.]
[Sidenote: Shrewsbury castle.]
[Sidenote: Despair of Robert.]
[Sidenote: The King’s march to Shrewsbury.]
[Sidenote: Gathering of the English army.]
[Sidenote: Zeal of the troops.]
[Sidenote: Nature of the road.]
[Sidenote: The road is cleared.]
And now came the last act of the drama, the last stage of the struggle which was to make Henry truly king, and to give England three-and-thirty years of peace under his rule. With the news of the fall of Bridgenorth all hope passed away from the heart of Robert of Bellême. One strong fortress indeed was still his. Earl of the Mercians, Earl of Shropshire, he could call himself no longer; lord of Shrewsbury he still was, while he still kept the castle of his capital as the last abiding seat of rebellion. All the distinctive features of Shrewsbury in later times, town, churches, castle, abbey, were all there. On the neck of the peninsula girded by the Severn, on ground high in itself though lower than some points of the hill town behind it, the mound of Old-English days which had supplanted the old seat of British kingship, and which was now crowned by the fortress of his father, still was his.[1152] Its towers rose as high as the loftiest buildings of the town which they kept in awe; from their height he might look forth on the mountain land which had been won for his earldom by his father’s power; he might look down on the broad and rushing river, and on his father’s minster beyond its stream.[1153] But the mountain land, so lately his ally, had now turned against him; the stream of Severn brought no help to the beleaguered fortress; no prayers, we may be sure, went up for the son of Mabel from the altars whose guardians had seen the virtues and tasted the bounty of Adeliza. The stern earl, thus utterly forsaken, lost his fierce and defiant spirit; he groaned for sorrow; he knew not which way to turn for help or counsel.[1154] And soon he felt that his hour indeed was come, when he saw the royal banners draw near to his last stronghold. As soon as Bridgenorth had fallen, the march on Shrewsbury began. A mighty host it was which set forth on the errand of deliverance. We take the figures as merely the conventional expression of a vast number, when we read that sixty thousand Englishmen gathered around the standard of King Henry of England.[1155] They marched with a will, eager to meet the great oppressor face to face, to bring the last stronghold of wrong under the dominion of law, to join in their king’s work of rooting out the ungodly that were in the land. Englishmen had gone forth with a will to the siege of Rochester, perhaps to the siege of Bamburgh; but then they had gone forth at the bidding of a king who was wholly a stranger. Now they gathered around a king, born indeed of the foreign stock, but a king of their own choice, born on their own soil, cheering them on in their own tongue, a king whom they might well deem a truer Ætheling than the grandson of Ironside born in distant Hungary or than the son of Harold brought up among the wikings of the North. The road by which they had to march was one which had dangers of its own. It was a road among hills, sometimes rough with stones; in one part it was for a mile’s space a mere hollow way, overhung by a thick wood, a path so narrow that two horses could hardly pass, a path which men called the Evil Hedge. Among the trees on either side archers might easily lurk, to the no small loss of the host which had to march between two fires.[1156] The King accordingly first sent forward his pioneers to clear the way for his army and for all travellers along that road for ever. The wood was cut down on both sides, the path was widened, and the evil hedge became a broad road along which the great host of England could march in safety.[1157]
[Sidenote: Robert sends to ask for peace.]
[Sidenote: The King refuses terms.]
[Sidenote: Robert submits at discretion.]
[Sidenote: He is sent out of England.]
Along the new-made road King Henry marched to a bloodless conquest. He had no need to throw up a bank or to shoot an arrow against the mound and the towers of Shrewsbury. On his way he was met by an embassy from Earl Robert, asking for peace. The terms are not told us, but the answer implied that Robert still asked for terms. He may have hoped, shut out as he was from everything else, still to keep the capital of his earldom, perhaps as a means for one day winning back all that he had lost. But the King and his host were in no mood to listen to terms; they longed for the last attack on the arch-enemy. The answer, the decree, as we read it, of the armed Gemót, was that Robert of Bellême must hope for no mercy, unless he came and freely threw himself into the King’s hands.[1158] In that case, it will be remembered, the King’s word was pledged for his life and his safe passage to Normandy. Robert consulted the few friends whom he had left, and their advice at last bent his proud heart to an unconditional submission. Nine days had passed since the surrender of Bridgenorth[1159] when the royal force drew near to Shrewsbury. Robert of Bellême came forth in person to meet them; he knelt, we may suppose, before the King; he confessed his treason, and placed in the King’s hands the keys of Shrewsbury, city and castle. He thus gave up for ever his last English possession, the head of that great earldom which his father had received from the hands of the King’s father.[1160] As far as England was concerned, the lord of Bellême, a moment before lord of Shrewsbury, was a landless man. The King strictly kept his word to the suppliant; but he would not grant him the slightest favour beyond what his word bound him to. Robert was untouched in life and limb, he received a safe-conduct to the sea-shore, and he was allowed to keep his arms and horses, a needful defence in case of irregular attack.[1161] And so the land was free from its worst enemy; the devil of Bellême was cast out of the realm of England. Evil men no doubt were left behind; but none, we may believe, who would refuse to ransom his prisoners, for the mere pleasure of seeing them die of hunger or of torture.
[Sidenote: Joy at Robert’s overthrow.]
[Sidenote: The song of deliverance.]
[Sidenote: Banishment of Arnulf and Roger.]
[Sidenote: The King’s hatred towards the whole family.]
[Sidenote: Later history of Robert of Bellême.]
The work was done; the host of victorious Englishmen marched back to their homes.[1162] The joy of the land at the great deliverance was beyond words. The tyrant was overthrown, the King was now king indeed. The national joy is set before us as bursting forth in a kind of rhythmical song, which reminds us of those fragments of primæval poetry which remain imbedded in the history of the Hebrews. We hear the same strain as that which denounced woe to Moab and rejoiced in the undoing of the people of Chemosh,[1163] when Englishmen are described as gathering round their King, and shouting the hymn of victory. “Rejoice, King Henry, and give thanks to the Lord God, now that thou hast overthrown Robert of Bellême and hast driven him from the borders of thy kingdom.”[1164] Nor was he driven forth alone. The King had good grounds for the banishment of his chief accomplices, his two brothers Arnulf and Roger, and for the seizure of their lands.[1165] His hatred towards the whole house of Montgomery, or rather towards the whole house of Talvas, had become so great that he would not endure that any member of it should hold lands or honours in his kingdom. Robert of Bellême himself went over to Normandy, to raise new disturbances there. At a later time he was again twice to visit England, once as an ambassador, and again as a prisoner, a prisoner in a prison so strait that no man knew whether he lived or died.[1166] But his part, a part only of four years, as an English earl and perhaps the greatest of English land-owners, was played out for ever.
[Sidenote: Death of Magnus. 1103.]
[Sidenote: A Giffard in his fleet.]
[Sidenote: Later history of Jorwerth.]
[Sidenote: War between Jorwerth and his brothers.]
[Sidenote: Meredydd imprisoned.]
[Sidenote: Jorwerth cedes Ceredigion to Cadwgan.]
[Sidenote: The King does not fulfil his promises to Jorwerth.]
[Sidenote: Grant of Gower and other lands to Howel.]
[Sidenote: Jorwerth tried at Shrewsbury and imprisoned. 1103.]
[Sidenote: Gemóts held in various places under Henry.]
[Sidenote: Shrewsbury a former place of meeting.]
[Sidenote: The earldom of Shrewsbury.]
[Sidenote: Trial of Jorwerth.]
[Sidenote: His conviction and imprisonment.]
[Sidenote: His later history.]
Of the other chief actors in the events of those four years, King Magnus died the year after the fall of Robert of Bellême, in his last and greatest attack on Ireland.[1167] It awakens some interest when we read that he had in his host a stranger who bore the great Norman name of Giffard.[1168] Was he an accomplice, was he a messenger, of Earl Robert of Shropshire? Towards the Welsh prince Jorwerth, who had done so much on both sides in the course of the rebellion, Henry was, according to the Welsh writers, far from keeping his word. It is not wonderful that enmity arose between Jorwerth and his brothers after his conduct during the siege of Bridgenorth. He seems to have waged open war with them in the King’s name. For we are told that he seized his brother Meredydd and handed him over to the King or imprisoned him in a royal prison.[1169] But with Cadwgan he made peace, giving up to him a large share of his promised dominions, namely the lands which Cadwgan had before held of Robert of Bellême, Ceredigion and part of Powys. It was perhaps this agreement with an enemy which offended Henry. When Jorwerth came, seemingly to receive his grant from the King’s hands, he received nothing. Dyfed and the castle of Pembroke, far too precious a stronghold to be left in the hands of any Briton, was entrusted to a knight named Saer, from whom it afterwards passed to Gerald of Windsor, a man who had already bravely defended it, and whom the King had his own reasons for promoting.[1170] But the remainder of the promised possessions of Jorwerth, the vale of Teifi, Gower, and Kidwelly, were, by a breach of promise which must have been yet more galling, granted to another Welsh lord, Howel son of Goronwy.[1171] The next year Jorwerth was summoned before an assembly at Shrewsbury, the place renowned for the trial of a more famous Welsh prince of later days. The choice of the place is characteristic of the reign of Henry, under whom national assemblies were held in various parts of the kingdom, and were no longer confined to the three places to which custom had confined them under Eadward, Harold, and the two Williams.[1172] It was but a return to older custom; Shrewsbury had been the seat of more than one memorable assembly in earlier times;[1173] but this was the first time that Shrewsbury in its new form had seen a great national gathering; it was the first assembly that had been held since the English mound had become the kernel of Earl Roger’s castle, and since Earl Roger’s abbey had arisen beyond the river. Earls had now passed away from Shrewsbury; no such title was heard again till the days of the famous Talbot, when it was in French and not in English ears that the name was terrible. After the four years’ rule of Robert of Bellême, there was doubtless much to settle in his former earldom and along the whole Welsh border. In the assembly held for that end Jorwerth appeared and was put upon his trial. We should be well pleased to have as full an account of the proceedings against the British prince as we have of the proceedings against Bishop William of Durham. But the story was not deemed worth recording by any English writer; the Welsh, who bitterly complain of the injustice of the court, tell us how, after a day’s pleading, Jorwerth was declared guilty and committed to prison.[1174] He was afterwards set free, and again played a part among his own people; but a patriotic Welsh chronicler laments that the hope, the fortitude, the strength, and the happiness of all the Britons failed them when Jorwerth was put in bonds.[1175]
[Sidenote: Establishment of Henry’s power.]
[Sidenote: Banishment of William of Mortain, 1104.]
[Sidenote: His imprisonment after Tinchebrai. 1106.]
[Sidenote: His alleged blinding.]
[Sidenote: Peace of Henry’s reign. 1102-1135.]
[Sidenote: Henry and Roger of Sicily.]
[Sidenote: Character of Henry’s reign.]
[Sidenote: Its promises how far fulfilled.]
[Sidenote: The reign of law.]
[Sidenote: Effects of Henry’s reign.]
[Sidenote: Henry the Second.]
[Sidenote: Henry the refounder of the English nation.]
[Sidenote: He embodies the process of fusion.]
King Henry had at last done his work. When Robert of Bellême was cast out, his throne remained safe and his kingdom peaceful. Two years later indeed there was another enemy to cast out; but the ease with which the work was now done showed how thoroughly the harder work had been done before Bridgenorth and Shrewsbury. When the King’s near kinsman and bitter enemy, Count William of Mortain, would fain have had the earldom of Kent and have been another Odo in it, there was no need of a siege of Pevensey or of Montacute. A simple legal process was enough to send him out of the land without slash or blow.[1176] He lived to try the chance of slash and blow at Tinchebrai, and to meet with a heavy doom, live-long bonds, perhaps borne in blindness, at the hands of his offended cousin and sovereign.[1177] His ambition could not disturb the peace of the land for a single day; the might of armed unlaw had been broken when the gates of Shrewsbury opened to receive King Henry. From that day for three-and-thirty years, a wonder in those days, a whole kingdom saw neither civil war nor foreign invasion. As Italy rested of old under Theodoric, as Sicily rested under his contemporary Roger, so England rested under Henry. The two Norman and insular kings, lords of the great island of the Mediterranean and of the great island of the Ocean, had each his wars to wage. But each kept his battle-ground on the mainland, while his island realm abode in peace. The bright promises with which the reign of Henry opened, the dreams of an English king reigning over an English people, were not wholly fulfilled. The fair dawn was in some measure clouded over; the winning promises were not in everything carried out. Still things were not under Henry as they had been under his brother. The dawn was never changed into the blackness of darkness; the promises of righteous and national rule were never utterly trampled under foot. Under the strong hand of the Lion of Justice such deeds as those of Robert of Bellême became impossible. The complaints of exactions in money go on throughout his reign. The more grievous complaints of the wrongs done by his immediate followers are not heard of after the stern statute by which Henry and Anselm joined together to check their misdoings. Under Henry law did not always put on a winning shape; but it was felt that the reign of law in any shape was better than the reign of unlaw. It may be that the very restraint under which the powers of evil were kept down during the reign of Henry led to a fiercer outbreak when they were set free at his death. But the same process had given the nation life and strength to bear up through the frightful years of anarchy, and to be ready at their close to welcome another Henry again to do justice and make peace. But above all, the rule of Henry wiped out the distinction which, at his accession, had divided the conquerors and the conquered. Under him Normans born on English ground grew up as Englishmen. They felt as Englishmen, when the second restoration of the reign of law brought with it, as its dark side, the preference of men from beyond the sea to the sons of the soil of either race. With all his faults, his vices, his occasional crimes, Henry the Clerk, the first of the new line who was truly an English Ætheling, must rank before all other kings as the refounder of the English nation. He is himself the embodiment of the process by which the Norman on English soil washed off the varnish of his two centuries’ sojourn by the Seine, and came back to his true place in the older Teutonic fellowship of Angle, Saxon, and Dane. When Henry gave back to his people the laws of King Eadward with the amendments of King William, he wrote in advance the whole later history of England. The old stock was neither cut down nor withered away; but a new stock was grafted upon it. And it was no unworthy fruit that it bore in the person of the King in whose days none durst misdo with other.
[Sidenote: The compromise with Anselm. 1107.]
[Sidenote: The war with Robert.]
[Sidenote: 1106.]
[Sidenote: The reign of Rufus how far an episode.]
[Sidenote: Problem of reconciling England to the Conquest.]
[Sidenote: Not solved under Rufus,]
[Sidenote: but solved by Henry.]
[Sidenote: England no longer a conquered land.]
[Sidenote: The Conquest at once confirmed and undone.]
[Sidenote: Import of the surrender of Shrewsbury.]
With the firm establishment of Henry’s rule by the fall of Robert of Bellême my immediate story ends. Of the memorable time which followed, a time memorable for many things, but memorable above all as being, within the English kingdom, a perfect blank in military history, I have sketched the outline in another volume. I there traced out the leading features of the reign and discussed its leading results. I there traced the later stages of the career of Anselm, his dispute with Henry, his second departure and second restoration, the final compromise which to the wisdom of Henry and the single-mindedness of Anselm was not impossible. I traced out also the various matters in dispute between Henry and Robert till the time when, as men fondly deemed, England, after forty years, paid back the day of Senlac on the day of Tinchebrai. I could have been well pleased to carry on in detail to their end two stories of which I have had to tell so large a part. But my immediate subject ends when King Henry is made fast on his throne by the overthrow of the rebel Earl of Shrewsbury. Earlier than that point the tale could not stop. Deep as is the importance of the reign of William Rufus in so many ways, there is a certain way of looking at things in which the reign of William Rufus is a kind of episode. Or rather it is an attempt at a certain object which, when tried in the person of Rufus, failed, and which had to be again tried, with better luck, in the person of Henry. The problem was to reconcile the English nation to the Norman Conquest, to nationalize, so to speak, the Conquest and the dynasty which the Conquest had brought in. The means thereto was to find a prince of the foreign stock who should reign as an English king, with the good will of the English people, in the interest of the English people. William Rufus might have held that place, if he had been morally capable of it. His crown was won for him from Norman rebels by the valour and loyalty of Englishmen, when for the last time they met Normans on their own soil as enemies. But Rufus forsook his trust; he belied his promises; if he did not strictly become an oppressor of Englishmen as Englishmen, it was only because he became the common oppressor and enemy of mankind. Thirteen years later the same drama was acted over again. Henry, who reigned by a more direct choice of the English people than William, owed his crown also to the loyalty of Englishmen whose valour against Norman enemies it was found needless to test in the open field. This time the problem was solved; if Henry did not bring back the days of Ælfred or even the days of Cnut, he at least brought in a very different state of things from what men had seen in the days of his brother. After the election at Winchester, the conference at Alton, the fight at Tinchebrai, England could no longer be called a conquered land. The work of the Norman Conquest was from one side confirmed for ever, from another side it was undone for ever. The last act of the struggle, an afterpiece more stirring than the main drama, was when Robert of Bellême came forth, shorn of his power to do evil, to surrender the stronghold of Shrewsbury to his sovereign. The surrender of Chester to the elder William marked that the first struggle was over, and that the Norman was to rule in England. The surrender of Shrewsbury to his youngest son marked that the second struggle was over, the struggle which ruled that, though the Norman was to reign in England, he was to reign only by putting on the character of an English king, called to his throne by the voice of Englishmen, and guarded there by their loyalty against the plots and assaults of Norman rebels.
NOTE A. Vol. i. p. 11.
THE ACCESSION OF WILLIAM RUFUS.
The remarkable thing about the accession of William Rufus is that it is the one case in those days in which a king succeeds without any trace of regular election, whether by the nation at large or by any smaller body. The ecclesiastical election which formed part of the rite of coronation was doubtless not forgotten; but there is no sign of any earlier election by the Witan, or by any gathering which could call itself by their name. Lanfranc appears as the sole actor. One account, the Life of Lanfranc attached to the Winchester Chronicle, speaks of the archbishop in so many words as the one elector; “Mortuo rege Willielmo trans mare, filium ejus Willielmum, sicut pater constituit, Lanfrancus regem elegit, et in ecclesia beati Petri, in occidentali parte Lundoniæ sita, sacravit et coronavit.” The words of Eadmer (Hist. Nov. 13) are almost equally strong;
“Defuncto itaque rege Willielmo, successit ei in regnum, Willielmus filius ejus, qui cum regni fastigia fratri suo Roberto præripere gestiret, et Lanfrancum, sine cujus accensu in regnum ascisci nullatenus poterat, sibi in hoc ad expletionem desiderii sui non omnino consentaneum inveniret, verens ne dilatio suæ consecrationis inferret ei dispendium cupiti honoris,” &c.
William of Malmesbury too (iv. 305) goes so far as to say;
“A patre, ultima valetudine decumbente, in successorem adoptatus, antequam ille extremum efflasset, ad occupandum regnum contendit, moxque volentibus animis provincialium exceptus, et claves thesaurorum nactus est, quibus fretus totam Angliam animo subjecit suo. Accessit etiam favori ejus, maximum rerum momentum, archiepiscopus Lanfrancus, eo quod eum nutrierat et militem fecerat, quo auctore et annitente,… coronatus,” &c.
Neither of these writers follows any strict order of time. The willing assent of the people may mean either their passive assent at his coming, or their more formal assent on the coronation-day. The general good-will shown towards the new king is set forth also by Robert of Torigny (Cont. Will. Gem. viii. 2; “susceptus est ab Anglis et Francis”), by the author of the Brevis Relatio (11) in the same words, and by the Battle writer (39); “omnium favore, ut decebat, magnifice exceptus.”
If then we accept Eadmer’s words in their fulness, the only objection made at the time to Rufus’ accession came from his special elector, Lanfranc himself. This incidental notice, implying that Lanfranc did hesitate, is very remarkable. We are not told the ground of his objections. But of whatever kind they were, they were overcome by the new King’s special oath, in which the formal words of the coronation bond seem to be mixed up with oaths and promises of a more general kind;
“Cœpit, tam per se tam per omnes suos quos poterat, fide sacramentoque Lanfranco promittere justitiam, æquitatem, et misericordiam, se per totum regnum, si rex foret, in omni negotio servaturum; pacem, libertatem, securitatem, ecclesiarum contra omnes defensurum, necne præceptis atque consiliis ejus per omnia et in omnibus obtemperaturum.”
We may compare the special promise of Æthelred on his restoration (N. C. vol. i. p. 368) to follow the advice of his Witan in all things.
The first signs of any thought of usurpation or the like in the accession of Rufus may be dimly seen in the Hyde writer (298); where however stronger phrases are, oddly enough, applied to Robert;
“Defuncto rege Willelmo et sepulturæ tradito, Willelmus filius ejus in Angliam transvectus regnum occupat, regemque se vocari omnibus imperat; Robertus quoque frater ejus regressus a Gallia, Normanniam invadit, et nullo resistente ditioni suæ supponit.”
By the time of William of Newburgh men had found out the hereditary right of the eldest son. He says, first (i. 2), that Robert succeeded in Normandy, William in England, “ordine quidem præpostero, sed per ultimam patris, ut dictum est, voluntatem commutato.” Directly after, the rebels of next year favour Robert, “tanquam justo hæredi et perperam exhæredato” (cf. Suger, Duchèsne, iv. 283, “Exhæredato majore natu Roberto fratre suo”). And presently, we hear of “frater senior Robertus, cui nimirum ordine naturali regni successio competebat.” All this is odd, when we remember how well in the next chapter (see vol. i. p. 11) the same author understands the position of Henry, as the only true Ætheling, son of a king. Oddly enough, Thomas Wykes (Ann. Mon. iv. 11) gives this last position to Rufus, “quem primum genuit [Willelmus le Bastard, rex Angliæ] postquam regnum adquisivit.”
Matthew Paris (Hist. Angl. i. 34, 35), as usual, gives the story a colouring of his own, which may be compared with his version of the accession of Henry the First (see N. C. vol. v. p. 845). He has told us that the Conqueror, in bequeathing his kingdom to his second son, gave him special advice as to its rule;
“Willelmo Rufo filio suo Angliam, scilicet conquestum suum, assignavit; supplicans ut Anglos, quos crudeliter et veluti ingratus male tractaverat, mitius confoveret.”
He crosses to England, “utilius reputans regnum sibi firmare vivorum quam mortui cujuscumque exsequiis interesse.” Then we read;
“Willelmus, cognomento Rufus, filius regis Willelmi primi, veniens in Angliam, consilio et auxilio Lamfranci Cantuariensis archiepiscopi, qui ipsum a primis annis nutriverat et militem fecerat, sine moroso dispendio Angliam sibi conciliatam inclinavit, nec tamen totam. Sed ut negotium regis optatum cito sortiretur effectum, ipsum die sanctorum Cosmæ et Damiani, etsi cum sollemnitate mutilata, coronavit, veraciter promittentem ut Angliam cum modestia gubernaret, leges sancti regis Edwardi servaturus, et Anglos præcipue tractaret reverenter.”
These remarkable words must be taken in connexion with what immediately follows, which is in truth a very rose-coloured version of the rebellion of 1088, which is made immediately to follow, or rather to accompany, the coronation. For the next words are;
“Verumtamen quamplures Anglorum nobiles, formidantes et augurantes ipsum velle patrissare, noluerunt ei obsecundare, sed elegerunt potius Roberto, militi strenuissimo, militare, et tamquam primogenito ipsi in regem creato famulari, quam fallacibus promissis Rufi fidem adhibere. Sed Lamfrancus hæc sedavit, bona promittens.”
Still the new King sees that many of the nobles of the kingdom are plotting against him. By the advice of Lanfranc therefore he gathers a secret assembly of English nobles (“Anglorum nobiliores et fortiores invitando secretius convocavit”); he promises with an oath on the Gospels to give them good laws and all the old free customs (“pristinae libertatis consuetudines”). He then wins over Roger of Montgomery, according to the account in vol. i. p. 61. Then, again by Lanfranc’s advice, he divides and weakens the English by his promises (“omnes Anglos, quos insuperabiles, si fuissent inseparabiles, cognoverat, talibus sermocinationibus et promissis dissipatos et enervatos sibi conciliavit”). A few only resist; against those he wages a successful war at the head of the nation generally (“eorum conamina, universitatis adjutus viribus, quantocius annullavit”), and confiscates their goods.
It is clear that Matthew Paris had the elder writers before him, but that he did not fully understand their language with regard to the appeal of Rufus to the English. We must remember the time when he wrote. In his day the immediate consequences of the Conquest had passed away; the distinction of “Angli” and “Franci,” so living in the days of Rufus, was forgotten. But men had not yet begun to speculate about “Normans and Saxons,” as Robert of Gloucester did somewhat later. Moreover Matthew was used to a state of things in which a king who, if not foreign by birth, was foreign in feeling, had to be withstood by an united English nation, indifferent as to the remoter pedigree of each man. He therefore told the story of the reign of Rufus as if it had been the story of the reign of Henry the Third. All are “Angli;” the distinction drawn by the Chronicler between the “French” who rebelled against the King and the “English” to whom he appealed, is lost. The English people whom he called to his help against the Norman nobles become English nobles whom he cunningly wins over in secret. Matthew understands that England was a conquered country with a foreign king; he does not understand the relations of foreigners and natives in the island, and that the foreign king appealed to the natives against his own countrymen. The passage is most valuable, not as telling us anything about the reign of William Rufus, but as showing us how the reign of William Rufus looked when read by the present experience of the reign of Henry the Third.
At the same time Matthew Paris must have had something special in his eye, when he spoke of the coronation rites of William Rufus as being in some way imperfect. Was there any tradition that, as John did not communicate at his coronation, so neither did William? Men may have argued from one tyrant to another.
On the whole we may say that William Rufus, like Servius Tullius (Cic. de Rep. ii. 21), “regnare coepit, non jussu, sed voluntate atque concessu civium.”
Besides these accounts, given by contemporary or nearly contemporary writers, or founded on their statements, there is another version of William’s accession, which I take to be wholly mythical. This is preserved in the local history of Colchester abbey (Monasticon, iv. 607). In this the accession of Rufus is said to have been almost wholly brought about by Eudo the dapifer, the son of Hubert of Rye. It seems to be a continuation of another legend (see N. C. vol. iii. p. 683), in which Hubert is made the chief actor in the bequest of the crown which Eadward is said to have made in favour of the elder William. It is in short a family legend, devised in honour of the house of Rye. The same part is played in two successive generations; the father secures the crown for the elder William, the son for the younger. First of all, we are told of the way in which Eudo gained his office of dapifer, an office which the witness of Domesday shows that he really held. The story is almost too silly to tell; but it runs thus. William Fitz-Osbern, before he set out to seek for crowns in Flanders, held the post of “major domus regiæ.” In that character he was setting a dish of crane’s flesh before William, and, as it was ill-cooked (“carnem gruis semicrudæ adeo ut sanguis exprimeretur”), the King aimed a blow at him. Eudo, as though he had been Lilla saving Eadwine from the poisoned dagger of Eomer, thrust himself forward and received the blow which was meant for the Earl of Hereford. William Fitz-Osbern accordingly resigns his office, asking that Eudo may succeed him in it. We hear no more till William’s death, when Eudo appears as exhorting William Rufus to hasten and take possession of the English crown (“Eudo, arrepta occasione ex paterna concessione, Willelmum juniorem aggreditur, et ut negotio insistat hortatur”). They cross over together, and are made to land at Worcester――Portchester must be meant, through some confusion of p and ƿ. Thence they go to Winchester, and get the keys of the treasure-house by favour of its keeper, William of Pont de l’Arche, a person whom I cannot find in Domesday (“In Angliam transvecti, appliciti Worcestriæ comparato sibi favore Willielmi de Ponte-arce, claves thesauri Wintoniæ suscipiunt quarum idem Willielmus custos erat”). Not only the coming of the younger William, but the death of the elder, is carefully kept secret, while Eudo goes to Dover, Pevensey, Hastings, and the other fortresses on the coast. Pretending orders from the King, he binds their garrisons by oaths to give up the keys to no one except by his orders (“fide et sacramento custodes obligat nemini nisi suo arbitrio claves munitionis tradituros … prætendens regem in Normannia moras facturum, et velle de omnibus munitionibus Angliæ securitatem habere, per se scilicet qui senescallus erat”). He then comes back to Winchester; the death of the King is announced, and, while the peers of the realm are in Normandy debating about the succession to the crown, William Rufus is, through the diligence of Eudo, elected and crowned (“acceleratoque negotio, Wintoniam redit; et tunc demum regem obiisse propalat. Ita dum cæteri proceres de regni successione tractant in Normannia, interim studio et opera Eudonis, Willielmus junior in regem eligitur, consecratur, confirmatur, in Anglia”). The story goes on to say that the people of Colchester petitioned the new King that they might be put under the care of Eudo. To this William gladly agreed, and Eudo ruled the town with great justice and mercy, relieving the inhabitants from their heavy burthens, seemingly by the process of taking to himself a large amount of confiscated land and paying the taxes laid upon the town out of it (“causas cœpit inquirere, sublevare gravatos, comprimere elatos, et in suis primordiis omnibus complacere. Terras damnatorum, exlegatorum, et pro culpis eliminatorum, dum nemo coleret, exigebantur tamen plenaliter fiscalia, et hac de causa populus valde gravabatur. Has ergo terras Eudo sibi vindicavit, ut pro his fisco satisfaceret et populum eatenus alleviaret”).
The share taken by Eudo in the accession of William seems to be pure fiction. His good deeds at Colchester are perfectly possible; but the latter part of the story seems to be a confusion or perversion of an entry in Domesday (ii. 106), which rather reads as if Eudo had become possessor, and that in the time of the elder William, of the common land of the burgesses (“Eudo dapifer v. denarios et xl. acras terræ quas tenebant burgenses tempore R. E. et reddebant omnem consuetudinem burgensium. Modo vero non reddunt consuetudinem nisi de suis capitibus”). This looks as if the burgesses had hitherto paid the royal dues out of their corporate estate, but that, when that estate passed to Eudo, a poll-tax had to be levied to defray them.
NOTE B. Vol. i. p. 24.
THE BEGINNING OF THE REBELLION OF 1088.
Of the great revolt of the Normans in England against William Rufus we have three accounts in considerable detail, in the Chronicle, in Florence, and in Orderic. The Chronicle and Florence do not follow exactly the same arrangement, but I do not see any contradiction between them. Florence simply arranges his narrative in such a way as to give special prominence to his own city and his own bishop. But Orderic, from whom we get a most vivid, and seemingly quite trustworthy, account of certain parts of the campaign, seems to have misconceived the order of events in the early part of the story, especially with regard to the time of Bishop Odo’s coming to England. According to him, Odo did not come to England till after Christmas. He then comes, along with Eustace of Boulogne and Robert of Bellême, as the agent of a plot already devised in concert with Duke Robert for the death or deposition of his brother. The others join them, and the rebellion begins.
In the other version, that of the Chronicle and Florence, illustrated in various points of detail by William of Malmesbury, Henry of Huntingdon, and other writers, Odo comes to England much sooner, in time for the Christmas assembly. He brings no treasonable intentions with him; he takes to plotting only when he finds that his power in England is less than he had hoped that it would be. Eustace and Robert of Bellême do not come to England till a later stage, when the rebellion has fully broken out, and when Odo is holding Rochester against the King. They are then sent by Duke Robert, who is represented (see p. 56) as hearing for the first time of the revolt in his favour after Rochester was seized by Odo.
Orderic begins his story (665 D) with an account of seditious meetings held by the nobles of Normandy and England, and of speeches made at them. It is not said where they were spoken or by whom, but the context would seem to imply that they were spoken by Odo in Normandy. For immediately after the speech follow the words (666 C);
“Hoc itaque consilium Odo præsul Baiocensis et Eustachius comes Boloniensis atque Robertus Belesmensis aliique plures communiter decreverunt, decretumque suum Roberto duci detexerunt.”
Then the consent of Robert is given, as in p. 56, and the three ringleaders cross to England, and begin the revolt;
“Igitur post natale Domini prædicti proceres in Angliam transfretaverunt, et castella sua plurimo apparatu muniverunt, multamque partem patriæ contra regem infra breve tempus commoverunt.”
I have ventured (in p. 25) to work the substance of the speech into the text, as it contains arguments which suit the circumstances of the case, and which are specially suited to speakers in Normandy. But the speech cannot really have been spoken by Odo in Normandy. For it is impossible to resist the evidence which brings Odo over to England before the Christmas Assembly, and which makes his enmity to the King arise out of things which happened after he came to England. We have, first, the direct statement (see p. 19) of Henry of Huntingdon that Odo was present at the Christmas Gemót. And this statement is the more valuable, because it is not brought in as part of the story of Odo; it reads rather as if it came from some official source, perhaps from a list of signatures to some act of the Assembly. But the words of William of Malmesbury (iv. 306) come almost to the same thing;
“Cum ille, solutus a vinculis, Robertum nepotem in comitatu Normanniæ confirmasset, Angliam venit, recepitque a rege comitatum Cantiæ.”
The Midwinter Gemót was the obvious time for such a grant, and Odo’s restoration to his earldom is asserted or implied everywhere. Thus in the Chronicle we read a little later how “Odo … ferde into Cent to his eorldome,” and Florence speaks of him as “Odo episcopus Baiocensis, qui et erat comes Cantwariensis.” Orderic himself (666 C) says, “Odo, ut supra dictum est, palatinus Cantiæ consul erat, et plures sub se comites virosque potentes habebat,” seemingly without seeing that his version hardly gives any opportunity for the restoration of the earldom. Henry of Huntingdon (214 Arnold), almost alone, speaks of him as “princeps et moderator Angliæ,” without reference to his special office of earl. William of Malmesbury goes on (see p. 23) to give the reason for Odo’s discontent, the greater authority of the Bishop of Durham. The Chronicle and Florence (see pp. 23, 24) mention only the great authority enjoyed by Bishop William, and the revolt of Odo, without mentioning Odo’s motive. That is, they simply state the facts, while William of Malmesbury supplies the connecting link. If we accept Orderic’s version that Odo did not come to England till after Christmas, we have hardly time for the events as they are stated in our other authorities. For we have to find time for Odo’s re-establishment in his earldom, for his hopes and for his disappointment, all leading up to the seditious gatherings during Lent. And in some parts of the kingdom, as we shall see in the next Note, these gatherings took the form of an open outbreak somewhat earlier than we should have been led to think from the account in the Chronicle.
Now there can be no doubt as to the truth of the version in which the Chronicle, Florence, and William of Malmesbury substantially agree. All that Orderic has done has been to place the voyage of Odo to England at a wrong time, and it is easy to see how the mistake arose. He makes Odo, Eustace, and Robert of Bellême cross together soon after Christmas. Now it is quite clear that Eustace and Robert did not come to England till after the rebellion had fully broken out, when Odo was holding Rochester against the King. The Chronicle simply says (see p. 57) that they were at Rochester with Odo. Florence (see p. 56) tells us more fully how they came to be there, namely, because they had been sent by Robert in answer to Odo’s request. Nothing was more easy than for Orderic to mistake this for a crossing in company with Odo. In his version, Odo, Eustace, and Robert, all cross with a commission from Duke Robert. In the true version Odo crosses long before to receive his English earldom, but with no purpose of disturbing the new settlement of England. He becomes discontented on English ground; he rebels, he asks help of Duke Robert, and Eustace and Robert of Bellême come in answer to his asking.
The Hyde writer, as usual, has a version of his own, which however, as far as Odo is concerned, follows that of Orderic. As soon as Robert has taken possession of his duchy, he calls a council, and sends over an army under his two uncles Bishop Odo and Count Robert, to take away the English crown from his brother. They cross the sea, winning a naval victory over a pirate fleet; they seize Rochester and Pevensey, and begin the rebellion seemingly before the end of the year 1087. This account (298) runs thus;
“Robertus … convocatis principibus et consilio habito, duos avunculos suos, comitem Moritanii et episcopum Baiocensem, cum valida manu transmittit, omnimodis decertatis Waltero [sic] fratri regnum auferre sibique conferre. Qui vela ventis committentes, et cum piratis obsistentibus in mari viriliter decertantes, Angliam veniunt, urbemque Roffensem et castellum Pevenesellum intrantes, rebellare contendunt.”
We easily see from the later history of the rebellion how this writer has taken some of its most striking incidents and, as it were, crushed them up together. As Orderic confounds the crossing of Odo with the crossing of Eustace and Robert of Bellême, so the Hyde writer seems to confound both with the later expedition from Normandy (see p. 74), which did not occupy Pevensey after a victory, but was driven back by the King’s English troops in an attempt to land at Pevensey.
The account given incidentally by Robert of Torigny (Cont. Will. Gem. viii. 3) has points in common with this version, though it may be more easily reconciled with the true story. He records the peace between William and Robert in 1091, and adds;
“Licet regnum Angliæ ipse Robertus facillime paullo ante potuisset habere, nisi minus cautus esset. Siquidem Eustachius comes Boloniæ, et episcopus Baiocensis et comes Moritolii patrui ejus, et alii principes Normanniæ, cum magno apparatu militum mare transeuntes, Rovecestriam et alia nonnulla castella in comitatu Cantuariensi occupantes et tenentes ad opus illius, dum ipsum Robertum ducem exspectant, qui tunc temporis ultra quam virum deceat in Normannia deliciabatur, obsessi diu a rege Willelmo, dum ille cujus causa tantum discrimen subierant, non subvenit, cum dedecore ipsas quas tenebant munitiones exeuntes ad propria sunt reversi.”
As for the object of the rebellion, the transfer of the English crown from William to Robert, we may hear William of Newburgh, who, though he believes (see above, p. 461) in Robert’s right of succession, yet says that he “in minori administratione, scilicet ducatus Normannici, claruit quod regno amplissimo administrando nunquam idoneus fuerit.”
What could M. de Rémusat (Anselme, 113) have meant when he said that the revolt of the Norman nobles “força le roi à se rapprocher de ses sujets bretons”? Then “il fit appel à la noblesse indigène.” This last may come from Matthew Paris; but the Welsh, the nearest approach to Bretons, joined the rebels.
NOTE C. Vol. i. pp. 28, 89.
THE SHARE OF BISHOP WILLIAM OF SAINT-CALAIS IN THE REBELLION OF 1088.
There are few more glaring contradictions to be found in history than the picture of Bishop William of Saint-Calais as drawn by the southern writers, and his picture as drawn by his own hand or that of some local admirer in the Durham document printed in the Monasticon, i. 245, and in the old edition of Simeon. No one would know the meek confessor of this last version in the traitor whom the Chronicler does not shrink from likening to the blackest of all traitors. Yet, if the narratives are carefully compared, it may seem that, with all the difference in colouring, there is much less contradiction in matter of fact than we are led to think at first sight. The opposition is simply of that kind which follows when each side, without asserting any direct falsehood, leaves out all that tells on behalf of the other side. We read the Bishop’s story; we see no reason to suspect him of stating anything which did not happen; under the circumstances indeed he could hardly venture to state anything which did not happen. But we see that the statement, though doubtless true as a mere record of facts, is dressed up in a most ingenious way, so as to put everything in the best light for his side, while everything that was to be said on the other side is carefully left out. But, on the other hand, while the Chronicler, Florence, and William of Malmesbury, clearly leave out a great deal, there is no reason to think that they leave it out from any partisan wish to pervert the truth. They believed, and doubtless on good grounds, that the Bishop of Durham was a chief actor in the rebellion, and they said so. But there was nothing to lead them to dwell on his story at any special length. Their attention was chiefly drawn to other parts of the events of that stirring year. Orderic indeed, whose account of some parts of the story is so minute, does not speak of Durham or its bishop at all.
Some of the passages from the Chronicle have been quoted in the text. The Bishop of Durham is there mentioned three times. First comes the record of his influence with the King, and his treason against him;
“On þisum ræde wæs ærest Oda bisceop and Gosfrið bisceop and Willelm bisceop on Dunholme. Swa wæll dyde se cyng be þam bisceop þæt eall Englaland færde æfter his ræde, and swa swa he wolde, and he þohte to donne be him eall swa Iudas Scarioð dide be ure Drihtene.”
Then, after the account of the deliverance of Worcester, Bishop William is named at the head of the ravagers in different parts of the country; “Se bisceop of Dunholme dyde to hearme þæt he mihte ofer eall be norðan.”
Lastly, at the end of the whole story, when Odo has come out of Rochester and gone beyond sea, we read;
“Se cyng siððan sende here to Dunholme, and let besittan þone castel, and se bisceop griðode and ageaf þone castel, and forlet his biscoprice and ferde to Normandige.”
Florence, writing seemingly with the Chronicle before him, changes the story so far as to make, not Bishop William but Count Robert (see p. 33), the chief accomplice of Odo. He then gives the list of the other confederates, at the end of which, after Robert of Mowbray, Bishop Geoffrey, and Earl Roger, we read, “quod erat pejus, Willelmus episcopus Dunholmensis,” followed by the passage (see p. 23) in which he describes the Bishop’s influence with the King. After this, he says nothing more about him till he records his death in 1096.
Henry of Huntingdon (215), also writing with the Chronicle before him, leaves out the first passage of the three and translates the two others. The third stands in his text;
“Mittens rex exercitum Dunhelmiæ obsedit urbem, donec reddita est ei. Episcopus vero multique proditorum propulsi sunt in exilium.”
William of Malmesbury, in the Gesta Regum (iv. 306), first mentions the influence of Bishop William and the envy which Odo felt at it. Then, in reckoning up the Conspirators, he adds;
“Quinetiam Willelmus Dunelmensis episcopus, quem rex a secretis habuerat, in eorum perfidiam concesserat; quod graviter regem tulisse ferunt, quia, cum amissæ charitatis dispendio, remotarum provinciarum frustrabatur compendio.”
At the end of the story, after Odo is gone, he adds;
“Dunelmensis episcopus ultro mare transivit, quem rex, verecundia præteritæ amicitiæ, indemnem passus est effugere. Cæteri omnes in fidem recepti.”
In the Gesta Pontificum (272) he introduces Bishop William as “potens in sæculo,” and “oris volubilitate promptus, maxime sub Willelmo rege juniore.” This almost sounds as if he had read the debates at the bishop’s own trial, but it is more likely that he had his dealings with Anselm before his mind. He then goes on;
“Quapropter, et amicorum cohorti additus, et Angliæ prælatus, non permansit in gratia. Quippe nullis principis dictis vel factis contra eum extantibus, ab amicitia descivit, in perfidia Odonis Baiocensis et ceterorum se immiscens. Quapropter, victis partibus, ab Anglia fugatus, post duos annos indulgentia principis rediit.”
Simeon of Durham, in his History (1088, at the end of the year), says simply, “Etiam Dunholmensis episcopus Willielmus vii. anno sui episcopatus, et multi alii de Anglia exierunt.” This omission is the more to be noticed, as he clearly had Florence and the Chronicle before him. In the History of the Church of Durham (iv. 8) we get a fuller account;
“Hujus [Willielmi regis], sicut et antea patris, amicitiis antistes præfatus adjunctus, familiariter ei ad tempus adhærebat: unde etiam Alvertoniam cum suis appenditiis rex illi donavit. Post non multum vero temporis, per aliorum machinamenta orta inter ipsos dissensione, episcopus ab episcopatu pulsus ultra mare secessit, quem comes Normannorum, non ut exulem, sed ut patrem suscipiens, in magno honore per tres annos quibus ibi moratus est, habuit.”
In these accounts almost the only direct contradiction as to matters of fact comes in at the end, about the surrender of the castle of Durham to the King. The Chronicle certainly seems to imply a siege; and, reading the Chronicle only without reference to anything else, we should have thought that the Bishop himself was besieged there. William of Malmesbury, on the other hand, makes the story wind up between the King and the Bishop in a wonderfully friendly way. But on this point we can have little doubt in accepting the version which I have followed in the text (see p. 114), namely that the Bishop was not at Durham, that the castle was surrendered after a good deal of haggling, and perhaps a little plundering, on both sides, but with nothing that could be called a regular siege. In short, the Chronicler makes a little too much of the fact that the castle was surrendered to a military force. William of Malmesbury, on the other hand, makes a little too much of the fact that the Bishop was not, strictly speaking, driven from England by a judicial sentence, but that he rather went by virtue of a proposal of his own making. The only other question of strict fact which could be raised is as to the ravages which the Chronicler says were wrought by the Bishop. The picture in William of Malmesbury of the Bishop turning against the King without any provocation on his part, and the picture in the History of the Church of Durham of the men who stirred up strife between the King and the Bishop, are merely the necessary colouring from opposite sides. The only important point on this head is that the disposition to make the best of the Bishop’s conduct seems to have been general at Durham, and that it is not confined to the narrative which must have been written either by himself or under his immediate inspiration. But we must remember that the general career of William of Saint-Calais at Durham, his bringing in of monks and his splendid works of building, were sure to make him pass into the list of local worthies, so that local writers, both at the time and afterwards, would be led to make the best of his conduct in any matter.
Of the Bishop’s own story, or at least the story of some local writer who told it as the Bishop wished it to be told, I have given the substance in the text. And, as its examination does not involve any very great amount of comparison of one statement with another, I have given the most important illustrative passages in the form of notes to the text. I have said that, after all, there is little real contradiction in direct statements of fact between this version and that of the southern writers. We find the kind of differences which are sure to be found when we have on one side a general narrative, written without any special purpose, a narrative doubtless essentially true, but putting in or leaving out details almost at random, while we have on the other side a very minute and ingenious apology, enlarging on all points on which it was convenient to enlarge, and leaving out those which might tell the other way. But the truth is that the Bishop’s own statement of his services done to the King (see pp. 29, 111), and the charge which was formally brought against him by the King (see p. 98), do not really contradict one another. They may be read as a consecutive story, according to which the Bishop continued to be the King’s adviser, and to do him good outward service, after he had made up his mind to join the rebels and while he was waiting for an opportunity of so doing. It is most likely this special double-dealing which led the Chronicler to his exceptionally strong language with regard to the Bishop’s treason. The only point where there seems any kind of contradiction in fact is with regard to the dates. From the Chronicler and the other writers on the King’s side we should have thought that there was no open revolt anywhere till after Easter, whereas it is plain from the Durham story that a great deal must have happened in south-eastern England much earlier in the year. On this point the Durham version, a version founded on documents and minutely attentive to dates, is of course to be preferred. With the other writers the Bishop’s affairs are secondary throughout, and the affairs of Kent and Sussex are secondary in the first stage of the story. Till they come to the exciting scenes of the sieges of Tunbridge and Pevensey, the attention of the Chronicler, Florence, and the others, is mainly given to the affairs of the region stretching from Ilchester to Worcester. We may infer from them that the occupation of Bristol and the march against Worcester did not happen till after Easter, while we must infer from the Durham account that the movements in London, Kent, and Sussex, had happened not later than the beginning of March. There is in short no real contradiction; there is only that kind of difference which there is sure to be found when one writer gives a general view of a large subject with a general object, while another gives a minute view of one part of the subject with a special object.
We can have little doubt in accepting the fact of the Bishop’s treason, not only on the authority of the Chronicler and the other writers who follow him, but on the strength of the proceedings in the King’s court. In the Bishop’s own story a definite charge is brought against him, and he never really answers it. He goes off into a cloud of irrelevant questions, and into a statement of services done to the King, a statement which most likely is perfectly true, but which is no answer to the indictment. The great puzzle of the whole story, namely why Bishop William should have turned against the King at all, is not made any clearer on either side.
It is certainly strange that this whole story of Bishop William, so minutely told as it is and illustrating so many points in our law and history, should have drawn to itself so little attention as it has done. Thierry takes no notice of it. It would indeed be hard to get anything about “Saxons and Normans” out of it. For, though the “indocta multitudo” may fairly pass for “Saxons,” yet these same “Saxons,” if hostile to the Cenomannian Bishop, are loyally devoted to the Norman King. Lappenberg also passes by the story altogether. Sir Francis Palgrave (Normandy and England, iv. 31, 46) makes some references to it which are provokingly short, as it is the kind of story to which he could have done full justice. Dr. Stubbs (Const. Hist. i. 440) has given a summary of the chief points in debate. But I believe that I may claim to be the first modern writer who has told the tale at full length in a narrative history. There are very few stories which bring the men and the institutions of the latter part of the eleventh century before us in a more living way, while the conduct of William of Saint-Calais at this stage must specially be borne in mind when we come to estimate his later conduct in the controversy with Anselm.
NOTE D. Vol. i. p. 47.
THE DELIVERANCE OF WORCESTER IN 1088.
The story of the deliverance of Worcester is one of those stories in which we can trace the early stages of legendary growth. It is one of the tales in which a miraculous element appears, but in which we can hardly say that there is any distortion of fact. The story is told in a certain way, and with a certain colouring, with which a modern writer would not tell it. Effects are attributed to causes to which a modern writer would not attribute them. But this is all. The mere facts are perfectly credible. There is no reason to doubt that Wulfstan exhorted the royal troops and excommunicated the rebels. There is no reason to doubt that the rebels were utterly defeated by the royal troops. And we may well believe that, in a certain sense, the defeat of the rebels was largely owing to the exhortations and excommunications of Wulfstan. The only legendary element in the story is to treat a result as miraculous which, under the circumstances, was thoroughly natural.
We have several accounts from contemporary or nearly contemporary writers. First comes the Peterborough Chronicler. After the passage quoted in p. 48, he goes on;
“Ðas þing geseonde se arwurða bisceop Wlfstan wearð swiðe gedrefed on his mode, forðig him wæs betæht þe castel to healdene. Ðeahhweðer his hiredmen ferdon ut mid feawe men of þam castele, and þurh Godes mildheortnisse and þurh þæs bisceopes geearnunga ofslogon and gelæhton fif hundred manna, and þa oðre ealle aflymdon.”
Here is nothing miraculous, only a very natural tendency to ascribe the deliverance to the prayers and merits of the Bishop. The version of Simeon of Durham (1088) gives us the “yearning” of Wulfstan in the more dramatic shape of a spoken prayer;
“Perrexerunt usque Wigornam, omnia ante se vastantes et igne consumentes. Cogitaverunt etiam quod castrum et ecclesiam vellent accipere, quod videlicet castrum tunc temporis commendatum erat Wlstano venerabili episcopo. Quando episcopus ista audivit, valde contristabatur, et cogitans quid consilii inde haberet, vertit se ad Deum suum, et rogat ut respiciat ecclesiam suam et populum suum ab hostibus oppressum. Hæc eo meditante, familia ejus exiliit de castro, et acceperunt et occiderunt ex eis quingentos viros, et alios in fugam verterunt.”
In the version of Henry of Huntingdon (p. 215, Arnold) we again find only the prayer; but it is told with a picturesque description of the Bishop lying before the altar, while the loyal troops go forth, and, by a somewhat bold figure, the discomfiture of the enemy is made to be the work of Wulfstan himself. The number of the slain is also increased tenfold;
“Principes Herefordscyre et Salopscyre prædantes combusserunt cum Walensibus provinciam Wireceastre usque ad portas urbis. Cum autem templum et castellum assilire pararent, Wlstanus episcopus sanctus quendam amicum familiarem summis in necessitatibus compellavit, Deum videlicet excelsum. Cujus ope coram altari jacens in oratione, paucis militibus emissis, quinque mille hostium vel occidit vel cepit; ceteros vero mirabiliter fugavit.”
William of Malmesbury in the Gesta Regum (iv. 306) gives the prayer the form of a blessing on the King’s troops;
“Rogerius de Monte Gomerico, exercitum suum a Scrobesbiria cum Walensibus mittens, coloniam Wigorniensem prædabatur; jamque Wigorniam infestus advenerat, cum regii milites qui prætendebant, freti benedictione Wulstani episcopi, cui custodia castelli commissa erat, pauci multos effugarunt, pluribusque sauciis et cæsis, quosdam abduxerunt.”
Orderic (666 D) cuts the matter very short; but it is in his version that we first hear of Wulfstan cursing the rebels, as well as blessing the King’s troops. Having mentioned Osbern and Bernard (see pp. 33, 34), he merely adds; “In territorio Wigornensi rapinis et cædibus, prohibente et anathematizante viro Dei Wlfstano episcopo, nequiter insistebant.”
Here one might almost think that the anathema was of none effect. It is quite otherwise in the version which William of Malmesbury gives in the Gesta Pontificum (285)――in his special Life of Wulfstan he leaves out the story altogether;
“Rogerius comes de Monte-gomerico, perfidiam contra principem meditatus, cum ejusdem factionis complicibus arma movebat infestus. Jamque, a Scrobbesberia usque Wigorniensem coloniam omnibus vastatis, urbem ipsam appropinquabat; cum regii milites, qui prætendebant, periculum exponunt episcopo. Is, maledictionis fulmen jaculatus in perfidos qui domino suo fidem non servarent, jubet milites properare, Dei et ecclesiæ injurias ulturos. Mirum quis dixerit quod subjiciam, sed auctoritati veracium narratorum cedendum? Quidam enim adversariorum, regiis conspectis, timore inerti perculsi, quidam etiam cæcati, victoriam plenam, et qualem sperare nequibant, oppidanis cessere. Multi enim a paucis fugati, pars cæsi, pars saucii abducti.”
We have here only the cursing without the blessing; the point is that the curse is pronounced before the royal army sets out. The anathema in this version has its full effect; the legendary element appears in the story of the blindness of the enemy.
Lastly, we come to the account to which William most likely alludes when he speaks of the “veraces narratores,” that is, to the minute account given by Florence, which I have mainly followed in the text. His local knowledge and special interest in the story led him to tell it in much fuller detail than is found anywhere else. On the other hand, he gives a greater prominence than is given by any one else to the wonder-working effects of Wulfstan’s curse. This is only what was natural; it was in his own city, and above all in his own monastery, that the merits and miracles of the saint would be most fondly dwelled on, and most firmly believed in. At Worcester, if anywhere, the tale of the deliverance of Worcester was likely to grow. It is therefore in the local writer from whom we get our most trustworthy details that we also find the first approach to a really legendary element, though that element seems to go no further than a slight change in the order of events which brings out the saint’s powers more prominently. As we read the other versions, above all the fuller one of William of Malmesbury in the Gesta Pontificum, we should certainly infer that whatever Wulfstan did in the way of praying, blessing, or cursing, was done before the royal troops marched out of Worcester. In Florence the blessing and the cursing stand apart. The Bishop goes into the castle (see pp. 49, 50); the royal troops of all kinds make ready for battle, and meet the Bishop on his way to the castle, offering to cross the river and attack the enemy, if he gives them leave. He gives them leave, and promises them success (see p. 50). They then cross the bridge, and see the enemy afar spoiling the lands of the bishopric. On hearing of this, Wulfstan is persuaded to speak his anathema, which at once takes effect in the wonderful overthrow of the enemy.
“Res miranda, et Dei virtus et viri bonitas nimis in hoc prædicanda; nam statim hostes, ut sparsi vagabantur per agros, tanta membrorum percutiuntur debilitate, tanta exteriori oculorum attenuantur cæcitate, ut vix arma valerent ferre, nec socios agnoscere, nec eos discernere qui eis oberant ex adversa parte. Illos fallebat cæcitatis ignorantia, nostros confortabat Dei et episcopalis benedictionis confidentia. Sic illi insensati nec sciebant capere fugam, nec alicujus defensionis quærebant viam; sed Dei nutu dati in reprobum sensum, facile cedebant manibus inimicorum.”
Now this is a legend of the very simplest kind; or rather it is not strictly a legend at all, but only a story on the way to become a legend. Beyond a slight change in the order, there is no reason to suspect that the facts of the case are at all misrepresented; they are simply coloured in the way in which it was natural that the successful party should colour them. There is in strictness no miraculous element in the story; it has merely reached the stage at which the germs of a miraculous element are beginning to show themselves. That Wulfstan would encourage his people to fight in a good cause, that he would pray for their success, we may feel certain. That his exhortation might take the shape of a promise――perhaps only a conditional promise――of victory is no more than was natural. And an anathema pronounced against the rebels is as natural as the blessing pronounced on the royal troops. We may be sure that men stirred up by such exhortations and promises would really fight the better for having heard them. And if the fact that Wulfstan had pronounced an anathema, or even that he was likely to pronounce an anathema, anyhow came to the knowledge of the rebels, it is hardly less certain that they would fight the worse for hearing of it. The only thing in which there is even the germ of miracle is the statement that the invaders were smitten with lameness or blindness or something like it, at the very moment when the Bishop pronounced his excommunication. Now, in all stories of this kind, we must bear in mind that mysterious power of φήμη [phêmê] (see vol. ii. p. 309), which I do not profess to explain, but which certainly is a real thing. News certainly does sometimes go at a wonderful pace; and the rebels might really hear the news of Wulfstan’s excommunication so soon that it would be a very slight exaggeration to say that it wrought an effect on them at the very moment when it was uttered. A body of men who had already broken their ranks and were scattered abroad for plunder hear that a sentence has been pronounced against them by a man whose office and person were held in reverence by all men, French and English――for the Britons I cannot answer. At this news they would surely fall into greater confusion still, and would become an easy prey to the better disciplined troops who had the Bishop’s exhortations and promises still ringing in their ears. To say that such men, confused and puzzled, not knowing which way to turn, were struck with sudden blindness and lameness would be little more than a poetical way of describing what really happened. That all this was owing to the prayers and merits of Wulfstan would of course be taken for granted; that the victory was owing to his prayers and merits is taken for granted in those versions of the story which do not bring in the least approach to a miraculous element. One change only in the story itself would seem, as I have already hinted, to come from a legendary source. I have in my own text, while following the details of Florence, not scrupled so far to depart from his order as to make the Bishop’s anathema come before, instead of after, the march of the royal troops from the city. That is, I have made the blessing and cursing take place at the same time. This seems better to agree with the account in the Gesta Pontificum. And, following, as it seems to me, the words of the Chronicle (geseonde), I have ventured to make Wulfstan actually see the havoc wrought by the invaders, while we should infer from Florence, as from Simeon, that he only heard of it. It is of course part of the wonder that his anathema should work its effect on men at a distance. By making these two small changes――which the other accounts seem to bear out――in the narrative of Florence, we get a version in which there is really no legendary element at all, beyond the pious or poetical way in which the discomfiture of the enemy is spoken of. To say that the enemy were smitten with blindness and lameness was an obvious figure of speech. To say that they were so smitten by virtue of the Bishop’s anathema was, in the ideas of those times, no figure of speech at all, but a natural inference from the fact. To say that they were smitten, while still at a distance, at the very moment when the Bishop pronounced the anathema was an improvement, perhaps rather a devout inference, so very obvious that it hardly marks a later stage in the story. The tale is as yet hardly legendary; it is only on the point of becoming so. But it is the kind of story which one would have expected to grow. Yet those later writers who mention the matter seem simply to copy Florence, without bringing in any further improvements of their own. It is strange that, in the local Annals, as in the Life of Wulfstan, the deliverance of Worcester is left out altogether.
The story of the deliverance of Worcester may be compared with the story of the overthrow of Swegen at Gainsburgh. See N. C. vol. i. p. 366. But the Worcester story is in an earlier stage than the Gainsburgh story. The main difference is that the hero of the one story was dead, while the hero of the other story was alive. The living Bishop of Worcester could not, even in a figure or in a legend, be brought in as acting as the dead and canonized King of the East-Angles could be made to act. The utmost that could be done in this way was when Henry of Huntingdon speaks of the exploits of the loyal army as the personal exploits of the Bishop whom he describes as lying before the altar. Wulfstan, notwithstanding his youthful skill in military exercises (see N. C. vol. ii. p. 470), could not be brought in as smiting the enemy, lance in hand, as Saint Eadmund did Swegen.
Another story of an army smitten with blindness is that of the Normans at Northallerton in 1069 (see N. C. vol. iv. p. 241). And a scene not unlike the scene before Worcester, though the circumstances are all different, and the position of the bishop in the story is specially different, is to be found in the rout of the Cenomannian army before Sillé in 1073 (see N. C. vol. iv. p. 553).
Two small questions of fact arise out of the comparison of our authorities. The expressions of the Chronicler (“forðig him was betæht þe castel to healdene”), of Simeon, and of William of Malmesbury in the Gesta Regum (“cui custodia castelli commissa erat”) would certainly lead us to think that Wulfstan was actually commanding for the King in the castle when the rebellion began. The detailed narrative in Florence makes him go to the castle only at the special request of the garrison when the enemy are on their march. There is perhaps no formal contradiction. Wulfstan had before now held military command (see N. C. vol. iv. p. 579), and he might have the command of the castle without being actually within its walls. But the story in Florence does not set Wulfstan before us as an actual military commander, but rather as a person venerated of all men whose approval of the course to be taken was sought by those who were in command. It is safest to take the detailed story in Florence, and to take the words of the Chronicler and of Simeon and William as the laxer way of speaking used by men who did not aim at the same local precision. The Bishop might in some sort be said to have the castle entrusted to him when the garrison had asked him to come into it.
The other point is that William of Malmesbury in both his versions seems to make Earl Roger present in person before Worcester. But the language of the other accounts (see p. 47) seems carefully to imply that, though he joined in the “unrede,” and though his men were engaged in the revolt on the border, yet he had not himself any personal share in that campaign. It is certain that, when we next hear of him (see p. 58), it is in quite another character and in quite another part of England.
A lately published record brings in a new actor in the defence of Worcester. This is the “Annales de ecclesiis et regnis Anglorum” in Liebermann’s “Ungedruckte Anglo-Normannische Geschichtsquellen,” 22. This contains an account of the deliverance of Worcester, enlarged from Florence, in which Abbot Guy of Pershore appears as Wulfstan’s military lieutenant; “Intererat quidam consilio providus Wido Persorcusis abbas. Hunc ultro se offerentem jus pontificale creans ad tempus militem, statuit belli ducem totum in Deo et in orationibus episcopi confidentem.” Guy was the successor of Thurstan (see N. C. vol. iv. pp. 384, 697) who died in 1087. He was one of the abbots deposed by Anselm in 1102. As Anselm himself had held a military command, the deposition could hardly have been on the ground of Guy’s exploits on this day.
NOTE E. Vol. i. p. 74.
THE ATTEMPTED LANDING OF THE NORMANS AT PEVENSEY.
It is with some hesitation that I have spoken as I have done in the text, because it is hard to reconcile our authorities without supposing that the siege of Pevensey was accompanied by a sea-force on the part of the King. No ships have been spoken of before; none are distinctly mentioned now; some of the descriptions might be understood only of a land-force lining the shore; but operations on the water seem implied in some of the accounts, and they may be understood in any. There is no need to think of a great fleet; the sea-faring men of the neighbourhood could surely do all that is recorded to have been done.
The words of the Chronicler, of William of Malmesbury, and of Henry of Huntingdon, might be understood merely of a land-force employed to keep the enemy from landing; but their expressions may be quite as naturally taken of operations on the water as well. The Chronicler is emphatic on the exploit of the English;
“Ac þa Englisce men þe wærdedon þære sæ gelæhton of þam mannon and slogon, and adrengton ma þonne ænig man wiste to tellanne.”
So Henry of Huntingdon (215); “Anglici mare custodientes occiderunt et submerserunt ex illis innumerabiles.”
The details come from William of Malmesbury, iv. 306;
“Inter has obsidionis moras, homines regis mare custodientes quosdam quos comes Normanniæ in auxilium perfidorum miserat, partim cæde, partim naufragio, oppressere: reliqui fugam intendentes et suspendere carbasa conati, moxque vento cessante destituti, ludibrio nostris, sibi exitio, fuere; nam, ne vivi caperentur, e transtris se in mare præcipitarunt.”
It is Simeon of Durham (1088) who more distinctly brings out the features of a fight by sea;
“Rex Willelmus jam mare munierat suis piratis, qui venientes in Angliam tot occiderunt et in mare merserunt, ut nullus sit hominum qui sciat numerum pereuntium.”
This seems to come from the Chronicle; but “þa Englisce men þe wærdedon þære sæ” are distinctly sent on board vessels of some kind by the name of “piratæ.”
The “pirates” too and the sea-fight come out more distinctly in the narrative of the Hyde writer quoted above (see p. 76). His tale must really mean the attack on Pevensey with which we are now dealing, though he has strangely confused times, places, and persons.
Roger of Wendover (ii. 34) gives the narrative of William of Malmesbury a new turn, and specially puts the “perfidi” of his version in an unlooked-for light;
“Inter has obsidionis moras, ministri regis mare custodientes quosdam quos dux Robertus in auxilium prædictorum miserat schismaticorum, partim cæde et partim naufragio oppresserunt: quorum quidam fugam meditantes vento destituuntur, et sic ludibrio Anglis sibique exitio exstiterunt, nam, ne vivi caperentur, ultro sese fluctibus submerserunt.”
Florence (see p. 74) gives an animated account of the operations by land; but he wholly leaves out the coming of the Norman fleet.
NOTE F. Vol. i. p. 137.
THE BISHOPRIC OF SOMERSET AND THE ABBEY OF BATH.
William of Malmesbury (Gest. Pont. 194) has got wrong in his chronology when he makes John already bishop before the death of the Conqueror, but unable to carry out his scheme for the removal of the bishopric till the accession of Rufus. “Minoris gloriæ putans si in villa [should this be some form of Wells?] resideret inglorius, transferre thronum in Bathoniam animo intendit. Sed cum id inaniter, vivente Willelmo patre, cogitasset, tempore Willelmi filii effecit.” Gisa certainly did not die till 1088, and John was consecrated in July of that year. “Qui cum rex excellentissimus Willielmus senior, qui xxij. annis regnaverat, fine laudabili vitam conclusisset, et Willielmus junior filius ejus pro eo regnaret, consecratus est episcopus in Julio.” (Historiola, 21.)
The transfer of the bishopric to Bath and the union of the abbey with the bishopric are undoubted facts; as the writer of the Historiola says, “Statim cathedram pontificis transtulit de Wella Bathoniæ.” The charter of William Rufus making this grant is printed in the Monasticon, ii. 266; the original is preserved in the chapter library at Wells. It is in two handwritings, the former part containing the first grant of 1088, while the second consists of a confirmation of 1090, or rather 1091. The substance of the grant is contained in the words;
“Ego Willelmus Willelmi regis filius, Dei dispositione monarches Britanniæ, pro meæ meique patris remedio animæ, et regni prosperitate, et populi a Domino mihi collati salute, concessi Johanni episcopo abbatiam sancti Petri Bathoniæ, cum omnibus appendiciis, tam in villis quam in civitate et in consuetudinibus, illis videlicet, quibus saisita erat ea die qua regnum suscepi. Dedi, inquam, ad Sumersetensis episcopatus augmentationem, eatenus præsertim ut inibi instituat præsuleam sedem.”
On the use of the title “monarches Britanniæ,” see N. C. vol. i. p. 561. It is somewhat singular that, when Henry of Huntingdon (211) speaks of the Conqueror as leaving “regnum Angliæ” to his second son, Robert of Torigny, in his own Chronicle, 1085, changes it into “monarchiam Angliæ.”
The date of the first grant is thus given;
“Lanfranco archipræsule machinante, Wintoniæ factum est donum hujus beneficii, mill. lxxxviiiᵒ. anno ab incarnatione Domini, secundo vero anno regni regis Willelmi filii prioris Willelmi.”
The second year of William Rufus takes in from September 26, 1088, to September 26, 1089. It is perhaps not necessary to suppose that this first grant was made in an assembly at all. If it was, we must either suppose an extraordinary assembly in the autumn of 1088 (for we have seen by the story of Bishop William of Durham that the Christmas assembly of that year was held as usual at Westminster, see p. 116), or else we must suppose that it was done in the Easter assembly of 1089. Yet it is rather straining chronology, even if we begin the year at Easter, to reckon that assembly to 1088. (In 1089 Easter-day fell on April 1st.) But that the dates of this charter begin the year at some time later than the 1st of January is plain from the confirmation, which was made at Dover “anno Dominicæ incarnationis mill. xc. regni vero mei iiii. indictione xiii. vi. kal. Febr. luna iii.” This must mean the January of 1091, as the January of 1090 comes in the third, not in the fourth, year of Rufus. Also the charter is signed by Ralph Bishop of Chichester and Herbert Bishop of Thetford, who did not become bishops till 1091, and who thus seem to have been consecrated very early in the year. The confirmation would thus seem to have been made just before William Rufus crossed into Normandy in 1091 (see p. 273), when Dover was a likely place to find him at. A long list of signatures was made ready, though some only of the names actually received the cross from the signer’s own hand. Among these indeed are the names of Ralph and Herbert themselves, as well as those of Saint Wulfstan and Bishop Geoffrey of Coutances. Bishop Howel of Le Mans signs with his own hand, and after the abbots comes the unsigned name of “Gosfridus Mala Terra” without any further description. Can this be the historian of the Apulian wars? The earls and counts whose names are given are Roger (of Shrewsbury), Robert (of Mortain or of Meulan?), Simon (of Northampton), Hugh (of Chester), Alan (of Britanny and Richmond), Henry, Walter, and William. Of these, Roger, Simon, and Alan actually sign. Earl Walter must be Walter Giffard, created Earl of Buckingham by Rufus (see Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 361). Henry must be Henry Earl of Warwick, brother of Robert of Meulan (see Will. Gem. vii. 4; Ord. Vit. 676 A; Will. Malms. v. 393; Stubbs, u. s.), and William must be the younger William of Warren, Earl of Surrey, that is, if his father died as is asserted by the Hyde writer, or even so soon as we should infer from Orderic (680 D). The signatures to this charter thus help us in fixing the dates of the creation of these earldoms. “Robertus cancellarius” is the future Bishop of Lincoln. “Samson capellanus,” who does not sign though his name is there, must surely be he who refused the bishopric of Le Mans (see p. 205), or else he who was afterwards Bishop of Worcester (see p. 542), if the two are not the same. Among smaller lay names are many with which we are familiar. The name of Robert Fitz-hamon stands apart after the earls, marking his special position in the King’s favour. The name of Randolf Peverel, whom we have met with in the story of Bishop William (see p. 109), is followed in the original by that of William Peverel, which is left out in the Monasticon. The Sheriff Aiulf (see N. C. vol. iv. p. 163) and Ælfred of Lincoln (see N. C. vol. iii. p. 778) are the only names which can be those of Englishmen. So soon were the promises of the Red King forgotten.
It was almost needless on the part of Roger of Wendover (ii. 42), or whoever he followed, to say that the change was made “consensu Willelmi regis, albo unguento manibus ejus delibatis,” a phrase which reminds one of “candidi nummi” in Domesday, 164.
Of the two societies which this change so deeply affected, we hear the moan of the monks of Bath in William of Malmesbury (Gest. Pont. 195), and that of the canons of Wells in the local Historiola (22). Of Bishop John’s doings at Bath we read;
“Primo aliquantum dure in monachos agebat, quod essent hebetes et ejus æstimatione barbari, et omnes terras, victualium ministras, auferens, pauculumque victum per laicos suos exiliter inferens. Sed, procedentibus annis, factis novis monachis, mitius se agere, aliquantulum terrarum, quo se hospitesque suos quoquomodo sustentarent, priori indulgens. Multa ibi nobiliter per eum incepta et consummata, in ornamentis et libris, maximeque monachorum congregatione, qui sunt scientia literarum et sedulitate officiorum juxta prædicabiles…. Obiit grandævus, qui nec etiam moriens emolliri potuit, ut plena manu monachorum terras redderet, successoribus suis non imitandum præbens exemplum.”
The Wells tale forms a very remarkable piece of local history, the main features of which are given in the local Historiola (22), and which has been illustrated by Dr. Stubbs.
Our more general history is chiefly concerned with the undoing of the work of Gisa;
“Domiciliis quoque canonicorum quæ Gyso venerabilis construxerat, refectorio scilicet et dormitorio necnon et cellario et aliis officinis necessariis, cum claustro dirutis, canonici foras ejecti coacti sunt cum populo communiter vivere, quos Gyso docuerat regulariter et religiose cohabitare.”
He afterwards, we are told, repented; but the canons of Wells did not recover their property till the days of Bishop Robert (1136-1166), who, though himself a monk, settled the constitution of the church of Wells after the usual pattern of secular chapters.
The later Wells writer in Anglia Sacra, i. 560, tells this story, that is the story of the Historiola, with a few further touches. We read how John, “inconsultis canonicis Wellensibus et præter eorum consensum, transtulit sedem episcopalem Wellensem in abbatiam Bathoniensem … et dimisso nomine episcopatus Wellensis, primus omnium fecit se Bathoniensem episcopum appellari.” This last charge is doubtless true; but it may be doubted whether the bishopric of the Sumorsætan, though its bishopsettle was at Wells, had ever been know by the local style of bishopric of Wells (see N. C. vol. ii. pp. 606, 608). He tells the story of the destruction of the canonical buildings, with the addition that “fundum in quo prius habitabant sibi et suis successoribus usurpavit, palatiumque suum episcopale ibidem construxit.” One is almost inclined to think that there is here some confusion between John’s two sets of victims, at Bath and at Wells. The use of the word “palatium” is later than the days of John; but he doubtless did build his chief house at Bath, and it may very likely have been at the cost of the monks. He is not at all likely, when forsaking Wells, to have built himself a house there, and, unless Bishop Robert in the next century altogether changed the site of the church, no cloister can ever have stood on the site of the present palace of Wells. Yet the building of the house supplies a motive for pulling down the cloister, which otherwise seems to be lacking.
The grant of the city of Bath to Bishop John was first made by William Rufus, and was afterwards confirmed by Henry the First. The first grant is recorded in the Historiola (21);
“Cum in multis et magnis obsequendo regis familiaritatem obtineret, impetravit ab ipso sibi civitatem Bathoniæ.”
The confirmation by Henry is recorded by Florence (1122), and by William of Malmesbury, Gest. Pont. 194;
“Nec eo contentus, totam etiam civitatem in suos et successorum usus transtulit, ab Henrico rege quingentis libris argenti mercatus urbem, in qua balnearum calidarum latex emergens auctorem Julium Cæsarem habuisse creditur.”
(He goes on with more about the Bath waters and the history of the place.)
The Monasticon contains several charters bearing on this matter (ii. 267, 268). There is first the charter of Rufus, addressed “O[smundo] episcopo Saresbergensi et T[urstano] abbati, Glastoniensi et A[iulfo?] vicecomiti, omnibusque baronibus Francigenis et Anglis de Sumerseta et de Wiltunscire,” which grants “totam civitatem Bathoniæ in eleemosynam et ad augmentationem pontificalis sedis suæ … ut cum maximo honore pontificalem suam habeat sedem.” Then comes one of Henry’s grants at Windsor in 1101, when he says, “Renovavi donum quod fecerat frater meus Willelmus rex de civitate Bathoniæ, et eamdem civitatem donavi Deo et beato Petro apostolo et Johanni episcopo, cum omnibus consuetudinibus et appendiciis quæ ad ipsum pertinent, civitatem constitui et concessi, ut ibi deinceps sit caput et mater ecclesia totius episcopatus de Sumersete.”
Another charter of Henry, confirming various privileges, is granted at Bishop’s Waltham in 1111 “in transitu regis in Normanniam” (see the Chronicle, 1111, and N. C. vol. v. p. 182). It says, “Eam donationem quam donavi Deo et sancto Petro in Batha, ubi frater meus Willielmus et ego constituimus et confirmavimus sedem episcopatus totius Summersetæ, quæ olim erat apud villam quæ dicitur Wella, scilicet ipsam urbem et omnia pertinentia ad firmam ejusdem civitatis, dono et confirmo ipsi Domino nostro Jesu Christo et beato apostolo Petro et Johanni episcopo ejusque successoribus jure perpetuo et hæreditario.”
Another from Geddington in 1102 is addressed to a string of great men, “omnibusque baronibus Francigenis et Angligenis de Sumerset et de omni Anglia.”
The wording of these charters illustrates a crowd of points which we have come across at various times, as the name of the land of Somerset, the use of “jus hæreditarium,” and specially the “barones [þegnas] Angligenæ.” Among the signatures the charter of 1111 has the unsigned names of two Romans, “Johannes Tusculanus episcopus” and “Tyberius dapifer et legatus.” (This Tiberius is spoken of again in a letter of Anselm to Gundulf, Ep. iii. 85, and in a letter to King Henry, iii. 86, therefore before 1108, the date of Gundulf’s death, but after the promotion of Gerard to the archbishopric of York; he was in England on business about the Romescot.) The second has the name of “Johannes Baiocensis,” seemingly the son of Bishop Odo. Naturally neither King makes any mention of the five hundred pounds which, according to William of Malmesbury, the Bishop paid for the grant.
Lastly, there is Bishop John’s charter of 1106 (“regnante Henrico filio magni Willelmi Northmannorum ducis et Anglorum regis”), which records his own acts, and makes some restitution at least to the monks;
“Notum vobis facio quod ad honorem Dei et sancti Petri elaboravi et ad effectum perduxi, cum decenti auctoritate, ut caput et mater ecclesia totius episcopatus de Sumerseta sit in urbe Bathonia in ecclesia S. Petri. Cui beato apostolo et servitoribus ejus monachis reddidi terras eorum quas aliquamdiu injuste tenueram in manu mea, ita integre et libere sicut Alsius abbas ante me tenuit.”
He grants them certain lands which he had bought, amongst others the estate of Hugh or Hugolin with the Beard, a purchase mentioned also in the Historiola, where the price is given at sixty pounds. A comparison of the three places in Domesday 49 b, 50 b, and 99 seems to show that Mr. Hunter (p. 38) is right in making “Hugo barbatus” in Hampshire and “Hugolinus interpres” the same man. But he leaves out his third description in 50 b as “Hugo latinarius.” It is some comfort to learn from Mr. Hunter that the “taini regis” were “a very respectable class;” but it is perhaps more important to note that we have here a “tainus Francigena” to match the “barones Angligenæ.” Some of Hugh’s lands had been held of Earl Tostig by one Siward.
In the Monasticon (ii. 264) and the Codex Diplomaticus (vi. 209-211) are some English documents, chiefly sales and manumissions, done at Bath in the days of Abbot Ælfsige and Bishop John. As usual in these private documents, there is a great mixture of Norman and English names among the signatures. Take such a list as this in Cod. Dipl. vi. 210;
“Osward preóst, and Willelm ðe clerce, and Hugo ðe postgerefa, and Beóring, and Leófríc, and Heoðewulf, and Burchhard, and Wulwi, and Geosfræi, and Ælfword ðe smið, and Eádwi se rédes sune, and Rodberd ðe Frencisce.”
Here we have one of our puzzling Domesday Ælfreds (see N. C. v. 737, 777) witnessing a manumission of Bishop John;
“Her swutelað on ðisse Cristes béc ðæt Lifgið æt Forda is gefreód and hire twa cild for ðone biscop Iohanne and for ealne ðone hired on Baðon on Ælfredes gewitnesse Aspania.”
Again in Monasticon, ii. 265 (cf. p. 269), we have a somewhat puzzling mention of an Abbot Wulfwold as well as Ælfsige;
“Her geswytelað on þysan gewrite þa forefarde þa Willelm Hosatt geworhte wið Wlfwold abbod, and wið Ælfsige abbod and wið eall þone hired on Baðan.”
All this must be a little startling to those who believe that the Conqueror ordered all documents to be drawn up in French.
There is also a Latin document printed in the Archæological Journal, No. 145, p. 83, in which William of Moion, the first Norman lord of Dunster, grants the church of Dunster to Bishop John and his monks (“ecclesiæ beati Petri de Bathonia et Johanni episcopo ejusdem monasterii et monachis tam præsentibus quam futuris”). William of Moion’s witnesses seem to be all Normans; but we get some English names among those on the part of the Bishop; “Gireuuardus monachus et Girebertus archidiaconus et Dunstanus sacerdos et Gillebertus sacerdos et Willelmus clericus et Adelardus dapifer et Turaldus et Sabianus.”
There is a letter of Anselm (Ep. iii. 151) addressed to John Prior of Bath and the monks, but it contains no historical information. John was the first Prior after the change of foundation.
NOTE G. Vol. i. p. 144.
THE CHARACTER OF WILLIAM RUFUS.
Some of the main points in the character of William Rufus are not badly hit off by Giraldus (de Inst. Princ. iii. 30), though there are features on which he does not dwell;
“Erat rex ille strenuus in armis et animosus, sed tyrannus, adeo militiam diligens ecclesiamque Dei exosam habens ut monasteria cuncta domosque religiosas ab Anglis olim per Angliam fundatas et ditatas, cum terris omnibus et possessionibus, vel ex majori mutilare vel in militares feodos convertere proposuisset.”
These last words are of importance for another part of our inquiry (see p. 346); but the general phrase “militiam diligens,” a phrase capable of more meanings than one, is, in all its meanings, strictly applicable to Rufus.
Part of the character of him given by the Hyde writer (299) has been already quoted (see p. 353). He is brought in as follows, with the further note that he was “nimis amator pecuniæ;”
“Willelmus rex animo ferus, corpore strenuus, defensor quidem patriæ cœpit esse, sed non satis idoneus procreator [protector? or is a “nursing-father” meant?] ecclesiæ. Si enim ita studeret religioni quam vanæ curiositati, nullus ei profecto deberet princeps comparari.”
Geoffrey Gaimar (Chron. Ang. Norm. i. 30) brings him on the stage with some respect;
“Willam out non come son père, Et cil refut mult allosé. Englois, Normanz, l’ont honuré; Tant come le duc ala conquere, Le firent roi en Engleterre; Et il la tint et bien regna, Normanz, Englois, fort justisa, Tote la terre mist en peès.”
(For “honuré” another reading is “coroné.”) He then goes on to the war in Maine, so closely that he reaches Seez on his march soon enough for the name of that city to rime with “peès.”
But, after the picture in the Chronicles (1100), the character of William Rufus is best studied in the two works of William of Malmesbury. On the account in the Gesta Regum I have of course drawn largely; it is in fact, with some help from Orderic, our main storehouse. The tone which its writer takes throughout is very remarkable; he tries to make the best of things without directly contradicting the facts. In his prologue to the fourth book he complains of the difficulty, one which has not lessened since his time, of telling the exact truth about recent matters, especially when kings are concerned; and he at last lays down a rule which would forbid any suggestio falsi, but would allow a good deal of suppressio veri;
“Dicam in hoc libro … quidquid de Willelmo filio Willelmi magni dici poterit, ita ut nec veritas rerum titubet, nec principalis decoloretur majestas.”
He brings William Rufus in in the beginning of the book itself;
“Incomparabilis proculdubio nostro tempore princeps, si non eum magnitudo patris obrueret, nec ejus juventutem fata præcipitassent, ne per ætatem maturiorem aboleret errores licentia potestatis et impetu juvenili contractos.”
Certainly Rufus, like many other sinners, might have reformed; but the charitable hope is made less likely by the general witness, including that of the writer himself, that he grew worse and worse. For William of Malmesbury (iv. 312) says himself;
“Excellebat in eo magnanimitas, quam ipse processu temporis nimia severitate obfuscavit; ita in ejus furtim pectus vitia pro virtutibus serpebant ut discernere nequiret. Diu dubitavit mundus quo tandem vergeret, quo se inclinaret, indoles illius. Inter initia, vivente Lanfranco archiepiscopo, ab omni crimine abhorrebat, ut unicum fore regum speculum speraretur; quo defuncto, aliquamdiu varium se præstitit æquali lance vitiorum atque virtutum, jam vero, postremis annis bonorum gelante studio, incommodorum seges succrescens incaluit. Et erat ita liberalis quod prodigus, ita magnanimus quod superbus, ita severus quod sævus. Liceat enim mihi, pace majestatis regiæ, verum non occuluisse, quia iste parum Deum reverebatur, nihil homines.”
He then gives some details, most of which I have quoted already, and adds an elaborate discourse on real and false liberality. He is obliged to allow (ib. 313) that the liberality of William Rufus was of the latter kind;
“Quidam, cum non habeant quod dent, ad rapinas convertuntur, majusque odium assequuntur ab his quibus auferunt quam beneficium ab his quibus contulerunt; quod huic regi accidisse dolemus.”
Some way on, after more about his liberality, followed by the description of the vices of the court, of which more anon, and a short reference to Anselm and Eadmer, comes (iv. 316) a most singular passage;
“Vides quantus e liberalitate quam putabat fomes malorum eruperit. In quibus corrigendis quia ipse non tam exhibuit diligentiam quam prætendebat negligentiam, magnam et vix abolendam incurrit infamiam; immerito, credo, quia nunquam se tali supponeret probro qui se tanto meminisset prælatum imperio. Hæc igitur ideo inelaborato et celeri sermone convolvo, quia de tanto rege mala dicere erubesco, in dejiciendis et extenuandis malis laborans.”
Then come the anecdotes, the annals of the reign, and the account of the King’s death. Then (iv. 333) we get another small picture of him, how he was
“Ingentia præsumens, et ingentia, si pensa Parcarum evolvere vel violentiam fortunæ abrumpere et eluctari potuisset, facturus.”
Lastly, he is dismissed with this general character;
“Vir sacrati ordinis hominibus, pro damno animæ cujus salutem revocare laborent, maxime miserandus; stipendiariis militibus pro copia donativorum mirandus; provincialibus, quod eorum substantias abradi sinebat, non desiderandus.”
The Gesta Regum was the courtly book, written for courtly readers, and dedicated to Earl Robert, the Red King’s nephew. The subject demanded that the writer should say something about the Red King; he had no mind to tell actual lies; so he made the best of him that he could without telling any. But William of Malmesbury also wrote the Gesta Pontificum for ecclesiastical readers. In that book bishops were the main subject; kings came in only incidentally. But, when he did speak of them, he was not under the same necessity as he was in his other work of speaking of them with bated breath. In this work he treated William Rufus very much as he treated several bishops, William’s own Flambard among them. He first wrote a most severe character of him, and then cut it out altogether. The passages which thus perished in the second edition are printed in Mr. Hamilton’s notes, pp. 73, 79, 84, 104. In the first place (73) he tells us how the King, “abjecto respectu omnis boni, omnia ecclesiastica in fiscum redegit.” He was “juvenili calore et regio fastu præfervidus, humana divinaque juxta ponderans et sui juris æstimans.” But he has spoken of his ways elsewhere――doubtless in the Gesta Regum――he will now speak of them only as occasion serves. In the next place (79) he wrote at first;
“Licet nulla Dei consideratio, nulla cujuscunque hominis sanctitas, ejus proterviam sedare possent, adeo cuncta quæ sibi dicebantur vel turbida ira vel facetis, ut sibi videbatur, salibus eludebat.”
This was too strong; in the second edition things are put in another light;
“Hoc in rege magnificum videri debet, quod qui omnia pro potestate facere posset, magis quædam joco eludebat, ad sales multa extra judicium animi transferens.”
The third passage (84) comes in the story of Anselm; the part of it which concerns us here runs thus;
“Rex in eum [Anselmum] et in omnes venabatur lites, commentabatur caussas quibus congregaret pecunias. In exactionibus sævus, in male partis dispertiendo prodigus, ibi harpyiarum ungues, hic Cleopatræ luxum, in utroque impudentiam prætendens. Si quis ei sponte quid obtulisset, nisi quantitas dati suæ conveniret menti, statim obliquo intuitu exterrebat quoad illum ad quas liberet doni conditiones adduceret.”
The last passage (104) also comes in the story of Anselm. William’s character is thus drawn;
“Protervus et arrogans, æque in Deum ut in homines rebellis, religioni Christianæ magis ex usu quam amore addictus, ut qui plures Judæos Christianos factos ad Judaismum pecuniis corruptus revocaret. Omnia fato agi credulus, nullum sanctorum nos posse adjuvare credebat et dicebat, subinde increpitans et dicens, scilicet ea cura jam olim mortuos sollicitat ut nostris intersint negotiis. Proindeque, si ab apostolico excommunicaretur, in secundis haberet, qui quantum suæ conscientiæ interesset, non multum curaret si totis annis sacramentorum expers esset.”
This last passage is remarkable, as seeming to show that Rufus rather wondered that he was not excommunicated (see p. 611). And one wonders too, on reading this passage and some others (see p. 166), that no controversialist has ever claimed Rufus as a premature Protestant. Even Sir Richard Baker, a yet more loyal apologist than the author of the Gesta Regum, did not hit upon that.
William of Malmesbury then goes on to tell the story of the accused deer-stealers――doubtless from Eadmer, to whom he so often refers――and then gives some reasons for not enlarging further on the evil doings of Rufus. One is “quod non debeam defunctum meo premere judicio qui habet judicem præfata [sic], cui judicanti omnis attremit creatura.” The other is that it is better, for the sake of edification, to pass by evil doings, especially some kinds of evil doings; “Adulterium discitur dum narratur, et omne crimen faciendum menti male inculcatur, dum qualiter ab alio factum sit studiosius explicatur.”
Orderic is in this case less elaborate in his portrait-painting than William of Malmesbury. Some of his sayings bearing on the character of William Rufus have been already quoted. He sometimes brings him in, after his fashion, with some epithet, appropriate or quaint――“liberalis rex,” “turgidus rex,” “pomposus sceptriger,” and the like. But he twice gives something like a full-length picture. The first is at 680 A;
“In diebus illis lucerna veræ sanctitatis obscurius micabat pene cunctis in ordinibus, mundique principes cum subjectis agminibus inhærebant tenebrosis operibus. Guillelmus Rufus Albionis rex juvenis erat protervus et lascivus, quem nimis inhianter prosequebantur agmina populorum impudicis moribus. Imperiosus et audax atque militaris erat, et multitudine militum pompose tripudiabat. Militiæ titulis applaudebat, illisque propter fastum secularem admodum favebat. Pagenses contra milites defendere negligebat, quorum possessiones a suis tironibus et armigeris impune devastari permittebat. Tenacis memoriæ et ardentis ad bonum seu malum voluntatis erat. Terribilis furibus et latrunculis imminebat, pacemque serenam per subjectam regionem servari valenter cogebat. Omnes incolas regni sui aut illexit largitate, aut compressit virtute et terrore, ut nullus contra eum auderet aliquo modo mutire.”
This comes just before the pious and humane speech (see p. 223), in which Rufus proposes the first war in Normandy. Towards the end of the reign of Rufus (763 C), Orderic takes up his brush again;
“Guillelmus Ruffus, militia clarus, post mortem patris in Anglia regnavit, rebelles sibi fortiter virga justitiæ compressit, et xii. annis ac x. mensibus ad libitum suum omnes suæ ditioni subjugavit. Militibus et exteris largus erat, sed pauperes incolas regni sui nimis opprimebat, et illis violenter auferebat quæ prodigus advenis tribuebat. Multi sub ipso patris sui proceres obierunt, qui proavis suis extraneum jus bellicose vendicaverunt, pro quibus nonnullos degeneres in locis magnatorum restituit, et amplis pro adulationis merito datis honoribus sublimavit. Legitimam conjugem nunquam habuit, sed obscœnis fornicationibus et frequentibus mœchiis inexplebiliter inhæsit, flagitiisque pollutus exemplum turpis lasciviæ subjectis damnabiliter exhibuit.”
There is also an earlier passage (669 A) which sets forth how William kept the peace of the land. He records the surrender of Rochester, and adds;
“Omnium qui contra pacem enses acceperant nequam commotio compressa est. Nam iniqui et omnes malefactores, ut audaciam regis et fortitudinem viderunt, quia prædas et cædes aliaque facinora cum aviditate amplexati fuerant, contremuerunt, nec postea xii. annis quibus regnavit mutire ausi fuerunt. Ipse autem callide se habuit et vindictæ tempus opportunum exspectavit.”
This of course refers to disturbers on a larger scale than common robbers. But one law applied to all. King William kept down all evil-doers, save himself and his own company.
Henry of Huntingdon (vii. 22) mainly translates the Chronicle; but he adds some touches of his own, and strengthens some of the epithets, “invisus rex nequissimus et Deo et populo,” &c. His general picture is;
“Nec respirare potuit Anglia miserabiliter suffocata. Cum autem omnia raperent et subverterent qui regi famulabantur, ita ut adulteria violenter et impune committerent, quicquid antea nequitiæ pullulaverat in perfectum excrevit, et quicquid antea non fuerat his temporibus pullulavit.”
He makes also, improving the words of the Chronicler, an important addition;
“Quicquid Deo Deumque diligentibus displicebat hoc regi regemque diligentibus placebat. Nec luxuriæ scelus tacendum exercebant occulte, sed ex impudentia coram sole.”
This represents the English words (Chron. Petrib. 1100), “And þeah þe ic hit lang ylde, eall þet þe Gode wæs lað and rihtfulle mannan, eall þæt wæs gewunelic on þisan lande on his tyman.”
Somewhat later again the discerning William of Newburgh (i. 2) thus paints the Red King;
“Factum est ut … Willelmus in principio infirmius laboriosiusque imperaret, et ad conciliandos sibi animos subditorum modestior mitiorque appareret. At postquam, perdomitis hostibus et fratre mollius agente, roboratum est regnum ejus, exaltatum est illico cor ejus, apparuitque, succedentibus prosperis, qualis apud se latuisset dum premeretur adversis. Homo vecors et inconstans in omnibus viis suis; Deo indevotus et ecclesiæ gravis, nuptiarum spernens et passim lasciviens, opes regni vanissima effusione exhauriens, et eisdem deficientibus subditorum fortunas in hoc ipsum corradens. Homo typo immanissimæ superbiæ turgidus, et usque ad nauseam vel etiam derisionem doctrinæ evangelicæ, temporalis gloriæ fœdissima voluptate absorptus.”
This description, after all, is very much that of William of Malmesbury translated into less courtly language. The “magnanimitas” has now fully developed into “immanissima superbia.”
From putting together all these descriptions we get the portrait of William Rufus as one of those tyrants who keep a monopoly of tyranny for themselves and their immediate servants. He puts down other offenders, and strictly keeps the general peace of the land. His justice, in the technical sense, is strong, with of course the special exceptions hinted at by William of Malmesbury (see p. 143). There is no charge of cruelty in his own person; but he allows his immediate followers, his courtiers and mercenaries, to do any kind of wrong without punishment. He oppresses the nation at large by exactions for the pay of his mercenaries. He is withal a warlike and chivalrous king. We must take in the full sense of phrases like “militiam diligens,” which mean more than simply “warlike;” the technical sense of “miles” and “militia” often comes in. He was bountiful to his mercenaries, and generally lavish. He was renowned for a quality called “magnanimitas.” He was irreligious and blasphemous. Lastly, he and his immediate company were noticed for specially foul lives, of a kind, it would seem, out-doing the every-day vices of mankind.
Some of these points call for a more special notice. The “magnanimitas” of William of Malmesbury is not exactly “magnanimity” in the modern sense, which generally means a certain grand and stately kind of mercy. The magnanimous man nowadays chiefly shows his magnanimity, not so much in forgiving wrongs as in passing them by without notice; they have hardly moved him enough for forgiveness to come in. There is something approaching to this in the “magnanimitas Willelmi” (iv. 309) shown to the knight who unhorsed him before Saint Michael’s Mount (see p. 289). But the “præclara magnanimitas” (iv. 320) shown in his voyage to Touques is of another kind. Then it is that we have the wonderful comparison, or rather identification of William Rufus and Cæsar, of which more in a later note (see Note PP). William of Malmesbury clearly means the word for praise; and it is at least not meant for dispraise when Suger, at the beginning of his life of Lewis (Duchèsne, iv. 283), speaks of “egregie magnanimus rex Anglorum Guillelmus, magnanimioris Guillelmi regis filius Anglorum domitoris.” But the word seems to have reached a bad sense when (p. 302) Count Odo is called “tumultuosus, miræ magnanimitatis, caput sceleratorum” (see N. C. vol. v. p. 74). And it is surely a fault, though it seems to be recorded with admiration, that the first Percy who held Alnwick “fuit vir magnanimus, quia noluit injuriam pati ab aliquo sine gravi vindicta” (see the Chronicle of Alnwick in the second volume of the Archæological Institute at Newcastle, Appendix, p. v). And, as it is not exactly our “magnanimous,” neither is it exactly the μεγαλόψυχος [megalopsychos] of Aristotle (Eth. iv. 3)――ὁ μεγάλων αὐτὸν ἀξιῶν ἄξιος ὤν [ho megalôn auton axiôn axios ôn]――though it comes nearer to it. William of Malmesbury’s “magnanimus” is perhaps Aristotle’s μεγαλόψυχος [megalopsychos] verging towards the χαῦνος [chaunos]. The essence of the character is self-esteem, self-confidence; a step will change him from William’s “magnanimus” into Orderic’s “turgidus.” And this comes pretty much to the τετυφωμένος [tetyphômenos] of the New Testament (2 Tim. iii. 4), who is not unlike William Rufus, only that he has at least a μόρφωσις ὐσεβείας [morphôsis eusebeias]. Here our version has “high-minded”―― the Revised Version has “puffed up”――just as in the departed service for January 30 the slayers of Charles the First were called “high-minded” by those who certainly did not mean to praise them. This again is not quite the “magnanimitas” with which we have to do, which is still a virtue, though a dangerous one. Perhaps we may say that William the King really was “high-minded” in this sense, and that William the monk used a slightly ambiguous word, in order to pass him off for “high-minded” in the other sense.
The mercenary soldiers, the excesses wrought by them, and the extortion by which their pay and largesse were supplied, all come out in the words of the Chronicler that the land was vexed “mid here and mid ungylde.” That they were chiefly foreigners appears from Orderic’s phrase “advenæ,” which is doubtless opposed, not only to the “Angli naturales,” but to the companions of the Conqueror and their sons. The “advenæ” are opposed to the “incolæ,” whether the “incolæ” have been settled for one generation or twenty. So says William of Malmesbury (iv. 314);
“Excitabat ergo totum occidentem fama largitatis ejus, orientem usque pertendens; veniebant ad eum milites ex omni quæ citra montes est provincia, quos ipse profusissimis expensis munerabat; itaque cum defecisset quod daret, inops et exhaustus ad lucra convertit animum.”
Of their doings he tells us that, “soluta militari disciplina, curiales rusticorum substantias depascebantur, insumebant fortunas.” But the fullest account of their misdeeds is that given by Eadmer (Hist. Nov. 94), when he records the statute passed by Henry, when he and Anselm give their minds “qualiter aliquo modo mala quæ pauperes maxime deprimebant mitigarentur.”
“Tempore siquidem fratris sui regis hunc morem multitudo eorum qui curiam ejus sequebantur habebat, ut quæque pessumdarent, diriperent, et, nulla eos cohibente disciplina, totam terram per quam rex ibat devastarent. Accedebat his aliud malum; plurimi namque eorum sua malitia debriati dum reperta in hospitiis quæ invadebant, penitus absumere non valebant, ea aut ad forum per eosdem ipsos quorum erant pro suo lucro ferre et vendere, aut supposito igne cremare, aut si potus esset, lotis exinde equorum suorum pedibus, residuum illius per terram effundere, aut certe alio aliquo modo disperdere solebant. Quæ vero in patres-familias crudelia, quæ in uxores et filias eorum indecentia, fecerint, reminisci pudet. Has ob causas quiqui, præcognito regis adventu, sua habitacula fugiebant, sibi suisque quantum valebant in silvis vel aliis locis in quibus se tutari posse sperebant, consulentes.”
Here doubtless the misdeeds of courtiers, soldiers, and camp-followers, are all mixed together; but all were in the train of the King. In short, the march of the second William through his own kingdom must have done at least as much harm as the march of the first William when he was only seeking to make it his kingdom. All these horrors undoubtedly fell on the native English more heavily than on anybody else; only I see no reason to think that, when the houses of a small English and a small Norman landowner, or the houses of the English and Norman tenants of a great landowner, stood near together, the Norman house would be respected, while the English house was plundered. The plunderers would hardly touch the house of Thurkill of Warwick any more than that of Roger of Ivry; but, among their smaller neighbours, William and Matilda would hardly fare better than Godric and Godgifu. Indeed William of Malmesbury a little further on (iv. 319) speaks of the general oppression of Rufus as one that touched all classes, “Non pauperem tenuitas, non opulentum copia, tuebatur.”
The mercenaries of the days of Rufus forestall the mercenaries of the days of Stephen and John; but, unless we are to reckon a man of the rank of Walter Tirel, we do not get such a clear notion of any particular persons among them. The phrase of Orderic, in one of the passages already quoted (see above, p. 495), about the promotion of “degeneres” in the room of the nobles of the Conqueror’s day might make us think that some of them were put in high places. But no such instances seem to be recorded. And the word “restituit” might suggest the restoration of native Englishmen, a process which may really (see p. 88) have happened to some extent after the suppression of the rebellion in 1088. But “Ordericus Angligena” would never speak of the “Angli naturales” as “degeneres.”
The dress, manners, and morals of the court of William Rufus stand out clearly in several descriptions. “Tunc effeminati passim in orbe dominabantur” says Orderic (682 B, cf. 781 D), following the remark with stronger and plainer words. He is eloquent on their womanish fashion of dressing and wearing the hair;
“Ritus heroum abjiciebant, hortamenta sacerdotum deridebant, barbaricumque morem in habitu et vita tenebant. Nam capillos a vertice in frontem discriminabant, longos crines velut mulieres nutriebant et summopere curabant, prolixisque nimiumque strictis camisiis indui tunicisque gaudebant. Omne tempus quidam usurpabant, et extra legem Dei moremque patrium pro libitu suo ducebant…. In diebus istis veterum ritus pene totus novis adinventionibus commutatus est. Femineam mollitiem petulans juventus amplectitur, feminisque viri curiales in omni lascivia summopere adulantur…. Humum pulverulentam interularum et palliorum superfluo scirmate verrunt, longis latisque manicis ad omnia facienda manus operiunt; et his superfluitatibus onusti celeriter ambulare vel aliquid utiliter operari vix possunt. Sincipite scalciati sunt ut fures, occipite autem prolixas nutriunt comas ut meretrices…. Crispant crines calamistro. Caput velant vitta sine pileo. Vix aliquis militarium procedit in publicum capite discooperto legitimeque secundum apostoli præceptum tonso.”
Yet, with all this aping of female manners, the gallants of Rufus’ court did in one respect follow the law of masculine nature more closely than their immediate antecessores, either Norman or English;
“Nunc pene universi populares cerriti sunt et barbatuli, palam manifestantes specimine tali quod sordibus libidinis gaudent, ut fœtentes hirci.”
Bishop Serlo in the sermon (816 A, B) enlarges on this last comparison with much greater strength of language; and brings in another likeness, and a reason which certainly has an odd sound;
“Barbas suas radere devitant, ne pili suas in osculis amicas præcisi pungant, et setosi Saracenos magis se quam Christianos simulant.”
Seemingly the shaving of the ancient heroes of Normandy was but rare, perhaps weekly, like the bath of their Danish forefathers (see N. C. vol. i. p. 651).
Of the long hair, and what Anselm thought of it, we hear again in the course of our story (see p. 449). William of Malmesbury also (iv. 314) has his say about the courtiers;
“Tunc fluxus crinium, tunc luxus vestium, tunc usus calceorum cum arcuatis aculeis inventus; mollitie corporis certare cum feminis, gressum frangere, gestu soluto et latere nudo incedere, adolescentium specimen erat. Enerves, emolliti, quod nati fuerant inviti manebant, expugnatores alienæ pudicitiæ, prodigi suæ. Sequebantur curiam effeminatorum manus et ganearum greges.”
A various reading in a note in Sir T. D. Hardy’s edition is stronger still.
In the Life of Wulfstan (Anglia Sacra, ii. 254) William tells us of the strictness of that saint in this matter, in which he gave Bishop Serlo his model;
“Ille vitiosos, et præsertim eos qui crinem pascerent, insectari, quorum si qui sibi verticem supponerent, ipse suis manibus comam lascivientem secaret. Habebat ad hoc parvum cultellum, quo vel excrementa unguium vel sordes librorum purgare consueverat. Hoc cæsariei libabat primitias, injungens per obedientiam, ut capillorum ceterorum series ad eandem complanarentur concordiam. Si qui repugnandum putarent, eis palam exprobrare mollitiem, palam mala minari.”
But it is rather hard when William of Malmesbury forgets that all this belongs to the last years of Wulfstan’s episcopate and not to the first, and when he goes on to say that the fashion of wearing long hair led to a decay of military prowess in England, and thereby to the Norman Conquest. This can be paralleled only with those astounding notions of Matthew Paris about our beards which I have spoken of in N. C. vol. iv. p. 686.
As the practice could be put down for a moment only, whether by Wulfstan, Anselm, or Serlo, William has to come back to it again in the Historia Novella, i. 4, where he tells of a momentary reform in 1129. See Sir T. D. Hardy’s note.
Some of these descriptions carry us back to earlier times, as to the picture of the “molles” at Carthage down to Saint Augustine’s day (Civ. Dei, vii. 26), “qui usque in hesternum diem madidis capillis, facie dealbata, fluentibus membris, incessu femineo, per plateas vicosque Carthaginis etiam a populis unde turpiter viverent exigebant” (only the “molles” of the Red King’s day took what they would by force). Cf. Lucan, i. 164;
“Cultus gestare decoros Vix nuribus rapuere mares.”
About the shoes much has been written, and the fashion, in one shape or another, seems to have lasted for several ages. Orderic is quite as wrathful at this seemingly harmless folly, as he is at the other evil fashions which seem more serious. But perhaps the force lies in the passage where he says (682 C), “Pedum articulis, ubi finis est corporis, colubrinarum similitudinem caudarum imponunt, quas velut scorpiones præ oculis suis prospiciunt.” The practice seems to have been looked on as a profane attempt to improve the image of God, an argument which surely told no less strongly against the practice of the ancient heroes when they shaved themselves. With Count Fulk (682 A) one cannot help feeling some sympathy. “Quia pedes habebat deformes, instituit sibi fieri longos et in summitate acutissimos subtolares, ita ut operiret pedes, et eorum celaret tubera quæ vulgo vocantur uniones.” Yet this is very gravely set down among his many evil deeds. Then seemingly another stage took place, when (682 B) “Robertus quidam nebulo in curia Rufi regis prolixas pigacias primus cepit implere stuppis, et hinc inde contorquere instar cornu arietis. Ob hoc ipse Cornardus cognominatus est.”
A number of hints in the above passages seem to show us that the vices of Rufus were literally the works of darkness, works which even his own more outspoken age shrank from dwelling on in detail. It is hardly a metaphor when Orderic says (680 A), “In diebus illis lucerna veræ sanctitatis obscurius micabat.” For, among the reforms of Henry the First (Will. Malms. v. 393), “effeminatos curia propellens, lucernarum usum noctibus in curia restituit, qui fuerat tempore fratris intermissus.” That Henry the First could be looked on as a moral reformer is the best sign of what he had to reform. Henry, with his crowd of mistresses and bastards, is described as loathing the profligacies (“obscœnitates,” a word which seems used in a special sense) of his brother (Will. Malms. iv. 314, and specially the wonderful passage, v. 412, as to the force of which there can be no doubt), and as making it his first business on his accession to clear the court of its foulest abuses. (Cf. Mrs. Hutchinson’s account of Charles the First’s reforms, i. 127.) We must remember that no mistresses or children of Rufus are mentioned or hinted at. Orderic’s phrase of “mœchus rex” is quite vague, perhaps euphemistic, and when the Welsh chronicler (Ann. Camb. 1100) says that “concubinis usus, sine liberis obiit,” he may be sheltering himself under an ambiguous word. In the Chronicle of Hugh of Flavigny (Pertz, viii. 496) is a strange legend of what the writer truly calls “inauditum seculis omnibus monstrum,” but one which could not have been devised except in the state of things which William of Malmesbury and Eadmer describe. After all (see Hen. Hunt. vii. 32; N. C. vol. v. p. 195), the reform wrought by Henry seems to have been only for a season. It is some slight comfort to hear from the mouth of Anselm, in his first protest to the King (Eadmer, Hist. Nov. 24), that the presence of Eastern vices in England was something new――“noviter in hac terram divulgatum.”
Of the blasphemies of William Rufus several instances have been given in the text. He had also, like everybody else of his time, his own special oath. As his father swore “par la resplendar Dé,” as other kings swore “per oculos Dei,” “per pedes Dei,” “per dentes Dei,” William Rufus swears (“sic enim jurabat,” says William of Malmesbury, iv. 309) “per vultum Dei,” or more commonly “per vultum de Luca.” Some of the older writers oddly mistook this for an oath by Saint Luke’s face. But the true meaning of the “vultus de Luca” was long ago explained by Ducange under the word “vultus,” where he refers to the then manuscript “Otia Imperialia” of Gervase of Tilbury, iii. 24, which will be found in Leibnitz’s collection of Brunswick writers, i. 967. The “vultus Lucanus” was held to have been made by Nicodemus from the impression of our Lord’s face taken on linen immediately after the crucifixion. This it was by which the Red King swore. In French the oath takes the form “Li vo de Luche” (Roman de Rou, line 14920). M. Charles de Rémusat (St. Anselme de Cantorbéry, 133) remarks, “Il se peut même que ce ne soit pas précisément celui de Lucques; car on appela Saint Voult-de-Lucques, vulgairement et par corruption Saint Godeln, tout crucifix habillé semblable à celui-là tel que ceux qu’on voyait jadis à Saint-Etienne-de-Sens, au Sépulcre à Paris.” But it is strange that Lappenberg (Geschichte von England, ii. 172), when telling the story of the Red King’s “magnanimitas” before Saint Michael’s Mount (see p. 289 and Appendix N), brings in the oath “per vultum de Luca” in Wace’s story, where it is not found, in the form “bei dem heiligen Antlitz zu Lucca,” and afterwards in William of Malmesbury’s story in the form “bei St. Lucca’s Antlitz.”
NOTE H. Vol. i. p. 168.
THE ECCLESIASTICAL BENEFACTIONS OF WILLIAM RUFUS.
I think that an examination of the cases in which William Rufus has the credit of an ecclesiastical benefactor will show that in most of them, if not in all, there is a direct or implied reference to the memory of his father. In the case of Battle and Saint Stephen’s this is plain on the surface. Of his moveable gifts to Battle some have been mentioned already (see p. 18); he also gave (Chron. de Bello, 40) considerable gifts in real property, specially the royal manor of Bromham in Wiltshire, valued at forty pounds yearly. One year’s income then was to be got back by converting the young Jew back to Judaism (see p. 163). At the dedication of Battle he gave (Chron. de Bello, 41; Mon. Angl. iii. 246) a number of churches, “pro anima patris mei regis Willielmi, et matris et omnium parentum nostrorum qui ibi in bello ceciderunt, et aliorum omnium.” The local writer, who records none of his evil deeds, gives him this character (42);
“Tantopere memoratus rex eandem amabat, excolebat, tuebaturque ecclesiam, ejusque dignitates et regales consuetudines conservabat, ut quemadmodum patris ejus tempore nullus ei adeo adversari præsumeret, ipse quoque quotiens casu vicinia peteret, ex dilectionis abundantia sæpius eam revisere, fovere, et consolari solitus fuerat.”
As for Saint Stephen’s, there is a charter in Neustria Pia, 638, of William Rufus of 1088 granting various lands in England, among them Coker in Somerset and Wells in Norfolk, with the church of Corsham in Wiltshire and other tithes. The signatures show that it is very carelessly copied or printed; but among them is “Willelmus cancellarius,” that is, William Giffard, afterwards Bishop of Winchester; see vol. ii. p. 349. We read how “glorioso patri gloriosus filius Willelmus in regnum successit,” and how he made his gifts, “prædicti cœnobii utilitati prospiciens, habito procerum et religiosarum personarum Angliæ et Normanniæ consilio.”
The Waltham writer (De Inv. c. 22) has another way of looking at things. Of the Conqueror he speaks most respectfully, but adds;
“Successit ei filius Willelmus Ruphus cognomento, hæres quidem beneficiorum, sed degener morum, cui breves annos credimus indultos, quia concessis sibi beneficiis a Domino minus aptus nec ecclesiæ devotus sicut expediret, nec justitiæ strenuus executor, sed vir desideriorum eisque indulgens semper exstitit.”
The wrongs which Rufus did to Waltham are told with great fervour of declamation; and specially why he did them, namely,
“Vilia censens Anglorum instituta, nec eousque valitura quin eis eligeret ditare prædecessorum sepulturas, et ecclesiam Cadomensem ex rapina ornare, et spoliis Walthamensis ecclesiæ salubre remedium credens animarum patris et matris ibi quiescentium, si de alieno et quasi ab uno altari distracto aliud ornatur, et quasi munus gratum et valde preciosum alicui patri offerantur præcisa proprii membra filii.”
The words about English customs are meant, with whatever truth, to contrast William the Red with his father, who is praised for observing them. The plunder transferred from Waltham to Caen consisted of moveable wealth of every kind, among other things books, valued altogether at the incredible sum of 6666 pounds. The King afterwards repented, and, though the spoil stayed in the two minsters at Caen, he gave back, after the death of Bishop William of Durham (who is confounded with Walcher), that is in 1096 or later, during the vacancy, the lands which had been given to the bishopric (see N. C. vol. iv. p. 664). Dr. Stubbs (p. 50) prints a writ of William Rufus addressed “vicecomitibus suis et ministris [þegnas],” confirming to the canons of Waltham all “terras suas et consuetudines” which they held in his father’s time. It is a mere writ; but it must, as Dr. Stubbs suggests, be the occasion of the burst of joy in c. 23;
“Laudamus præsentem hunc Willelmum, qui ob reconciliandam sibi crucifixi gratiam quam offendisse plurimum non dubitamus in hujus perpetratione spoliationis, qui eam carta sua ecclesiæ confirmavit, et sub prædicto anathematis edicto, assistentibus archiepiscopis, episcopis, et universo clero, communiter roboravit.”
Dr. Stubbs (De Inv. 14) suggests, with great likelihood, that this robbery of the moveable wealth of Waltham was not done for the enriching of Saint Stephen’s, but that it was part of the general robbery of all churches to pay the price of Normandy in 1096 (see p. 358). And this is the more likely, because the 6666 pounds (= 10,000 marks) said to have been taken from Waltham was actually the sum paid to Robert. The Waltham writer has made some confusion in his reckoning. Still the general picture of the Red King robbing Waltham and enriching Caen holds good. For we have seen that he was a benefactor to Saint Stephen’s, and the writ seems to imply some meddling with the lands, as well as the treasures, of Waltham.
The curious story about the hospital of Saint Peter, afterwards Saint Leonard, at York, all about Æthelstan and the Culdees, and the grant of the thrave of corn which became memorable in the fifteenth century (see Lingard, iv. 163), will be found in the local history in the Monasticon, vii. 608. We read how the Conqueror confirmed everything, and then――
“Willelmus Rufus, filius Conquestoris prædicti, rex immediate succedens, fundavit seu mutavit situm dicti hospitalis in locum regium ubi nunc situatur,… et dedit et confirmavit dictas travas hospitali prædicto, sicut fecit pater ejus Conquestor.”
So Leland speaks of “Gulielmus junior, rex Angliæ, fundator hospitalis, qui etiam ecclesiolam ibidem construxit et S. Petro dedicavit.”
So the hospital of God’s House at Thetford is attributed to William Rufus, Mon. Angl. vii. 769. He is also said to have founded the nunnery of Armethwaite in Cumberland, and the foundation charter is printed in the Monasticon, iii. 270. But it is spurious on the face of it. The date given is January 6, 1089; yet Rufus is made to give grants in Carlisle which he did not yet possess, and to call himself “dux Normannorum.” He appears too in the Abingdon History, ii. 26, 284, as granting the church of Sutton to the abbey of Abingdon on the petition of Abbot Reginald. The grant has three somewhat characteristic witnesses, Robert Fitz-hamon, Robert the Chancellor, that is Robert Bloet, and our old friend Croc the Hunter.
He is also called a benefactor to the church of Rochester; but it is not clear that he actually gave anything of his own cost. In the local histories (Mon. Angl. i. 161, 162, 174) we read that Rufus “reddidit et restituit Lamhethe et dedit Hedenham ecclesiæ Roffæ;” “dedit Lamtheam [hetham] et Aedenham ad victum monachorum,” &c. In p. 163 is his writ granting the manor of Stone to the church of Saint Andrew and Bishop Gundulf; and in 173, 174 he grants Lambeth and Hedenham. But Henry’s charter in the same page speaks of Lambeth and Hedenham as gifts of Bishop Gundulf to the monks, and in p. 165 Stone is held by Ralph the son, and Osmund the son-in-law, of Gilbert, who becomes a monk at Rochester. The brothers find the King a harsh lord (“ambo regis exactionibus tantum fuerunt gravati ut vix amplius hoc possent ferre. Erant enim illis diebus consuetudines regis gravissimæ atque durissimæ per totum regnum Angliæ”); they therefore suggest that the Bishop should get the manor of the King, and they will hold it of him. “Quo audito, episcopus quam citius potuit regem impigre adiit, amicorum itaque apud regem usus auxilio, tandem obtinuit quod petiit; dedit ergo episcopus Willielmo regi, magni regis Willielmi filio, xv. libras denariorum et unam mulam quæ bene valebat c. solidos.” Ralph and Osmund become the Bishop’s men for the manor――a very good case of round-about commendation――but presently, by an exchange of lands between them and the Bishop, Stone becomes a direct possession of the see. We have also heard something about Hedenham in N. C. vol. iv. p. 366, and William of Malmesbury also (Gest. Pont. 137) speaks of it as bought by Gundulf――“ex suo villam coemptam.” Lambeth may have been a free gift. It afterwards, as all the world knows, passed by exchange to the see of Canterbury.
There is a very curious document in the Monasticon (ii. 497) from the cartulary of Tavistock in which Rufus――“inclitæ recordationis secundus Guillielmus”――confirms in 1096 to the abbey a manor, Wlurintun, which some said belonged to the crown. The grant of course takes the form of a gift. But the only thing which Rufus really seems to have given was an ivory knife, a symbol which is also met with in other cases;
“Sciant omnes quod rex per cultellum eburneum quod in manu tenuit et abbati porrexit hoc donum peregit apud curiam … qui quidem cultellus jacet in feretro sancti Rumoni.”
The witnesses are Bishop Walkelin of Winchester, Bishop John of Bath, and Abbot Thurstan of Glastonbury. The demand had been made before commissioners sent in Lent to Devonshire, Cornwall, and Exeter――the local capital stands apart――“ad investiganda regalia placita.” They were Bishop Walkelin, “Randulfus capellanus” (Flambard), William Capra (see him in Domesday, 110, as Chievre; he is Capra in Exon), and “Hardinus Belnoldi filius.” Is not “Belnoldus,” a strange name, a miswriting for Ednodus? See N. C. vol. iv. p. 756.
Lastly, we have elsewhere seen (see N. C. iv. 411) that William granted the manor of Bermondsey to the foundation of the Englishman Ælfwine Child. See the charter in Monasticon, v. 100. It is witnessed by the founder Ælfwine, also, between the bishops and Eudo dapifer, by “Johannes de Sumbresetta.” Is this the Bishop of Bath, not yet used to his new title?
A crowd of writs securing churches in rights already possessed, as well as simple confirmations of the grants of others, do not bear upon the matter. And we must not forget that he showed a degree of tenderness to the monks of Durham during the banishment of their bishop (see p. 299) which he failed to show to other monks. Still, in any case, the gifts of William Rufus make a poor show between the gifts of the founder of Battle and those of the founder of Reading.
NOTE I. Vol. i. p. 169.
CHIVALRY.
I refer to the remarkable passage of Sir Francis Palgrave, Normandy and England, iv. 438;
“Are we not told that ‘the Spirit of Chivalry was the parent and offspring of the Crusades?’ again that in ‘the accomplished character of the Crusader we discover all the virtues of a perfect Knight, the true Spirit of Chivalry, which inspired the generous sentiments and social offices of man?’――the Historian might reply in the words of a great Teacher, whose voice already resounds in History――‘I confess that if I were called upon to name what Spirit of evil predominantly deserved the name of Antichrist, I should name the Spirit of Chivalry: the more detestable for the very guise of the Archangel ruined, which has made it so seductive to the most generous spirits――but to me so hateful, because it is in direct opposition to the impartial justice of the Gospel, and its comprehensive feeling of equal brotherhood, and because it so fostered a sense of honour rather than a sense of duty.’… Take the huge folio of the Gesta Dei per Francos――search it boldly and honestly, turn over its fifteen hundred pages, examine their contents according to the rules of moral evidence, the praises the Writers bestow, and more than their praises, their blame; their commentaries upon deeds of cruelty, and more than their commentaries, their silence――and try how much you can extract which will justify any one of the general positions which the popular enthusiasts for Chivalry have maintained.”
The extract is from a letter of Arnold to Archdeacon Hare in 1829 (Life and Correspondence, i. 255). A note adds;
“‘Chivalry,’ or (as he used more frequently to call the element in the middle ages which he thus condemned) ‘feudality,’ is especially Keltic and barbarian――incompatible with the highest virtue of which man is capable, and the last at which he arrives――a sense of justice. It sets up the personal allegiance to the chief above allegiance to God and law.”
Nothing can be better; only it is not quite clear what Arnold meant by “Keltic;” continental chivalry must be carefully distinguished from devotion to the chief of the clan, though there is much analogy between the two feelings. But, as I have said elsewhere (N. C. vol. v. p. 483), chivalry is Norman rather than English and French rather than Norman; so in that sense it may be called “Keltic.”
Sir Francis Palgrave goes on to discuss one of the stories of the boasted generosity of Bayard. Like some others, it merely comes to this, that he did not act a part which would have been singularly shameful.
About chivalry and other kindred matters, I had my own say in an article on the Law of Honour in the Fortnightly Review, December 1876. But I must decline to pledge myself to Sir F. Palgrave’s condemnation of the crusades. All that he says is perfectly true of the crimes and follies in detail with which the crusades were disgraced. And in those days it would have been hard to carry out a crusade without a large measure of those crimes and follies. And this might be in itself a fair argument, though not one which the age would have understood, against undertaking any crusade at all. But I must hold that the general idea of the crusade itself was something high above all chivalry. I must hold that all the crusades before the fourth, whatever we say of the way in which they were carried out, were in themselves fully justifiable, both in morality and in policy. Surely, in all that bears on this matter, it is Cohen rather than Palgrave that speaks. With all his learning and acuteness, with all his lofty and Christian morality, his deep and wide-reaching sympathy with right and hatred of wrong in every shape, my illustrious predecessor in Norman and English history was still, as a man of the East, unable thoroughly to throw himself into the Western side of a great struggle between East and West.
NOTE K. Vol. i. p. 196.
THE PURCHASE OF THE CÔTENTIN BY THE ÆTHELING HENRY.
I have told this part of my story as I find it in Orderic, whose account seems to me to be probable, and to hang well together, while it is confirmed, not indeed in every detail, but in its leading outlines, by the account in the Continuation of William of Jumièges; that is, by Robert of Torigny. But William of Malmesbury and Wace give quite different versions. That of William is found, not in the part of his work where he records the events of the reign of William Rufus, but at the beginning of his fifth book (v. 392), where he introduces the reign of Henry with a sketch of his earlier life. While the rebellion of 1088 is going on in England, and while Robert is waiting――waiting, our historian says, for a favourable wind――to go to help his supporters there, Henry, by the Duke’s order, goes away into Britanny (“Henricus in Britanniam ejus jussu abscesserat”). Meanwhile Robert spends on his mercenaries the money which the Conqueror had left to Henry, which is here cut down from 5000 pounds to 3000 marks――a mistake partly arising from a confusion between the whole sum left to Henry and the sum paid for the Côtentin (“Ille, occasione aucupata, omnem illam pecuniarum vim testamento patris adolescentulo legatam, quæ erat trium millium marcarum, in stipendiarios suos absumpsit”). Then follows a very confused story, how Henry came back and passed over the wrong in silence (“Henricus reversus, licet forsitan ægre tulisset, taciturna præteriit industria”); the reason given being the restoration of peace in England (“enimvero, nuntiata pacis compositione in Anglia, deposita militia ferias armis dedere”). He then goes away into some quarter where the Duke had given or promised him lands, but he is at the same time entrusted with the keeping of the castle of Rouen (“comes in sua, junior in ea quæ frater suus dederat vel promiserat, discessit; namque et in acceptum promissa referebat, custodiens turrim Rotomagi in ejus fidelitatem.” Or can these last words mean that Henry kept the castle of Rouen in pledge till the promised lands were actually put into his hands?). Presently, on the accusation of some very bad people――if the Bishop of Bayeux was one of them, he is not mentioned by name――Henry is unjustly kept in ward for half a year in this same tower of Rouen (“delatione pessimorum cessit in adversum fidelitas, et nulla sua culpa in ipso eodem loco Henricus libere custoditus est, ne servatorum diligentiam [who are the “servatores”?] effugio luderet”). Then he goes by William’s invitation to England, and enters the King’s service; there William keeps him for a year, making promises which he never fulfils. Robert meanwhile sends a message promising redress, on the strength of which Henry goes back to Normandy (“post medium annum laxatus, fratri Willelmo invitanti serviturum se obtulit; at ille, nihilo modestius ephebum remunerans, plus anno inanibus sponsionibus agentem distulit. Quapropter, Roberto emendationem facti per nuntios promittente, Normanniam venit”). There he was exposed to intrigues on the part of both his brothers, which are very darkly described; but he escapes from all danger, and, by seizing Avranches and some other castles, compels Robert to make peace with him (“amborum fratrum expertus insidias; nam et rex, pro repulsa iratus, ut retineretur frustra mandarat; et comes, accusatorum lenociniis mutatus, voluntatem verterat ut blanditiis attrectatum non ita facile dimitteret. Verum ille, Dei providentia et sagaci sua diligentia cuncta evadens pericula, occupatione Abrincarum et quorundam castellorum coegit fratrem libenter paci manum dedere”). Then comes the invasion of Normandy by William, the sedition at Rouen, the death of Conan by Henry’s own hand (see p. 257). Robert then ungratefully drives Henry from the city (“parum hic labor apud Robertum valuit, virum animi mobilis, qui statim ad ingratitudinem flexus, bene meritum urbe cedere coegit”). Then, without any explanation, comes the siege of Saint Michael’s Mount, which he had already described elsewhere (iv. 308). Of Domfront and Saint James we hear nothing.
There is in this account a greater attempt at chronological precision than is usual with William of Malmesbury, especially when he tells a story out of its chronological place. And the dates do not hang badly together. Henry is put in ward late in 1088 for six months. On his release he goes to England for a year, comes back, and seizes Avranches. This brings us well into 1090, the year of the vicarious invasion of Normandy by Rufus, of the sedition at Rouen, and of the death of Conan. But these dates do not agree with the more exact chronology of Orderic. According to him (672 D), Henry went to England in the summer of 1088, and came back to Normandy in the autumn of the same year (“In æstate, postquam certus rumor de Rofensis deditione citra mare personuit … transfretavit … deinde in auctumno regi valefecit”). He is at once imprisoned, and is released, as far as one can see, about February 1089. At least Orderic mentions his release as happening about the same time as the death of Durand Abbot of Troarn, on February 3 in that year (676 B, C). Moreover the order of events, both with regard to the voyage and imprisonment, is altogether changed, and the whole story is told in a different way from that of Orderic. The story about Robert taking Henry’s money contradicts the express statement of Orderic (659 D) that Henry had put his money in safe keeping; it contradicts too the implied statements of Orderic and all the other writers who describe the cession of the Côtentin to Henry as a sale, or at least as a pledge, as something in either case by which Henry paid down money and received land. And it may be hard to reconcile William of Malmesbury’s narrative here with his own statement just before (v. 391), that Henry was “paterna benedictione et materna hæreditate, simul et multiplicibus thesauris, nixus.” Nor has William of Malmesbury any distinct mention of the Côtentin, or of any other possessions of Henry, till after his release from prison. And then he represents Henry as obtaining them by force, a story which most likely comes from some confusion with the later events, mentioned in p. 286. The visit to Britanny on the part of Henry which comes earlier in the story is most likely his visit to Britanny after the siege of Saint Michael’s Mount (see p. 294) moved out of its place. The whole narrative is dark and perplexed throughout, in marked contrast to the clear and careful statement of Orderic. And among the points on which William differs from Orderic the only one on which he is at all borne out by any trustworthy authority is, as we shall presently see, that by which he makes Rouen the place of Henry’s imprisonment. Yet there are one or two points on which we might almost think that William had some narrative like that of Orderic before him. Though Robert gets possession of Henry’s money in different ways in the two stories, yet in both he takes it for the same purpose, that of paying his mercenaries. And there is a certain likeness in the pictures which they both give of Henry as exposed to the enmity of both his brothers at once. It is possible that William’s version may really be an unsuccessful attempt to put together the detached facts of Orderic’s story, not necessarily of Orderic’s text.
Wace tells the story in a yet more confused way than William of Malmesbury, and with the events strangely transposed throughout. But he gives one or two details, bringing in persons of whom we hear elsewhere, which are likely enough to be authentic. When Robert is planning the invasion of England, he wants money, and for that end, pledges (14505-14520), not grants or sells, the Côtentin to Henry.
“Henris li a l’aveir presté, Si come il li out demandé: Costentin en gage reçut, E tant lunges aveir le dut Ke li dus li soen li rendist, E del tot son gréant en fist.”
He adds that Richard of Reviers, or Redvers, left Robert’s service for that of Henry, in answer to a special request made by Henry to his brother. This is likely enough. Richard of Redvers appears once in Domesday (Dorset 83), and his pedigree is set forth in a special note by Mr. Stapleton (ii. cclxix), who corrects the belief (see Prevost on Wace, ii. 307; Ellis, i. 377) that he was a son of Baldwin of Exeter (see Norman Conquest, iv. 161). He appears in Orderic (689 C) and the Continuation of William of Jumièges (viii. 4), along with Earl Hugh of Chester, as one of Henry’s supporters in the Côtentin, and we see throughout that he was an important person in Henry’s reign (see vol. ii. p. 362. Cf. Orderic, 783 D, 833 D; Mon. Angl. v. 105, in the account of Saint James’ priory near Exeter). The words in which the Duke bids Richard leave his service for that of Henry (14534-14545) are curious, and throw light on the many expressions in Domesday about the grant or invasio of a freeman and the like (see N. C. iv. 723; v. 751;
“Jo ne sai ke Richart pensa, Mais semblant fist ke li pesa K’il deveit del duc tot partir E son frère Henris servir. Richart, dist li dus, si fereiz, Henris mon frere servireiz, Vostre fieu è vos li otrei; N’est pas meinz gentil hom de mei; Sis hoem seiez; jel’ vos comant; Servez le bien d’ore en avant: Vos n’arez jà de li hontage, Nos somes andui d’un parage.”
We may compare the story in Orderic, 814 B, C, where Duke Robert grants Count William of Evreux to his brother (“ei Guellelmum consulem Ebroarum cum comitatu suo et omnibus sibi subjectis concessit”), and where the Count is amazed at finding himself likened to a horse or an ox (“præclarus comes, ut se quasi equum vel bovem dandum audivit”). The thoughts of Richard, which Wace did not know, may have been much the same as those of Count William.
Robert then goes on his invasion of England, but leaves off on William’s engaging to pay him five thousand pounds yearly (14548-14871). This, I need hardly say, is pure fiction; or rather it is Robert’s expedition in the reign of Henry carried back to the reign of Rufus. On coming back to Normandy, Robert quarrels with Henry, it is not easy to see why, while William is also angry with him on account of the help in money given by him to Robert. Robert then takes possession of the Côtentin, and does not repay Henry his money (14874-14887);
“Robert out l’aveir despendu, E Costentin a retenu, Ne Henris Costentin n’en out, Ne ses deniers aveir ne pout.”
Henry then defends himself on Saint Michael’s Mount, and the account of the siege follows. Henry’s voyage to England, and his imprisonment, which is said to be at Rouen, are placed later still (14754-14759).
On the other hand, the short account given by Robert of Torigny in the Continuation of William of Jumièges (viii. 2) is much more nearly in agreement with Orderic. He records the bequest of five thousand pounds to Henry, with the addition that it was in English money (N. C. vol. iv. p. 854). He then mentions the cession of the Côtentin to Henry, but he is uncertain whether to call it a grant, or, with Wace, a pledge (“Robertus frater suus dedit illi comitatum Constantiensem, vel, ut alii volunt, invadiavit”). He says nothing about Henry’s voyage to England in 1088; but he mentions the slanders against Henry and his consequent imprisonment by Robert. Here comes in his only point of difference from Orderic. Orderic (672 D, see above, p. 199) makes Henry come back from England in company with Robert of Bellême; they are both seized on the sea-shore, and are shut up in different prisons;
“Quidam malevoli discordiæ satores eos anticipaverunt, et, falsa veris immiscentes, Roberto duci denuntiaverunt quod … cum rege Rufo essent pacificati, et ad ducis damnum sacramenti etiam obligatione confœderati. Dux igitur … cum Baiocensi episcopo consilium iniit et præfatos optimates præoccupavit. Nam antequam aliquid molirentur, quum securi ad littus maris de navibus egrederentur, valida militum manu missa eos comprehendit, vinculis coarctavit, et unum Baiocis aliumque Noilleio sub manu Baiocensis tyranni custodiæ mancipavit.”
Robert of Torigny, on the other hand, like Wace, makes Rouen the place of arrest; but he does not go on to say with William of Malmesbury that it was the place of imprisonment (“Inventis quibusdam vilibus occasionibus, per malorum tamen hominum suggestiones, ipsum nihil tale meditantem apud Rothomagum capiens, quod dederat indecenter extorsit”). These last words of course refer to the Côtentin, and imply an occupation of it by Robert during Henry’s imprisonment. Later events follow in much the same order as in Orderic.
The author of the Brevis Relatio, who wrote in Henry’s reign, must have drawn from the same sources as the Continuator, as the words of his short account (11) are to some extent the same. He gives a clear and terse summary of the fortunes of Henry during the reign of Rufus, which is almost his only mention of that reign. The words which at present concern us are these; “Henricus remansit in Normannia cum Roberto fratre suo, qui dedit ei quamdam terram in Normannia, sed non diutius inde gaudium habuit [“Non diutius inde gavisus est,” says the Continuator]. Non multo enim tempore, inventis quibusdam vilibus occasionibus, ei illam abstulit.”
The agreement between Orderic and Robert of Torigny is the more valuable, because they clearly write from independent sources, and, as we shall see presently, fill up gaps in one another. William of Malmesbury brings in his story incidentally, and has made confusions. Wace, as is not at all wonderful, is less accurate at this part of his narrative than he was at an earlier stage. The expedition of the Conqueror was his main subject, and on that he evidently bestowed the greatest care, not only in gathering information from all quarters, but very often in sifting it. He is now dealing with the kind of time which most men in all ages know least about, the times a little before and a little after his own birth. I must confess, for my own part, that there is no part of English history in which I feel so little at home as in the administration of the Earl of Liverpool.
Anyhow William of Newburgh speaks with great truth when, after (i. 2) sketching the character of William and Robert, he adds; “Porro Henricus frater junior, laudabilem præferens indolem, duris et infidis fratribus militabat.”
NOTE L. Vol. i. p. 257.
THE DEATH OF CONAN.
The death of Conan suggests the death of Eadric (see N. C. vol. i. pp. 415, 740); only, while the story of Eadric’s death has grown into several mythical forms, we have only two versions of the death of Conan. These are given us by Orderic (689) and by William of Malmesbury (v. 392). Both of these are contemporary writers in the sense of having been born at the time――Orderic was about fourteen――though neither could have written his account till a good many years after. Orderic’s account is remarkably clear and circumstantial; and, if the sharp interchang of sentences between Henry and Conan is open to suspicion of another kind, it is not open to the same kind of suspicion which attaches to rhetorical speeches in Orderic or anywhere else. No one but Henry himself could have told the story in the first instance, and stories of this kind, coming under the head of personal anecdote, commonly get improved as they pass from mouth to mouth. But there is no reason to suspect any invention on the part of Orderic himself, which in a long speech we always may suspect. With these prudent allowances, we may surely accept the tale as it stands in Orderic. The version of William of Malmesbury reads like a rather careless summary of some account to the same general effect as Orderic, but with some differences of detail. But the dramatic effect of Orderic’s dialogue has wholly passed away from William’s abridgement.
I will mention the chief differences between the two accounts. According to Orderic, Duke Robert was all this time on the other side of the Seine; William, who knows nothing about his flight, keeps him still at Rouen. Here Orderic’s version is clearly to be preferred. The story of Robert’s flight is either true, or else direct invention. I do not mean an invention of Orderic, but an invention of Robert’s enemies at the time. But if William had never heard that story, he would conceive the Duke to be at Rouen as a matter of course. William then makes Robert wish to put Conan in prison; but Henry demands that he should be given over to himself (“Conanum quendam, proditionis apud comitem insimulatum, quem ille vinculis irretire volebat, arbitratus nihil calamitosius posse inferri misero quam ut exosum spiritum in ergastulo traheret――hunc ergo Conanum Henricus suæ curæ servatum iri postulavit”). Robert here seems to wish for Conan’s imprisonment, not out of the merciful feeling which Orderic attributes to him when he comes back to the city, but rather as deeming imprisonment worse than death. In either case Henry goes on the principle that “stone dead hath no fellow.”
In the summary of the dialogue, William brings in one or two points which are not in Orderic. As Henry shows the view to Conan, he promises in mockery that all shall be his; “sua per ironiam omnia futura pronuntians.” This differs altogether from “quam pulcram tibi patriam conatus es subjicere.” One is half tempted to see in William’s version a touch of legend worked in from the Gospels.
Instead of Henry’s characteristic oath by the soul of his mother, which must surely be genuine, William puts into his mouth a discourse on the duty of the vassal, and his punishment if faithless, which seems a little too long for the time and place; “Nullam vitæ moram deberi traditori: quoquo modo alieni hominis posse tolerari injurias, illius vero qui tibi juratus fecerit hominium, nullo modo posse differri supplicium si fuerit probatus perfidiæ.”
From the narrative of Orderic, one would certainly infer that Henry and Conan were alone together in the tower, Henry doubtless armed and Conan unarmed. William of Malmesbury gives Henry companions who help to throw Conan down; “comitibus qui secum aderant pariter impellentibus.” The exact spot also seems differently conceived by the two writers. William of Malmesbury makes Conan fall into the river; “inopinum ex propugnaculo deturbans in subjectam Sequanam præcipitavit.” This seems quite inconsistent with Orderic, whose words (690 D) are;
“Contemptis elegi supplicationibus, ipsum ambabus manibus impulit, et per fenestram turris deorsum præcipitavit. Qui miserabili casu in momento confractus est, et antequam solum attingeret mortuus est. Deinde cadaver illius jumenti caudæ innexum est, et per omnes Rothomagi vicos ad terrendos desertores turpiter pertractum est.”
From this it seems clear that Conan fell on dry ground. And though the river, before the quays were made, certainly came nearer to the walls of the castle than it now does to their site, one can hardly fancy that it came so close to the foot of the great tower that Conan could actually fall into the water. William too conceives those concerned――whether two or more――as standing on the top of the tower, whence Conan is thrust down from a battlement (“propugnaculum”) to which he clings. Orderic seems to conceive him as pushed out of a window (“fenestra”) in one of the upper rooms “solaria”) of the tower. It is possible however that by “fenestra” Orderic may mean the embrasure of a battlement. There is not so much difference between the two things as might seem at first sight. When the towers (see Viollet-le-Duc’s Military Architecture, passim) were covered with roofs fitting down on the battlements, the embrasure was in fact a window. In no case must we fancy Henry and Conan standing together in the open air on the top of a flat-roofed tower.
NOTE M. Vol. i. p. 274.
THE SIEGE OF COURCY.
The siege of Courcy by Duke Robert (Ord. Vit. 692) is remarkable for some picturesque details, which are interesting in themselves, and throw light on the times, though they do not directly concern the history of William Rufus. I was at Courcy in 1875; but I cannot find any notes on the castle. As far as I remember, it does not stand on any remarkable height, and does not contain among its remains any marked features of the eleventh century. There is however at Courcy a remarkably fine church of the twelfth.
Among the allies who came to the help of the besieged were several French knights, two of whom bore epithets which show that, in the days of the chivalrous King, we are getting near to the times of chivalry. Among the defenders of Courcy were the White Knight and the Red Knight;
“Ad conflictus istorum convenerunt Mathæus comes de Bellomonte et Guillelmus de Garenna, aliique plures, ut in tali gymnasio suas ostentarent probitates. Ibi Tedbaldus Gualeranni de Britolio filius et Guido Rubicundus occisi sunt. Quorum prior, quia cornipes et omnia indumenta ejus candida erant, Candidus Eques appellabatur. Sequens quoque Rubeus, quia rubeis opertus erat, cognominabatur.”
Of these persons, the younger William of Warren, son of the elder William and Gundrada, elder brother of the Reginald whom we have met at Rouen, belongs to our home circle. Count Matthew of the French Beaumont in the modern department of Oise――to be distinguished alike from our Norman and our Cenomannian Beaumont――a kinsman of Hugh of Grantmesnil’s wife (Ord. Vit. 691 D), appears again twice in Orderic, 836 B, 854 B, the second time at the battle of Noyon. Both times he appears in company with his neighbour Burchard of Montmorency. Guy the Red Knight appears in the former passage as an intended father-in-law of the future King Lewis;
“In juventute sua Ludovicus filiam Guidonis Rubei comitis de Rupeforti desponsavit, et hereditario jure competentem comitatum subjugare sibi sategit. Capreosam et Montem Leherici, et Bethilcurtem aliaque oppida obsedit, sed multis nobilibus illi fortiter obstantibus non obtinuit, præsertim quia Lucianam virginem quam desponsaverat Guiscardo de Belloloco donaverat.”
This Rochefort is in the department of Seine and Oise, between Montfort l’Amaury and Montl’hery. The redness of its Count and the whiteness of Theobald land us in quite another state of things from the personal whiteness and redness of Fulk the Red, Wulfward the White, and others. We seem to be in the fourteenth century rather than in the eleventh. But we must remember that at the battle of Noyon, twenty-eight years later, the French knights at least had armorial bearings (Ord. Vit. 855 B, C; see N. C. v. 189). All these things are French to begin with; they spread from France into Normandy, and from Normandy into England.
In this siege we meet with an instance, of which I shall have to speak again (see Note FF), of the wooden tower employed against a fortified place; not a moving tower, it would seem, but one of those of which we have so often heard. Yet it is spoken of as “ingens machina quam berfredum vocitant” (Ord. Vit. 692 C, cf. 878 C). So in Will. Malms. iv. 369, “pro lignorum penuria turris non magna, in modum ædificiorum facta; Berfreid appellant, quod fastigium murorum æquaret.” This is the beffroi, whose English form of belfry has got quite another use. It was made at Christmas, seemingly by order of Robert of Bellême. But one day, when the arch-enemy was driven back, a daring esquire, a kind of land Kanarês, climbed into it, and set it on fire (“Justo Dei judicio machina combusta est, quæ tyrannico jussu in diebus sanctæ nativitatis Domini proterve fabricata est;” 693 A). We have a story something like this in the legend of our own Hereward (see N. C. vol. iv. p. 472). The castle being newly built, they had not been able to build an oven inside it (“pro acceleratione obsidionis in novo munimento construere furnum oppidanis fas non fuerat”). They had therefore to make use of one which stood outside the castle, commanded by the beffroi (“Clibanus extra munitionem inter machinam oppidique portam stabat, ibique panificus [surely Eurysakês by the Porta Maggiore would have liked so sounding a title] ad subsidium inclusorum panes coquebat”). The beffroi then was not brought up immediately against the wall. There was therefore much fighting over the loaves, and many men were killed at this particular point. In one day’s fight twenty men were killed and many wounded. These last had a scruple; “de panibus emptis cruore suo non gustaverunt.” Notwithstanding the beffroi and the fighting, Duke Robert kept very bad watch; “In conspectu obsidentium commilitones obsessorum in castellum quotidie intrabant, et armis ac alimentis non curante duce socios ne deficerent confortabantur.”
The bishop of the diocese, Gerard of Seez (1082-1091), came and took up his quarters in the neighbourhood, in the abbey of Saint Peter-on-Dive, and tried to bring about peace (“ut dissidentes parrochianos suos pacificaret”); but in vain. A boy of noble birth in the Bishop’s service (“puer quidam qui præsuli ministrabat; idem puer Ricardus de Guaspreia, filius Sevoldi, vocitabatur”), who is afterwards described as “clericus” and “imberbis clericus,” rides about the camp in boyish fashion (“dum per exercitum puerili more ludens equitabat”). The boy’s family are among those who had to defend themselves against the devil of Bellême (“cujus parentela contra Robertum sese jamdudum defendere totis viribus nitebatur”). So, when young Richard appears in the camp, Robert pushes him from his horse, puts him in prison, takes the horse to himself, and threatens his master the Bishop (“Robertus injuriam ei [Gerardo] maximam fecit, eumque minis contristavit. Nam puerum … ejectum de equo comprehendit et in carcere trusit, sibique cornipedem retentavit”). The Bishop threatens the whole army with interdict, unless his beardless clerk is restored, which is done after a few days. The Bishop by this time is sick; he goes to Seez and dies, January 23, 1091, in the same week, according to Orderic (693 B), in which William Rufus crossed the sea. His successor was the more famous Serlo, who so vigorously sheared the locks of the Lion of Justice and his court.
The boy of high birth serving in the bishop’s household, and counted as belonging to the clerical order――he may even have held preferment, as “pueri canonici” were not unknown――is worth notice. The incredible tale told by Giraldus of William Longchamp (iv. 423) at least witnesses to the existence of “pueri nobiles ad mensam ministrantes” in a bishop’s court.
Lastly, it must not be forgotten that it was during the siege of Courcy, on the first day of the year 1091 (“in capite Januarii”), that a priest of the diocese of Lisieux, Walchelm by name, saw that wonderful vision of souls in purgatorial suffering, including many of his personal acquaintance and several respectable prelates, for Bishop Hugh of Lisieux and Abbot Mainer of Saint Evroul (see N. C. vol. iii. p. 383, vol. iv. p. 655) were there also, which is told so graphically by Orderic (693 C). A rationalistic mind may be tempted to see in the supernatural procession another of the endless forms of the Wild Huntsman; but a Defoe-like feeling of reality is given to the picture, when he reads that Walchelm thought that they were the following of Robert of Bellême going to besiege Courcy. He had gone to visit a sick parishioner at a great distance; “unde dum solus rediret, et longe ab hominum habitatione remotus iret, ingentem strepitum velut maximi exercitus cœpit audire, et familiam Roberti Belesmensis putavit esse, quæ festinaret Curceium obsidere.”
NOTE N. Vol. i. p. 275.
THE TREATY OF 1091.
On the whole, though with some hesitation, I accept Caen as the place of the treaty between William Rufus and Robert. Orderic (693 B) places the meeting of the brothers at Rouen; “Duo fratres Rothomagum pacifice convenerunt, et in unum congregati, abolitis prioribus querimoniis, pacificati sunt.” The meeting at Caen and the mediation of the King of the French come from the Continuation of William of Jumièges (viii. 3). The passage stands in full thus;
“Facta est tandem inter eos apud Cadomum, ut diximus, adminiculante Philippo rege Francorum, qui in auxilium ducis contra Willelmum regem apud oppidum Auci ingenti Anglorum et Normannorum exercitu tunc morantem venerat, qualiscumque concordia, et quantum ad ducem Robertum spectat probrosa atque damnosa.”
The story is here told in a hurried and inverted way, as the whole tale is from the beginning of the chapter; but there is nothing strictly to be called inaccurate in the story. It may be that the mention of Philip now is merely a confusion with his former appearance at Eu; but an intervention of Philip is not unlikely in itself; Caen too as the place of meeting is less obvious than Rouen, and so far the statement in favour of it is to be preferred. But the point is not of much importance, and the evidence is fairly open to doubt.
In any case William of Malmesbury (iv. 307, 308) is mistaken in speaking of the peace as agreed and sworn to before William crossed into Normandy. He gives a picture of the anarchy of Normandy which is true enough; only he seems to conceive it too much after the pattern of the later anarchy of England. King Philip (see the passage quoted in p. 239) has got his money and has gone back to his banquet;
“Ita bello intestino diu laboravit Normannia, modo illis, modo istis, vincentibus; proceres utriusque furorem incitabant, homines levissimi, in neutra parte fidem habentes.”
Now in the days of Stephen the anarchy at least took the form of a war between rival claimants of the crown. Men really fought for their own hands; but they at least professed to fight for King or Empress. But the special characteristic of the Norman anarchy is that everybody is already fighting with everybody else, and that the invasion of the country makes no difference, except so far as it adds a new element of confusion. Ralph of Conches goes over to William only because Robert fails to defend him against a local enemy; William’s name is not mentioned at all in the war of Courcy, till his actual coming frightens both sides alike. William of Malmesbury misses the special point of the whole story, namely that the strife between William and Robert stands quite distinct from the local struggles which still went on all over the country, except when the two got intermingled at particular points. He then adds;
“Pauci quibus sanius consilium, consulentes suis commodis quod utrobique possessiones haberent, mediatores pacis fuere; ut comiti rex Cinomannis adquireret, comes regi castella quæ habebat et Fiscannum cœnobium concederet. Juratum est hoc pactum, et ab utrorumque hominibus sacramento firmatum. Nec multo post rex mare transiit, ut fidem promissorum expleret.”
Florence (1091) puts the case much better;
“Mense Februario rex Willelmus junior Normanniam petiit, ut eam fratri suo Rotberto abriperet; sed dum ibi moraretur, pax inter eos facta est.”
It will be seen that William of Malmesbury gives only a very imperfect statement of the terms of the treaty. They are nowhere so fully and clearly given as in our own Chronicle; only the English writer is not quite so exact with regard to the territorial cessions as those writers who wrote in Normandy. The brothers meet――the place is not mentioned――and agree on the terms, which are given in words which sound like the actual words of the treaty, which was likely enough to be set down in an English as well as a Latin copy. They stand thus;
“þæt se eorl him to handan let Uescam and þone eorldom æt Ou, and Kiæresburh. And þærto eacan þes cynges men sæclæs beon moston on þam castelan þe hi ær þes eorles unþances begiten hæfdon. And se cyng him ongean þa Manige behet þa ær heora fæder gewann, and þa fram þam eorle gebogen wæs gebygle to donne, and eall þæt his fæder þær begeondan hæfde, butan þam þe he þam cynge þa geunnen hæfde; and þæt ealle þa þe on Englelande for þam eorle æror heora land forluron hit on þisum sehte habban sceoldan and se eorl on Englelande eallswa mycel swa on heora forewarde wæs.”
The emphatic references to his father are preeminently characteristic of the Red King. We seem to hear his very words, the words of the dutiful son, granting, not without some sarcasm, to the rebel, the heritage of the father against whom he had rebelled. This emphatic feature disappears in the other versions, even in the abridged Latin version of Florence. To the list of places in Normandy to be given up he adds “abbatiam in monte sancti Michaelis sitam,” and the last words, which are certainly not very clear, he translates “et tantum terræ quantum conventionis inter eos fuerat comiti daret.” This can only refer to something which William was to grant to Robert as a free gift. Domesday shows that there were no older English possessions of Robert to be given back to him. See N. C. vol. iv. p. 629.
Besides William of Malmesbury, only the Chronicler and Florence mention the stipulation about Maine. This is again a sign that in the Chronicle we are dealing with an actual document. For, as nothing came of that clause, no part of the treaty was more likely to be forgotten. William of Malmesbury seems to have caught up the first words of the treaty, and to have got no further. Thus Maine gets in his text an undue prominence, which may possibly account for a statement of his which follows, and which has nothing at all like it anywhere else. The King and the Duke are going to attack Maine the very first thing after the conclusion of the treaty; only they are hindered by the campaign against Henry; “Ergo uterque dux ingentes moliebantur conatus ut Cinomannis invaderent; sed obstitit jam paratis jamque profecturis Henrici fratris minoris animositas.”
It may be needful to point out that the Chronicle really does mention Maine; for Mr. Earle seems to have been the first of its editors to find out the fact. Gibson, Ingram, and Thorpe all print “þa manige,” with a small m, and explain it “the many,” “the many castles,” “multa castella.” But, if there were no other reason, the words which answer to it in Florence, “Cenomannicam vero provinciam,” are enough to show that we should read with Mr. Earle “þa Manige,” the county of Maine. The French idiom, whatever may be its origin, which, as is always the case in Wace, adds the article to Le Mans, Le Maine, is here found in English. So it is in 1099, 1110, 1111, 1112. The earlier entry in 1073, “þæt land Mans,” is less clear.
Those who wrote in Normandy say nothing about Maine; but they more distinctly define the cessions in Normandy itself. Thus Robert of Torigny in his Continuation (Will. Gem. viii. 3);
“Quidquid rex Willelmus in Normannia occupaverat, per infidelitatem hominum ducis, qui eidem regi suas munitiones tradiderant, quas suis militibus ipse commiserat ut inde fratrem suum infestarent, impune permissus est habere. Munitiones illæ quas hoc modo tenebat fuerunt, Fiscannum, oppidum Auci quod Willelmus comes Aucensis cum reliquis suis firmitatibus illi tradiderat; similiter Stephanus comes de Albamarla, filius Odonis comitis de Campania, Willielmi autem regis Anglorum senioris ex sorore nepos, fecerat, et alii plures ultra Sequanam habitantes.”
The words in Italics are the writer’s backward way of recording the events of 1090 among the clauses of the treaty of 1091. In his own chronicle (1091) Robert of Torigny has nothing to say, except “ut castra illa quæ frater ab eo acquisierat regi remanerent.” This not very clear account comes from Henry of Huntingdon (vii. 2, p. 215 ed. Arnold), with the omission of an important word. But though Robert mentions no particular places in his summary of the treaty, yet, in copying Henry of Huntingdon’s account of the places occupied by William’s troops in 1090, to Saint Valery which alone are mentioned by Henry, he adds, not only Eu like our authorities, but also Fécamp. The Chronicle, as we have seen, mentions Fécamp among the places which were to be ceded to William in 1091; no one else mentions it among the places which were occupied in 1090.
Orderic has three references to the cessions; but he nowhere mentions either Fécamp or Saint Michael’s Mount. In his first account (693 B, C) he says only “Robertus dux … ei [regi] Aucensem comitatum et Albamarlam, totamque terram Gerardi de Gornaco et Radulfi de Conchis, cum omnibus municipiis eorum eisque subjectorum concessit.” In 697 C he says only “Robertus dux magnam partem Normanniæ Guillelmo regi concessit.”
It is the Chronicle again which seems to give us the real text of the clauses about the succession;
“And gif se eorl forðferde butan sunu be rihtre ǽwe, wære se cyng yrfenuma of ealles Normandig. Be þisre sylfan forewarde, gif se cyng swulte, wære se eorl yrfenuma ealles Englalandes.”
It is perhaps worth notice that these words taken strictly do not contemplate the possibility of William Rufus leaving children. This is slightly altered in Florence;
“Si comes absque filio legali in matrimonio genito moreretur, hæres ejus esset rex; modoque per omnia simili, si regi contigisset mori, hæres illius fieret comes.”
Henry of Huntingdon (vii. 2, p. 215 ed. Arnold), who, as we have seen, is followed with some changes by Robert of Torigny, seems to abridge the account in the Chronicle. After speaking of the events of 1090, he adds;
“Anno vero sequenti rex sequens eos concordiam cum fratre suo fecit. Eo tamen pacto ut castra illa quæ frater ab illo injuria acquisierat, regi remanerent, rex autem adjuvaret eum ad omnia quæ pater suus habuerat conquirenda. Statutum etiam, si quis eorum moreretur prior altero sine filio, quod alter fieret hæres illius.”
A good deal of the diplomatic exactness of the Chronicle is lost here, and it is not easy to see what castles Robert had taken from William, unjustly or otherwise. Robert of Torigny hardly mends the matter by leaving out the word “injuria.”
Henry is not mentioned in any account of the treaty; but his possessions come by implication under the head of the lands which William was to win back for Robert, with the exception of Cherbourg and Saint Michael’s Mount――if we are right in adding the Mount on the authority of Florence――which William was to keep for himself. The shameful treatment of Henry by his brothers naturally calls forth a good deal of sympathy on the part of some of our writers, though they do not always bring out the state of the case very clearly. They speak of his brothers refusing him a share in his father’s dominions, rather than of their depriving him of the possessions which one of themselves had sold to him. Hear for instance the author of the Brevis Relatio (11), writing in Henry’s own reign;
“Concordiam adinvicem fecerunt Willelmus secundus rex Angliæ et Robertus comes Normanniæ, et quum fratrem suum Henricum debuissent adjuvare, eique providere ut honorabiliter inter illos sicut frater eorum et filius regis vivere posset, non hoc fecerunt, sed de tota terra patris sui expellere conati sunt.”
The same words are used by Robert of Torigny, in the Continuation of William of Jumièges, viii. 3.
William of Malmesbury (iv. 308), in a passage which follows that which has been already cited about Maine, after the words “Henrici fratris minoris animositas,” adds, “qui frenderet propter fratrum avaritiam, quod uterque possessiones paternas dividerent, et se omnium pene expertem non erubescerent.”
The treaty takes a very strange form in Matthew Paris, Hist. Angl. i. 39. The brothers are reconciled by wise friends, who say to them, “Absit, ne Franci fraternas acies, alternaque regna profanis decertata odiis, derideant subsannantes.” And the reason is given; “Franci enim eo tempore multa super ducem occupaverant.” This hardly means the Vexin; it is more likely to be a confused version of Philip’s intervention.
The only writers who mention the driving out of Eadgar are the Chronicler and Florence. The former brings it into connexion with the treaty, without seeming to make it exactly part of the treaty itself. Having given the clauses of the treaty, and mentioned its confirmation by the oaths on both sides, he adds; “Onmang þisum sæhte wearð Eadgar æþeling belandod of þam þe se eorl him æror þær to handa gelæten hæfde.” The measure seems to have had something to do with the treaty without being one of its clauses. Were such things as secret or additional articles, or agreements which were to go for nothing because they were not written on the same paper as other agreements, known to so early a stage of diplomacy?
The Chronicler does not mention the siege of Saint Michael’s Mount; but, immediately after the confiscation of Eadgar’s lands in Normandy, he mentions his voyage to Scotland and the events which followed on it. Florence puts his account of the siege of the Mount directly after the treaty and the oaths of the twenty-four barons. He then goes on;
“At rex cum obsidionis diutinæ pertæsus fuisset, impacatus recessit, et non multo post Eadgarum clitonem honore, quem ei comes dederat, privavit et de Normannia expulit.” And a little way on he speaks of “clito Eadgarus, quem rex de Normannia expulerat.” These expressions make the treatment of Eadgar more distinctly William’s own act than one would infer from the words of the Chronicle, and they might suggest that Eadgar’s Norman estates lay within the districts which were ceded to William. But it may only mean that Robert sent Eadgar away on William’s demand.
NOTE O. Vol. i. p. 285.
THE SIEGE OF SAINT MICHAEL’S MOUNT.
The primary account of the siege which Henry endured at the hands of his brothers is the short one in Orderic, which I have chiefly followed in the text. There are still shorter notices in Florence of Worcester and in the Continuation of William of Jumièges. The shortest of all is in the local Annals;
“1090. Obsessio montis hujus, quæ facta est a Guillelmo Rufo rege Anglorum et a Roberto comite Normannorum, Henrico fratre eorum in hoc monte incluso.”
There is no objection to this date, as the writer seemingly begins the year at Easter. The accession of Harold is placed under 1065.
The account in Florence is noteworthy, as seeming to supply a reason for the attack made by the two older brothers upon the younger. After the treaty between William and Robert, he goes on;
“Interim germanus illorum Heinricus montem Sancti Michaelis, ipsius loci monachis quibusdam illum adjuvantibus, cum omnibus militibus quos habere potuit, intravit, regisque erram vastavit, et ejus homines quosdam captivavit, quosdam exspoliavit. Eapropter rex et comes, exercitu congregato, per totam quadragesimam montem obsederunt, et frequenter cum eo prœlium commiserunt, et homines et equos nonnullos perdiderunt. At rex, cum obsidionis diutinæ pertæsus fuisset, impacatus recessit.”
This account is true in a sense; it gives the purely military history, except that the words “impacatus recessit” would hardly suggest Henry’s honourable surrender. But no one would find out from Florence’s version that Henry occupied the Mount simply as the last spot left to him in his dominions. As a matter of warfare, it doubtless may be said that William and Robert besieged Henry because he occupied the Mount, and because he was, as we can well believe, driven to harry the neighbouring lands. But he occupied the Mount and harried the lands only because he was driven out of the rest of his county. That Florence misunderstood the matter is plain from his use of the words “regis terra,” which cannot apply to any land which could be reached from the Mount.
Wace has a long account, very confused in its chronology and in the sequence of events; but I have trusted to his local knowledge for some topographical details. William of Malmesbury twice refers to the siege. He tells it under the reign of Rufus (iv. 308); but seemingly wholly for the purpose of bringing in two famous anecdotes about William and Robert. The second time is in his sketch of Henry’s early life (v. 392). In the first account he at least puts the siege in its right place after the Treaty of 1091. In the second he seems, strangely enough, to make the siege immediately follow the death of Conan, or at least to follow Henry’s driving out of Rouen (see above, p. 512), which he places just after Conan’s death;
“Illud fuit tempus quo, ut supra lectum est, apud montem sancti Michaelis ambobus fratribus Henricus pro sui salute simul et gloria restitit.”
And, as Orderic (see p. 294) is careful to insist on the wholesome effect which the season of exile which followed had on Henry’s character, so William insists on the wholesome effect of the siege itself;
“Ita, cum utrique germano fuerit fidelis et efficax, illi nullis adolescentem possessionibus dignati, ad majorem prudentiam ævi processu penuria victualium informabant.”
The Red King’s way of schooling a brother was not quite so harsh as that by which Gideon taught the men of Succoth; but it is essentially of the same kind.
Nothing can be more confused than the way in which Wace brings in the story (see Pluquet’s note, ii. 310). I have already (see above, p. 514) mentioned the course of his story up to that point. Robert, without any help from William, has deprived Henry of the Côtentin, while William is angry with Henry for having paid the purchase-money to Robert. Henry then goes to the Mount (14588);
“Por sei vengier se mist el munt U li muignes Saint Michiel sunt.”
Then, having no place of shelter anywhere, he gathers a large company of nobles and others who serve him willingly (14598);
“N’alout mie eschariement, Asez menout od li grant gent Des plus nobles è des gentilz, Mena od li freres è filz; E tuit volentiers le servient, Kar grant espeir en li aveient.”
He thinks of seeking a lasting shelter in Britanny; but he is entertained by Earl Hugh at Avranches, with whom he has much talk, and who one day counsels him to occupy the Mount and to make a castle of the monastery. This is without any reference to the lines just quoted in which Henry is made to have been there already. But the speech of the Earl is well conceived (14624);
“Li munt Saint Michiel li mostra: Veiz tu, dist-il, cele roche là; Bel lieu è forte roche i a, Ke jor ke noit ja ne faldra; Flo de mer montant l’avirone, Ki à cel lieu grant force done.”
Henry will do well to get together Bretons and mercenaries, and hold the rock against the Normans (14625);
“Bretuns mandasse è soldéiers, Ki gaaignassent volentiers, Mult méisse gent en grant esfrei; Jà Normant n’éust paiz vers mei.”
Henry adopts Hugh’s advice, rides off at once, occupies the Mount, and sends a defiance to Robert (14646);
“Maiz Henris est sempres monté, Et el munt est sempres alé. Del munt Saint Michiel guerréia, Robert son frere desfia. Ja mez, ço dist, sa paiz n’areit, Se son aveir ne li rendeit.”
Henry ravages the neighbouring lands (see above, p. 529, and p. 286); then the King and the Duke come to besiege him, without any hint how William came to be in Normandy, or how the two brothers, who were enemies less than a hundred lines before, have now come to be allies.
It is plain that the striking event of the occupation of the Mount of which he would hear a good deal in his childhood, if it did not actually come within his own childish days, was strong in Wace’s imagination, but that he took very little pains to fit the tale into its right place in the history. It is specially hard to reconcile his picture of the action of Earl Hugh with the facts of the case. There is perhaps no literal contradiction. Hugh, while giving up his castles to Robert (see p. 284), may have given Henry secret advice, and the words of Robert of Torigny in the Continuation of William of Jumièges (see p. 323) may be taken as implying that Henry looked on him as having been on the whole faithful to him. But Wace could hardly have conceived Hugh as giving up the castle of Avranches to Robert.
The ending of the siege is still more thoroughly misconceived than the beginning. The brothers are all reconciled; Henry gets the Côtentin back again (14740);
“De l’acordement fu la fin K’à Henri remest Costentin, K’en paiz l’éust tant è tenist, Ke li Dus li suen li rendist.”
William goes back to England, whereas we know (see p. 293) that he stayed in Normandy for six months. Robert goes to Rouen. Henry pays off his mercenaries――out of what funds we are not told, and the other accounts do not speak of his followers as mercenaries. He then follows Robert to Rouen (14750);
“Henris sis soldeiers paia, As uns pramist, as uns dona Al terme k’il out establi; A li Duc a Roem sui.”
There the Duke imprisons Henry; that is, the imprisonment which happened long before (see p. 199) is moved out of its place. But Wace cannot tell why he was imprisoned, or how it was that he was released and made his way to France (14754);
“Ne voil avant conter ne dire Par kel coroz ne par kele ire Henris fu poiz a Roem pris, E en la tur à garder mis; Ne coment il fu delivrez, E de la terre congéez, E coment il ala el Rei, Ki en France l’out poiz od sei.”
In opposition to all this, Orderic’s account of the siege, its beginning and its ending, is perfectly straightforward, and hangs well together. He alone puts everything in its place, and gives an intelligible reason for everything. Robert of Torigny, in the Continuation (viii. 3), preserves the fact that Henry surrendered on honourable terms, but he is in rather too great a hurry to get him to Domfront;
“Unde accidit ut quadam vice ipsum obsidione cingerent in monte sancti Michaelis. Sed illis ibidem incassum diu laborantibus, et ad ultimum inter se dissidentibus, comes Henricus inde libere exiens oppidum munitissimum nomine Danfrontem sagacitate cujusdam indigenæ suscepit.”
The words in Italics may perhaps refer to the story about the water; but William and Robert were in any case sure to quarrel about something. And it was quite in William’s character to get tired of a fifteen days’ siege, as he is represented both here and by Florence (see p. 292); only Florence is not justified in saying that at once “impacatus rediit.” William of Malmesbury too (iv. 310) tells his story about the water, and then adds;
“Ita rex, deridens mansueti hominis ingenium, resolvit prælium; infectaque re quam intenderat, quod eum Scottorum et Walensium tumultus vocabant, in regnum se cum ambobus fratribus recepit.”
On these last words, which are so startling at first sight, I have spoken in the next Note.
The two anecdotes of William and Robert seem, in William of Malmesbury’s first account (iv. 308), to be his chief or only reason for mentioning the siege at all;
“In ea obsidione præcluum specimen morum in rege et comite apparuit; in altero mansuetudinis, in altero magnanimitatis. Utriusque exempli notas pro legentium notitia affigam.”
Then come the two stories “De Magnanimitate Willelmi” and “De Mansuetudine comitis Roberti,” which I have told in the text after him. Both of them are also told by Wace; that is, if the story “De Magnanimitate Willelmi” is really the same story as the corresponding story in Wace. Every detail is different; but both alike set before us the self-confidence of the Red King. In this version he is unhorsed and wounded; but he keeps hold of his saddle, and fights on foot with his sword (14672);
“E li reis i fa abatuz, De plusors lances fu féruz. Li peitral del cheval rompi E li dui cengles altresi; Od sa sele li reis chaï, Maiz bien la tint, ne la perdi, Delivre fu, en piez sailli; Od s’espée se desfendi, Unkes la sele ne leissa, Bien la tint è bien la garda.”
We hear nothing of any discourse with Henry’s followers, nothing of any dealings with the knight who had unhorsed him. But he calls to his vassals, Normans and English, who do not appear in the other story, but who in this press to his help, and, after many blows, take him off safely;
“Tant cria chevaliers léals, Ke la presse vint des vassals, E li Normanz le secorurent E li Engleiz ki od li furent, Maiz maint grant colp unt recéu Ainz k’il l’éussent secoru. Mené l’en unt à salveté.”
Then his own men, not those of Henry, talk merrily with him about his defence of his saddle. He answers in the like strain, telling them that it is a shame if a man cannot keep his own, and that it would have grieved him if any Breton had boasted that he had carried off his saddle;
“Poiz unt li reis asez gabé De la sele k’il desfendeit, E des granz colps ke il soffreit. E li reis diseit en riant K’il debveit estre al suen garant; Hunte est del suen perdre è guerpir; Tant com l’en le pot garantir: Pesast li ke Brez s’en vantast De la sele k’il emportast.”
If this is the same story as that in William of Malmesbury, it is a very inferior version of it. Lappenberg (Geschichte von England, ii. 172) takes the two for distinct stories and tells them separately. (See above, p. 503.) But it is strange that his translator (p. 232) should tell both stories after his original, should give the reference to Wace, and should then, at the end of William’s story, remark, giving the same reference again――“Wace gives a version of the occurrence totally different from the above as related by Malmesbury.”
The “Normanz” and “Engleiz” of Wace appear in Lappenberg as “Normannen und Angelsachsen.” This involves the old question about the force of the word “Angli,” which is very hard to answer at this particular stage. In a narrative actually written in 1091, I should certainly understand the words as Lappenberg does, and should see in the “Engleiz” men of the type of Tokig son of Wiggod and Robert son of Godwine. But, as Wace, if he were already born in 1091, did not write till many years after, it is more likely that we ought to take the words “Normanz” and “Engleiz” in the sense which they took in the course of Henry the First’s reign. That is, by “Normanz” we should understand those only who were “natione Normanni,” and by “Engleiz” all who were “natione Angligenæ,” even though many of them were “genere Normanni.” See N. C. vol. v. p. 828.
Whatever we make of the relations between the two stories, the reference to the “Brez” in Wace’s version has a very genuine ring. That name came much more home in Jersey, or even at Bayeux, than it did in Wiltshire.
The story “De Mansuetudine comitis Roberti” connects itself with the fact stated by Orderic――who does not tell either of the anecdotes――that the besieged really did suffer for want of water (see p. 292). William of Malmesbury, whom I have followed in the text, tells the story straightforwardly enough from that point of view. Wace does casually speak of the water, but his main thought is of wine (see p. 291). Henry thus states his case to Robert (14704);
“Quant Henris out lunges soffert, Soef manda al Duc Robert, Ke de vin aveit desirier, D’altre chose n’aveit mestier.”
Robert then sends him the tun of wine, of the best they have in the host, and throws in a truce to take water daily seemingly of his own free will (14712);
“E tot li jor a otréié E par trièves doné congié, Ke cil del munt ewe préissent, E li munt d’ewe garnessissent, U k’il volsissent la préissent Séurement, rien ne cremissent. Dunc veissez servanz errer, Et à veissels ewe aporter.”
The King is angry at all this, and sets forth his principles of warfare (14729);
“Il les déust fere afamer E il les faisoit abevrer.”
He is inclined to give up the siege (“Del siege volt par mal torner”); but he listens to Robert’s excuse;
“Torné me fust à félonie, E joféisse vilanie De li néer beivre è viande, Quant il méisme le demande.”
Here we have nothing of the argument in William of Malmesbury, an argument essentially the same as that which is so thoroughly in place in the mouth of the wife of Intaphernes in Herodotus (iii. 119), and so thoroughly out of place in the mouth of the Antigonê of Sophoklês (892). But the words are very like those which we shall find Wace putting into the mouth of Robert at a later time. (See 15456, and vol. ii. p. 406.)
NOTE P. Vol. i. p. 293.
THE ADVENTURES OF HENRY AFTER THE SURRENDER OF SAINT MICHAEL’S MOUNT.
That Henry was in possession of Domfront in 1094 is certain from the witness of the Chronicle under that year; “Se cyng W. sende æfter his broðer Heanrige, se wæs on þam castele æt Damfront.” But we have no hint when he got possession of it. Florence has no mention of Henry between his account of the siege of Saint Michael’s Mount――from which William “impacatus recessit”――and his election as king. William of Malmesbury (see p. 293) brings him to England with William and Robert in August 1091. As I have already said, such is William of Malmesbury’s carelessness of chronology that I should not have ventured to accept this statement on his showing only. But it has a piece of the very strongest corroborative evidence in the form of the Durham charter of which I have spoken in the text (see p. 305). This is the one which is printed at p. xxii of the volume of the Surtees Society called “Historiæ Dunelmensis Scriptores Tres,” a document which has every sign of genuineness. It is a grant by Bishop William of the churches of Northallerton, Sigston, and Brunton to the convent of Durham, and confirms the picture given by Simeon (see p. 508) of William Rufus as a benefactor to Durham;
“Hæc omnia, præcipiente domino meo Willielmo rege, domini mei magni regis Willielmi filio, feci, qui Alvertonescire sancto Cuthberto et episcopis ejus in perpetuum dedit. Has vero ecclesias monachis sancto Cuthberto servituris pro salute animæ suæ dedit, et mihi donare præcepit.”
I have shown that the deed must belong to a time after the pacification with Malcolm, but before Christmas, 1091. At no other time could we have had the signatures of Robert and Eadgar, nor probably that of Duncan. And the signature of Henry shows that William of Malmesbury is right, and that Henry was in England at this time. There was then some assembly held in the autumn of 1091, and that seemingly at Durham or somewhere in the North. Its object would probably be to confirm the treaty with Malcolm. Indeed, except a few bishops and abbots, most of the men who sign would naturally be in the camp. The signatures are in two columns. That to the right contains the names of Bishop William, King William (signum Willielmi regis secundi), his brothers (signum Rodberti fratris regis, signum Henrici fratris regis), Robert Bloet (Roberti cancellarii regis cognomento Bloet), Duncan (Dunechani filii regis Malcolmi), Earl Roger, Randolf Flambard (Ranulphi thessarii――thesaurarii?), three local priests, Merewine (Mervini), Eglaf (Ælavi; in another document, p. xx, we get the dwelling-places of these priests, Eglaf of Bethlington and Merewine of Chester――that is of course Chester-le-Street), and Orm, Robert “dispensator regis” (see p. 331), Siward Barn, and Arnold of Percy. The left-hand column contains Archbishop Thomas, the Bishops Remigius of Lincoln, Osmund of Salisbury, and John of Bath, the Abbots Guy of Saint Augustine’s, Baldwin of Saint Eadmund’s, and Stephen of Saint Mary’s at York, Earl Hugh, Philip son of Earl Roger, Earl Robert, “signum Eadgari clitonis,” Roger Bigod, “signum Morealis vicecomitis,” William Peverel, “signum Gileberti dapiferi.”
This list, though singular and startling, is perfectly possible. This cannot be said of some of those in the same volume. Thus in the document just before this one, John Bishop of Bath is made to sign in the time of the Conqueror, and in that which follows (p. xxvii), Lanfranc and Abbot Ælfsige are made to sign in 1093.
The evidence of this charter, combined with the notice in William of Malmesbury, seems conclusive. Henry was in England during part of 1091. We therefore cannot accept the obvious meaning of Orderic’s story which makes Henry a wanderer from the time of the surrender of the Mount till his reception at Domfront. In this version he leaves the Mount, and spends two years, or somewhat less, in a very poor case (697 B);
“Per Britanniam transiit, Britonibus, qui sibi solummodo adminiculum contulerant, gratias reddidit, et confines postmodum Francos expetiit. In pago Vilcassino nobilis exsul non plenis duobus annis commoratus, diversa hospitia quæsivit. Uno tantum milite unoque clerico cum tribus armigeris contentus pauperem vitam exegit.”
In another place (698 C) we find a date given to the occupation of Domfront, and a duration assigned to Henry’s wanderings, which at first sight seems not to agree with this version;
“Anno ab incarnatione Domini MXCII. Indictione XV. Henricus Guillelmi regis filius Danfrontem oppidum, auxilio Dei suffragioque amicorum, obtinuit, et inde fortiter hereditarium jus calumniari sategit. Nam idem, dum esset junior, non ut frater a fratribus habitus est, sed magis ut externus, exterorum, id est Francorum et Britonum, auxilia quærere coactus est, et quinque annis diversorum eventuum motibus admodum fatigatus est. Tandem Danfrontani nutu Dei ærumnis tam præclari exsulis compassi sunt, et ipsum ad se de Gallia accersitum per Harecherium honorifice susceperunt, et, excusso Roberti de Belesmo, a quo diu graviter oppressi fuerant, dominio, Henricum sibi principem constituerunt. Ille vero contra Robertum Normanniæ comitem viriliter arma sumpsit, incendiis et rapinis expulsionis suæ injuriam vindicavit, multosque cepit et carceri mancipavit.”
The five years mentioned in the above extract must be meant to take in all Henry’s adventures, lucky and unlucky, from the death of his father in 1087 to his settlement at Domfront in 1092. From his surrender of the Mount in February 1091 to his settlement at Domfront Orderic makes, as we have seen, somewhat less than two years; that is, Henry came to Domfront quite at the end of 1092.
In 706 C (under 1094, see p. 319) he says;
“Henricus Guillelmi Magni regis Anglorum filius Danfrontem possidebat, et super Robertum [de Belesmo], cui præfatum castellum abstulerat, imo super fratres suos regem et ducem guerram faciebat, a quibus extorris de cespite paterno expulsus fuerat.”
In 722 D he says;
“Henricus frater ducis Danfrontem fortissimum castrum possidebat, et magnam partem Neustriæ sibi favore vel armis subegerat, fratrique suo ad libitum suum, nec aliter, obsecundabat.”
This is in 1095, and it is meant as a summary of Henry’s course up to that year. Lastly, the promise of Henry never to give up Domfront to any other master comes quite incidentally in Orderic’s account (788 B) of the treaty between Robert and Henry in 1101 (see vol. ii. p. 413). By that treaty Henry ceded to Robert everything that he held in Normandy “præter Danfrontem.” The reason for the exception is added;
“Solum Danfrontem castrum sibi retinuit, quia Danfrontanis, quando illum intromiserunt, jurejurando pepigerat quod numquam eos de manu sua projiceret nec leges eorum vel consuetudines mutaret.”
This is Orderic’s account, in which I see no difficulty at all in accepting all that concerns Domfront. Henry was in England late in 1091; but he may have been in France or anywhere else late in 1092. And Henry may have had a time of distress and wandering in the Vexin, either between March and August 1091 or at any time in 1092. Where Orderic goes wrong, it is through forgetting Henry’s visit to England in 1091, which was of no importance to his story. He therefore naturally spreads the season of wandering in the Vexin over the whole time from the surrender of the Mount early in 1091 to the occupation of Domfront late in 1092.
Robert of Torigny, in the Continuation of William of Jumièges (viii. 3), is in a still greater hurry to get Henry to Domfront (see above, p. 532). The passage, as far as it concerns the relations between Henry and Domfront, runs thus;
“Comes Henricus, inde [from the Mount] libere exiens, oppidum munitissimum nomine Danfrontem sagacitate cujusdam indigenæ suscepit. Indignabatur enim prædictus indigena, utpote vir nobilis et dives, oppressiones amplius perpeti quas Robertus de Belismo, homo ferox et mentis inhumanæ, sibi et aliis convicaneis inferebat, qui tunc temporis illud castrum possidebat. Quod tanta diligentia Henricus exinde custodivit ut usque ad terminum vitæ illius in suo dominio habuerit.”
The “indigena nobilis et dives” of this account is of course the same as the Harecherius of Orderic. And the statement that Henry kept Domfront all his days agrees with Orderic’s statement about his promise. Wace (14762-14773) gives us some, perhaps legendary, details of the way in which Henry was brought from Paris――from the French Vexin, one would have thought, from Orderic’s account――to Domfront; but he is clearly wrong in making any Robert, whether the Duke or him of Bellême, turn Henry out of Domfront;
“Ne coment Haschier le trova A Paris donc il l’amena, Ki se fist un des oilz péier, Ke l’en nel’ péust encercier, Ne voil dire par kel savoir Haschier li fist Danfront aveir, Ne coment il fu recéuz Quant il fu à Danfront venuz, Ne coment il cunquist Passeiz E le toli as Belesmeiz; Ne coment Robert le cunquist, E de Danfront partir le fist.”
The covering of one of Henry’s eyes with pitch by way of disguise may be believed or not; but the “savoir” of Haschier answers to the “sagacitas” of the “indigena nobilis et dives.” Passeiz, Passais (see Pluquet, Wace, ii. 319; Neustria Pia, p. 423), is the district which contains Domfront and the abbey of Lonlay, a district which lay in the ancient diocese of Le Mans, but which was added to Normandy by William’s conquest.
This name “Haschier” or “Harecherius” is supposed by Le Prévost (Pluquet, ii. 319) to be the same name as “Achardus,” the name of one of the witnesses to the foundation charter of Lonlay abbey in 1026. He signs as “Achardus dives, miles de Donnifronte.” This document is contained in an inspeximus of Peter, Count of Alençon (1361-1377), contained in an inspeximus of Henry, King of France and England about 1423 (Neustria Pia, p. 424). The founder is the old William of Bellême, father of William Talvas and grandfather of Mabel. There is a certain interest in a document relating to Domfront and Lonlay before they became Norman, when lands there could be granted “usque in Normaniæ commarchiam.” Among the signatures are those of the founder’s brother Avesgaud Bishop of Le Mans (994-1036, see N. C. vol. iii. p. 191), Siegfried Bishop of Seez (1007-1026), the founder and his wife, “Guillelmus princeps [in the body of the document he is “Guillelmus Bellismensis, provinciæ principatum gerens”] et Mathildis uxor ejus,” and this “Achardus dives” whom Le Prevost takes for a forefather of the “indigena nobilis et dives.”
Orderic says that Henry obtained Domfront “suffragio amicorum.” Robert of Torigny, in the next chapter of his Continuation (viii. 4), tells us who his friends a little later were. He is established at Domfront; then we read;
“Redeunte Willelmo rege in Angliam, Henricus haud segniter comitatum Constantiniensem, qui sibi fraudulentia ante præreptus fuerat, consensu Willelmi regis et auxilio Richardi de Revers et Rogerii de Magna-villa, ex majori parte in ditionem suam revocavit.”
He then goes on with the passage about Earl Hugh and the grant of Saint James to him, quoted in p. 323.
I think that this distinct assertion that Henry was now in William’s favour outweighs the vague expressions of Orderic about Henry making war on both his brothers. By 1093, the earliest date for these exploits, William was again scheming against Robert, and his obvious policy would be to ally himself with Henry.
Henry, as we have seen in the extracts from Orderic, carried on war in the usual fashion. But he at least treated his prisoners better than Robert of Bellême did. We have (698 D) a picture of one Rualedus――a Breton Rhiwallon, or what?――who is carried off from the lands of Saint Evroul to the castle of Domfront. It was winter; but he was not left to die of cold and hunger for Count Henry’s amusement; we see him sitting comfortably by the fire (“quum sederet ad focum; hiems enim erat”). On the road he had fallen from the horse on which he was tied, and had suffered some hurt. But, after prayer to Saint Evroul, followed by a comforting dream, he wakes, and, as his keeper’s back is turned, he gets up, unbars the door, walks into the garden, and, after some further adventures, gets back to Saint Evroul. He was a man “legitimus et laudabilis vitæ;” so Orderic, who heard the story from his own mouth, believes it. There seems no reason why anybody should disbelieve it; as the only part of the tale which sounds at all incredible is the very bad guard which Henry’s men kept over their prisoner.
NOTE Q. Vol. i. p. 302.
THE HOMAGE OF MALCOLM IN 1091.
The account of Malcolm’s homage to William Rufus which is given by Orderic (701 A) is treated with some contempt by Mr. E. W. Robertson (Scotland under her Early Kings, i. 142), while it is naturally not forgotten by Sir Francis Palgrave (English Commonwealth, ii. cccxxxii). The main fact of the homage itself, paid to the second William on the same terms on which it had been paid to the first, is abundantly proved by the Chronicle. Nothing is gained by disproving at this stage the exaggerated account of Robert’s expedition in 1080 which is to be found in the local History of Abingdon (see N. C. vol. iv. pp. 671, 790). The only question is, whether, accepting the general fact from the Chronicle, we can or cannot accept any of the very curious details with which Orderic tells the story.
First of all, while Orderic’s geography is right, his topography is wrong. The mention of the “magnum flumen quod Scotte watra dicitur” must come from some genuine source. “Ordericus Angligena” heard the tale from some one who told it him in English. And, if there could be the shadow of a doubt, this shows that “Loðene” in the Chronicle means Lothian, and nothing else. Mr. Burton (Hist. Scot. i. 412) insists on carrying Malcolm to Leeds; but he cannot make the Aire to be the “Scotte watra.” But Orderic, who plainly got his account from some quite different source from the Chronicler, failed to take in the actual position of the two armies. He failed to see that Malcolm, having crossed the Scots’ Water into Lothian and therefore into England, was necessarily on the south side of the Scots’ Water. He fancied that the two kings were on opposite sides of the firth. William reaches the Scots’ Water; “sed, quia inaccessibilis transitus erat, super ripam consedit. Rex autem Scottorum e regione cum legionibus suis ad bellandum paratus constitit.” So he doubtless did; only they were both south of the water. The Chronicle shows plainly that Malcolm, as soon as he heard of William’s coming, determined that the invader should not, as his father had done, cross into the proper Scotland to Abernethy or elsewhere, but that he would meet him, for peace or for war, in the English part of his dominions.
This topographical confusion does not affect the main story, nor does it greatly matter whether the picturesque details of Robert’s visit to Malcolm literally happened or not. It is further plain that Orderic has left out one of the two mediators, namely Eadgar. But he records the main fact of the homage no less than the Chronicler. The question is whether we can accept the curious conversation between Robert and Malcolm, in which Malcolm makes two statements, which are perhaps a little startling in themselves, which are not mentioned elsewhere, but which certainly do not contradict what we find elsewhere.
First, Malcolm asserts that King Eadward gave him the earldom of Lothian, seemingly as the dowry of Margaret; “Fateor quod rex Eduardus, dum mihi Margaritam proneptem suam in conjugium tradidit, Lodonensem comitatum mihi donavit.” Now it is certainly true that King Eadward, or Earl Siward in his name, gave Malcolm the earldom of Lothian; only he gave him something else too, namely the kingdom of Scotland. And I have mentioned elsewhere (see N. C. vol. iv. p. 785) that a betrothal of Margaret to Malcolm, when Malcolm received the kingdom from Siward, though recorded nowhere else, is perfectly possible.
Secondly, Malcolm’s strong point is that he does owe a homage to Robert, but that he owes none to William. This he asserts in his first message; “Tibi, rex Guillelme, nihil debeo, nisi conflictum si a te injuriis lacessitus fuero. Verum si Robertum primogenitum Guillelmi regis filium videro, illi exhibere paratus sum quicquid debeo.” Afterwards, in his conference with Robert, he is made to say, after mentioning Eadward’s grant of Lothian, “Deinde Guillelmus rex quod antecessor ejus mihi dederat concessit, et me tibi primogenito suo commendavit. Unde quod tibi promisi conservabo. Sed fratri tuo nihil promisi et nihil debeo. Nemo, ut Christus ait, potest duobus dominis servire.” To this Robert agrees; “Ut asseris, ita est. Sed mutationes rerum factæ sunt, et statuta patris mei a pristina soliditate in multum vacillaverunt.” I do not know that a homage of Malcolm to Robert is recorded anywhere else, unless we so understand the confused Abingdon story about the expedition of 1080. But nothing was more likely than that William the Conqueror should at Abernethy call on Malcolm to pledge himself, as was so often done, not only to himself but to his son after him. In 1072 there could have been no reason for looking to any one but Robert as the probable successor; least of all could any one have thought of William the Red. He was not even the second son, as Richard was still alive. And the time when King William renewed the gift of his predecessor Eadward must surely be the day of Abernethy, and none other.
There is then really nothing in Orderic’s story which gainsays any known facts, and it is hard to see what should have made him think of a betrothal of Margaret, a homage to Robert, and the rest, unless he had some ground for them. And the general argument put into Malcolm’s mouth seems exactly in place. It is of a piece with the arguments of Scottish disputants long after Orderic’s day. Something is admitted, that something is perhaps specially insisted on, in order to avoid the admission of something else. Lothian is the special personal gift of Eadward to Malcolm himself, though it is certain, on any view of the cession of Lothian, that predecessors of Malcolm had held it of predecessors of Eadward. That gift of Eadward, renewed by William the Great, is allowed to carry with it a personal duty to William the Great and to his personal heir. But the denial of any duty to William the Red implicitly denies any duty to the King of the English as such. Still this question is in words left open; so is all that relates to the proper Scotland left open. Malcolm at last consents to do homage to William for something; but, in Orderic’s story at least, it is not very clear for what. (The Chronicler, we may be sure, felt so certain of its being for Scotland that he did not think it needful to say so.) All this is exactly like later controversies on the same subject. When the two kingdoms were on friendly terms, it often suited both sides that the homage should be general, leaving it open to each side to assert its own doctrine the next time there should be any dispute (see N. C. vol. v. p. 209). And we must remember that by this time it is quite possible that Rufus might make claims which Malcolm would, on the principles of an earlier time, do quite right in refusing. Strictly feudal ideas were growing, and when a King of the English demanded homage for the kingdom of Scotland, he may well have meant more than had been meant when the king and people of the Scots sought Eadward the Unconquered to father and lord. Certainly, when the whole thing had stiffened into a question of ordinary feudal law, Edward the First, if judged by the standard of the tenth century, asked more than his historic rights over Scotland, less than his historic rights over Lothian. See Historical Essays, Series I. p. 65; N. C. vol. i. p. 128.
I am therefore inclined to believe that Orderic has, in this case, as in some others, incidentally preserved facts of which we have no record elsewhere. But I am not anxious strongly to insist upon this. The general course of the history is the same, whether Margaret had or had not been betrothed to Malcolm before his marriage――or whatever it was――with Ingebiorg; it is the same whether Malcolm had or had not done an act of homage to Robert. And I must allow that, as Orderic has misunderstood some points at the beginning of the story, so he has more thoroughly misunderstood some points at the end of the story. For he makes Malcolm go into England――Florence would have said into Wessex――with William and Robert; “Deinde reges agmina sua remiserunt, et ipsi simul in Angliam profecti sunt.” This comes, as we shall presently see, from rolling together the events of the years 1091 and 1093.
The twelve “villæ” which, according to Florence, were to be restored to Malcolm are, I suppose, the same as the “mansiones” which the kings of Scots are said to have held in England in times both earlier and later than those with which we are dealing. This comes from Roger of Wendover’s account (i. 416; cf. N. C. vol. i. p. 584) of the grant of Lothian by Eadgar to Kenneth. It was given “hac conditione, ut annis singulis in festivitatibus præcipuis, quando rex et ejus successores diadema portarent, venirent ad curiam, et cum cæteris regni principibus festum cum lætitia celebrarent; dedit insuper ei rex mansiones in itinere plurimas, ut ipse et ejus successores ad festum venientes ac denuo revertentes hospitari valuissent, quæ usque in tempora regis Henrici secundi in potestate regum Scotiæ remanserunt.” The slighter mention in Florence gives some confirmation to the story in Roger. And though it was not likely that the King of Scots, or even the Earl of Lothian, should regularly attend at the great festivals, yet it was doubtless held that it was the right thing that he should do so; and we find Malcolm himself coming to the King’s court not long after (see vol. ii. p. 13), and his son Eadgar after him (see vol. ii. p. 265).
There is not much to be got from the other writers. William of Malmesbury twice refers to the matter, but as usual without much regard to chronology. It is seemingly this submission of Malcolm to which he refers in iii. 250, where, having said that Malcolm, in the days of the elder William, “incertis et sæpe fractis fœderibus ævum egit,” adds “filio Willelmi Willelmo regnante, simili modo impetitus, falso sacramento abegit.” He must also refer to this time in iv. 310-311, where he says that, after the siege of Saint Michael’s Mount, he went back to England, “quod eum Scottorum et Walensium tumultus vocabant.” There was (see vol. ii. pp. 78, 79) a considerable “Walensium tumultus” this year; but it does not seem that the King himself did anything in those parts till later in his reign. William however says;
“Primo contra Walenses, post in Scottos, expeditionem movens, nihil magnificentia sua dignum exhibuit, militibus multis desideratis, jumentis interceptis.”
He then goes on to speak more at large of Welsh matters, and comes back to speak of the action of Robert in Scotland (see p. 301). The old friendship which he there speaks of between Malcolm and Robert falls in with Orderic’s story, and specially with Orderic’s way of telling it. We shall hear of it again in Notes BB, EE.
Henry of Huntingdon (vii. 2, p. 216) tells the story thus;
“Interea Melcolm rex Scotorum prædatum veniens in Angliam validissime vexavit eam. Venientes igitur in Angliam rex, et cum eo Robertus frater suus, direxerunt acies in Scotiam. Itaque Melcolm, nimio terrore perstrictus, homo regis effectus est et juramento fidelitatis ei subjectus.” Matthew Paris (Hist. Angl. i. 40) has a wonderful version in which the invasion is altogether left out. Malcolm, hearing of the peace between the brothers, begins to fear for his own kingdom. He therefore comes to William and makes a very humble homage indeed; “Veniens ad regem Angliæ Willelmum, humilitate sua regis flexit ferocitatem, asserens se nullum hostium suorum receptasse vel recepturum fore, nisi tali intentione, ut ipsos dominum suum recognoscentes, regi, persuasionibus suis mediantibus, redderet pacificatos et fideliores.”
NOTE R. Vol. i. p. 313.
THE EARLDOM OF CARLISLE.
It is certainly a singular fact that, so lately as 1873, a long controversy raged in the Times newspaper as to the reason why Cumberland and Westmoreland were not surveyed in Domesday. The dispute was kept up for some time among men who seemed to have some local knowledge; but, till Dr. Luard kindly stepped in to set them right, every reason was guessed at but the true one. No one seemed to grasp the simple facts, that no part of England was known at the time of the Survey by the name Cumberland or Westmoreland――that so much of the shires now bearing those names as then formed part of the kingdom of England is surveyed under the head of Yorkshire――that the reason why the rest is left unsurveyed is because it formed no part of the kingdom of England. The whole matter had long before been thoroughly sifted and set right by two local writers, who, I am tempted to suspect, were only one writer; yet the received local confusions were just as strong as ever.
The general history of Cumberland, and of this part of it in particular, was very minutely examined in the Introduction to the volume published in 1847 by the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle-upon-Tyne under the name of “The Pipe-Rolls or Sheriffs’ Annual Accounts of the Revenues of the Crown for the Counties of Cumberland, Westmorland, and Durham, during the Reigns of Henry II, Richard I, and John.” After this, in 1859, a paper was read by Mr. Hodgson Hinde at the Carlisle meeting of the Archæological Institute, “On the Early History of Cumberland,” which appeared in the Archæological Journal, vol. xvi. p. 217. These two essays have pretty well exhausted the piece of Cumbrian history with which I have now to deal, and they contain a great deal more with which I am not concerned.
The word Cumberland, I need not say, is a word of many meanings, and at the present moment we have not to do with any of them. We have to do only with the city and earldom of Carlisle, which does not answer to Cumberland in either the older or the later sense. The confusion which has immediately to be got rid of is the notion that Carlisle and its district already formed an English earldom in the time of the Conqueror. Thus we read in Sir Francis Palgrave (English Commonwealth, i. 449);
“‘Cumberland’――for we must now call the Dominion by its modern appellation――was, as I have observed, retained by the Conqueror; Malcolm had invaded the country; but he could not defend the territory against William, who granted Cumberland to Ranulph de Meschines, one of his Norman followers; and the border Earldom became wholly assimilated, in its political character, to the other great baronies of England…. Carlisle was always excepted from these grants. The city, and the territory of fifteen miles in circuit, had become English by Ecgfrid’s donation, and probably was always held, either by the Kings or Earls of Bernicia or of Northumbria. Little further is known concerning ‘merry Carlisle,’ the seat of Arthur’s chivalry. Until the reign of William Rufus, this city, desolated by the Danes, was almost void of inhabitants. William completed the restoration of its walls and towers, which his father had begun.”
This comes primarily from a passage in the so-called Matthew of Westminster under the year 1072;
“Rex Gulihelmus cum grandi exercitu Scotiam ingressus est, et obviavit ei pacifice Malcolmus rex Scotorum apud Barwicum et homo suus devenit. His temporibus regebat comitatum Carleoli comes Ranulphus de Micenis, qui efficax auxilium præbuit regi Gulihelmo in conquestu suo Angliæ. Hic urbem Carleoli cœpit ædificare, et cives ejusdem plurimis privilegiis munire. Sed rediens rex Gulihelmus a Scotia per Cumbriam, videns tam regale municipium, abstulit illud a Ranulpho comite, et dedit illi pro eo comitatum Cestriæ, multis honoribus privilegiatum. Carleolum vero precepit rex Gulihelmus turribus propugnaculisque muniri firmissimis. Rex vero Gulihelmus Conquestor in redeundo de Scotia apud Dunelmum novum ibidem construxit castellum contra irruptiones Scotorum.”
There is also printed in the Monasticon, vol. iii. p. 584, a genealogical document called “Chronicon Cumbriæ,” which comes from the Register of Wetheral priory. This begins by saying that
“Rex Willielmus, cognomine Bastardus, dux Normanniæ, conquestor Angliæ, dedit totam terram de comitatu Cumbriæ Ranulpho de Meschines, et Galfrido fratri ejusdem Ranulphi totum comitatum Cestriæ, et Willielmo fratri eorundem terram de Copland, inter Duden et Darwent.”
The source of error here is that Matthew of Westminster, so to call him, mixed up the Scottish expedition of the Conqueror in 1072 with the Scottish expedition of William Rufus in 1091, and made the restoration of Carlisle a work of the father and not of the son. He also brings in Earl Randolf, with whom we are not as yet concerned; but it is to be noticed that he says nothing about an earldom of Cumberland, but speaks only of an earldom of Carlisle. It is only in the Wetheral document that an earldom of Cumberland is carried back to the days of the Conqueror. Sir Francis Palgrave failed to notice this distinction; but he knew his books far too well to pass by the entries in the Chronicle and Florence under 1092. He therefore tried to reconcile them with the passages in Matthew of Westminster and the Wetheral chronicle by supposing an earldom of Cumberland which did not take in Carlisle and its district. The error and its source were first pointed out by Lappenberg (ii. 175 of the German original, p. 234 of Mr. Thorpe’s Anglo-Norman Kings, where, as usual, some of Lappenberg’s notes and references are left out). Lappenberg notices the difference between Matthew’s story and Palgrave’s; he suggests that Matthew has further confounded the events of 1072 and 1092 with those of 1122; and he gives a summary of the whole matter in the words;
“Wichtig aber ist es wahrzunehmen, dass erst Rufus und nicht sein Vater Cumberland zu einer wirklichen Provinz des normannischen Englands machte.”
Here is the root of the matter, so far as we have got rid of the notion of the Conqueror having done anything at Carlisle or thereabouts. Still Lappenberg should not have spoken, as I myself ought not to have spoken (N. C. vol. v. p. 118), of Cumberland now becoming an English earldom. The district with which we are concerned forms only a very small part of the old kingdom of Cumberland, while it does not answer to the modern county of Cumberland, which does not appear by that name till 1177 (see Pipe Rolls of Cumberland, p. 18; Archæological Journal, xvi. 230). The land with which we are concerned bears the name of the city. It is the land and earldom, not of Cumberland, but of Carlisle.
The point to be clearly taken in is that the district with which we are concerned was not part of England till 1092; more accurately still, it ceased to be part of England in 685, and became so again in 1092. For those four centuries, Carlisle, city and district, had as much or as little to do with England as the lands immediately to the north of it, the lands which formed that part of Cumberland in the wider sense which became in the end part of the kingdom of Scotland. This district of Carlisle does not answer to any modern shire, and it is of course not surveyed in Domesday. But it does answer to the diocese of Carlisle, as it stood before late changes. That diocese took in part of modern Cumberland and part of modern Westmoreland. The rest of those shires, with Lancashire north of Ribble and the wapentake of Ewecross (Pipe Rolls, p. xlii), formed the Domesday district of Agemundreness (see Domesday, 301 b), forming part of Yorkshire, as it formed part of York diocese till the changes under Henry the Eighth. Mr. Hinde suggests (Arch. Journal, xvi. 227) that this district was conquered by Earl Eadwulf, the great enemy of the Britons (see N. C. vol. i. p. 526), a position which it might be hard either to prove or to disprove. Before the death of Henry the First, the Carlisle district was divided into two shires, Carlisle and Westmoreland (Chaerleolium and Westmarieland, Pipe Roll Hen. I. pp. 140, 143). This last consisted of the barony of Appleby, specially known as Westmoreland. Enlarged by the barony of Kirkby Kendal in Yorkshire, it became the modern county of Westmoreland. So the shire of Carlisle took the name of Cumberland in 1177, and, enlarged by the part of Yorkshire north of the Duddon, it became the modern county of Cumberland. But these added lands remained part of the diocese of York, till Henry the Eighth removed them to his diocese of Chester. This last diocese must not be confounded with the diocese of Chester――otherwise of Lichfield or Coventry――with which we have to do in our story. That diocese did not reach north of the Ribble, and its seat at Chester was in Saint John’s minster, while the new see of Henry the Eighth was planted in Saint Werburh’s.
The earldom of Carlisle brings us among old acquaintances. It was granted early in the reign of Henry the First (see Arch. Journal, xvi. 230, 231) to Randolf called Meschines, de Micenis, and other forms, who in 1118 became Earl of Chester, on the death of Earl Richard in the White Ship (see N. C. vol. v. p. 195), on which he gave up Carlisle. He died in 1129, being the second husband of the younger Lucy (see N. C. vol. ii. p. 682; vol. iii. p. 778), daughter of Ivo Taillebois. Ivo himself, at some time after the drawing up of Domesday (Carlisle Pipe Rolls, p. xliii) appears in the same part of the world as lord of Kirkby Kendal. After 1118 the earldom of Carlisle or Cumberland remained in the crown, till it was granted to David of Scotland in 1136 (see N. C. vol. v. p. 259).
The name of the city and earldom of Carlisle is the best comment on its history. Alone among the names of English cities, it remains purely British, not only in its root, but, so to speak, in its grammar. The British idiom, I need hardly say, places the qualifying word second; the Teutonic idiom places it first. Thus Caer Gwent and Caer Glovi have become Winchester and Gloucester. But Caer Luel has not changed; it remains Carlisle, and has not become something like Lilchester. The reason is doubtless because the first English occupation of Caer Luel did not last long enough to give it a lasting English name. In 1092 nomenclature had lost the life which it had in 685, and a foreign tongue moreover had the upper hand. No one then thought of turning the name of Carlisle about, any more than of doing so by the names of Cardiff (Caerdydd), Caermarthen, or the Silurian Caerwent and Caerleon.
As for the colonists brought from the south, I have assumed them to be a strictly Saxon element added to the already mixed population of the border. And there may have been a Flemish element too, as I was inclined to think when I wrote N. C. vol. v. p. 119. The point is not of much importance, as the two kindred elements would easily fuse together; but it strikes me now that, if any part of the settlers had come from beyond sea, the Chronicler would not have so calmly spoken of them as churlish folk from the south. That phrase however is one well worthy of notice. The words “hider suð” can hardly have been written at Peterborough. That abbey certainly lies a long way south of Carlisle; but Peterborough would hardly speak of itself in this general way as “south.” (In 1051 Worcester, which lies south of Peterborough, counted itself to be “at this north end”――“ofer ealre þisne norð ende” says the Worcester Chronicle. See N. C. vol. ii. p. 620.) The suggestion that these “churlish folk” (“multi villani” in the translation in the Waverley Annals) were the men who had lost their lands at the making of the New Forest has high authority in its favour. It seems to have been first made by Palgrave (English Commonwealth, i. 450), and it is supported by Lappenberg (ii. 175, Thorpe 235). Still it is a simple guess, and I cannot say that to my own mind it has any air even of likelihood. It arises, it seems to me, from an exaggerated notion of the amount of havoc done at the making of the New Forest, combined with a forgetfulness of the time which had passed since that event. We cannot fix its exact date, but the Survey shows that whatever was done in the New Forest, much or little was fully done before 1085, and we are now in 1092.
The earliest official notice of Carlisle and Westmoreland, the Pipe Roll of the 31st year of Henry the First, contains several interesting entries. The city wall was building. There are entries, “in operationibus civitatis de Caerleolio, videlicet in muro circa civitatem faciendo” (p. 140), “in operatione muri civitatis de Caerleolio” (p. 141), and (p. 142) “in liberatione vigilis turris de Penuesel,” which needs a local expounder. Both in this roll and in the rolls under Henry the Second we notice a mixture of personal nomenclature, Norman, Danish, English, and Scottish, which is just what we should look for. Distinctly British names I do not see. In the first few pages of the roll of 1156 we find at least three Gospatrics. One is very fittingly the son of Orm; another is the son of Beloc (6), whose nationality may be doubted; a third is the son of Mapbennoc, a clear Pict or Scot. So again we have Uhtred son of Fergus (p. 5), William son of Holdegar, Æthelward [Ailward] son of Dolfin, hardly the dispossessed prince. Swegen son of Æthelric [Sweinus fil. Alrici] in the roll of Henry the First (142) is a local man; but Henry son of Swegen, who comes often under Henry the Second, is the unlucky descendant of Robert son of Wymarc. See N. C. vol. iv. p. 735. There are a good many entries about the canons of Saint Mary of Carlisle who were founded before the bishopric, in 1102 (see Haddan and Stubbs, ii. 13). There is a notice in 1156 (p. 3) of the Bishop of Candida Casa or Whithern. That see was (Haddan and Stubbs, ii. 25) revived about 1127, as suffragan of York, and 1156 is the date of the death of Æthelwulf the first Bishop of Carlisle.
NOTE S. Vol. i. p. 329.
THE EARLY LIFE OF RANDOLF FLAMBARD.
I quoted some of the passages bearing on the early life of Randolf Flambard in N. C. vol. iv. p. 521. I mentioned there that he had a brother named Osbern, who appears in the Abingdon History. He had another brother Fulcher, of whom we shall hear again. See Ord. Vit. 788 D, and vol. ii. p. 416. He had also a son Thomas. I do not feel quite so sure as I did then, or as Dr. Stubbs seems to be (Const. Hist. i. 348), that he really did hold lands in England T. R. E. The entry which looks like it is the second of the three in Domesday, 51, which stands thus in full;
“Isdem Ranulfus tenuit in ipsa villa i. hidam, et pro tanto se defendebat T. R. E. modo est tota in foresta exceptis iiii. acris prati terra fuit iiii. carucatarum. Hæ duæ terræ valebant iiii. libras.”
It appears then that Flambard lost the arable part of this hide at the making of the New Forest, as he also lost another hide, with the same exception of four acres of meadow, which had been held T. R. E. by one Alwold. A third hide, of which it is said that “duo alodiarii tenuerunt,” he kept, as well as his holdings in Oxford and Oxfordshire. Dr. Stubbs suggests that these lands were “possibly acquired in the service of the Norman Bishop William of London.” Sir F. Palgrave (England and Normandy, iv. 52) makes the most of this despoiling of a Norman holder. But I am not clear that the words of the entry which I have given in full necessarily imply that the land was held by Flambard himself T. R. E. And, if we need not suppose this, his story becomes a great deal simpler. Above all, we need no longer suppose that a man who lived till 1128, and whose mother was living in 1100 (see vol. ii. p. 398), had made himself of importance enough to receive grants of land at some time before 1066.
The account of Flambard which is given by Orderic (678 C) would certainly not suggest that he had been in England in the time of Eadward;
“Hic de obscura satis et paupere parentela prodiit, et multum ultra natales suos ad multorum detrimentum sublimatus intumuit. Turstini cujusdum plebeii presbyteri de pago Bajocensi filius fuit, et a puerilibus annis inter pedissequos curiales cum vilibus parasitis educatus crevit, callidisque tergiversationibus et argutis verborum machinationibus plusquam arti literatoriæ studuit. Et quia semetipsum in curia magni regis Guillermi arroganter illustribus præferre ardebat, nesciente non jussus, multa inchoabat, infestus in aula regis plures procaciter accusabat, temereque majoribus quasi regia vi fultus imperabat.”
It is not easy to reconcile this with the version which makes Flambard pass into the King’s service from that of Bishop Maurice, who did not become bishop till Christmas, 1085. The story of his service with Maurice appears in the account of him which is printed in Anglia Sacra (i. 705), and also along with Simeon (249 ed. Bedford, and X Scriptt. 59). It is much more likely that the name of the bishop should be wrongly given than that his service with some bishop of London should be mere invention. If so, he may have passed into the service of the Conqueror at almost any time of his reign, while still so young that it becomes an easy exaggeration on the part of Orderic to say that he was in the King’s service from his childhood. The passage in the Life which continues Simeon stands thus;
“Fuerat autem primo cum Mauritio Lundoniensi episcopo; sed propter decaniam sibi ablatam orto discidio, spe altioris loci se transtulit ad regem.”
This must surely refer to something which really happened; and in the Register of Christchurch Twinham (Mon. Angl. vi. 303) we distinctly read of Flambard, “qui Randulphus antea fuerat decanus in ecclesia Christi de Twynham.” But this is directly followed by another extract from the same register which denies that the heads of the church of Twinham ever bore the title of dean, and which connects Flambard with Twinham in quite another way. According to this story, there were at Twinham in the time of William Rufus twenty-four canons under a chief named Godric (“Hunc Godricum sui tunc temporis clerici, non pro decano, quasi nominis ignorantes, sed pro seniore ac patrono venerabantur”). Flambard, already bishop of Durham, obtains a grant of Twinham and its church from William Rufus (“Randulfus episcopus hanc ecclesiam cum villa a rege Willielmo impetravit”). If I rightly understand a very corrupt text, Flambard enriches the church and designs to rebuild it, and then to put in monks instead of canons; meanwhile he keeps the prebends vacant as they fall in. This Godric opposes; but in the end Flambard rebuilds the church, and keeps the prebends in his own hands till there are only thirteen left. Then comes his own banishment, and the grant of the church to one Gilbert de Dousgunels, after which Flambard seems to have had nothing more to do with it.
It is odd that so many prebends should have become vacant in the single year during which Flambard held the bishopric for the first time, and one would not have expected him to have been a favourer of monks. But I can get no other meaning out of the words “cupiens et disponens … præfatam ecclesiam … funditus eruere, et meliorem decentioremque cuilibet ædificare religioni.” What comes after seems plainer still;
“Fregit episcopus illius loci primitivam ecclesiam, novemque alias quæ infra cimiterium steterant, cum quorundam domibus canonicorum prope locum ecclesiæ cimiterii, et officinarum compenciorem [?] faciendum et canonicis in villa congruum immutationem [sic] ut dominus adaptavit locum. Fundavit equidem hanc ecclesiam episcopus Randulfus quæ nunc est apud Twynham, et domos et officinas cuilibet religioni. Obeunte canonicorum aliquo, ejus beneficium in sua retinebat potestate, nulli tribuens alii, volens unamquamque dare præbendam religioni, si eos omnes mortis fortuna in suo tulisset tempore.”
Now all this can hardly have happened between Flambard’s consecration in 1099 and his imprisonment in 1100. But he may have had the grant of Twinham before he was bishop. Again, in two charters (Mon. Angl. vi. 304), granted by the elder Baldwin of Redvers, we hear of deans of Twinham and of “Ranulfus decanus,” which seems to mean Flambard himself. The lands of the canons of Twinham are entered in Domesday, 44; but there is no mention of Flambard.
We thus have the absolutely certain fact that Flambard held lands near Twinham. In two independent sources he is said to have been dean of Twinham. In another independent source he is said to have held and lost some deanery not named. In yet another story he is described, not as dean of Twinham, but as doing great things at Twinham in another character. These accounts cannot literally be reconciled; but they certainly point to a connexion of some kind between him and the church of Twinham.
We must indeed mourn the loss of the primitive church of Twinham with its nine surrounding chapels, something like Glendalough or Clonmacnois. The nave of the present church may well be Flambard’s work; but it has no special likeness to his work at Durham. But this may only prove that he built it before he went to Durham, and there learned the improvements in architecture which had been brought in by William of Saint-Calais (see N. C. vol. v. p. 631). The seculars of Twinham made way for Austin canons about 1150.
While speaking of Twinham, I must correct a statement which I made long ago with regard to one of the chief worthies of my earlier story. I said (N. C. vol. ii. p. 33) that Earl Godwine was “nowhere enrolled among the founders or benefactors of any church, religious or secular.” I find him enrolled among the benefactors of Twinham. And here again we mark that, as with his wife (see N. C. vol. ii. p. 358) and his son, his bounty goes to the seculars. The passage, in one of the charters of the elder Baldwin of Redvers granted to Hilary Dean of Twinham (Mon. Angl. vi. 304), stands thus;
“Ecclesiam de Stoppele cum omnibus quæ ad eam spectant; unam virgatam terræ cum appendiciis in eadem villa ex dono Godwini comitis, quam Orricus de Stanton eidem Christi ecclesiæ violenter surripuit.”
I cannot identify this “Orricus de Stanton” in Domesday, nor do I know anything as to the genuineness of the charter. But no one in the twelfth century or later would be likely to invent a benefaction of Earl Godwine.
Orderic, in the passage quoted above (678 C), distinctly speaks of Randolf as having been in the service of the Conqueror, and it must have been in his court that he got the surname which, in so many forms, has stuck to him, and which we find even in Domesday (see N. C. vol. iv. p. 521). The way in which he came by it is thus described――his false accusations have just been mentioned;
“Unde a Roberto dispensatore regio Flambardus cognominatus est, quod vocabulum ei secundum mores ejus et actus quasi prophetice collatum est. Flamma quippe ardens multis factis intulit genti novos ritus, quibus crudeliter oppressit populorum cœtus, et ecclesiæ cantus temporales mutavit in planctus.”
In this last piece of rhetoric we seem to lose the real reason why he was called Flambard, which is not very clear: still less do we get any explanation of the form “Passeflambard.” Lappenberg (ii. 167) says “er habe den Beinamen von der Fackel wegen seiner schon früh bewährten Habsucht erhalten.” But one has some fellow-feeling with his translator (225)――if he would only have written English to match Lappenberg’s German――“It is not easy to conceive how the sobriquet of Flambeau could be given to an individual on account of his covetousness.” Nor is it quite clear that it is covetousness strictly so called of which Orderic speaks. He says elsewhere (786 D); “Erat sollers et facundus, et, licet crudelis et iracundus, largus tamen et plerumque jocundus, et ob hoc plerisque gratus et amandus.”
In a letter to Pope Paschal (Epp. iv. 2) Anselm seems quite carried out of his usual mildness of speech by the thought of Flambard, especially by the thought of his being made a bishop. The letter must have been written just after Paschal and Flambard had received their several promotions. We get the same derivation of the name as in our other extracts; “Quando de Anglia exivi, erat ibi quidem professione sacerdos [see p. 330], non solum publicanus, sed etiam publicanorum princeps infamissimus, nomine Ranulphus, propter crudelitatem similem flammæ comburenti, promine Flambardus; cujus flamma qualis sit, non in Anglia solum, sed in exteris regnis longe lateque innotuit.”
Lappenberg, in the passage quoted above, refers to Thierry’s wonderful account of Flambard (ii. 141);
“Renouf Flambard, évêque de Lincoln, autrefois valet de pied chez les ducs de Normandie, commettait, dans son diocèse, de tels brigandages, que les habitants souhaitaient de mourir, dit un ancien historien, plutôt que de vivre sous sa puissance.”
I cannot find that Thierry speaks of Flambard anywhere else. The “valet de pied” must come from the bit in Orderic about the “pedissequi curiales.” The rest, including the wonderful confusion which makes him bishop of Lincoln, comes, as Lappenberg points out, from a passage in the Winchester Annals, 1092 (cf. 1097), which I shall presently have to refer to. But it is really amazing that Flambard’s loss of property in the New Forest did not cause him to be brought in at some stage or other as an oppressed Saxon.
NOTE T. Vol. i. p. 333.
THE OFFICIAL POSITION OF RANDOLF FLAMBARD.
The exact formal position held by Flambard under William Rufus has in some measure to be guessed at, as the rhetoric of our authorities sometimes veils such matters in rather vague language. Thus his biographer (Anglia Sacra, i. 706) describes him;
“Admixtus enim causis regaliorum negotiorum, cum esset acrioris ingenii et promptioris linguæ, brevi in tantum excrevit ut adepta apud regem familiaritas totius Angliæ potentes et natu quoque nobiliores illum superferret. Totius namque regni procurator constitutus, interdum insolentius accepta abutens potestate, cum negotiis regis pertinacius insisteret, plures offendere parvi pendebat. Quæ res multorum ei invidiam et odium contraxerat. Crebris accusationibus serenum animi regalis ei obnubilare, et locum familiaritatis conabantur interrumpere.”
Here we have a vague description of a position of great influence, without the bestowal of any official title whatever. Orderic (678 B), in first introducing him, comes somewhat nearer to a formal description;
“His temporibus quidam clericus nomine Rannulfus familiaritatem Rufi regis adeptus est, et super omnes regios officiales ingeniosis accusationibus et multifariis adulationibus magistratum a rege consecutus est.”
What then was the formal description of this office which set its holder above all other officers of the King? Lappenberg (ii. 168, p. 226 of the English translation) and Stubbs (Const. Hist. i. 347) both rule, and seemingly with good reason, that the office held by Flambard was really that of Justiciar. Official names were at this time still used so vaguely that it seems to be only in another passage of Orderic (786 C, see p. 559) that he is directly called so; but, as Lappenberg says, his office is distinctly marked by the words of the Chronicler (1099), when he says that the King “Rannulfe his capellane þæt biscoprice on Dunholme geaf þe æror ealle his gemot ofer eall Engleland draf and bewiste.” The same office seems to be meant when Florence (1100) says, “Cujus astutia et calliditas tam vehemens extitit, et parvo tempore adeo excrevit, ut placitatorem ac totius regni exactorem rex illum constitueret.” Henry of Huntingdon uses the same word, when (vii. 21, p. 232 ed. Arnold) he seems to be translating the entry in the Chronicle; “Anno illo [1099] rex Ranulfo placitatori sed perversori, exactori sed exustori, totius Angliæ, dedit episcopatum Dunhelme.” Florence himself, in his entry under the same year, calls him “Rannulfus, quem negotiorum totius regni exactorem constituerat.” (In 1094 he is “Rannulphus Passeflambardus.”) Dr. Stubbs (Const. Hist. i. 348) remarks that these “expressions recall the ancient identity of the gerefa with the exactor, and suggest that one part of the royal policy was to entrust the functions which had belonged to the præfectus or high steward to a clerk or creature of the court.” In the Gesta Pontificum (274) William of Malmesbury, like the Biographer, calls him “totius regni procurator;” in Eadmer (Hist. Nov. 20), he is more vaguely “Ranulfus regiæ voluntatis maximus executor.”
We have seen that Randolf Flambard was a priest (see above, p. 556), and he is spoken of in a marked way as the King’s chaplain. His biographer (Angl. Sac. i. 706) says that “propter quandam apud regem excellentiam, singulariter nominabatur capellanus regis.” And we have seen that he is so called in the Chronicle. The word is found in only one other place in the Chronicle, namely in 1114, where it is said of Thurstan Archbishop of York, “Se wæs æror þæs cynges capelein.” We must remember that, with all the Red King’s impiety and blasphemy, he seems never to have formally renounced the fellowship of Christians, as he was never formally cut off from it. But his choice of an immediate spiritual adviser is at least characteristic.
Some of the passages describing the administration of Flambard are of special importance. That given by William of Malmesbury (iv. 314) I have had occasion to quote piecemeal; but it may be well to give it as a whole;
“Accessit regiæ menti fomes cupiditatum, Ranulfus clericus, ex infimo genere hominum lingua et calliditate provectus ad summum. Is, si quando edictum regium processisset ut nominatum tributum Anglia penderet, duplum adjiciebat, expilator divitum, exterminator pauperum, confiscator alienarum hæreditatum. Invictus causidicus, et tum verbis tum rebus immodicus, juxta in supplices ut in rebelles furens; subinde cachinnantibus quibusdam ac dicentibus,” &c.
The last words of this extract are of special importance (see p. 332). Florence (1100) speaks to much the same effect; “Tanta potestate adepta, ubique locorum per Angliam ditiores ac locupletiores quosdam, rerum terrarumque ablatione, multavit, pauperiores autem gravi injustoque tributo incessanter oppressit, multisque modis, et ante episcopatum et in episcopatu, majores et minores communiter afflixit, et hoc usque ad regis ejusdem obitum.”
Orderic, in his second description (786 C), thus speaks of him;
“Hic nimirum de plebeia stirpe progressus Guillelmo Rufo admodum adulatus est, et machinationibus callidis illi favens super omnes regni optimates ab illo sublimatus est. Summus regiarum procurator opum et justitiarius factus est, et innumeris crudelitatibus frequenter exercitatis exosus, et pluribus terribilis factus est. Ipse vero contractis undique opibus, et ampliatis honoribus, nimis locupletatus est, et usque ad pontificale stemma, quamvis pene illiteratus esset, non merito religionis, sed potentia seculari provectus est. Sed quia mortalis vitæ potentia nulla longa est, interempto rege suo, ut veternus patriæ deprædator a novo rege incarceratus est.”
Henry imprisons him, he goes on to say, “pro multis enim injuriis, quibus ipsum Henricum aliosque regni filios, tam pauperes quam divites, vexaverat, multisque modis crebro afflictos irreverenter contristaverat.” The tradition of him in later times remained to the same effect, as we see by the description of him in Roger of Wendover (ii. 165), which is copied with some improvements by Matthew Paris (Hist. Angl. i. 182);
“Tenuit autem eo tempore rex in custodia Ranulphum, episcopum Dunelmensem, hominem perversum et ad omne scelus pronum et paratum, quem frater ejus rex Willelmus episcopum fecerat Dunelmensem et regni Angliæ apporriatorem et potius subversorem, nam vir fuit cavillosus. Qui cum regi jam dicto nimis fuisset familiaris, constituerat eum rex W[illelmus], quia quilibet sibi similes quærit questores, procuratorem suum in regno, ut evelleret, destrueret, raperet et disperderet, et omnia omnium bona ad fisci commodum comportaret.”
In this extract the “apporriator,” a queer word enough, but the meaning of which is plain, the “vir cavillosus,” and the “quæstores,” all come from Matthew’s own mint.
The Biographer of the Durham bishops has a story to tell of Flambard at this time of his life. Some of those who had suffered by his false accusations and his other devices, seemingly persons about the court, make a plan to get rid of him altogether. A certain Gerald undertakes the task. He meets the Chaplain――Flambard is so called in a marked way throughout the story――in London, and tells him a feigned tale that his old master Bishop Maurice is lying at the point of death in one of his houses on the banks of the Thames――Stepney perhaps; it cannot be Fulham (see Domesday, 127 b) as the story shows――and wishes greatly to see Flambard once more before he dies. He himself had been sent by the Bishop with a boat to bring him with the more speed. Flambard, suspecting no harm, enters the boat with a few followers. The boat goes down the river to a distance which puzzles the Chaplain, who is put off with false excuses. At last he sees a larger vessel anchored in the middle of the stream, and clearly waiting for his coming. He now understands the plot. He is carried into the ship, which he finds full of armed men. With admirable presence of mind, he drops his ring, and his notary (“notarius suus”) drops his seal (“sigillum illius”), into the middle of the river――somewhat after the manner of James the Second――that they may not be used to give currency to any forged documents (“ne per hæc ubique locorum per Angliam cognita, simulata præcepta hostibus decipientibus transmissa rerum perturbarent statum”). Then his men are allowed to go on shore, on taking an oath that they will tell no one that their lord has been carried off. The ship puts out to sea, and presently goes with full sail southward. The Chaplain sits in the stern, while the sailors debate what kind of death he shall die. Two sons of Belial are chosen, who, for the wages of the fine clothes which Flambard has on, will either throw him into the sea or brain him with clubs (“Eliguntur duo filii Belial, qui illum in fluctus projicerent, vel fracto fustibus cerebro enecarent, habituri pretium sceleris optimas quibus tunc indutus fuerat vestes”). The would-be murderers dispute who shall have his mantle, and this delay saves his life. By this time the wind changes; a storm comes from the south, night comes on, the ship is dashed about hither and thither; there is no hope save to try to go back in the direction by which they have come. At this point they again debate the question of Flambard’s death. There is now a fear lest he should escape and avenge the wrong done to him. But, as is usual in such stories, one was found who was of milder mood; his name is not given, but he held the place in the ship next after Gerald (“quidam secundus in navi a Geraldo tantum exhorrens scelus”). He is struck with remorse; he confesses his crime to Flambard, and says that, if he will grant him his pardon, he will do what he can for him and stand by him as his companion in life or death. Then Flambard, whose spirit we are told always rose with danger, speaks to Gerald in a loud voice; Gerald is his man, whose faith is pledged to him; he will not prosper if he ventures on such a crime as this (“Tunc ille, sicut magnanimus semper erat in periculis, ingenti clamore vociferans, quid tu, inquit, Geralde, cogitas? Quid de nobis machinaris? Homo meus es; fidem mihi debes; hanc violare non tibi cedet in prosperum”). He calls on him to give up his wicked purpose; let him name his reward, and he shall have it; he will give him his hand as a sign of his own good faith (“Pete quantum volueris. Ego sum qui plura petitis præstare potero; et ne discredas promissis, ecce manu affirmo quod polliceor”). Gerald, having less faith in his promises than fear of his power, agrees. He goes back to the haven, and receives Flambard in his own house near the shore (“Ille non tam promissis illectus, quam potentia viri exterritus, consentit, eductumque de navi jam in portum repulsa honorifico in sua domo quæ litori prominebat procuravit apparatu”). But, still not trusting Flambard, he took himself off for ever (“Nequaquam credulus promissorum fugæ præsidium iniens æterno disparuit exilio”). Flambard goes back to London with a great array (“Ranulphus vero accitis undique militibus multa armatorum manu grandique strepitu deducitur Lundoniam”). All are amazed to see him whom they had believed to be dead. He takes his old place in the King’s counsels; he rises higher in the King’s favour than ever, and no man dares to form any more schemes against him as long as the King lives.
There seems no reason why this story should not be true; true or false, it is characteristic. Just as in the later case of Thomas of London, we see the greatness to which men of the class of Randolf Flambard could rise――their wealth, power and splendour, their numerous and even knightly following. One is tempted to ask something more about Gerald the author of this daring plot against Flambard’s life. Except that he is said to have gone away for ever, one would be tempted to think that he must be the same as Gerard――the two names are easily confounded――afterwards Bishop of Hereford and Archbishop of York, a man seemingly of much the same class and disposition as Flambard himself, and who appears (see pp. 524, 543) as a ready instrument of the will of William Rufus.
NOTE U. Vol. i. p. 332.
THE ALLEGED DOMESDAY OF RANDOLF FLAMBARD.
I suppose that the story about a new Survey of England, to which Sir Francis Palgrave attached such great importance, may be held to be set aside by the remarks of Dr. Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 302, 348. He rules that in all likelihood Flambard had a hand in the real Domesday, and that Orderic simply made a mistake as to the date, which he is not at all unlikely to have done. Long before Dr. Stubbs wrote, I had come to the conclusion that the story in Orderic, as it stood, could not be accepted. It is found in Orderic’s first account of Flambard (678 C), where he tells us that he persuaded William Rufus to make a new Survey of England. He measured, we are told, by the rope――according, as it would seem, to the measure of Normandy instead of the measure of England――in order in some way to increase the King’s revenue. The words stand thus;
“Hic juvenem fraudulentis stimulationibus inquietavit regem, incitans ut totius Angliæ reviseret descriptionem, Anglicæque telluris comprobans iteraret partitionem, subditisque recideret, tam advenis quam indigenis, quicquid inveniretur ultra certam dimensionem. Annuente rege, omnes carucatas quas Angli hidas vocant, funiculo mensus est et descripsit; postpositisque mensuris quas liberales Angli jussu Eduardi regis largiter distribuerant imminuit, et regales fiscos accumulans colonis arva retruncavit. Ruris itaque olim diutius nacti diminutione et insoliti vectigalis gravi exaggeratione, supplices regiæ fidelitati plebes indecenter oppressit, ablatis rebus attenuavit, et in nimiam egestatem de ingenti copia redegit.”
I do not profess to know exactly what Flambard is here supposed to have done. Sir Francis Palgrave goes into the matter at some length, both in his English Commonwealth (ii. ccccxlvii) and in his History of Normandy (iv. 59). If I rightly understand his meaning, the carucata in the valuation of the Conqueror was not an unvarying amount of the earth’s surface, but differed according to the nature of the land. A carucate of good land would consist of fewer acres than a carucate of bad. Flambard, we are to understand, measured out the land by the rope into carucates of equal size, and exacted from each the full measure of the geld. That is to say, an estate consisting mainly of poor land would be reckoned at many more carucates, and therefore would have to pay a much higher tax, than it had before. I do not say that this may not be the meaning; but the words of Orderic read to me as if they applied to an actual taking away of land, as well as to a mere increase in its taxation. One might almost fancy that, if a man had land of greater extent than answered to his number of carucates according to the new reckoning, the overplus was treated as land to which he had no legal claim, and was therefore confiscated to the crown. But the real question is whether anything of the kind happened at all. It is not mentioned by any writer except Orderic, and it is the kind of thing about which Orderic in his Norman monastery might not be very well informed. It should be remembered, as Lappenberg (ii. 168 of the original, 226 of the English translation) remarks, that Orderic makes no distinct mention of the real Domesday Survey, and this statement may very well have arisen from a confusion between the great Survey of the Conqueror and some of the local surveys of which there were many. Sir Francis Palgrave believed that he had found a piece of Flambard’s Domesday in an ancient lieger-book of Evesham abbey, which the mention of Samson Bishop of Worcester fixes to some date between 1096 and 1112. Of the genuineness of the document there is no doubt; but I cannot see, any more than Lappenberg did, any reason for supposing it to be anything more than a local survey. The passage printed by Sir Francis Palgrave, which he compares with the corresponding part of the Exchequer Domesday――to which it certainly has no likeness――relates wholly to the two towns of Gloucester and Winchcombe, so that it gives no means of seeing whether the number of carucates in any particular estate differs in the two reckonings.
I cannot believe with Lappenberg that “Henricus comes,” who appears among a crowd of not very exalted people as the owner of one burgess at Gloucester, is the future King; it is surely Henry Earl of Warwick.
Dr. Stubbs, while rejecting Orderic’s story altogether, further rejects Sir Francis Palgrave’s explanation of it. He merely hints that Orderic “may refer to a substitution of the short hundred for the long in the reckoning of the hide of land.” But it is safer to look, as he does, on the whole story as a misapprehension.
Of this way of measuring by the rope――whence the Rapes in Sussex――several examples are collected by Maurer, Einleitung zur Geschichte der Mark- Hof- Dorf- und Stadtverfassung, 72. 135. Cf. Herodotus, vii. 23; ὤρυσσον δὲ ὧδε· δασάμενοι τὸν χῶρον οἱ βάρβαροι κατὰ ἔθνεα, κατὰ Σάνην πόλιν σχοινοτενὲς ποιησάμενοι. [ôrysson de hôde; dasamenoi ton chôron hoi barbaroi kata ethnea, kata Sanên polin schoinotenes poiêsamenoi.] In Sussex itself we have (see above, p. 68) the story of the measuring of the lowy of Lewes by the rope, which is at least more likely than the story told by the same writer (Will. Gem. viii. 15) that the earldom of Hereford passed in this way to Roger of Breteuil; “Cui comitatus Herefordi funiculo distributionis evenit.”
The practice, in short, was so familiar that in the Glossary of Rabanus Maurus (Eckhardt, Rer. Franc. Or. ii. 963) “funiculum” is explained by lantmarcha (cf. Du Cange in “funiculus”). So Suger (c. 15, Duchèsne, iv. 296) says how the Epte “antiquo fune geometricali Francorum et Danorum concorditer metito collimitat.”
NOTE W. Vol. i. p. 337.
THE DEALINGS OF WILLIAM RUFUS WITH VACANT BISHOPRICS AND ABBEYS.
The chief point to be insisted on is that the appropriation of the revenues of vacant bishoprics and abbeys by the King was an innovation of William Rufus on the suggestion of Flambard. Such a thing may possibly have happened before, though I am not prepared at this moment with an instance; but, if so, it was merely a case of the irregular way in which Church property, and all property, was often dealt with by those who had the power. It was not a logical deduction from any legal principle, such as it at once became when Flambard had established the doctrine that the greater Church benefices were fiefs held of the King by military service. The passage in the Chronicle which I have quoted at p. 348 does not say in so many words that the practice was an invention of Rufus or his minister, though the tone of the passage certainly implies that their doings were something new. Other writers speak more distinctly.
Next in authority to the Chronicler comes Eadmer, who is naturally full on the subject. He tells us in detail (Hist. Nov. 14) how Rufus dealt with the Church of Canterbury after the death of Lanfranc, speaking more lightly of other cases as being of the same kind;
“Cuncta quæ juris illius erant, intus et extra per clientes suos describi præcepit, taxatoque victu monachorum inibi Deo servientium, reliqua sub censu atque in suum dominum redigi jussit. Fecit ergo ecclesiam Christi venalem: jus in ea dominandi præ cæteris illi tribuens, qui ad detrimentum ejus in dando pretium alium superabat. Unde misera successione singulis annis pretium renovabatur. Nullam siquidem conventionem Rex stabilem esse sinebat, sed qui plura promittebat excludebat minus dantem; nisi forte ad id quod posterior offerebat, prima conventione vacuata, prior assurgeret. Videres insuper quotidie, spreta servorum Dei religione, quosque nefandissimos hominum regias pecunias exigentes per claustra monasterii torvo et minaci vultu procedere, hinc inde præcipere, minas intentare, dominationem potentiamque suam in immensum ostentare.”
He goes on to tell of the sufferings of the monks and of their lay tenants;
“Quidam ipsi ecclesiæ monachi malis ingruentibus dispersi ac missi sunt ad alia monasteria, et qui relicti multas passi tribulationes et improperia. Quid de hominibus ecclesiæ dicam qui tam vasta miseria miseraque vastatione sunt attriti, ut dubitarem, si sequentia mala non essent, an salva vita illorum possent miserius atteri.”
He then mentions the like dealings with other churches, and adds the emphatic words;
“Et quidem ipse primus hanc luctuosam oppressionem ecclesiis Dei indixit, nullatenus eam ex paterna traditione excipiens. Destitutas ergo ecclesias solus in dominio suo tenebat. Nam alium neminem præter se substituere volebat quamdiu per suos ministros aliquid quod cujusvis pretii duceret ab eis extrahere poterat.”
William of Malmesbury (iv. 314) is no less distinct as to the difference between the practice of the two Williams, and as to the agency of Flambard. Having given his character of him (see above, p. 558) he goes on;
“Hoc auctore sacri ecclesiarum honores, mortuis pastoribus, venum locati; namque audita morte cujuslibet episcopi vel abbatis, confestim clericus regis eo mittebatur, quo omnia inventa scripto exciperet, omnesque in posterum redditus fisco regio inferret. Interea quærebatur quis in loco defuncti idoneus substitueretur, non pro morum sed pro nummorum experimento; dabaturque tandem honor, ut ita dicam, nudus, magno tamen emptus.”
He then goes on to contrast in a marked way the conduct of Rufus in these matters with that of his father; “Hæc eo indigniora videbantur, quod, tempore patris, post decessum episcopi vel abbatis omnes redditus integre custodiebantur, substituendo pastori resignandi, eligebanturque personæ religionis merito laudabiles; at vero pauculis annis intercedentibus omnia immutata.”
Orderic has two passages on the subject. One of them (763 C) is a mere complaint; “Defunctis præsulibus et archimandritis satellites regis ecclesiasticas possessiones et omnes gazas invadebant, triennioque seu plus dominio regis omnino mancipabant. Sic nimirum pro cupiditate reddituum, qui regis in ærario recondebantur, ecclesiæ vacabant, necessariisque carentes pastoribus Dominicæ oves lupinis morsibus patebant.” In the other (678, 679) he distinctly speaks of Flambard’s innovation, and goes more at length into the matter than any of the other writers. He has given one of the descriptions of Flambard which has been already quoted (see p. 559); and then goes on;
“Hujus consilio juvenis rex, morientibus prælatis, ecclesias cum possessionibus olim sibi datis invasit, et tam in abbatiis cœnobitas quam in episcopiis episcopales decanos et canonicos cuilibet satellitum suorum subegit. Parcam autem ad victum suum distributionem rerum eis delegabat, et reliquos redditus suæ ditioni mancipabat. Sic avaritia regis in ecclesia Dei nimis exarsit, et nefarius mos, tunc incœptus usque in hodiernum diem perseverans, multis animabus exitio fit. Hac enim de causa cupidus rex pastores ecclesiis imponere differebat, et populus rectore et grex pastore carens lupinis dentibus patebat, et multimodarum toxicatis missilibus culparum sauciatus interibat.”
He then goes on to contrast the greediness and sacrilege of William Rufus with the bounty of the ancient kings and nobles from Æthelberht onwards. He again records and moralizes on the special innovation of Rufus with regard to the treatment of ecclesiastical properties during vacancies;
“Antequam Normanni Angliam obtinuissent, mos erat, ut dum rectores ecclesiarum obirent, episcopus cœnobiorum quæ in sua diocesi erant, res sollicite describeret et sub ditione sua, donec abbates legitime ordinarentur, custodiret. Similiter archiepiscopus episcopii res, antistite defuncto, servabat, et pauperibus vel structuris basilicarum, vel aliis bonis operibus, cum consilio domesticorum ejusdem ecclesiæ distrahebat. Hunc profecto morem Guillelmus Rufus ab initio regni sui persuasione Flambardi abolevit et metropolitanam Cantuariæ sedem sine pontifice tribus annis esse fecit ejusque redditus suis thesauris intulit. Injustum quippe videtur, omnique rationi contrarium, ut quod Deo datum est fidelium liberalitate principum, vel solertia dispensatorum ecclesiasticæ rei laudabiliter est auctum, denuo sub laicali manu retrahatur, et in nefarios sæculi usus distrahatur.”
One effect of this practice must have been to make the monks and canons of the cathedral churches specially anxious to establish their distinct property in some part of the estates of the local church, separate from the property of the bishop. Under Flambard’s system, all the estates of the church were during a vacancy seized by the King, who allowed the monks or canons only such a pittance as he thought good. When episcopal and capitular estates were divided, when the body of canons held certain estates, and each canon by himself held certain others, all in frank-almoign, the seizure into the King’s hands of the estates which the bishop held by military tenure made no difference to the incomes of the canons.
NOTE X. Vol. i. p. 354.
THE APPOINTMENT OF HERBERT LOSINGA TO THE SEE OF THETFORD.
I have said something of the appointment of Bishop Herbert in N. C. vol. iv. p. 420. The notices in our authorities are a little puzzling. The Chronicle contains no mention of his appointment, but we read in 1094 (see p. 448) of his staff being taken from him by the King (“Herbearde Losange þam bisceop of Theotfordan his stæf benam”). This passage, of which I shall have to speak again, seems to have been misunderstood by a copyist of Florence, who, instead of his genuine text, has inserted the words which I have quoted in N. C. vol. iv. p. 420. This account would imply that Herbert bought both the bishopric for himself and the abbey for his father in 1094. Then follows a passage which is found in nearly the same words in both the works of William of Malmesbury (Gest. Reg. iv. 339; Gest. Pont. p. 151);
“Verumtamen erroneum impetum juventutis abolevit pœnitentia, Romam profectus severioribus annis; ubi loci simonicum baculum et annulum deponens, indulgentia clementissimæ sedis iterum recipere meruit. Domum vero reversus, sedem episcopalem transportavit ad insignem mercimoniis et populorum frequentia vicum nomine Nordevic, ibique monachorum congregationem instituit.”
This would place the journey to Rome after 1094. But there can be no doubt that Herbert received the bishopric in 1091, and that his repentance and journey to Rome took place between that year and 1094. He signs as bishop the charter of Osmund Bishop of Salisbury in 1091. And if any suspicion is thought to attach to that instrument, the profession rolls at Canterbury, as certified by Dr. Stubbs, are evidence enough of his consecration and his profession to a future archbishop. His consecration by Thomas of York is also recorded by T. Stubbs, Scriptt. 1707. The true story is given in another manuscript of Florence, the reading of which is given by Mr. Thorpe in a note, and in which the entry of 1094 stands thus; “Ubi etiam Herebertum, Theotfordensem episcopum, pastorali baculo privavit. Latenter enim Urbanum papam adire, et ab eo pro episcopatu quem sibi, et abbatiam quam patri suo Rotberto, ab ipso rege Willelmo mille libris emerat, absolutionem quærere voluit.” The case seems quite clear. Herbert buys the bishopric of the King; he repents, goes to Rome, and is reinvested by the Pope. The King looks on this as an insult to the royal authority and takes his staff from him. But he must have made his peace with the King within the next two years. For at the end of that time he began the translation of his see from Thetford to Norwich. The Annals of Bartholomew Cotton (Anglia Sacra, i. 397) give 1091 as the date of his appointment to Thetford, 1094 as the year of his translation to Norwich, and 1096 as the beginning of the foundation of the church of Norwich. And it appears from the local Annals of Saint Eadmund’s (Liebermann, 275) that he was acting as bishop in East-Anglia, whether by the style of Thetford or of Norwich, in 1095. I cannot help thinking that the date assigned to the translation by Bartholomew Cotton is really a confusion with the date of his temporary deprivation. In either case he ceased to be Bishop of Thetford in 1094; most likely he did not become Bishop of Norwich till 1096. It seems from the Norwich documents in Anglia Sacra (i. 397, 407; Mon. Angl. iv. 13-15) that he began to build the church of Norwich in 1096, and planted monks there in 1101. The local writers are full of panegyrics on his virtues. His letters are printed in the series called Scriptores Monastici, but they do not contain much that is of importance for our history. He has a few correspondents with English names, one of whom, Ingulf by name, was Prior of the newly founded monastery of Norwich.
A third manuscript of Florence, the text of which is printed by Mr. Thorpe in a note, seems to follow the version which was acceptable at Norwich and leaves out the deprivation in 1094; “Hoc anno [1094] venerabilis Herbertus, Theotfordensis episcopus, a Roma cum benedictione apostolica rediit: et a Willelmo rege impetravit ut sedes episcopalis in Norwicensi ecclesia firmaretur, ubi ipse, Christi juvante gratia, pulcherrimam congregationem monachorum ad honorem Sanctæ Trinitatis adunavit.”
The account in William of Malmesbury (Gesta Regum, iv. 338, 339) is evidently meant to make a striking rhetorical contrast between the unregenerate Herbert who bought the see of Thetford and the converted and sanctified Herbert who founded the church of Norwich. He becomes a special enemy of the simony which he had himself once practised; “Sicut tempore istius regis symoniæ causidicus, ita posterius propulsator invictus, neque ab aliis fieri voluit quod a se præsumptum quondam juvenili fervore indoluit.” His fuller picture in his earlier state is that he was “magnus in Anglia symoniæ fomes, abbatiam episcopatumque nummis aucupatus; pecunia scilicet regiam sollicitudinem inviscans, et principum favori non leves promissiones assibilans.” Then follow the well-known verses containing the lines
“Surgit in ecclesia monstrum, genitore Losinga.
“Filius est præsul, pater abbas, Symon uterque.”
William of Malmesbury (iv. 339) makes one very singular remark in recording the restoration of Herbert to his see by the Pope;
“Iterum recipere meruit; quod Romani sanctius et ordinatius censeant ut ecclesiarum omnium sumptus suis potius marsupiis serviant quam quorumlibet regum usibus militent.”
The fling at Roman greediness is in the true English style of all times; but, in the connexion in which it stands, the idea which it suggests is that Herbert, who had once bought his bishopric of the King, bought it again of the Pope.
On the name Losinga see De Rémusat, Anselme, 199; Diez, Etymologisches Wörterbuch, i. 255. It seems to come from laudare.
NOTE Y. Vol. i. p. 374.
THE LETTERS OF ANSELM.
The letters of Anselm throw so much light on the events of the time, they open to us so many bits of local and personal detail, both in England and in Normandy, that we are not only thankful for the help which they give us for this period, but sometimes feel a certain grudge that we have no help of the same kind for earlier periods. Anselm’s correspondents are found in all lands and in all ranks. All his letters are of course in Latin, a tongue which must, one would think, have in many cases needed to be interpreted to those to whom the letters came. A touch or two in any natural language, whether English, French, or whatever may have been the exact form of Romance spoken at Aosta, would have been, not only a relief, but a precious source of knowledge. But for this of course we must not look in these times, whether from Anselm or from any one else.
In several places in the text I have used the letters of Anselm among my most important materials. They form one of our sources for the details of his own appointment to the archbishopric (see p. 400), while his correspondence with Cardinal Walter has given us (see p. 537, and vol. ii. p. 41) some details not found elsewhere with regard to the campaign against Robert of Mowbray. We have also had, in one of his letters to Archbishop Hugh of Lyons (iii. 24, see p. 419), Anselm’s fullest account of the questions which led to the Assembly at Rockingham. The correspondence of course goes on into the reign of Henry, and many of the letters which pass between the King and the Archbishop are in fact state papers, and are, as such, inserted by Eadmer in his history. The immediate historical value of these belongs of course to a time later than that dealt with in the present volume. But the whole series is full of matter bearing on English affairs, and on the affairs of other persons and places in which we are interested. I will therefore go on to mention some of the matters connected with our own and kindred subjects which are suggested by the letters here and there. Many are addressed to Lanfranc, Gundulf, Priors Henry and Ernulf of Canterbury, and others who play parts of more or less importance in our story. A good many are to princes of various lands, many to devout ladies, with the names of some of whom, as those of Countess Adela, the daughter of the Conqueror, and Countess Ida of Boulogne, we are already familiar. There are also the special “ladies and mothers” (dominæ et matres) of the church of Bec, who, without embracing the monastic profession, had given themselves to a devout life under the shadow of the monastery (Chronicon Beccense, Lanfranc, ed. Giles, i. 202; De Nobili Crispinorum Genere, ib. 347; Anselm, Epp. ii. 26, 51; iii. 138). These were Basilia the wife of Hugh of Gournay――who himself, with Hugh of Meulan, the father of the famous Count Robert, became a monk at Bec――her niece Amfrida, and Eva, the widow of William Crispin. There are also a crowd of letters to prelates, nobles, monks, nuns, and persons of all kinds, which throw incidental light on various points in the history of the time.
The close connexion between Bec and England comes out very early in the series. It is perhaps not inappropriate that the earliest mention of England concerns its money, which was so much sought after beyond sea. This is in i. 13, where a moneyer of Arras, who wishes to turn monk, but who has first to pay his debts, is sent by Anselm, not yet abbot, to Lanfranc, already archbishop, who will give him a hundred shillings of English money towards paying them. In i. 15 he writes to Henry, seemingly the future Prior of Christ Church, who was already in England, with a piece of advice which we should hardly have expected from Anselm. Being a monk, he is not to go into Italy to try to defend his sister whom a certain rich man unjustly claims as a slave or villain (“ire de Anglia in Italiam sororem tuam defendere, quam audis quemdam divitem indebitæ servituti calumniose subjicere”). (It is less unreasonable when (iii. 127) he counsels the nun Matilda not to go and visit her lay kinsfolk.) In another letter (i. 35) Anselm speaks of the number of Normans who were crossing into England, and how few of them there were whom he could trust with a letter (“Licet multi Northmanni ad Anglos transeant, paucissimi tamen sunt qui, me sciente, hoc faciant; in quibus paucissimis vix est aliquis quem nostrum legationem sine dilatione et non negligenter facturum confidam”). This is written to Maurice, a monk of Bec, who, with some others, had moved to Canterbury. Of the English monks at Bec (i. 65) I have already said something (see p. 375). When Anselm becomes abbot, and has to deal with the possessions of the monastery in England, the references to English matters naturally thicken, as in ii. 3, 4, 5, 6. This last is addressed to Richard of Clare and his wife Rohais or Rohesia, the daughter of Walter Giffard, of whose name the old commentator Picard oddly says, “insuper nomen Rohais pleno gutture personat Anglismum.” The next letter (iii. 7) shows that some of the Normans who passed into England did not always choose the best parts of our character to copy. For a monk named Henry is rebuked for drinking to excess at gild-meetings. Here an English word thrusts itself in, and we read, “audio quia in multis inordinate se agit, et maxime inbibendo, ita ut in gildis cum ebriosis bibat et cum eis inebrietur.” In ii. 9 Anselm records one of his own journeys to England, and his reception at Lyminge by Lanfranc. We have more references to his own English journeys and those of others in ii. 13, 18, 19, 26 (a most remarkable one, of which I have spoken in N. C. vol. iv. p. 440), 27, 30, 45, 46 (where he prays for the forgiveness of a runaway monk called Moses of Canterbury), 47, 53.
Anselm’s letters as archbishop are of course yet fuller of the English history of the time. The first part of the third book is wholly taken up with the correspondence following on his appointment to the archbishopric. The second letter in this book is a most remarkable letter from Anselm’s friend Osbern (see p. 374) strongly exhorting him to accept the archbishopric. He is not to set up his own will against the will of the whole English Church which calls for him as its chief;
“Ut enim in offenso dulcissimo mihi amore tuo loquar, aut cunctis, quod non credimus, meliorem te fateberis, quippe cui soli revelatum est quod universæ Anglorum ecclesiæ fas non erat revelari; aut facias necesse est quod universalis Anglorum ecclesia suadet, hoc est, ut pontificalis infulæ principatum inter beatos apostolos sustinere non renuas.”
Osbern goes on to say that Anselm has already proof enough that it is God’s will that he shall take the offered post. In so doing, he gives a vivid picture of the circumstances of the appointment and of the Red King’s momentary reform;
“Quid insignius ad te eligendum ostenderet Deus, quam, ut tu promovereris, regem triumphis nobilem, severitate cunctis formidabilem, lecto decubuisse, ad mortem usque ægrotavisse, te autem provecto, statim eundem respiravisse, convaluisse, atque ex fero et immani mitissimum pariter et mansuetissimum redditum fuisse? Quid, inquam, aut effectum dulcius, aut ad innocentiam præstantius, quam te ante lectum ægrotantis violenter pertractum, dextram aliorum dextris impudenter de sinu abstractam, sinistram, ne sororem juvaret, fortiter retentam, virgam, ceteris digitulis pertinaciter occlusis, pollici atque indici crudeliter impactam, post hæc toto corpore e terra te elevatum, episcopalibus brachiis ad ecclesiam deportatum, ibique adhuc te reclamante, et importunis nimis obsistente, Te Deum laudamus esse cantatum? Quid, inquam, vel ad divinas laudes magnificentius vel ad humana spectacula gaudentius, quam quod in tua electione, exclusis omnibus transactæ tempestatis afflictionibus, omnia ad proprii juris possessionem veluti jubileo termino cucurrerunt, dum vincti ad expeditionem, carcerati ad lucem, captivi ad libertatem, oppressi dirissimis exactorum furoribus redierint ad erectionem.”
Osbern clearly had an eye for the comic element in the amazing scene at Gloucester. He then goes on, among other things, to enlarge on the dignity of the church of Canterbury. By a bold figure, he conceives Anselm at the last day called before the judgement-seat, because he had slain thousands of men, while seeking for the safety of a few (“cur non cogitabas infinita hominum millia te occidisse, dum paucorum volebas saluti consulere”). The church of Canterbury, the bride of Christ, consecrated from the beginning by the blessing of his Apostle Peter――the same story which we have heard at Westminster (see N. C. vol. ii. p. 511), and which is told in a slightly different, and still more daring, shape at Glastonbury――enriched by the privileges of so many popes, and to which, saving the authority of the Roman church alone, all the other churches round about were used to look for the defence of their freedom (“ad quam, salva Romanæ et apostolicæ sedis auctoritate, omnium circa regionum ecclesiæ in suis oppressionibus confugere atque ab ea tuendæ libertatis præsidia expetere simul ac suscipere solebant”), now called on Anselm to come to the succour of her liberties, and he refused. Osbern draws out this bold metaphor at great length, and at last disposes of Anselm’s scruples about his allegiance to the Norman Duke and to the church of Bec (“præmonstravi oraculis, comprobavi miraculis; verum tu mihi prætulisti Normanniæ comitem, Deo vermem, viventi mortalem, latitudini Anglorum angustæ solitudinis nidum”). He draws largely on Canterbury legends about Laurence and Dunstan, in order to set forth that church as specially under the divine favour. He, Anselm, had been called in a special way to be their successor (“cum neque sis privata gratia exhibitus, neque mercenarius, neque Simonis discipulus, sed quem et divina vocavit electio et apostolica informavit institutio”), and that call he was bound to obey.
The word “mercenarius” in the extract just made is perhaps meant to contrast the palpable purity of Anselm’s nomination with the appointment of those bishops who, whether they actually bought their sees or not, at least received them us the reward of temporal services. There is another letter (iii. 5) from Osbern to Anselm, which is simply an earnest prayer that he will no longer put off his full admission to the archbishopric.
There are also several letters of Anselm (iii. 1, 4, 7), and one of Gundulf (iii. 3), to the monks of Bec, to which some references have already been made (see pp. 405, 406). There is also one (iii. 6) from the monks of Bec to Anselm, announcing their consent to his acceptance of the archbishopric. It describes the division in the convent, how each monk gave his vote at the call of the president, whom, from this form of words, we may suppose not to have been the prior (“omnes in unum congregati sumus, unusquisque nostrum de sua sententia ab eo qui præsidebat nominatim est requisitus”). The party which opposed Anselm’s removal is described as “suo potius quam vestro utens atque fidens consilio, ardentiori, atque, ut sibi videtur, rectiori, amoris vestri zelo.” The monk Lanfranc, nephew of the Archbishop, a person who is often mentioned in the letters, is to give Anselm a fuller account (“quæ pars alteram aut numero aut ratione præponderet, domnus Lanfrancus, qui interfuit, et omnia hic apud nos gesta sive dicta et vidit et audivit, plenissime per seipsum et sufficienter vobis dicit”). We have here a trace of that odd appeal from the “major pars” to the “sanior,” which seems so utterly to upset every notion of real election, but which is so often heard of in the ecclesiastical debates of the time. The letter of the monks however, though not very positively expressed, seems to have been taken as a release. Other letters follow, in which Anselm recommends (iii. 8) William of Montfort (see Vitæ Abbatum Beccensium, i. 313, Giles) as his successor in the abbacy, and commands the Prior Baldric to keep his place, whoever may be chosen abbot. In another letter (iii. 15) he announces to the monks his coming consecration, and tells them that the King has promised to protect all their rights in England as long as they live according to Anselm’s counsel (“Rex Anglorum vobis mandat salutem et auxilium suum et custodiam rerum vestrarum quæ sunt in sua potestate, quamdiu meo consilio agetis et vivetis. Si autem illud spreveritis, in illo proficuum non habebetis”). He writes also a letter (iii. 10) to Bishop Gilbert of Evreux, of whom we have often heard, but who in Migne’s text is strangely changed into “Eboracensis episcopus,” explaining his motives for accepting the archbishopric. He writes to the same effect (iii. 11) to Fulk Bishop of Beauvais.
Once settled in the archbishopric, Anselm has to write about other matters. The affairs of his province bring much correspondence. Thus he writes (iii. 20) to Bishop Osbern of Exeter and his canons on behalf of the monks of Battle (“monasterium quod vulgo dicitur de Batailla”), who held the church of Saint Olaf at Exeter (see N. C. vol. ii. p. 350, vol. iv. pp. 166, 406; Eadmer, Hist. Nov. 64). He urges that they may be allowed to ring their bells. In a letter (iii. 23) to Ralph Abbot of Seez, afterwards Anselm’s own successor, we get a mention of Bishop Herewald of Llandaff (see N. C. vol. ii. pp. 447, 692), who, it seems, like his brother bishop Wilfrith of Saint David’s (see p. 534), had been suspended from the episcopal office;
“De fratre illo quem dicitis esse ordinatum a quodam episcopo, quia a nobis est interdictus, hoc respondeo, quia si ordinatus est ab episcopo de Walis, qui vocatur Herewardus, nec illis ordinibus, quos ab illo accepit, nostra concessione aliquando utetur, nec ab ullo episcopo reordinari debet.”
The same letter contains Anselm’s views, not on any matter touching Norman or English history, but on a point of obvious morality which had been dealt with long ago by the singer of the Odyssey (i. 260-263);
“De altero vero fratre, qui herbas quæsivit mulieri, quibus virum suum interficeret, quamvis prope vos habeatis de hac re in Northmannia sufficiens consilium, tamen quia a me hoc petitis, nostrum negare non debeo sensum. Si monachus noster esset, et vir ille cujus morti quæsivit herbas ipsis interfectus esset, nunquam ad diaconatum per me, vel ad sacerdotium ascenderet.”
Next follows the great letter to Archbishop Hugh of Lyons, to which I have often referred; and not long after come the important letters (iii. 35, 36), of which also I have often spoken. In iii. 29 Anselm writes to Prior Henry and the rest of the monks of Christ Church――among them Anthony, Ernulf, and Osbern, all names known to us――charging them to leave off disputes, and to enforce holy obedience. Next (iii. 30) comes a letter to Matilda Abbess of Wilton (Wintoniensis in Migne), urging obedience to the diocesan Bishop Osmund of Salisbury. The house of Saint Werburh at Chester, in whose foundation Anselm had had a hand, comes in several times for his notice (iii. 34, 49). A crowd of letters bearing on points in the history later than our time may be passed by, but there are two very singular ones which throw a curious light on English nomenclature. In iii. 133 we have a letter thus addressed;
“Anselmus archiepiscopus amico et filio carissimo Roberto, et sororibus et filiabus suis dilectissimis Seit, Edit et Hydit, Luverim, Virgit, Godit, salutem et benedictionem Dei et suam, si quid valet.”
In the second letter, numbered in Migne iv. 110, the heading is, “Anselmus archiepiscopus, Roberto, Seyt, Edit, carissimis suis filiis, salutem et benedictionem Dei, quantum potest.” The persons addressed seem to have been devout women of some kind, living under the spiritual care of their confessor Robert. The letters tell us nothing as to the position of the persons addressed; they contain nothing but good advice which might be useful in any time or place; but the names seem to have greatly perplexed the German and French biographers of Anselm. Hasse (Anselm von Canterbury, i. 502) says, “Interessant ist besonders ein Brief an die Nonnen eines Klosters in Wales, wie es scheint,” and he adds in a note;
“Ich schliesse dies aus den Namen ‘Seit, Edit, Hydit, Luverim, Virgit, Godit’ die in der Ueberschrift genannt werden. Ob es wohl weibliche Namen sind? In dem Briefe v. 16 [iv. 110, Migne] werden nämlich dieselben Personen als filii (wenn dies nicht ein Druckfehler ist) angeredet, die hier [iii. 133, Migne] filiæ heissen. Ein celtisches Kloster war es jedenfalls; doch kann es auch in Irland oder Schottland gewesen sein.”
M. de Rémusat (S. Anselme de Cantorbéry, 177) had yet further lights;
“On suppose qu’une lettre adressée à Robert son ami et son fils très cher, et à ses sœurs et filles bien-aimées, qui, toutes, portent de bizarres noms, a pour objet d’encourager et de guider une congrégation de femmes qui, sous la direction de quelques missionnaires, essayait de se former dans une province Galloise.”
There is really something very amusing in the difficulties of these scholars over a list of people one of whom bears the very commonest of English female names at the time. M. de Rémusat at least knew the earlier name of Queen Matilda, and can bring it in where it is not to be found in his authorities. For he makes the abbess in the story of Hermann of Tournay (see vol. ii. p. 32, and Appendix EE) enlarge on “la beauté de la jeune Edithe,” though in that story she bears no name at all. “Godit” too, that is “Godgyth” or “Godgifu,” is clear enough; and a little knowledge of English nomenclature will carry us through most of the others, even though some of them may be rare or unique. “Seit” must he “Sigegyth,” a perfectly possible name. “Virgit” would seem to be “Wergyth,” also quite possible, while “Luverim,” which the manuscripts write in two or three ways, is surely a wild miswriting of Leofrune, of a bearer of which name we have heard something in N. C. vol. i. p. 352. “Hydit” is the only name on the list about which there can be any real difficulty; it is clearly one of the -gyth names, though it is not easy to see what the first half of the name is. It is perhaps a little odd when Anselm addresses Robert and his sisterhood as “filii” in the second letter, but the form is surely a lawful shortening of “filius et filiæ.” There is, one would think, a certain pleasing international unity in this picture of a company of Englishwomen, directed, it would seem, by a Norman priest, and so lovingly addressed by a Burgundian archbishop. Anyhow there is no need to doubt of the sex of Eadgyth and Godgyth, or to carry them off to Wales, Scotland, Ireland, or anywhere but the land of their own speech.
Anselm had other nuns and other devout women to write to and about, besides the bearers of these supposed puzzling names. There are several letters, as iii. 125, to a certain Abbess Eulalia. In iii. 70 he writes (in Henry the First’s time) to Athelis or Adeliza, Abbess of Wilton (it is again Wintonia in Migne’s text), comforting her during the banishment of William Giffard, bishop-elect of Winchester (see vol. ii. p. 349). More important is the letter (iii. 51) in which he sends the Archdeacon Stephen to hinder the abbess and nuns of Romsey from paying the worship of a saint to some person lately dead (“Tunc ex toto prohibeant ut nullus honor, qui alicui sancto exhiberi debet, exhibeatur ab illis, aut permittant ab aliquo exhiberi mortuo illi quem quidam volunt pro sancto haberi”). This reminds one of the story of Abbot Ulfcytel and the worship of Waltheof (see N. C. vol. iv. p. 598); but we need not suppose, with the old commentator in Migne, that the person worshipped was Waltheof himself. For it is added that the son of the dead man is to be driven out of the town, and Waltheof left no son. In iii. 84 he writes to Matilda, the first abbess of the house of the Trinity at Caen (see N. C. vol. iv. p. 630), about her intended resignation of her abbey. On other monastic affairs there are several letters, as iii. 61, 118, about the affairs of the abbey of Saint Eadmund, whose prior bears the English name of Ælfhere. He speaks of their tribulations and the patience with which they bore them; the letters therefore most likely refer to the difficulties which followed the appointment of Abbot Robert (see p. 359). There are two letters (iii. 100, 108) addressed to a monk Ordwine, in the latter of which he is coupled with two others, Farman――can he be the aged friend of Eadmer?――and Benjamin, which last name we should hardly have looked for. The first letter is a very important one; it deals with the subject of investitures, and distinctly shows that Anselm had no objection of his own to investiture by the King;
“Non ego prohibeo per me a rege dari investituras ecclesiarum, sed quia audivi apostolicum in magno concilio excommunicare laicos dantes illas investituras et accipientes, et qui accipientes sacrabunt, nolo communicare excommunicatis nec fieri excommunicatus.”
This letter contains also a good deal about the relations of laymen to churches as patrons or “custodes” (see p. 455, and N. C. vol. v. p. 501). In iii. 83, when already Archbishop, Anselm writes to Eustace, the father of Geoffrey a monk of Bec, at his son’s instance, rebuking him for a singular kind of bigamy. His wife, the mother of Geoffrey, had become a nun, and he himself had taken a vow; but had nevertheless married a second wife. Anselm argues that, whether he had taken a vow or not, still, though his wife had become a nun, it is unlawful for him to marry again during her lifetime. Of a more strictly domestic nature are the letters to his sister Richera or Richeza, and her husband Burgundius (iii. 63, 66, 67). Burgundius is meditating a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; and he exhorts him so to order his affairs before he goes that his wife may not lose her estate in case he dies by the way.
Anselm’s correspondence with royal and princely persons in various parts is very large. There are many letters to King Henry, in one of which (iii. 79) he cannot keep himself from the established pun on the name of Henry’s people. He prays, “Ut Deus vos et vestra sic regat et protegat in gloria temporalis regni super Anglos, quatenus in æterna felicitate regnare faciat inter angelos.”
He writes (iv. 81) a letter of rebuke to his old friend Earl Hugh, about the captivity of one monk of Clugny, and the irregular burial of another. He warns the Earl frankly; “Familiariter dico vobis, sicut homini cujus honorem et utilitatem multum amo, quia si non feceritis quod dico, inde blasphemabimini; et ego etiam si non fecero quod ecclesiastica disciplina præcipit inde fieri, a multis blasphemabor.” To his former enemy Count Robert of Meulan he writes a letter during his second exile which is given by Eadmer (Hist. Nov. 82), where the Count is addressed as “dominus et amicus;” in another (iv. 99) he is advanced to “dominus et amicus carissimus,” and is addressed as “vestra dilectio.” The subject of the letter is the endless dispute between York and Canterbury. The mention of the younger Thomas as archbishop-elect fixes the date to about 1108.
Among foreign kings and princes there is (iii. 65) a graceful letter to his native sovereign, Humbert Count and Marquess, written, it would seem, at the time of his first passing into Italy. Nearer to his Norman and English dwelling-places, we find him receiving during his exile a letter from King Philip (iv. 50) offering his sympathy and help, and praying for a visit in his dominions, chiefly for the sake of Anselm’s bodily health;
“Cæterum quia in loco corporeæ sanitati contrario exsulatis, rogamus vos quatenus Galliam nostram vestro adventu visitare dignemini, ibique affectum mentis meæ experiemini, et vestræ consuletis sanitati. Valete.”
A letter to the same effect, which must belong to Anselm’s second exile, follows from Philip’s worthier successor, Lewis (iv. 51).
Both the famous chiefs of the Cenomannian state came in for a share of Anselm’s correspondence. In iv. 11 we have one letter of Anselm to Hildebert, but it contains no historical information. There are several (iii. 53, 160, 161, 162) from Hildebert to Anselm, all theological, and in which we could have wished that the Bishop of Le Mans could have brought himself to speak more civilly of the eastern half of Christendom. More interesting is a letter (iv. 98) addressed “Domino et amico, et in Deo dilectissimo Eliæ comiti,” full of praise and affection for the noble Count, and granting him absolution for some fault not described (“Absolutionem nostram, quam per eundem fratrem, sicut ipse mihi retulit, a me petitis, et corde, et ore, et scriptura dilectioni vestræ mitto, et quotidie pro vobis oro”).
To Countess Ida of Boulogne (see pp. 374, 384) he writes as an intimate friend (iii. 56, 58). In the former of these we hear of her chaplain Lambert, who was in England in her service. He seems to have been a canon of some chapter, and to have been in danger of losing part of the income of his prebend on account of his absence. To Countess Clemence of Flanders, wife of Count Robert of Jerusalem and niece of Pope Calixtus, he writes (iii. 59), praising her and her husband, because certain abbots in Flanders are admitted without the Count’s investiture;
“Relatum mihi est quosdam abbates in Flandria sic constitutos ut comes vir vester nullam cis manu sua daret investituram. Quod sicut non sine ejus prudenti clementia ita non esse æstimo factum absque vestra clementi prudentia.” The play on the Countess’s name reminds one of King Robert and “O constantia martyrum.” In iv. 13 there is a letter to Count Robert, to the same effect as that to his wife.
But the care of Anselm extended to more distant, at least less known lands. He has two letters (iii. 142, 147) to King Murtagh in Ireland; but they deal only with the reforms needed in Murtagh’s own island. So, at a later time than ours, he writes (iii. 132) a letter to Alexander King of Scots, in which he mentions certain monks whom he had sent into Scotland at the request of the late King Eadgar, of whom he speaks most highly. When in a letter to a King of Scots we read that “quidem reges, sicut David, sancte vixerunt,” we are apt to forget that, in Alexander’s reign, the reference must still be to the King of Israel. Where such a reference would have been strictly to the merits of a predecessor, namely, in two letters to King Baldwin of Jerusalem (iv. 10, 36), it is not found; and the exhortations are very general.
Nor does Anselm forget the Scandinavian lands. He writes (iv. 92) a letter of good advice to Hakon Earl of Orkney, who had received the earldom of his father Paul after the death of Magnus of Norway. He writes about the religious ignorance of the people, which he hopes will be reformed by the bishop who had lately been sent to them. As Hakon only received his earldom in 1105, this letter must belong to the last years of Anselm’s life. The murder of Saint Magnus by Hakon, followed by the murderer’s repentant pilgrimage to Jerusalem, did not happen till after Anselm’s death (see Torfæi Orcades, p. 86, where the date of Magnus’s murder is fixed to 1110). He has two letters (iii. 143, iv. 90) about the newly-founded archbishopric of Lund in Denmark. At another end of Christendom he writes to Diacus, Bishop of Saint James of Compostella. The Spanish Bishop asks for English help against the Saracens, and he answers that England is so beset by wars at home that he fears that no help can be given.
To the Popes Urban and Paschal he naturally writes some very important letters, some of which have been already referred to. There is one (iii. 37) to Urban, in which he sets forth his strong desire to come to Rome, and alleges the wars which were raging everywhere as the cause of the King’s unwillingness to let him go.
“Quia bellis undique quatimur, hostiles impetus indesinenter et insidias adversantium metuimus, dominus noster rex extra regnum me procedere hactenus non permisit, nec adhuc procedere posse ullatenus assensit…. Sed inter hæc, quo labore, quaque anxietate gravatus, iter arripere conarer, si omnipotens Deus et in regno Anglorum bella sedaret, et in regnis et regnorum provinciis, per quas ad vos est eundum, illam pacem tribueret, quemadmodum oporteret et expediret iter ipsum explere liceret.”
This letter one would have been inclined to place in 1097; but, unless we can understand the “regnum Anglorum” as taking in Wales, the mention of wars would seem to fix it to the time of the rebellion of Robert of Mowbray in 1095, when the war did indeed affect Anselm’s movements. In the same letter he makes intercession for Fulk Bishop of Beauvais, one of the prelates to whom he had written at the time of his own appointment to the archbishopric (see iii. 11, and above, p. 576), on account of some matter which is not explained.
To Paschal he writes a most important letter (iii. 40) at some time during the short interval between Paschal’s election and William’s death; here he sets forth his own case very distinctly;
“Videbam in Anglia multa mala quorum ad me pertinebat correctio, quæ nec corrigere nec sine peccato meo tolerare poteram. Exigebat enim a me rex ut voluntatibus suis, quæ contra legem et voluntatem Dei erant, sub nomine rectitudinis assensum præberem. Nam sine sua jussione apostolicum nolebat recipi aut appellari in Anglia, nec ut epistolam ei mitterem aut ab eo missam reciperem, vel decretis ejus obedirem. Concilium non permisit celebrari in regno suo ex quo rex factus jam per tredecim annos. Terras ecclesiæ hominibus suis dabat; in omnibus his et similibus si consilium petebam, omnes de regno ejus etiam suffraganei mei episcopi negabant se consilium daturos nisi secundum voluntatem regis.”
Here we have Anselm’s grievances very clearly set forth, and without any kind of exaggeration or strong language of any kind. We may also mark the legal term “rectitudo.” He next goes on to describe the council of Winchester;
“Hæc et multa alia, quæ contra voluntatem et legem Dei sunt, videns, petii licentiam ab eo sedem adeundi apostolicam, ut inde consilium de anima mea et de officio mihi injuncto acciperem. Respondit rex me in se peccasse pro sola postulatione hujus licentiæ, et proposuit mihi ut aut de hac re, sicut de culpa, satisfacerem, et securum illum redderem ne amplius peterem hanc licentiam, nec aliquando apostolicum appellarem, aut de terra ejus cito exirem.”
He then describes the dealings of the King with the estates of the see after he was gone, and speaks of the dealings of Urban with the King, in the style in which it was perhaps becoming to speak to a Pope of the dealings of his predecessor;
“Rex, mox ut de Anglia exivi, taxato simpliciter victu et vestitu monachorum nostrorum, totum archiepiscopatum invasit et in proprios usus convertit. Monitus et rogatus a domino papa ut hoc corrigeret contempsit, et adhuc in hoc perseverat.”
He then asks the Pope that he may not be commanded to return to England, “nisi ita ut legem et voluntatem Dei et decreta apostolica voluntati hominis liceat mihi præferre: et nisi rex mihi terras ecclesiæ reddiderit, et quidquid de archiepiscopatu propter hoc quia sedem apostolicam petii, accepit.”
Presently a wholly new set of questions was opened by the accession of Henry and the second controversy. Anselm’s account, it will be seen, strictly agrees with the narrative of Eadmer, and we may again mark that he does not speak of lay investitures as a grievance. That is to say, William Rufus had not been to blame, or at least Anselm had not found out that he was to blame, for continuing the ancient custom of his kingdom. Henry was to blame because he claimed to continue that right in the teeth of the new decrees, and of the new lights which Anselm had learned from them.
NOTE Z. Vol. i. p. 395.
ROBERT BLOET.
There is something startling in the simple way in which the Chronicler (1093) puts together the appointment of Anselm and that of Robert Bloet; “And þæt arcebiscoprice on Cantwarbyrig, þe ær on his agenre hand stód, Anselme betæhte, se wæs ær abbot on Bǽc, and Rodbeard his cancelere þæt biscoprice on Lincolne.” Florence translates, with a word or two of explanation inserted; “Insuper Anselmo Beccensi abbati qui tunc in Anglia morabatur, Dorubernensem archiepiscopatum, et cancellario suo Rotberto, cognomento Bloet, Lindicolinensem dedit præsulatum.” But this way of speaking is quite of a piece with the small amount of notice which the Chronicler seems throughout to give to Anselm and his affairs. That is, we are used to read the story of Anselm in Eadmer in the minutest detail, and we are surprised to find his story told in the Chronicle only on the same scale as the stories of other people.
We have heard of Robert Bloet before, as one high in the confidence of both Williams, father and son (see vol. i. p. 13). As a bishop, he is one of those persons of whom William of Malmesbury wrote an account which he afterwards found it expedient to alter. In his received text (Gest. Pont. 313) he is brought in in a singular and sneering way. The writer had just recorded the death of Remigius before he was able to consecrate the minster, and he then gives this account of his successor;
“Rem dilatam successor ejus non graviter explevit, utpote qui in labores alterius delicatus intrasset; Rotberto Bloet homini nomen. Vixit in episcopatu annis paulo minus xxxᵗᵃ, decessitque procul a sede apud Wdestoche, cum regio lateri cum alio quodam episcopo adequitaret, subito fato interceptus. Cetera satis suis hilaris et parum gravis, negotiorum scientia secularium nulli secundus, ecclesiasticorum non ita. Ecclesiam cui sedit ornamentis pretiossissimis decoravit. Defuncti corpus exinteratum, ne tetris nidoribus vitiaret aerem. Viscera Egnesham, reliqua Lindocolinæ sepulta sunt. Monachos enim qui apud Stou fuerunt vivens Eglesham [Egnesham] migraverat.”
Here we have the implied picture of a bishop of the more worldly sort, and we can see that he was not in good favour with monks. But no particular fault is brought against him. But in the earlier version, the text, after the words “homini nomen,” reads, “Qui nihil unquam pensi fecerit, quominus omnis libidinis et infamis et reus esset. In cunctam religionem protervus, monachos Stou summoveri et apud Egnesham locari jussit. Gratis malus et gloriæ antecessoris invidus, a vicinis monachis sua commoda præverti causabatur. Quocirca, si monachi Egneshamnenses Dei dono pulchrum incrementum acceperint, procul illi gratias, quibus eximium se gloriabatur commodum inferre si vel illos sineret vivere.”
There is enough here to show that Robert Bloet was thoroughly disliked by the monks everywhere on account of his dealings with their brethren at Stow in removing them to Eynsham. His dislike to monks is also witnessed by the Chronicler, 1123, in recording the election of William of Corbeuil to the see of Canterbury (see N. C. vol. v. p. 236); “Ðis wæs eall ear gedon ðurh se biscop of Seresbyrig, and þurh se biscop of Lincolne, ær he wære dead, forði þet næfre ne luueden hi munece regol, ac wæron æfre togænes muneces and here regol.”
On the other hand, Robert Bloet has not been without his admirers and defenders both in his own time and since. Henry of Huntingdon, who was brought up in his court, always speaks of him with the deepest affection; and in our time he has found a gallant champion in Mr. Dimock in his preface to the seventh volume of Giraldus, pp. xxiii. et seq. Henry, like Florence, has the Chronicle before him in recording the appointments of Anselm and Robert, and he too makes (vii. 3. p. 216) his insertions. With him the passage stands thus;
“Dedit [junior Willelmus] archiepiscopatum Cantuariæ Anselmo abbati, viro sancto et venerabili. Roberto quoque cognomento Bloet cancellario suo, dedit episcopatum Lincoliæ, quo non erat alter forma venustior, mente serenior, affatu dulcior.”
Further on he records his death in 1123 (p. 244), and gives him a splendid epitaph. He is “pontificum Robertus honor,” and his special virtues fill two elegiac couplets;
“Hic humilis dives, (res mira,) potens pius, ultor Compatiens, mitis cum pateretur erat. Noluit esse suis dominus, studuit pater esse, Semper in adversis murus et arma suis.”
He speaks of him again in the letter “de Contemptu Mundi” (p. 299), where he gives a glowing description of the splendour of his court, and speaks of him as “ipse quasi pater et deus omnium æstimatus,” and as “justitiarius totius Angliæ et ab omnibus summe formidatus.” He then goes on to quote him as an example, like so many others, of the uncertainty of earthly prosperity. He tells how he was troubled before his death by law-suits brought by some inferior justiciar, and then records his death at Woodstock. He adds, “Fuit autem Robertus præsul mitis et humilis, multos erigens, nullum deprimens, pater orphanorum, deliciæ suorum.” Further on (p. 305) we learn that Robert Bloet had a son named Simon, who was born before he was Bishop, but whom he made Dean of Lincoln while he was very young. Simon’s prosperity and unhappy end are also among the instances which are to lead to “contemptus mundi.” He is thus brought in;
“Decanum nostrum Simonem non prætereo, qui filius Roberti præsulis nostri fuit; quem genuerat dum cancellarius Willelmi magni regis esset. Qui, ut decebat, regaliter nutritus, et adhuc impubis decanus noster effectus, in summam regis amicitiam et curiales dignitates mox provectus est.”
We may be sure that it was the existence of this son which caused Bishop Robert to be reproached with looseness of life. Yet Simon may very likely have been born in lawful wedlock, though it is hardly safe to assume with Mr. Dimock that he certainly was. But, when Robert had once become an object of monastic dislike, stories grew as usual; it was found out that his tomb in Lincoln minster was haunted. So says the so-called Bromton (X Scriptt. 988), who is copied by Knighton (2364);
“Episcopatum Lincolniensem, per mortem sancti Remigii vacantem, Roberto cognomento Bloet cancellario suo, viro quidem libidinoso, dedit, qui prædictam ecclesiæ dedicationem Lincolniensis postea segniter explevit. Hic demum apud Wodestoke a latere regis recedens obiit et exenteratus est, cujus viscera apud monasterium de Eynesham quod ipse fundaverit, cetera apud Lincolniam sunt humata, ubi satis constabat loci custodes nocturnis umbris esse agitatos, quousque ille locus missis et eleemosynis piaretur.”
The reputation which Bishop Robert left behind him at Lincoln we learn from Giraldus and John of Schalby in the seventh volume of Dimock’s Giraldus. Giraldus himself (p. 31) brings him in as “prudentia et probitate conspicuus.” He records his gifts to his church, and his doubling the number of its prebends. From a Lincoln point of view, he highly approves of the translation of the monks of Stow to Eynsham; but he seems not to like the separation of Ely from the diocese of Lincoln (see N. C. vol. v. p. 229), and he speaks of Robert’s “inconsiderata largitio” and “alia sui deliramenta” in charging his see with the gift of a mantle of sable, worth a hundred pounds, to the King. John of Schalby (195) copies Giraldus, but abridges him, and leaves out some of his epithets both of praise and blame.
The death of Bishop Robert in 1123 is recorded by several of our writers, but there is no account so graphic as that in our own tongue. The King is riding in his deerfold at Woodstock with the two bishops, Robert of Lincoln and Roger of Salisbury, on either side of him. The three ride and talk. The Bishop of Lincoln suddenly sinks, and says to the King, “Lord King, I die (Laferd kyng, ic swelte).” The King gets down from his horse, lifts him in his arms, and has him carried into the house, where he soon dies (“Se king alihte dune of his hors, and alehte hine betweox his earmes, and let hine beran ham to his inne, and wearð þa sone dead”). Does this “inne” mean the King’s own house at Woodstock, or any separate quarters of the Bishop, like the “hospitium” of Anselm at Gloucester and elsewhere?
There is something odd in the Bishop’s last words being given in English. The King knew that tongue, and the Bishop may very likely have done so; but we can hardly fancy that they spoke it to one another.
The name “Bloet,” according to M. de Rémusat (Anselme, 160), is the same as “blond.”
NOTE AA. Vol. i. p. 553.
THE MISSION OF ABBOT GERONTO.
I am not aware that this mission of the Abbot of Dijon has hitherto found any place in any narrative history of the times of William Rufus. And I confess that it is not without a certain misgiving that I bring it in. It is certainly remarkable that our own writers should with one consent pass by an event of this kind; but it would be yet more amazing if it were sheer mistake or invention on the part of the foreign writer who records it. It is one of those cases in which, without any actual contradiction, it is very hard to bring a certain statement into its right place. There is nothing in the story told by Hugh of Flavigny which is really inconsistent with the narrative of Eadmer; our only difficulty is how it came that, if these things happened, Eadmer, who could not fail to have known of them, did not think them worthy of any place in his very minute narrative. This difficulty we must get over how we can. Otherwise the evidence of Hugh of Flavigny is in a certain sense as good as that of Eadmer himself. He stood to Abbot Geronto in much the same relation in which Eadmer stood to Anselm. In his narrative, Geronto is sent by the Pope on a mission to Normandy and England, and Hugh himself, a monk of Geronto’s monastery, comes with him. For the mere facts therefore of Geronto’s mission Hugh is as good a witness as Eadmer; but, as a foreigner on a short visit, he could not be expected to have the same thorough knowledge of English affairs as Eadmer, or any other English, or even Norman, writer. There is to us at least something very strange in his tone towards Anselm, or rather in the lack of any mention of Anselm at all. He never speaks of him by name, and the only fact which he records of him is the very strange one which I have mentioned in p. 535, that at some time, seemingly at the reception of the pallium, Anselm took an oath to the Pope, with a reservation of his duty to the King. One hardly sees how far he means to blame Anselm. The person chiefly blamed is Cardinal Walter; Anselm comes in, in a strange casual way, between the King and the Cardinal.
I have given the whole or nearly the whole of Hugh’s story in the foot-notes to those parts of the text which are founded upon his account. He goes on a little later in his story (Pertz, viii. 495, 496) to record the death of William Rufus, and to say something more about English affairs in general. It is plain that his friends in England found him perfectly ready to believe the wildest tales that they chose to tell him. At the same time, the tales that they did tell him are such as could hardly have come into any man’s head to tell, except in the reign of William Rufus. It is Hugh of Flavigny who tells us those specially amazing stories to which I have referred in vol. i. p. 544 and p. 503. He has also (496) some odd notices of the dogs of the city of London, which were small, but very fierce, and which gathered together by night in front of Saint Paul’s church, so that no one could dare to pass by. He has also a good deal to say about those natural phænomena of the reign of which we have heard a good deal from other writers. He tells the story of the storm which visited the church of Saint Mary-le-bow, with some further embellishment, that “quadros super muri altitudinem sitos, supra quos tectum stabilitum erat, usque ad septem milliaria evolare fecit.” And while two servants of the church were sleeping in one bed, a beam was driven down between them into the earth without doing them any harm, except nearly frightening them to death; “In eadem etiam ecclesia jacebat quidem ædituus cum alio quodam in lecto uno, et inter medium eorum, cum jacerent distante inter se spacio, una trabium vento acta per medium lecti terram intravit, ut vix summitas ejus appareret, nec læsit jacentes, nisi quod timore pene exanimati sunt.”
Hugh’s Chronicle, in two books, reaches from the Christian æra to the year 1102. He was born at Verdun in 1065. He was a monk, first at Verdun, then at Flavigny in the diocese of Toul, then at Dijon, and lastly Abbot of Flavigny. Jarento or Geronto――I hardly know how to spell his name――was in the close confidence of Gregory the Seventh and his successors. There is a letter of Anselm’s (iii. 87) addressed to Geronto; but it contains nothing bearing on his mission to England. It is all concerned with the affairs of certain monks at Dijon and Chartres.
NOTE BB. Vol. ii. p. 9.
THE EMBASSIES BETWEEN WILLIAM RUFUS AND MALCOLM IN 1093.
The fullest and clearest narrative of the transactions between William Rufus and Malcolm which led to their rupture at Gloucester in 1093 comes from the Chronicle, while some particular points are given at greater length by Florence. In the Chronicle the story runs thus;
“Ða æfter þisson sende [se] cyng of Scotlande and þære forewarde gyrnde þe him behaten wæs, and se cing W. him steofnode to Gloweceastre and him to Scotlande gislas sende, and Eadgar æþeling æfter, and þa men syððan ongean, þe hine mid mycclon wurðscipe to þam cynge brohtan. As þa þa he to þam cynge com, ne mihte he beon weorðe naðer ne ure cynges spæce ne þæra forewarde þe him ær behatene wæron, and forði hi þa mid mycclon unsehte tohwurfon.”
Here we have very clearly an embassy of complaint sent by Malcolm to William――an invitation or summons, whichever it is to be called, to the Gemót at Gloucester sent by William to Malcolm and accompanied by hostages for his safety――a second embassy from William to Malcolm, with Eadgar at its head, in whose company Malcolm’s ambassadors went back to Scotland and Malcolm himself came to England. All this is cut short by Florence, who however distinctly affirms the going to and fro of some embassies, while it is from him that we get the date and a fuller account of what happened at Gloucester. His narrative stands thus;
“Rex Scottorum Malcolmus, die festivitatis S. Bartholomæi Apostoli [24 Aug.], regi Willelmo juniori, ut prius per legatos inter eos statutum fuerat, in civitate Glaworna occurrit, ut, sicut quidam primatum Angliæ voluerunt, pace redintegrata, stabilis inter eos amicitia firmaretur; sed impacati ab invicem discesserunt; nam Malcolmum videre aut cum eo colloqui, præ nimia superbia et potentia, Willelmum despexit.”
Colloqui is the technical word which we so often come across. The meeting of the two kings would have been a colloquium or parliament. It is from Florence again that we get all the technical law. His account goes on thus;
“Insuper etiam illum [Malcolmum] ut secundum judicium tantum suorum [Willelmi] baronum, in curia sua rectitudinem ei faceret, constringere voluit; sed id agere, nisi in regnorum suorum confiniis, ubi reges Scottorum erant soliti rectitudinem facere regibus Anglorum, et secundum judicium primatum utriusque regni, nullo modo Malcolmus voluit.”
William of Malmesbury (iv. 311) loses the fact of the embassies and the summons in a cloud of words;
“Multis controversiis utrobique habitis, et fluctuante propter utrorumque animositatem justitia, Malcolmus ultro Gloecestram venit, æquis duntaxat conditionibus, multus pro pace precator.”
With regard to more modern discussions, I do not know that I can do more than give the reader the same references which I gave in N. C. vol. v. p. 120. But Mr. Robertson (i. 144 note) certainly has reason when he says that “it does not follow that Malcolm spoke feudal Latin because Florence wrote it.” One would be glad to have the actual words in French, English, or, more precious than all, Irish. (This sets one thinking what languages Malcolm may have spoken. We know that he understood English, whether he learned it at the court of Eadward, or afterwards from his wife. In one or other of those schools he would most likely also pick up French. Margaret herself may also have learned High Dutch, and possibly Magyar, from her parents.) But I can make nothing of Mr. Robertson’s strange comment that “it is singular to mark how nearly all the English authorities accuse Malcolm of ‘a breach of faith’ because he resented the conduct of William, whilst they pass over without notice the glaring ‘breach of faith’ on the part of their own king.” Who charges Malcolm with any breach of faith, except William of Malmesbury in the almost casual passage, iii. 250? And what more could he wish the Chronicler and Florence to say against William Rufus than what they do say? Mr. Robertson’s criticism is more to the purpose when he attacks the words of William of Malmesbury, iv. 311; “Nec quicquam obtinuit, nisi ut in regnum indemnis rediret, dedignante rege dolo capere quem virtute subegisset.” He remarks that “the safe-conduct and the hostages detract something from this much vaunted magnanimity, but Malmesbury would sacrifice a good deal for the sake of a well-turned period.” It is certainly hard to see what William had done to Malcolm which could be called “virtute subegisse;” but Mr. Robertson fails to notice that this particular scruple is characteristic of William Rufus. Careless of his faith in so many other cases, he is always careful to observe a safe-conduct.
NOTE CC. Vol. ii. p. 16.
THE DEATH OF MALCOLM.
The last invasion of England by Malcolm was clearly made in reprisal for the treatment which he had received at Gloucester. The words of the Peterborough Chronicler are very remarkable. They seem to describe a war which is acknowledged to be just in itself, but which is carried on with needless cruelty;
“And se cyng Melcolm ham to Scotlande gewænde. Ac hraðe þaes þe he ham com he his fyrde gegaderode.”
Most of the other writers fail to bring out the connexion both of time and of cause and effect between the scene at Gloucester and the invasion which led to Malcolm’s death at Alnwick. Perhaps we may count Matthew Paris, the zealous panegyrist of Malcolm, as an exception. He has nothing to tell us about Malcolm’s coming to Gloucester; but, having mentioned William’s sickness there, which he wrongly places in 1092, he goes on (i. 43);
“Eodem anno pius rex Scotorum Malcolmus, cujus actus in benedictione vivunt immortales, cum non immerito contra tirannum Willelmum II. regem sibi injuriantem guerram movisset, interceptus est subito et, positis insidiis, interemptus.”
So in a later passage (i. 47) he speaks of Robert of Mowbray overcoming Malcolm “proditiose.” Moreover several even of the English writers seem to imply that there was something treacherous about the way in which Malcolm met his death. The words of the Chronicler are, “hine þa Rodbeard se eorl of Norðhymbran mid his mannan unwæres besyrede and ofsloh.” And directly after he describes the grief of Margaret on hearing “hyre þa leofstan hlaford and sunu þus beswikene.” William of Malmesbury mentions the death of Malcolm twice, and in rather different tones. The first time (iii. 250) he seems to jumble up together Malcolm’s two invasions, leaving out all about the meeting at Gloucester. He had said that through the whole reign of the Conqueror Malcolm “incertis et sæpe fractis fœderibus ævum egit,” and adds;
“Filio Willelmi Willelmo regnante, simili modo impetitus, falso sacramento insequentem abegit. Nec multo post, dum fidei immemor superbius provinciam inequitaret, a Roberto de Molbreia comite Northanhimbriæ, cum filio cæsus est.”
In the second place (iv. 311), after describing the meeting at Gloucester, he adds; “Idem proxima hyeme, ab hominibus Roberti comitis Humbrensium, magis fraude quam viribus occubuit.” No one would think from this that Malcolm had gone back to Scotland, got together his army, and invaded Northumberland. It would rather suggest the idea that he was attacked on his way back from Gloucester. And this comes out more strongly in the very confused account of Orderic, 701 C. He mixes up the events of 1091 and 1093. After the first conference by the Scots’ water, the two kings go quietly together into England; then we read;
“Post aliquod tempus, dum Melcoma rex ad sua vellet remeare, muneribusque multis honoratus a rege rediret pacifice, prope fines suos Rodbertus de Molbraio, cum Morello nepote suo et militibus armatis occurrit, et ex insperato inermem interfecit. Quod audiens rex Anglorum, regnique optimates, valde contristati sunt, et pro tam fœda re, tamque crudeli, a Normannis commissa, nimis erubuerunt. Priscum facinus a modernis iteratum est. Nam sicut Abner, filius Ner, a Joab et Abisai, de domo David pacifice rediens, dolose peremptus est, sic Melcoma rex, de curia Guillelmi regis cum pace remeans, a Molbraianis trucidatus est.”
This is one of those sayings of Orderic by which we are now and then fairly puzzled. He gets hold of a scriptural or classical parallel, and seems to be altogether carried away by it. It is hard to see the likeness between the cases of Malcolm and Abner; but it is harder to see why the deed is in a marked way attributed to “Normanni,” who seem to be distinguished from the “rex Anglorum regnique optimates.” In what sense were Morel and Robert of Mowbray Norman, in which the King and the great mass of the “optimates” were not Norman just as much?
Confused as these two last accounts are, they still suggest that there was something about the way in which Robert and Morel contrived the death of Malcolm which William Rufus would have looked on as not quite consistent with the character of a “probus miles.” The one word “beswikene” in the Chronicle doubtless goes for more than any amount of Latin rhetoric, though its force is a little weakened by its not occurring in the actual narrative of Malcolm’s death, but in the account of Margaret’s grief at hearing of it, at which point most of our writers put on more or less of the tone of hagiology. But the only writer who gives us any details is Fordun (v. 20), in a passage which professes to come from Turgot, on which see the remarks of Mr. Hinde in his Simeon, p. 261. In his story we read how Malcolm,
“Cum maximam prædam ex Anglia, more solito, ultra flumen These, de Clefeland, Richemond, et alibi sæpius adduceret, castrumque de Aylnwick, sive Murealden, quod idem est, obsideret, obsessosque sibi rebellantes oppido affligeret, hi, qui inclusi fuerant, ab omni humano excludebantur auxilio.”
The besieged, having no other chance, take to treachery. One man offers himself to go on the desperate venture; he makes his way to the Scottish camp, and asks for the King;
“Quærentibus causam inquisitionis dixit, se castrum regi traditurum, et in argumentum fidei claves ejusdem in hasta sua coram omnibus portavit oblaturus. Quo audito rex, doli nescius, incaute a tentorio inermis exiliens et minus provide, occurrit proditori; at ille, quæsita opportunitate, inermem regem armatus transfixit, et, latibula silvæ vicinæ festinanter ingressus, eorum manus evasit.”
Then follows the death of the King’s son Eadward;
“Turbato igitur exercitu, dolor dolorem accumulat: nam Eadwardus regis primogenitus a Northumbris lethaliter vulneratur.”
He dies three days later “apud Eardwardisle foresta de Jedwood,” and was buried at Dunfermline “juxta patrem.”
It is really impossible that this can be a genuine bit of Turgot. There is nothing anywhere else about a siege of Alnwick, and Mr. Hinde pertinently raises the question whether there was anything at Alnwick to besiege. At any rate, it is strange that the defenders of Alnwick, or anybody else whom Malcolm might come across in Northumberland, should be called “rebellantes” against him. There is a very mythical sound about the alleged form of Malcolm’s death. In the Tapestry (see N. C. vol. iii. p. 240) keys are handed to a victorious besieger on the point of a spear; but it is from the walls of the besieged place, and they are received in the like sort. They surely would not be presented in this way in the King’s own camp. And, if Malcolm was killed in this way, how came Eadward to be mortally wounded? Mr. Hinde adds;
“The ridiculous tale of the person who pierced the king’s eye, receiving from that exploit the designation of ‘Piercy, quod Anglice sonat perforare oculum,’ is interpolated in some MSS. of Fordun. This story must necessarily have been invented after the Percy family became the possessors of Alnwick, and so gave point, if not probability, to the fiction.”
I suspect that Malcolm was killed in some ambush or in some other way unlike open battle. Then sympathy for Margaret called up――except at Durham and other parts more nearly concerned――sympathy for Malcolm. Then the Chronicler, in this state of mind, used the harsh word “beswikene,” and so a tale of actual treachery grew up. The version in Fordun gives us the story in the form of a detailed legend; in Orderic the tale itself is still vague; but the events which went before are so altered as to make any attack on Malcolm treacherous. In that version, he is going home from the King’s court in the King’s peace. In the true version, he is invading England, perhaps on just grounds in his own eyes, certainly on grounds which made his invasion by no means wonderful. Still resistance to him was a rightful operation of war, unless there was any actual treachery in the form which the attack took. That such there was we have no direct evidence; but there must have been something or other to account for the tone of so many writers. Florence is colourless; so is Henry of Huntingdon.
The Hyde writer, as usual, takes a line of his own. He speaks (301) of “quidam Robertus Northamhumbrorum comes, vir dives et potens, qui regem Scotorum Malcolmum, patrem Matildis reginæ, bellando cum toto pene exercitu interfecit.” It is not unlikely that the fact that Malcolm was not only the husband of the sainted Margaret, but also the father of the popular Queen Eadgyth-Matilda, won for him a measure of sympathy after his death which he had not enjoyed while he was alive. Indeed we get this relation distinctly set forth by the Continuator of William of Jumièges (viii. 8), who after recording the life-long imprisonment of Robert of Mowbray, adds, “Dictum est a pluribus, hanc talionem sibi redditam fuisse, quia regem Scotiæ, patrem videlicet nobilissimæ Mathildis postea reginæ Anglorum, dolose peremerat.”
Alnwick, as the place of Malcolm’s death, and of the capture of another Scottish king in the next century, awakens a certain amount of real interest beyond the range of mere legend and misapplied sentiment. The late Mr. Hartshorne wrote with a strange feeling of devotion towards anything that did profess and call itself Percy; but he gives us the facts. All that need be known about Alnwick will be found in his papers in the Archæological Institute’s second Newcastle volume, p. 143. Robert of Veci appears in Domesday in several shires as far north as Lincoln, but of course we cannot track him in the unsurveyed parts of Northumberland. Of the original Percy we have heard something in various parts in N. C. vol. iv. pp. 215, 295, 789; vol. v. p. 773. The second set of Percies, those of Louvain, got to Alnwick by a grant from Bishop Antony Beck in 1309 (Hartshorne, ii. 150, 152). Very little can be made of the Alnwick Chronicle printed in Mr. Hartshorne’s Appendix. What can we say to a “William Tisonne” who dies on the English side at Senlac, and who is the brother of Richard Tisone who founds chapels in the year 1000, as his father “Gisbright” founded abbeys before him? In this story the first Norman lord of Alnwick is Ivo of Veci, who is described as “miles de secretariis,” whatever that may mean, to the Conqueror, and he gets Alnwick along with the daughter of the slain William Tisonne. Alnwick may quite possibly have passed to a Norman lord by marriage with an English heiress, but assuredly her father was not called William and did not bear an hereditary surname, and it is much to his credit if, in the teeth of his Earl, he found his way to the great battle from a point so far north as Alnwick.
NOTE DD. Vol. ii. p. 28.
THE BURIAL OF MARGARET.
I do not wish to commit myself to any view as to the authorship of the writings attributed to Turgot. It is sometimes, as I have more than once remarked, hard to believe that the passages which are worked into the text of Fordun, and which are printed at the end of the Surtees Simeon as Turgot’s writing, can really come from a contemporary writer. Still, whether Turgot’s or not, they contain fragments of real information for which, in the great meagreness of our notices of Scottish matters, we may well be thankful. In this case, it is from one of these passages that we learn for certain, what we might for ourselves have been inclined to guess, that Margaret, so deeply reverenced in England then and in Scotland in later times, was not popular in Scotland in her own day. Of her death, as we have seen, we have several accounts, the fullest and most trustworthy being in her own Life by Turgot. Again, we have several notices, though somewhat meagre ones, of the national Scottish movement which placed Donald on the throne. But it is only from one of these other bits of Turgot (if it be Turgot) that we could find out that the two things had anything to do with one another, and that the first thing which the national party did was to attempt to disturb the burial of the holy Queen. There is nothing of this in the Life, a fact which may possibly mark the difference between Turgot writing hagiography, though I believe truthful hagiography, and the same Turgot writing ordinary history. In the former character, he does not invent or pervert; he simply leaves out an unpleasant fact which in the other and humbler character he records.
The account of Margaret’s burial in the Life (Surtees Simeon, p. 254) stands thus;
“Corpus ipsius honorabiliter, ut reginam decebat, involutum, ad Sanctæ Trinitatis, quam ipsa construxerat, ecclesiam deportavimus, ibique, sicut ipsa jusserat, contra altare et sanctæ crucis (quod ibidem erexerat) venerabile signum, sepulturæ tradidimus.”
These words cannot come directly from Turgot himself, who was not there, but from the priest (see p. 27) who told him the story. Again, Turgot’s readers would most likely understand that by the church of the Holy Trinity was meant the church of Dunfermline. Otherwise one might easily read the passage as implying that Margaret was buried in the same place in which she died, though no name is given for either. It is from the other account (Fordun, v. 21) that we learn that the death happened at Edinburgh and the burial at Dunfermline. Here we get a picture of Donald at the head of the insurgents or patriots, or whatever we are to call them, entering Edinburgh by one gate, while the body of Margaret is carried out by the other. The story runs thus;
“Cum adhuc corpus sanctæ reginæ esset in castro [puellarum] ubi illius felix anima ad Christum quem semper dilexerat migravit, Donaldus Rufus vel Bane, frater regis, ejus audita morte, regnum multorum manu vallatus invasit, et prædictum castrum, ubi regis justos et legales sciebat heredes, hostiliter obsedit. Sed quia locus ille natura sui in se valde munitus est, portas solummodo credidit custodiendas, eo quod introitus aut exitus aliunde non de facili pateat. Quod intelligentes qui intus erant, docti a Deo, meritis, ut credimus, sanctæ reginæ, per posticum ex occidentali plaga sanctum corpus deferebant. Ferunt autem quidam, in toto itinere illo nebulam subnubilam omnem familiam illam circumdedisse, et ab omnibus aspectibus hostium miraculose protexisse, ut nec itinerantibus terra vel mari nihil obfuit, sed ad optatum prospere locum, ecclesiam scilicet de Dunfermlyn, ubi nunc in Christo requiescit, sicut ipsa prius jusserat, pervenientes deportarunt.”
In the story of the mist we may clearly see a natural phænomenon set down as a miracle (see Robertson, i. 156). But there seems no reason for doubting the general outline of the story, namely, that Margaret was unpopular with the party headed by Donald, and that they would have gladly disturbed her burial. By comparing this story with the Life we see how easy it is to leave out an important part of a tale without bringing in anything that contradicts it.
NOTE EE. Vol. ii. p. 31.
EADGYTH-MATILDA.
That the daughter of Malcolm and Margaret who afterwards became the wife of Henry the First by the well-known name of Matilda was baptized by the name of Eadgyth, rests wholly on the authority of Orderic, who mentions it twice. After recording the death of Malcolm (702 A), he gives an account of his daughters;
“Duas filias, Edith et Mariam, Christianæ, sorori suæ, quæ Rumesiensis abbatiæ sanctimonialis erat, educandas, sacrisque litteris imbuendas miserat. Illic diutius inter monachas enutritæ sunt, et tam litteratoriam artem quam bonorum observantiam morum edidicerunt, nubilemque ætatem pertingentes, solatium Dei devotæ virgines præstolatæ sunt.”
And directly after he calls her “Mathildis quæ prius dicta est Edith.” It is a point on which Orderic was likely to be well informed, as he is always careful and scrupulous in matters of nomenclature, and often helps us to double names, as we have seen in the case of Mark Bohemond. And the name Eadgyth is much more in harmony than Matilda with the other names of Margaret’s children. Orderic however does not mention the implied change of name where one might have looked for it, namely where he records her marriage in 784 A. She is there only “generosa virgo nomine Mathildis;” but in recording her death (843 B), he again says “Mathildis regina, quæ in baptismate Edit dicta fuit.” M. Francisque Michel, in his note on Benoît, iii. 344, refers also to the Waverley Annals, 1086, for the earlier name; but there is nothing of the kind there. There is Eadward and Eadgar, but not Eadgyth. Is one English name held to be as good as another, even when a confusion of sex is involved?
In Eadmer, Hist. Nov. 56, where he describes the discussions which went on before the marriage of Henry the First, we get Eadgyth’s own story. She was brought up by her aunt Christina, of whom we have already heard (see N. C. vol. iv. p. 695, where I carelessly spoke of Christina as abbess), in the abbey of Wilton――it should surely be Romsey. She was not a nun, nor designed to be one, but she was compelled by her aunt to wear the veil to shelter her from the violence of the Normans. Whenever her aunt’s back was turned, she tore it from her head, and trampled upon it, for which the stern nun gave her niece a good deal of blows and bad language;
“Cum adolescentula essem, et sub amitæ meæ Christianæ, quam tu [Anselmus sc.] bene nosti, virga paverem, illa servandi corporis mei causa contra furentem et cujusque pudori ea tempestate insidiantem Normannorum libidinem nigrum panniculum capiti meo superponere, et me illum abjicientem acris verberibus et nimis obscœnis verborum conviciis sæpe cruciare simul et dehonestare solebat. Quem pannum in ipsius quidem præsentia gemens ac tremebunda ferebam, sed mox ut me conspectui ejus subtrahere poteram, arreptum in humum jacere, pedibus proterere, et ita quo in odio fervebam, quamvis insipienter, consueveram desævire.”
Then her father comes, sees her with the veil, tears it from her head, and says that he does not mean her to be a nun, but to be the wife of Count Alan (“Pater meus cum me, quemadmodum dixi, velatam forte vidisset, furore succensus, injecta manu velum arripuit, et dissipans illud, odium Dei imprecatus est ei qui mihi illud imposuit, contestans se comiti Alano me potius in uxorem quam in contubernium sanctimonialium prædestinasse”).
Here we are not told how she came under her aunt’s care, nor what became of her after her father’s death. And there is something odd in the general reference to the “Normans,” unless it is meant as part of the outburst of special English feeling in the later months of the year 1100. Another version, instead of Normans in general, attributes the danger to a particular Norman whom we should hardly have looked for. This version is to be found in a most singular story, to which I have slightly referred in the text (see p. 32) and also in N. C. vol. v. p. 169, in the Narratio Restaurationis Abbatiæ S. Martini Tornacensis (D’Achery, ii. 893). The story is brought in at the same point at which it is brought in by Eadmer, at the time when Eadgyth――if that is to be her name――is sought in marriage by King Henry. The writer, Hermann, Abbot of Saint Martin’s, says that he had heard the story as a young man from Anselm himself. As Eadmer reports Eadgyth’s own statement, Hermann reports the statement of the abbess――“abbatissa in cujus monasterio puella illa fuerat nutrita.” If any trust can be put in the uncertified list of abbesses of Romsey in the Monasticon, ii. 507, the head of the sisterhood at that time would seem to have been an English Æthelflæd. The maiden herself also is without a name, and her brother is confounded with her father. She is “puella quædam, filia David regis Scotiæ.” The Abbess’s story is that the Scottish King entrusted his daughter to her care, not to become a nun, but simply for education (“Rex David pater ejus mihi eam commendavit, non ut sanctimonialis fieret, sed ut solummodo in ecclesia nostra propter cautelam cum ceteris puellis nostris coætancis suis nutriretur et literis erudiretur”). When the girl is about twelve years old (“cum jam adolevisset,” which is explained afterwards to mean “duodennis”), the Abbess hears that king William (defined as “rex Willelmus, domini mei regis Henrici germanus”) has come to see her (“propter eam videndam venisse”). In the case of any decent king such a visit would surely have been neither scandalous nor wonderful. The King is at the abbey-gate with his knights, and asks to have it opened. The Abbess fears that he may conceive some bad purpose towards the maiden, but hopes that he will respect her if she wears the monastic veil. She therefore persuades Eadgyth to wear the veil for the time;
“Hæc audiens, nimiumque perterrita, ne forte ille, ut juvenis et rex indomitus, qui omne quod animo sibi occurrisset illico facere volebat, visa pulcritudine puellæ aliquam ei illicitam violentiam faceret, qui tam improvisus et insperatus propter eam videndam advenisset, in secretius cubiculum eam introduxi, rem ei sicut erat aperui, eaque volente velum unum capiti ejus imposui, quatenus eo viso rex ab illicito complexu revocaretur.”
The King goes into the cloister, as if to look at the flowers “quasi propter inspiciendas rosas et alias florentes herbas”). He sees Eadgyth with the veil, and goes away, showing, according to the Abbess, that his visit had been on her account only (“mox ut eam vidit cum ceteris puellis nostris velum capite gestantem, claustro exivit et ab ecclesia recessit, aperte ostendens se non nisi propter eam venisse”). Within a week King David came; seeing his daughter with the veil on her head, he was very angry; he tore it from her head, trampled it under-foot, and took his daughter away.
As the Abbot’s memory clearly failed him on one point, it may have failed him in others. This is, as far as I know, the only time in history or legend in which William Rufus is brought into connexion with the name of any woman. It may well be that Abbess Æthelflæd――if that was her name――did not know the secrets of the Red King’s court, and reckoned him among ordinary, instead of extraordinary, sinners.
The accounts of Orderic and Hermann assert, and that of Eadmer seems to imply, that Eadgyth at least, most likely Mary also, was sent to be brought up by their aunt when they were quite children. But there is something a little odd in the appearance of Malcolm both in Eadmer and in Hermann, where he is spoken of as if it were an every-day thing for a King of Scots to show himself at Romsey. We may here perhaps help ourselves to a date. The visit of Malcolm must surely have been when he was in England in 1093. Eadgyth then, according to Hermann, was about twelve years old. Now, it seems from William of Malmesbury (iv. 389) that she had a godfather whom we should hardly have looked for in the person of Duke Robert. When could Robert have been godfather to a daughter of Malcolm and Margaret? Surely when he was in Scotland in the autumn of 1080 (see N. C. vol. iv. p. 671). That was therefore the time of Eadgyth’s birth; she would then be under thirteen when her father came into England. (Since this note was printed, I see that M. Gaston Le Hardy, p. 41, takes this date for granted.)
The fact that Malcolm and Margaret themselves sent their daughters into England seems to dispose of the account in Fordun (v. 21; see p. 30), according to which their uncle Eadgar somehow contrived to bring them to England after the death of their parents. The only way in which the two versions could be reconciled would be by supposing that, when Malcolm, according to Hermann, took Eadgyth away from Romsey, he took her back to Scotland.
In Eadgyth’s own statement in Eadmer, she says that her father meant her to marry Count Alan. So Orderic (702 A) says;
“Alanus Rufus Britannorum comes Mathildem, quæ prius dicta est Edith, in conjugem sibi a rege Rufo requisivit; sed morte præventus non obtinuit.”
Mr. Robertson (i. 152) makes merry over this passage, and takes the opportunity to sneer at Orderic. How, he asks, could Alan, who outlived Eadgyth-Matilda and died in 1119――she died in 1118――have been prevented by his own death from marrying her? He objects also that Alan married the second time (see N. C. vol. iv. p. 647) in 1093, “before Matilda could have sought refuge in England.” He adds, “Alan, however, was once a suitor for the hand of Matilda, but to her own father Malcolm (according to her own words), not to Rufus,” and goes on to tell about Orderic’s “gossip,” “infinity of error,” and what not. But though Orderic has made a slight slip, Mr. Robertson’s own error is much greater. There can be little doubt that the Alan meant is not the Alan of Britanny who married first Constance the daughter of the Conqueror and then Ermengarde of Anjou, but Alan the Black the second lord of Richmond (see N. C. vol. iv. p. 294, and Mrs. Green, Princesses, i. 25), a much more likely husband for the Scottish King to think of for his daughter. Now this Alan died in 1093, just about the right time. Orderic has put Rufus instead of Niger, which is about the extent of his offence――perhaps confounding Alan the Black with his brother Alan Fergeant, the first lord of Richmond. But Mr. Robertson quite forgot that Malcolm sent his daughters into England long before 1093. Thierry (ii. 152) saw clearly which Alan it was.
William of Malmesbury (v. 418) has a singular passage, where he tells us that “Matildis, filia regis Scotorum, a teneris annis inter sanctimoniales apud Wiltoniam et Rumesium educata, literis quoque fœmineum pectus exercuit. Unde, ut ignobiles nuptias respueret plusquam semel a patre oblatas, peplum sacratæ professionis index gestavit.”
But who could look on a marriage with Count Alan as “ignobilis”?
NOTE FF. Vol. ii. pp. 17, 47, 49, 53.
TYNEMOUTH AND BAMBURGH.
The history of Tynemouth, and of Saint Oswine in relation to Tynemouth, comes largely from the Life of Saint Oswine in the Miscellanea Biographica published by the Surtees Society. This is the work of a monk of Saint Alban’s who went to Tynemouth in 1111. There are also several Saint Alban’s documents printed in the Monasticon, iii. 312. There is a large history of Tynemouth by Mr. W. S. Gibson, from which much may be learned, though the valuable facts and documents have largely to be dug out of a mass of irrelevant matter.
According to the Saint Alban’s writer, Eadwine built a wooden church at Tynemouth, and there his daughter Rosella took the veil. The name is strange enough, but we may perhaps see a confused tradition of a British name, when we read that “locus ubi nunc cœnobium Tinemuthense est, antiquitus a Saxonibus dicebatur Penbalcrag, i.e. caput valli in rupe. Nam circa hunc locum finis erat valli Severiani.” This building must be the same as that which is referred to in the Life, p. 11; “Delatus est ad ostium Tynæ fluminis, locum videlicet ab incolis regionis ob imminentis rupis securitatem ab hostibus celebrius frequentatum. Sed ob reverentiam gloriosæ Virgini Mariæ inibi exhibitam tenerius amatum, ibique sepultus est in oratorio ejusdem Virginis, quod constructum erat ad aquilonem fluminis.” He goes on to tell how Oswald rebuilt the wooden church of stone, and how the monastery was more than once destroyed by the Danes. The Saint Alban’s writer (Mon. Angl. iii. 312) speaks more specially of the Danes. The biographer carries us at once to the time of Tostig;
“Memoria sancti martyris Oswini, obsoleta et penitus deleta, funditus ab hominum notitia evanuit. Jacuitque per multa annorum curricula gleba sancti corporis sub abjectiori cespite tumulata et usque ad tempora Thostii comitis et Ægelwini præsulis Dunelmi, incuriæ pariter et ignorantiæ neglectu, debita veneratione est fraudata.”
The writer has a curious remark to account for the neglect of the saint; “Genti prædictæ nunc fideles, nunc infideles principabantur, et juxta principum instituta, varia divinus cultus in subjectarum plebium studiis sensit dispendia.” This is doubtless true of Deira, hardly so of Bernicia, where no heathen prince reigned, though passing heathens did a good deal of damage.
He then gives a long account of the invention of the saint’s body, which came about through the vision of a monk named Eadmund. Judith, according to the character which she bears elsewhere (see N. C. vol. ii. p. 391), appears as “devota Deo famula,” “præpotens et devota femina,” “veneranda comitissa.” Of Tostig we are told that he succeeded Siward, “non testamenti beneficio, sed sancti regis Ædwardi dono regio.” He is described as beginning the new church which the monks of Saint Alban’s afterwards finished (p. 15); “Cujus tamen fundamenti initia, ut dicitur, comes Thostius jecerat, a fundamentis ædificaverunt.” But his deposition and death seem to be looked upon as a judgement for not being present in person at the invention (“Quia prædixtus comes Thostius interesse sanctæ inventioni in ditione sua factæ noluit, eodem anno culpis suis exigentibus ab Anglorum regno expulsus,” &c.), the exact date of which is given, March 15, 1065. It is added, “Thostio comite proscripto, hæreditas ejus devoluta est ad fiscum regium.”
Simeon in his History of the Church of Durham, iv. 4, puts the acts of Tostig and of Waltheof together under the head of Northumbrian earls; “Ecclesiam sane sancti Oswini in Tinemuthe, jamdudum donantibus Northymbriæ comitibus, monachi cum adhuc essent in Gyrvum possederant, unde etiam ipsius sancti ossa ad se transferentes in ecclesia sancti Pauli secum non parvo tempore habuerunt, quæ postmodum ad priorem locum retulerunt.” He then goes on to record the confirmation by Earl Alberic, who “hoc donum renovavit, ipsamque ecclesiam cum suo presbitero ecclesiæ sancti Cuthberti perpetuo possidendam adjecit.”
It would seem that the fall of Tostig hindered the completion of his church, and that at the time of Waltheof’s grant it was still without a roof; for he goes on to say, “Quæ cum jam per quindecim annos velut deserta sine tecto durasset, eam monachi culmine imposito renovarunt, et per tres annos possederunt.” On receiving the confirmation of Alberic, a monk with a good Danish name was sent to put things in better order (Simeon, Gesta Regum, 1121); “Ex capituli totius sententia monachus noster Turchillus illuc mittitur, qui renovato ecclesiæ ipsius culmine, per multum tempus habitavit ibidem.”
I have referred to the charter of Waltheof and to the entry in Simeon (Gesta Regum, 1080) in N. C. vol. iv. p. 666. It is printed, along with a charter of Bishop William confirming it, dated April 27, 1085, in the time of Earl Alberic, whose confirmation is recorded, in the Surtees book called Historiæ Dunelmensis Scriptores Tres, pp. xviii, xix. The signatures to both are nearly all English, with the single exception of two to the charter of Waltheof. These are Gilbert, the nephew (see N. C. vol. iv. p. 665) of Bishop Walcher, and an unknown Walter. We meet with several other men that we know, as Morkere’s father Ligulf and his brother Uhtred, and Leofwine, written “Leobwinus,” the Dean of Durham. We notice also “Ernan Biscope sune,” and three Englishmen with the knightly title “Alwinus miles,” “Wlstanus miles,” and “Kinewlfus miles,” but I do not understand “signum Aldredi comitis.” Earl Ealdred, the common grandfather of Waltheof and young Morkere, had been murdered long ago, as the sons of Carl found to their cost. The story is told again in Simeon, Gesta Regum, 1121.
The next stage in the story is the taking away of Tynemouth from the church of Durham. It is amusing to contrast the ways in which this story is told at Durham and at Saint Alban’s. Simeon, in the chapter just quoted, tells us that Earl Robert made the gift to Saint Alban’s “propter inimicitias quæ inter episcopum et ipsum agitabantur” (cf. Gesta Regum, 1121). The cause of their ill-will, a dispute about lands, comes out in the next chapter. Roger of Wendover (ii. 39), who is copied by Matthew Paris (Hist. Ang. i. 41, and Chron. Maj. ii. 31), tells us how Earl Robert――“vir quidem Deo devotus,” Matthew says――gave Tynemouth to Saint Alban’s “divina inspiratione tactus.” The Gesta Abbatum (i. 57) add that it was done “regis et archiepiscopi Lanfranci benevolentia.” It would seem that under Durham rule Tynemouth had been simply an impropriate church, while in the hands of Saint Alban’s it became a cell. The judgement on Abbot Paul is recorded in the Durham History, iv. 4. The Gesta Abbatum, which record much about him, both good and evil, say nothing about this. The Life of Oswine, p. 15, gives a full account of the ceremony of the translation of Saint Oswine, with the date. Bishop Randolf of Durham was there, Abbot Richard of Saint Alban’s, and “Abbas Salesberiensis Hugo,” where we may see (see Mon. Angl. iii. 495) the old confusion (see N. C. vol. iv. p. 799) between Salisbury and Selby.
Tynemouth then, at the time when the revolt of Robert of Mowbray began (see p. 47), was already a monastery and a cell to Saint Alban’s, though the monks of Durham still held that they had been wrongfully deprived of it. But it appears from the narrative that, besides the monastery, there was also a castle. The account in the Chronicle is, “And þone castel æt Tinemuðan besæt oððet he hine gewann, and þæs eorles broðer þærinne and ealle þa þe him mid wæron.” Florence says, “Rex exercitu de tota Anglia congregato, castellum prædicti comitis Rotberti, ad ostium Tinæ fluminis situm, per duos menses obsedit; et interim, quadam munitiuncula expugnata, ferme omnes meliores comitis milites cepit, et in custodia posuit; dein obsessum castellum expugnavit, et fratrem comitis, et equites, quos intus inveniebat, custodiæ tradidit.” Florence seems to me to have confounded the sieges of Tynemouth and of the New Castle. By the “castellum ad ostium Tinæ” he would seem to mean the New Castle, and by his “munitiuncula” he would seem to mean the Earl’s fortress at Tynemouth. Now what was the relation between the castle and the monastery? As things now stand, castle and monastery are one. That is to say, the deserted church――or more strictly the two deserted churches, monastic and parochial, once under one roof (see Archæological Journal, vol. xxxvii. p. 250, No. 147, 1880)――standing on the northern promontory is now surrounded by military buildings and the great gate-house. I get my notion of the early arrangements of Tynemouth from several old plans collected by Mr. Gibson. There is one which seems to be of the sixteenth century, and, as the names are written in a curious mixture of English, Latin, and Italian, it struck me that it might be the work of an officer of those Italian mercenaries who were employed in the civil wars of Edward the Sixth. This is the only one which distinctly shows “the Castle,” on the southern promontory, though all mark that point as taken in within the lines of defence. It seems to me that the southern promontory must have been the site of the original castle, and that the name of Castle has shifted to the great gate-house, which fairly deserves it.
With regard to the order of the sieges, Orderic, who gives us so full an account of the siege of Bamburgh, tells us nothing about the others. I gather from the words of the Chronicle that the New Castle, which we find in the King’s hands directly after, was the point which was first taken; “Sona þes þe he þider [to Norðhymbran] com, he manege and forneah ealle þa betste of þes eorles hirede innan anan fæstene gewann, and on hæftene gedyde.” Florence, as I have said, seems to have misunderstood the words of the Chronicler, and to have confounded Tynemouth and the New Castle. This last would surely be, as the Chronicle implies, the first point of attack after the army entered Northumberland in the sense which that word now bears. Next in the narrative of the Chronicle follows the siege and capture of Tynemouth, and then the great siege of Bamburgh. Of this famous fortress I found something to say long ago in N. C. vol. i. p. 410, where Bamburgh appears as marking one stage in the art of fortification. Bæda (iii. 16) witnesses that the place took its name “ex Bebbæ quondam reginæ vocabulo;” so also the Northumbrian writer copied by Simeon of Durham, 774;
“Bebba civitas urbs est munitissima, non admodum magna, sed quasi duorum vel trium agrorum spatium, habens unum introitum cavatum, et gradibus miro modo exaltatum. Habet in summitate montis ecclesiam præpulcre factam, in qua est scrinium speciosum et pretiosum. In quo involuta pallio jacet dextera manus sancti Oswaldi regis incorrupta, sicut narrat Beda historiographus hujus gentis.”
The reference here is to Bæda, iii. 6, where he tells the story of Oswald’s bounty and the prophecy of Aidan, and adds how his hand and arm, cut off after his death in the battle by Penda, “in urbe regia quæ a regina quondam vocabulo Bebba cognominatur, loculo inclusæ argenteo in ecclesia sancti Petri servantur, ac digno a cunctis honore venerantur.” So again, iii. 12, where Bamburgh is simply “regia civitas.” He goes on to speak of the well; “Est in occidente et in summitate ipsius civitatis fons miro cavatus opere, dulcis ad potandum et purissimus ad videndum.” Florence also refers to the origin of the name; with him it is “Bebbanbyrig, id est, Urbs Bebbæ reginæ;” and Orderic (704 A) draws a little picture of the spot; “Munitissimum castrum, quod Babbenburg dicitur, obsederunt. Et quoniam illa munitio inexpugnabilis erat, quia inaccessibilis videbatur propter paludes et aquas, et alia quædam itinerantibus contraria, quibus ambiebatur, rex novam munitionem ad defensionem provinciæ et coartationem hostium construxit, et militibus, armis, ac victualibus implevit.” This last fact, the making of the Malvoisin, is recorded by the Chronicler and Florence, both of whom give the name. The Chronicler says; “Ac þa þa se cyng geseah þæt he hine gewinnan ne mihte, þa het he makian ænne castel toforan Bebbaburh and hine on his spæce Malueisin het, þæt is on Englisc yfel nehhebur, and hine swiðe mid his mannan gesætte, and syððan suðweard for.” So Florence; “Ante Bebbanbyrig in quam comes fugerat, castellum firmavit, id que Malveisin nominavit, et in illo militibus positis, in Suthymbriam rediit.” We may here note the way in which the Chronicler assumes French as the language of William Rufus, and also Florence’s somewhat archaic way of speaking of “Suthymbria,” where the Chronicler says simply “suðweard.” It is something like his mention of West-Saxonia in 1091 (see vol. i. p. 305).
The Malvoisin was clearly such a tower as we often hear of, temporary and of wood, but still not moveable, as is implied in Florence’s word “firmavit.” But the name seems afterwards to have been transferred to moveable towers; see Du Cange in Malveisin, where he refers to the passage about the siege of Dover in Roger of Wendover, iii. 380; “Misso prius ad patrem suum propter petrariam, quæ ‘Malveisine’ Gallice nuncupatur, qua cum machinis aliis Franci ante castrum locata muros acriter crebris ictibus verberabant.” In his account of the siege of Bamburgh (ii. 46) Roger says, “Cum castellum inexpugnabile advertit, ante castellum illud castellum aliud ligneum construxit, quod Malveisin appellavit, in quo partem exercitus sui relinquens inde recessit.” Matthew Paris copies this in the Chronica Majora in the Historia Anglorum, i. 48; his words are, “Ante castellum illud aliud sed ligneum construxit, ad præcludendum illis exitum, quod patria lingua Maleveisine appellavit.” Viollet-le-Duc (Military Architecture of the Middle Ages, 24, Eng. trans.) seems to imply that moveable towers were known earlier than this time, but he seems (p. 30) to bring the petraria from the East.
As for the details of the siege, the Chronicler and Florence tell us nothing till we come to the escape of Robert from Bamburgh. It is Orderic who gives us the picture of the state of mind of Robert and his companions, which, if it belongs to any period of the siege, must belong to the time before the King went southward. We see the loyal troops busily working at the making of the Malvoisin;
“Conscii autem perfidiæ et fautores eorum detegi verentes conticuerunt, et metu exsangues, quia conatus suos nihil valere perpenderunt, regiis cohortibus immixti, ejus servitium, cujus exitium optaverant, prompte aggressi sunt. Interea, dum rex in armis cum agminibus suis ad bellum promptus constaret, et chiliarchos ac centuriones, aliosque proceres Albionis, cum subditis sibi plebibus, operi novæ munitionis indesinenter insistere compelleret, Rodbertus de propugnaculis suis contrarium sibi opus mœstus conspiciebat, et complices suos alta voce nominatim compellebat, ac ut jusjurandum de proditionis societate conservarent, palam commonebat. Rex autem cum fidelibus suis hæc audiens ridebat, et conscia reatus publicati mens conscios et participes timore et verecundia torquebat.”
Then the King goes away; in Orderic’s phrase, “rege ad sua prospere remeante, et de moderamine regni cum suis amicis solerter tractante,” a rather odd description of the war in Wales. Now comes Robert’s escape from Bamburgh. Orderic, who seems to have no clear idea of any place except Bamburgh, merely says that Robert, “longæ obsidionis tædio nauseatus, noctu exilivit, et de castro in castrum migrare volens in manus inimicorum incidit.” The Chronicle is fuller; “Ða sona æfter þam þe se cyng wæs suð afaren feorde se eorl anre nihte ut of Bebbaburh towardes Tinemuðan, ac þa þe innan þam niwun castele wæron his gewær wurdon, and him æfter foran and onfuhton and hine gewundedon, and syððan gelæhton, and þa þe mid him wæron sume ofslogan sume lifes gefengon.” But it is from Florence that we get the detailed account. His story runs thus;
“Post cujus discessum, comiti Rotberto vigiles Novi Castelli promisere in id se permissuros illum intrare, si veniret occulte. Ille autem lætus effectus, quadam nocte cum xxx. militibus ut id perageret exivit. Quo cognito, equites qui castellum custodiebant illum insequentes, ejus exitum custodibus Novi Castelli per nuntios intimaverunt. Quod ille nesciens, die dominica tentavit peragere cœpta, sed nequivit, deprehensus enim erat. Eapropter ad monasterium S. Oswini regis et martyris fugit, ubi sexto die obsessionis suæ graviter in crure est vulneratus dum suis adversariis repugnaret, quorum multi perempti, multi sunt vulnerati, de suis quoque nonnulli vulnerati, omnes sunt capti; ille vero in ecclesiam fugit, de qua extractus, in custodia est positus.”
Here now comes the obvious difficulty as to the way in which the Earl could have got into the monastery at Tynemouth after the castle had been taken. The Chronicler indeed does not necessarily imply that he got into Tynemouth at all. The fight which he describes might have happened somewhere else and not at Tynemouth. And if any one chooses to move the site of Robert’s resistance and capture from Tynemouth to some unknown spot, there is only the statement of Florence against him. That Robert was taken, and taken after a stout resistance, is plain.
With Robert’s capture, Orderic ends his story, as far as military operations are concerned. “Captus a satellitibus regis, Rodbertus finem belli fecit.” In a very general way this is not untrue; it was the capture of Robert which brought about the end of the war. But it is odd that he should have left out the striking story of the captive Earl being brought under frightful threats before the castle which his wife was defending. This stands out clearly in the Chronicle; “Ða þa se cyng ongean com, þa het he niman þone eorl Rotbeard of Norðymbram, and to Bæbbaburh lædan, and ægðer eage ut adon, buton þa þe þærinne wæron þone castel agyfan woldan. Hine heoldan his wif and Moreal, se wæs stiward and eac his mæg. Ðurh þis wearð se cartel þa agyfen.” Florence translates this.
Lastly comes the great difference of all as to Earl Robert’s last days. The Chronicler and Florence merely record his imprisonment at Windsor, without saying how long it lasted. Florence says only, “Comes forti custodiæ mancipandus ad Windlesoram est ductus,” followed by the passage about Morel quoted in p. 55. He says nothing about the many accusations brought by Morel, or about the special summons of all the tenants-in-chief to the trial, of which the Chronicler speaks (see p. 56). The Chronicler, after recording them, says; “And þone eorl Rotbert hét se cyng to Windlesoran lædan, and þær innan þam castele healdan.” This is consistent with any later destiny, with release and monastic profession or with lifelong imprisonment. This last is asserted by several authorities. Thus Orderic (704 A) says; “Rodbertus…. fere triginta annis in vinculis vixit, ibique scelerum suorum pœnas luens consenuit.” He then sets forth the sad state of his wife; “Mathildis uxor ejus, quæ cum eo vix unquam læta fuerat, quia in articulo perturbationis desponsata fuerat, et inter bellicas clades tribus tantum mensibus cum tremore viri thoro incubuerat, maritali consolatione cito caruit, multisque mœroribus afflicta diu gemuit.” The Continuator of William of Jumièges (viii. 8), who has nothing to say about Matilda, equally bears witness to Robert’s lifelong imprisonment; “Captus a militibus Willelmi regis, ipsoque jubente in ipsis vinculis diutius perseverans; regnante jam Henrico rege, tandem in ipso ergastulo deficiens mortuus est.” So William of Malmesbury, iv. 319; “Captus et æternis vinculis irretitus est.”
On the other hand, there clearly was a story according to which Robert was released some time or other, and died a monk at Saint Alban’s. It is somewhat remarkable that there is no mention of this in any of the chief writings of Matthew Paris, neither in the Historia Major nor the Historia Anglorum, nor the Lives of the Abbots. But we find the story implied in the extract from his Additamenta in the Monasticon, iii. 312; “Ibidem [at Tynemouth] monachos congregavit de domo sancti Albani, tanquam ab electissima domo inter omnia cœnobia Angliæ, ubi etiam se vovit monasticum habitum suscepturum, et sepulturam in loco memorato. Quæ omnia, Deo sibi propitio, feliciter consummavit.” So in the Abbreviatio Chronicorum (Hist. Angl. iii. 175), a marginal note is added to the name of Earl Robert; “Sepultus est apud sanctum Albanum.” But, oddly enough, the most distinct statement that he became a monk comes, not from any Saint Alban’s writer, but from one manuscript of the “De Regibus Saxonum Libellus” at the end of the Surtees Simeon, p. 214. King Henry keeps Robert of Mowbray some while in prison; then “rogatu baronum suorum eundem resolvens, concessit illi mutare vitam habitumque sæcularem. Qui ingressus monasterium Sancti Albani sub professione monastica ibidem vitam finivit.”
The story about Matilda’s second marriage and divorce comes from Orderic. His story runs thus; “Vir ejus, ut dictum est, in carcere vivebat, nec ipsa, eo vivente, secundum legem Dei alteri nubere legitime valebat. Tandem, permissu Paschalis papæ, cui res a curiosis enucleata patuit, post multos dies Nigellus de Albineio ipsam uxorem accepit, et pro favore nobilium parentum ejus, aliquamdiu honorifice tenuit. Verum, defuncto Gisleberto de Aquila fratre ejus, vafer occasionem divortii exquisivit, eamque, quia consanguinei sui conjux fuerat, repudiavit, et Gundream, sororem Hugonis de Gornaco, uxorem duxit.” If all this happened at all, it must have happened between 1099 and 1118, the years which mark the reign of Paschal.
Matilda of Laigle could not well have been the sister of William the Chaplain to whom Bishop Herbert Losinga writes his third letter (Ep. Herberti, p. 5). He there says; “De matrimonio sororis vestræ non aliud respondeo vobis, quam id quod præsens ex ore meo audivistis, suo videlicet ut vivente viro, secundum evangelium et secundum sanctorum canonum usum, alii viro nubere non potest.” But the person spoken of could hardly have been thinking of such a marriage, unless she had some special excuse, like this of Matilda.
The second wife of Nigel appears both as “Gundrea” and as “Gundreda.” There is a great deal about her husband Nigel and her son Robert, the founder of Byland Abbey, in the Monasticon, v. 346-351. The marriage of Nigel and Gundreda took place after Tinchebrai, and as King Henry gave Nigel the castle of Mowbray, and much else in Normandy and England which had belonged to Earl Robert, their son Roger called himself Roger of Mowbray. Such a description was likely to lead to confusion, and it may have led some to fancy that later bearers of the name of Mowbray had something to do with the famous Bishop and Earl of our story. The artificial Percy is indeed connected with the real one by grandmothers; but the artificial Mowbray was purely artificial. This Roger of Mowbray appears also in the Continuator of William of Jumièges, viii. 8, who tells us that Nigel himself became a monk at Bec.
As Walknol has been casually mentioned in the text (p. 47) there may be some interest in a document in the Cartulary of Newminster published by the Surtees Society, p. 178. The date must be after 1137, the date of the foundation of Newminster. The number of English names, and specially the two bearers of scriptural names who are sons of English-named fathers, illustrate points of which I have often had to speak;
“De terra de Walknol in castro. Johannes filius Edwyni fabri, salutem. Sciatis me concessisse, dedisse, et hac præsenti carta mea confirmasse, Bartholomæo filio Edricii illam terram totam quæ jacet in australi parte cimiterii capellæ beati Michaelis, in longitudine a curtillo Eadmundi clerici usque ad terram quæ fuit Johannis Stanhard, et in latitudine a cimiterio capellæ beati Michaelis usque ad antiquam communem viam subtus versus austrum. Habendum et tenendum eidem Bartholomæo et hæredibus suis de me et hæredibus meis et assignatis in perpetuum, libere, quiete, et pacifice, pro duabus marcis arg. quas michi dedit idem Bartholomæus in manu in mea magna necessitate.”
NOTE GG. Vol. ii. p. 79.
THE CONQUEST OF GLAMORGAN.
I gave a note to the conquest of Glamorgan in the Appendix to vol. v. of the Norman Conquest, p. 820. I look, as I did then, upon the account in what I find it convenient to call the later Brut as thoroughly legendary in its details, though I am perhaps inclined to put rather more faith in the general story than I was then. And I am not so much inclined as I was then to draw the same wide distinction as Mr. Floyd draws between the expeditions led by the King himself and those which partook more or less of the character of private adventure. There was doubtless a difference, when it was King William who called the whole force of England to his standard, and when it was only either Earl Hugh or Robert Fitz-hamon who set out on an expedition on his own account. But both processes were parts of the same general undertaking. Whatever individual lords conquered, they conquered with the King’s approval, to be held by them as his vassals and subjects. He himself stepped in only on great occasions, when the Welsh seemed to be getting too strong for the local lords. The same general work must have been going on all over the country. The only strange thing is that the conquest of Glamorgan, of whose general results there can be no doubt, and of which we have so very full a legendary account, is left out altogether in every really trustworthy history.
Jestin ap Gwrgan must be accepted as a real man, on the strength of his real sons and grandsons (for his sons see N. C. vol. v. p. 821); but that is all that can be said of him. We can hardly carry our faith so far as Mr. John Williams ab Ithel, the Editor of the Brut in the Chronicles and Memorials, who asks us (xxiii) to “consider the great age of the prince of Glamorgan when he died. He is said to have married his first wife A.D. 994”――it is perhaps prudent to mention the æra――“and to have died at the age of 111, according to others 129.” We Saxons do not venture to believe in the kindred tales of our own Harold and Gyrth. But we learn from Mr. Williams himself, at the very beginning of his Preface, that “the voice of Tradition would not lead us to suppose that the ancient Britons paid any very particular attention to the study of chronology previous to the era of Prydain, son of Aedd the Great, which is variously dated from the year 1780 to 480 before the nativity of Christ.” If centuries went for so little in the days of Prydain, it is not wonderful that decades did not go for much in the days of Jestin. Nor are we surprised to find that Mr. Williams knew the exact number of the descendants of Jestin, who were, like those of Attila, “pene populus.” All that we can say of Jestin’s story, in relation to Robert Fitz-hamon and his companions, is that there is no trustworthy evidence either for or against the story of his invitation to the Norman knights, but that the tale has a legendary sound, and that the date is in any case wrong. If we should be inclined, according to one or two indications (see p. 84), to place the conquest of Glamorgan several years earlier, perhaps even before the death of the Conqueror, we are only carried away yet further from the perfectly certain date of the death of Rhys ap Tewdwr. All that we can say is that the general story may be true, but that the list of settlers given in the later Brut (72 to 75) is largely due to family vanity. The Stradling family, for instance, had nothing to do with the original conquest.
The best account of the whole matter is to be found in Mr. Clark’s first paper on “The Land of Morgan,” in the Archæological Journal, xxxiv. 11. I cannot however admit with him (p. 18) that “it seems probable that to the early Vikings, and not to the later settlements of Flemings or English, is due the Teutonic element which prevails in the topography of lower Pembroke and Gower.” I am quite ready (see p. 95) to admit a certain Scandinavian element; but the Flemish settlement in Pembrokeshire is undoubtedly historical (see N. C. vol. v. p. 855), while we have fair legendary evidence for making the settlement in Gower West-Saxon (see p. 103). The name of Worm’s Head given to the great promontory of Gower, in marked distinction to the Scandinavian Orm’s Head in North Wales, goes a long way to show that the Teutonic settlers in Gower were either Flemish or Saxon, and not Scandinavian.
NOTE HH. Vol. ii. p. 115.
GODWINE OF WINCHESTER AND HIS SON ROBERT.
I gave a short note to the history of Robert son of Godwine in N. C. vol. v. p. 819. On going again more minutely through the story, I am even more struck than before by the singular way in which different notices of Robert and Godwine hang together. It is one of the best cases that I know of the argument from undesigned coincidences. Besides the interest of the story in itself, it teaches us, like many other stories, how, if we work with a proper caution, we may dig truth out of quarters where we should hardly have looked for it, and it may specially suggest matter for thought as to the value of those pieces of Scottish history which one hardly knows whether to call the writings of Turgot or Fordun, or of any one else. I suspect that, if we simply read the story of Godwine and Robert as it stands in Fordun, we should be inclined to cast it aside altogether. The story undoubtedly has a legendary air, and the details of the single combat are likely enough to have received some legendary colouring even at the time. Some might even be a little startled at the appearance of Englishmen of knightly rank at the court of William Rufus. But we see from Domesday on the one hand, and from William of Malmesbury on the other, that Godwine and Robert were real men, and we see that the part which they play in Fordun’s story is exactly in accordance with their real position.
I have mentioned elsewhere (see N. C. vol. iv. p. 571; vol. v. p. 819) that there was a Godwine holding lands in Hertfordshire of the Ætheling Eadgar. We also have in two places in William of Malmesbury (iii. 251; iv. 384) notices of “Robertus Anglus,” “Robertus filius Godwini miles audacissimus,” who goes to the crusade with the Ætheling, and who does the exploits which I have spoken of in p. 122. Now if circumstantial evidence is ever good for anything, one can hardly doubt that the Godwine of Domesday is the same as the Godwine of William of Malmesbury and as the Godwine of Fordun, and that the Robert son of Godwine in Fordun is the same as the Robert son of Godwine in William of Malmesbury. The three accounts are wholly independent, but all bring Godwine and Robert into connexion with Eadgar. It is almost inconceivable that Fordun’s story should be mere invention, when it makes men of whom so little is known act exactly in character with the little that is known of them.
In the account in Fordun (ii. 22, Surtees Simeon 263), Ordgar, “Orgarus,” is described in the one text as “miles degener Anglicus,” in the other as “miles de genere Anglico,” which is clearly the better reading.
The name of Ordgar appears only twice in Domesday. In Oxfordshire, 161, Ordgar, a king’s thegn, holds two hides of the worth of forty shillings. He had two slaves on his domain, and half a carucate was held by two villains or churls. We then read, “Godwinus libere tenuit.” This is pretty sure to be our Ordgar, and it may very well be our Godwine, though we can say nothing for certain about so common a name. If they are the same, here is great likelihood, though no proof, that Godwine may have had other ground for willingness to fight Ordgar, besides his loyalty to the Ætheling. Ordgar, on the other hand, appears in Somerset, 93, as holding a hide which had passed to Robert of Courcelles, and which, with a good deal more, was held by Anschitil. Ordgar was not the only Englishman who, among the endless forfeitures and grants――to say nothing of ordinary sales, bequests, and exchanges, which went on T. R. W. as well as T. R. E.――lost in one part of England and gained in another.
In Fordun’s story Eadgar is described as “clito Eadgarus, viz. genere gloriosus, nam sic ipsum nominabant.” “De genere gloriosus,” it will be marked, is a more literal translation of “Clito” than it is of “Ætheling.” William is inclined to hearken to Ordgar, “quia Eadgarus de regia stirpe fuerat progenitus, et regno, jure Anglico, proximus.” We then read, “nec incerta de Eadgaro jam poterat esse sententia, si crimen impositum probari potuisset.” Eadgar is in great trouble for fear of not finding a champion, when Godwine steps forward; “Miles de Wintonia, Anglicus natione, genere non ignobilis, nomine Godwinus, veteris parentelæ ipsius non immemor, opem se præstiturum in hac re tam difficili compromisit.”
The two knights now go forth, as I have described in the text, and we have a significant comment on the lack of English patriotism shown by Ordgar;
“Hinc etiam calumniatorem cum justa animadversione increpat, qui Anglicus genere existens naturæ videretur impugnator, quem enim ut dominum venerari debuerat, utpote de jure generis existens cui se et omnia sua debuisset.”
Then come the details of the combat. We hear no more of Godwine after his victory and reward, which last is thus told; “Superati hostis terras et possessiones hereditario jure rex ei concederet possidendas.” “Hereditario jure” most likely simply means, as usual, that the land was to go on to Godwine’s heirs. It need not refer to the probable fact that part at least of Ordgar’s lands had once belonged to Godwine.
Robert first appears in Fordun, v. 25, on the march to Scotland (see p. 119). He is introduced as “quidam miles, Anglicus genere, Robertus nomine, filius antedicti Godwini, paternæ probitatis imitator et hæres.” Then come his exploits and adventures in Britain, as I have told them in the text. Afterwards must come his crusading exploits as described by William of Malmesbury. In the earlier of his two accounts (see p. 122) one might almost have thought that King Baldwin had no companion except Robert. The second passage, which gives them four other companions, has therefore the force of a correction; “Rex … quinque militibus comitatus, in montana rependo, insidiantes elusit. Militum fuit unus Robertus Anglus, ut superius dixi; cæteros notitiæ nostræ fama tam longinqua occubuit. Ille cum tribus comprehensus est; unus evasit cum rege.” Another point which is worth notice is that the period of the crusade at which Robert is brought in exactly agrees with the story of his doings in Scotland and Northumberland. A man who had difficulties with Flambard after he became bishop in 1099 could not have been with the first crusaders at Antioch and Jerusalem; he might have been quite in time to help Baldwin at Rama.
It would be worth the while of some Hertfordshire antiquary to see whether anything can be made out as to the descent of the lands held by Godwine, or as to any descendants of him and Robert. But I saw a little time back a newly published history of that county, which was eloquent about the grandmothers of various obscure persons of our own time, but which had not a word to say about the champion of Eadgar or the comrade of Baldwin.
NOTE II. Vol. ii. p. 133.
THE EXPEDITION OF MAGNUS.
The expedition of Magnus, which, by leading him to the shores of Anglesey, had a not unimportant bearing on English affairs, is not spoken of at any great length by our own writers. The Chronicler does not name the Norwegian king; but he does not fail to mention the death of Earl Hugh of Shrewsbury, and, what was practically its most important result, the succession of his brother Robert. His words are; “And Hugo eorl wearð ofslagen innan Anglesege fram ut wikingan and his broðer Rodbert wearð his yrfenuma, swa swa he hit æt þam cynge ofeode.” Florence is fuller;
“Eo tempore rex Norreganorum Magnus, filius regis Olavi, filii regis Haroldi Harvagri, Orcadas et Mevanias insulas cum suo adjecisset imperio, paucis navibus advectus illuc venit. At cum ad terram rates appellere vellet comes Hugo de Scrobbesbyria, multis armatis militibus in ipsa maris ripa illi occurrit, et, ut fertur, mox ab ipso rege sagitta percussus … interiit.”
Florence, it will be seen, here makes the same confusion between the names Hardrada and Harfagra which he made in 1066, and which so many others made beside him. To the account in William of Malmesbury, iv. 329, I have referred in p. 134. He alone it is who mentions the presence of the younger Harold in the fleet of Magnus. His words, which I quoted in p. 124, seem to come from the same source as the account in Florence; but he gives the story a different turn by distinctly making Magnus design an attack on England;
“Jam Angliam per Anglesiam obstinatus petebat; sed occurrerunt ei comites, Hugo Cestrensis et Hugo Scrobesbiriensis; et antequam continentem ingrederetur, armis eum expulerunt. Cecidit ibi Hugo Scrobesbiriensis, eminus ferreo hastili perfossus.”
Henry of Huntingdon would seem to translate the Chronicle; but he makes a confusion as to the persons by whom Earl Hugh was slain; “Hugo consul Salopscyre occisus est ab Hibernensibus. Cui successit Robertus de Belem frater ejus.”
If we could suppose that the Archdeacon of Huntingdon had paid so much attention to British affairs, we might fancy that he confounded the fleet of Magnus with the wikings from Ireland whom Cadwgan and Gruffydd hired a little time before. See p. 128.
The Welsh writers naturally tell the tale as part of their own history. The Earls have come into Anglesey; then comes Magnus. There are two different accounts in two manuscripts of the Annales Cambriæ; that which the editor follows in the text runs thus;
“Francis in insula morantibus, Magnus rex Germaniæ cum exercitu venit in insulam volens. Sed ei nolenti Franci ei occurrentes se invicem sagittis salutaverunt, hi de terra, illi de mari, alter comes sagitta in facie percussus occubuit. Quo facto, Magnus abivit.”
The other manuscript reads;
“Francis in insula morantibus, Magnus rex Germaniæ ad insulam Mon venit et prœlium cum consulibus commisit; sed alter consulum vulneratus in facie cecidit; alter vero cum majoribus insulam dereliquit. Postea vero Magnus rex insulam Mon repente reliquit.”
The Brut says;
“The French entered the island, and killed some of the men of the island. And whilst they tarried there, Magnus, King of Germany, came, accompanied by some of his ships, as far as Mona, hoping to be enabled to take possession of the countries of the Britons. And when King Magnus had heard of the frequent designs of the French to devastate the whole country, and to reduce it to nothing, he hastened to attack them. And as they were mutually shooting, the one party from the sea, and the other party from the land, Earl Hugh was wounded in the face, by the hand of the King himself. And then King Magnus, with sudden determination, left the borders of the country.”
It will be seen that both versions of the Annals call Magnus “rex Germaniæ.” In the text of the Brut he is “Magnus brenhin Germania.” Another manuscript, worse informed as to his name, better informed as to his kingdom, calls him “Maurus brenhin Norwei.” This odd description of a Norwegian king as king of Germany has been met with before in the Brut, 1056; but it is not found in the Annals for that year. But it must have been by a kindred flight that the annalist in 1066 called Harold Hardrada “rex Gothorum.”
Our fuller accounts of the course of Magnus come from Orderic, from the Manx Chronicle, and from the Saga of Magnus Barefoot (Johnstone, 231; Laing, iii. 129). Orderic, as we have seen, looks upon the expedition as being directly designed against Ireland. The Norwegian writer mentions Ireland only quite incidentally. Magnus plunders in Ireland, as everywhere else, on his way to Man, but the object of the expedition is clearly marked as being Man and the other islands which were so closely connected with it, a connexion which is also most strongly set forth in the pompous words of Orderic (767 D). We can have little doubt in accepting the Manx writer’s version of the history of his own island, rather than that of the Norwegian writer, to whom the internal affairs of the island were of no great interest, or the wild statement of Orderic (see p. 141) that Man was at this moment a desert island. On the other hand, the Saga is the best authority for the actual voyage of Magnus, though it is the Manx writer who preserves the fact or legend of the irreverent dealings of Magnus towards his sainted kinsman. As to what happened in Anglesey, I have already quoted the accounts of the English and Welsh writers, and the Manx chronicler does not go into any greater detail;
“Ad Moiniam insulam Walliæ navigavit, et duos Hugones comites invenit in ea; unum occidit, alterum fugavit, et insulam sibi subjugavit. Wallenses vero multa munera ei præbuerunt, et valedicens eis ad Manniam remeavit.”
The detailed accounts of the death of Earl Hugh come from the Saga and from Orderic. Orderic, it must be remembered, is writing on a subject of special interest to him, on account of his close connexion from childhood with the house of Montgomery. On the other hand, as we have seen (see p. 143), he does not well understand the geography, and seems to fancy that Dwyganwy was in Anglesey. But it will be at once seen that he conceives the death of Earl Hugh in a quite different way from the author of the Saga. In Orderic’s story, though there is a great deal of preparation for fighting, there is no actual fighting at all, except the one shot sent from the bow of the Norwegian King. His version stands thus;
“Quadam vero die, dum supra littus indigenæ turbati discurrerent, seque contra Nordicos, quos in navibus suis sævire contra Anglos videbant, præpararent, Hugo comes, equum calcaribus urgens, cœtus suos congregabat, et contra hostes, ne sparsim divisi invaderentur, principali rigore coercebat. Interea barbarus Nordwigena, ut comitem agiliter equitantem prospexit, instigante diabolo stridulum missile subito direxit, egregiumque comitem, proh dolor! percussit. Qui protinus corruit, et in fluctibus maris jam æstuantis exspiravit. Unde dolor ingens exortus est.”
This really seems hardly possible, and the Welsh account, as well as the Norwegian, distinctly records fighting and shooting of arrows on both sides. The Saga gives us the details, both in prose and verse. The shooting of the King and the other archer is described in prose as I have told it in p. 144, and both the death of Earl Hugh and the general picture of the battle are given in vigorous verse from the minstrelsy of Biorn Cripplehand (Biörn inn Krepphendi). Besides the verses which Laing translates, the Saga gives others from another poet, Gisl, who vigorously describes the fight between the King and those whom he calls the Welsh Earls (Valsea Jarla), meaning doubtless rather Gal-Welsh than Bret-Welsh;
“Margan hŏfdo Magnuss lidar Biortom oddi Baugvang skotit. Vard hortoga Hlif at springa Kapps vel skiput Fyrer konongs darri. Bodkenner skaut Badom hŏndum Allr va hilmis Herr prudliga Stucku af almi Þeims iŏfr sueigdi Hvitmylingar Adr Hugi felli.”
The relations between Magnus and the Irish King Murtagh are very puzzling. Orderic must have made some mistake when he attributes the expedition of Magnus to a dispute with an Irish king whose daughter he marries and sends back again (767 C, D). This must surely be a confusion between Magnus himself and his son Sigurd, who, according to the Saga, did marry the Irish king’s daughter. But it is possible that Orderic’s story about the Irish princess being sent back again, because her father did not fulfil the marriage contract, may be true of Sigurd, though not of his father. We should thus better understand the transactions which go on a little later about the marriage of a daughter of Murtagh, seemingly the same, to Arnulf son of Earl Roger (see p. 442). The Manx writer has nothing to say about these marriages, but he fills up the space between this expedition of Magnus and that in which he fell with some very strange dealings between Magnus and Murtagh. Magnus sends his shoes to the Irish king, bidding him bear them on his shoulders in public as a sign of subjection to their owner (“Murecardo regi Yberniæ misit calceamenta sua, præcipiens ei ut ea super humeros suos in die natalis Domini per medium domus suæ portaret in conspectu nunciorum ejus, quatinus intelligeret se subjectum esse Magno regi”). The Irish are naturally angry; but their king takes matters more quietly. He would willingly not only carry the shoes but eat them, sooner than a single province of Ireland should be laid waste. So he did as he was bid (“rex, saniori consilio usus, non solum, inquit, calceamenta ejus portare, verum etiam manducare mallem, quam Magnus rex unam provinciam in Ybernia destrueret. Itaque complevit præceptum et nuncios honoravit”). The Irish writers of course know nothing about the shoes; but the Chronicon Scotorum records a year’s peace made in 1098 between Murtagh and Magnus (“Magnus ri Lochlainne”). The Manx chronicler also goes on to say that a treaty followed the ceremony of the shoes, but that the ambassadors of Magnus gave such a report of the charms of Ireland, that he determined to invade it again in breach of the treaty.
This brings us to the date of the last expedition of Magnus. The Chronicon Scotorum records the death of Magnus (“Magnus ri Lochlainne ocus na Ninnsit”) in 1099 in an attack on Ulster. But this date must be too early. The Norwegian account places the second expedition of Magnus nine years after his accession in Norway (Laing, iii. 143, Johnstone, 239). This would fix its date to 1102. This is the date commonly given, with 1103, as the year of his death. The Manx writer places the death of Magnus six years after his first expedition (“regnavit in regno insularum sex annis,” p. 7), which would put his death in 1104. But he gives 1102 as the date of his successor in the island kingdom, Olaf the son of Godred Crouan (see p. 137). He was, it seems, at the English court; “Quo [Magno] mortuo, miserunt principes insularum propter Olavum filium Godredi Crouan, de quo superius mentionem fecimus, qui tunc temporis degebat in curia Henrici regis Angliæ filii Willelmi, et adduxerunt eum.”
The date of 1102 exactly falls in with the account of the attempt of Robert of Bellême to obtain help from Magnus in that year (see p. 442). For this I have followed the account in the Brut (1100; that is 1102). But it would seem that the Welsh writer was mistaken in saying that Magnus “sent over to Ireland, and demanded the daughter of Murchath for his son; for that person was the chiefest of the Gwyddelians; which he joyfully obtained; and he set up that son to be king in the Isle of Man.” His death is recorded in the next year, 1101 (1103), when “Magnus King of Germany” (“Vagnus vrenhin Germania”) is made to invade Britain and be killed by the Britons, who are said to have come “from the mouths of the caves in multitudes like ants in pursuit of their spoils.” Another manuscript for “Prydein” reads “Llẏchljẏn,” that is Denmark, which does not make matters much better. The followers of Magnus are called in the one manuscript “Albanians” (“yr Albanóyr”), meaning doubtless Scots; in the other manuscript they are men of Denmark (“gwyr Denmarc”). The Annales Cambriæ do not mention the dealings between Robert of Bellême and Magnus; but there is an entry under 1103; “Magnus rex apud Dulin [Dublin?] occiditur.”
The death of Magnus in his second Irish expedition is told with great detail in the Saga (Johnstone, 239-244; Laing, iii. 143-147). Orderic also tells the story in p. 812. The Irish, according to this account, call in Arnulf of Montgomery to their help; but, when Magnus is killed, the Irish try to kill Arnulf and his Norman companions. Murtagh now takes away his daughter from Arnulf, and marries her, according to the irregular fashion of the country, to a kinsman (“ipsam petulantem cuidam consobrino suo illicite conjunxit”). But twenty years later, Arnulf, by that time an old man, is reconciled to Murtagh, marries his daughter, and dies the next day. This carries us beyond the range of my story, and I must leave Irish, Norwegian, and Norman enquirers to see to it. It concerns me more that it is now that Orderic mentions the great treasure which Magnus had left with a rich citizen of Lincoln. (See p. 134.) The Lincoln man seems to have thought that the death of the Norwegian king gave his banker a right to his money; but King Henry thought otherwise, and took the twenty thousand pounds to his own hoard.
NOTE KK. Vol. ii. pp. 196, 199, 211.
THE RELATIONS BETWEEN HILDEBERT AND HELIAS.
There is a remarkable difference of tone between Orderic and the Biographer of the Bishops of Le Mans in their way of speaking of Helias. That the Count should be blamed for making Bishop Howel a prisoner (see p. 198) is in no way wonderful; the thing to be noticed is the way in which he several times speaks of Helias during the episcopate of Hildebert; still more remarkable is the way in which Hildebert speaks himself. Orderic always puts the acts of Helias in the best light; the Biographer, during certain parts of his story at least, seems well-pleased to throw in any little insinuation against him. Perhaps the strangest case of all is the way in which he leaves out all mention of the double appointment to the see of Le Mans on the death of Howel (see p. 211), and of the action of Helias in that matter. One would have thought that, even from an ecclesiastical point of view, the story told more for Helias than against him. He put forth a claim which any other prince of his time would have equally put forward; he withdrew it in a way in which very few princes of his time would have withdrawn it. But the Biographer (see p. 297) lets us into the fact that there had been an opposition to Hildebert’s election in the Chapter itself. Could his enemies have been special partisans of Helias, and supporters of his candidate? If so, it is rather strange, though quite possible, that they should have been the accusers of Hildebert to Rufus, when the charge brought against him was that of being a confederate with Helias.
The Biographer is quite loyal to Helias during the campaign of 1098. He brings out prominently (see p. 213, note) the cause of the war, namely the election of Hildebert by the Chapter and his acceptance by the Count, without any regard to the alleged claims of the Norman Dukes. Helias was in fact fighting on behalf of Hildebert. When Helias is taken prisoner, he raises a wail――“proh dolor” (see above, p. 223)――which almost reminds us of Florence’s wail over the death-wound of Harold. He brings out strongly the Red King’s wrath against Hildebert, as shown in his ravages at Coulaines (see p. 234). He brings out also, what Orderic does not mention, the friendly relations between Hildebert and Helias which are shown in the negotiations which led to the Count’s release (see p. 238). We may perhaps infer that, during this stage, the friendship between the Count and the Bishop remained unbroken, and that the Biographer remains the Count’s friend so long as the Bishop does.
During the campaign of 1099 the Biographer’s tone becomes quite different. He has not a word to say about the zeal of the citizens of Le Mans on behalf of Helias, which comes out so strongly in Orderic, and after him in Wace (see p. 279). He rather implies that they fought against him. The enemies who meet him at Pontlieue are “milites regis cum populo” (see p. 278, note 2). It is quite possible that, as the Normans had military possession of the city, its levies may have been made, even against their will, to take their place in the Norman ranks, and the presence of such unwilling allies may have very likely helped to bring about the Norman defeat. Still the insertion of the words without any comment or qualification gives the Biographer’s story a different turn from that of Orderic. Yet the Biographer himself after all allows that Helias entered Le Mans with the good-will of the citizens, when he allows (see p. 297) the accusers of Hildebert to say “quando Helias comes consentientibus civibus civitatem occupavit.” He next leaves out the fact recorded by Orderic (see p. 297) that, before William Rufus had crossed the frontier, Hildebert met him and was received to his peace, on affirming that he had no share in the enterprise of Helias. There is nothing wonderful in this. It is a case which often happens. The original cause of a war is forgotten, and the fault of the original enemy is forgiven, when a new enemy has given fresh offence. William was so wroth at Helias for seizing Le Mans, that he forgot any quarrels of earlier date. If Hildebert was clear on that score, William could pass by all that had gone before. He was therefore at this moment ready to forgive Hildebert in his wrath against Helias. But the old enemies of Hildebert in the Chapter were ready, for the sake of the old grudge, to turn against Helias. The chances are that Hildebert had nothing to do with the return of Helias, but that the towers of the cathedral were turned by Helias to military uses. Hildebert most likely deemed――and, as events proved, more wisely than either the Count or the citizens――that the enterprise of Helias was rash, and therefore unjustifiable. This would turn him, at least for the time, into an enemy of Helias, if not into a partisan of Rufus. The Biographer takes up this tone. It may be with a little feeling of spite that he records (see p. 281) the way in which the loyalty of the citizens towards the Count not unnaturally cooled after the fire. There is certainly such a feeling in the passage (see p. 287) where he speaks of Helias as flying, “saluti suæ consulens,” while Orderic rather describes him as swept away in a general flight. But this tone lasts only through the year 1099. When Helias comes back in 1100, all seems to be made up again; we now hear (Vet. An. 309, 311) of the “liberalitas” of the “liberalis comes;” the Normans are “hostes” and Helias brings back peace. That is to say, as the story shows, the Count and the Bishop were again reconciled, and the Biographer follows the lead of the Bishop.
But we need not wonder at the tone of the Biographer, if we know the tone of the Bishop himself. In a letter printed in Duchèsne’s French collection, iv. 247, Hildebert speaks of a space of three years, “peractum triennium,” within which time Le Mans has had six counts, all of them enemies to peace (“tam modico tempore sex in urbe sustinuimus consules, quorum nullus pacificum prætendens ingressum, gladiis et igne curtam sibi vendicavit potestatem.” It is certainly very hard to reckon up six counts in three years, seemingly the years 1096-1099. In twelve years (1087-1099) not more than five counts――William the Great, Robert, Hugh, Helias, William Rufus――can be made out, unless Helias, with his two reigns, is reckoned twice over. Hildebert then goes on;
“Plebe coacta in favorem, tyrannum suscepit ex necessitate, non ducem ex lege: in susceptum studia simulavit, non exhibuit. Fidem reperit in ea, quia superior. Consul vero tanto gravius dominatus est quanto brevius. Miles ejus simulatis usus injuriis, eos scelerum judicavit expertes quos rerum. Et quia non parcit populis regnum breve, finem rapinis inopia posuit, non voluntas.”
This certainly reads most like a description of the reign of Hugh; but in what follows we surely see the events of 1098 and 1099;
“Ea clades usque ad sanctuarium Domini pervagata est, et primo quidquid extra muros nostræ fuerat potestatis, vel evanuit in favillas vel dissipatum est in rapinam. Deinde similibus cecidere præjudiciis episcopales domus et ecclesiæ non paucæ. In reliquis quibus ignis pepercit æque periclitata est et facultas pauperum et reverentia sacerdotum. Omnia confracta sunt, omnia direpta, omnia contaminata. Nihil eorum manus evasit qui gratis ad flagitium discurrunt, ad honestum nec pretio.”
To what does all this refer? It reads most like a description of the Red King’s harryings at Coulaines in 1098 (see p. 234); but no one is mentioned, whereas the “Rex Anglicus” and his “tyrannis” are openly spoken of further on in the letter. And it is strange, if in all this there is no reference to the fire of 1099. Did Hildebert attribute the fire to Helias, and does that account for any enmity towards him? Yet the version of the Biographer as clearly makes the fire the work of the Normans as the version of Orderic. Helias is not mentioned by name, nor is any recorded act of his distinctly mentioned. The passage is obscure, most likely purposely obscure. It might be so construed as to attribute all mischief to Helias; it might be so construed as not to lay any particular act to his charge. But in any case Helias would at least come under the general condemnation which is pronounced upon all the counts of Maine, be they six or fewer. No friend of Helias could have so spoken; and it is plain that, when Bishop Hildebert wrote the letter, he was――very naturally――not a little angry, if not with Helias in particular, yet at least with a class of men among whom Helias must be reckoned.
Of the rest of the letter I shall have to speak in another Note.
NOTE LL. Vol. ii. p. 238.
THE SURRENDER OF LE MANS TO WILLIAM RUFUS.
It is not very easy at first sight to reconcile our accounts of the negotiations which led to the surrender of Le Mans in August 1098. Yet there seems to be no direct contradiction of any moment. It seems not impossible that the difference is merely one of those cases where one writer gives prominence to some feature in the story which another writer leaves out.
According to all accounts, Le Mans was at this time in the possession of Fulk of Anjou. Orderic (see p. 237) makes him personally present in the city; the Biographer of the Bishops does not say whether he was there or not. But in any case the city had admitted his authority in May and had not yet thrown it off. Fulk was therefore fully in a position to negotiate with William, while Helias, who was a prisoner in William’s hands, was not strictly in a position to negotiate with anybody. Yet the Biographer makes no mention of Fulk as an actor or a party to the treaty, but only as one of whose devices Helias was afraid. In his version Bishop Hildebert and some of the chief men of Le Mans first, by the King’s leave, visit the captive Count, and agree on terms with him; then they draw up a treaty with the King according to those terms. The tale runs thus (Vet. An. 306);
“Helias timens ne Fulco comes proscriptioni ejus intenderet, manduvit ad se episcopum et quosdam ex primoribus civitatis ex consensu regis, et cœpit agere cum eis, eosque suppliciter deprecari, quatenus casibus illius condolentes, modis omnibus niterentur, qualiter civitatem regi traderent, ipsumque a vinculis liberarent. Timebat enim quod Fulco comes, regis deceptus muneribus, cum eo pacem faceret, atque civitate tradita perpetuo damnaretur exsilio. Episcopus autem et qui cum eo venerant, ejus angustias miserantes, cum rege de ejus liberatione locuti, cum eo tale pactum fecerunt, ut si eorum consilio atque ingenio sibi civitas traderetur, ipse Heliam comitem quietum et liberum abire permitteret.”
He adds, hurrying matters a little; “Quod negotium industria præsulis celerius quam sperabatur effectum, eodemque tempore et regi civitas et consuli abeundi libertas reddita est.”
Orderic, on the other hand (772 D), has a version in which there is no mention of any dealings with Helias, but which makes William and Fulk――the latter, it would seem, under some pressure――agree on terms substantially the same as those stated in the other account. His version runs thus;
“Andegavenses autem cum Cenomannis consiliati sunt, et sese Normannis in omnibus inferiores compererunt, unde colloquium inter regem et consulem procuraverunt. Ibi tunc, auxiliante Deo, necessaria pax inter eos facta est, et inde multis pro pluribus causis utriusque populi gaudium ingens exortum est. Requisitum est et concessum ut Helias comes et omnes qui capti fuerant ex utraque parte redderentur, et Cenomannis et omnia castra quæ Guillelmus rex habuerat Rufo filio ejus subjugarentur.”
The joy of which Orderic speaks clearly did not extend to Angers. The Chronicle of Saint Albinus (1098) puts things in quite another light; “Quam [Cenomanniam urbem] tribus mensibus retentam, Cenomanensibus, more suo, sibi fraudantibus et a se deficientibus, reddidit eam in amicitia præfato regi Anglorum, qui ipsam urbem magis pecunia quam viribus impugnabat jamque pene possidebat.”
Here we have no mention of Helias or of any dealings with him, nothing of any agreement between Fulk and William. The citizens of Le Mans fall away from the Angevin Count and betray their city to the King. And they fall away through the temptation which the Red King knew well how to bring to bear upon his other enemies, but of which there is no recorded instance in the whole history of the war of Maine. See p. 290.
The tone and effect of these stories is very different, and yet they seem quite capable of being put together. It is simply that each writer enlarges on the persons and things which he cares most about. The Biographer of the Bishops of course enlarges on the part taken by Hildebert; next to Hildebert, he has to tell of Helias. A mission of Hildebert to Helias was a thing which he could not leave out; the fact that the terms were settled between his own Bishop and his own Count was more interesting to him than the fact that those terms were put in the form of a formal treaty between two foreign princes. He cannot leave out the Norman king, but he can and does leave out the Angevin count. He speaks of a treaty between William and Fulk as a thing which was likely to happen; he leaves out the fact that it actually did happen. The Angevin Chronicler is angry at the loss of Le Mans, and is glad to speak of its loss as due altogether to Cenomannian treason or fickleness. Orderic alone, who is, more strictly than either of the others, telling the history of the campaign, and who is less influenced by local passion one way or another, brings out the diplomatic fact that the treaty was formally agreed to in a meeting between King William and Count Fulk. It must have taken the shape of an agreement of some kind between them, unless Fulk and his troops had been driven out of Le Mans by force. But this in no way shuts out the possibility of the dealings between Hildebert and Helias which are described by the Biographer. The state of things would seem to be this. The people of Le Mans, tired of Fulk, unable to have Helias, think that the best thing is to submit to William, but on terms which will secure at least the personal freedom of their native prince. Hildebert and his companions are allowed by William to confer with Helias. The results of the conference are put into the shape of a treaty between William and Fulk. Fulk is in no condition to resist William and the Cenomannian people together; he therefore accepts the treaty, doubtless against his will. Thus the accounts of Orderic and the Biographer seem simply to fill up gaps in one another. The Angevin chronicler simply gives a short and snarling summary of the actual result.
NOTE MM. Vol. ii. p. 239.
THE FORTRESSES OF LE MANS.
A great deal about the walls and the castle of Le Mans, as well as about several other points in the county of Maine, will be found in M. Hucher’s book, Études sur l’Histoire et les Monuments du Département de la Sarthe (Le Mans and Paris, 1856). M. Hucher however hardly carries his researches beyond the city itself; so that, while his remarks and the documents which he quotes tell us much about the “regia turris,” the castle close to the cathedral, he has but little to tell us about the fortress of Mont-Barbé, which is for our purpose of at least equal interest.
I have quoted elsewhere (N. C. iii. 207) some of the passages which record the building of at least two castles by the Conqueror, the royal tower and that of Mont-Barbé. In the extract from William of Jumièges for “ponte Barbato” we must read “monte.” Benoît, oddly enough, knew the name of Mont-Barbé, but did not know that of the royal tower (35735);
“Por ce i ferma deus chasteaus Hauz, defensables, forz e beaus; Li uns en out non Monbarbé: Mais que issi fu apelé Ne sai retraire ne ne truis.”
Wace, on the other hand (15014), in his wild chronology of all Cenomannian matters, makes William Rufus build this castle in the expedition of 1099;
“Li Reis vint el Mans fièrement, Son hostel prist vers Saint Vincent. Por grever cels de la cité Fist la mote devant Barbé.”
But this story, though utterly out of its place, may possibly preserve a fact. The royal tower was undoubtedly built by the Conqueror after he had taken Le Mans in 1063 in order to secure the possession of the city. But Mont Barbé looks rather like one of the besieging castles made in order to get possession. Nothing is now left but the mound. William may conceivably have found this mound ready made. If not, his building of 1063 must have been of wood, though it may very likely have had a stone successor. The mound, not far from Saint Vincent’s abbey, stands in a private garden, and the visitor to Le Mans, unless he has local guidance, may very likely fail to find it. I missed it at my first visit in 1868, which must be my excuse for the rather vague language in the third volume of the Norman Conquest. I saw it for the first time in 1876, through the kindness of M. Henri Chardon, and again in 1879 with Mr. Parker and Mr. Fowler.
The question remains, Was there a Mons Barbatulus as well as a Mons Barbatus? The passages quoted from Orderic and William of Jumièges (N. C. vol. iii. p. 207) seem to imply it; only the odd thing is that the words of William of Jumièges seem to leave out the royal tower, and to speak of Barbatus and Barbatulus only. And one might take the words of Wace, “La mote devant Barbé,” to mean Barbatulus rather than Barbatus; only it would be hard to find another mota. Barbatulus is conjecturally, but with every likelihood, placed on the site of the present Lyceum, between Barbatus and the city.
The royal tower was built just outside the Roman wall, two of whose bastions, known as La Tour Margot――after Margaret, the promised bride of Robert?――and La Tour du Cavalier, were taken into its precinct. All these must be distinguished from the palace of the Counts (see N. C. vol. iii. p. 205) which stands on the Roman wall, almost in a line with the east end of the cathedral. It contains a window of the twelfth century, of great width, a feature characteristic of Le Mans. In this palace was the sainte chapelle of the Counts.
NOTE NN. Vol. ii. p. 240.
THE DATES OF THE BUILDING OF LE MANS CATHEDRAL.
I have more than once, in the History of the Norman Conquest, had to speak of the dates of the various parts of the church of Saint Julian at Le Mans. The subject is so closely connected with so many names which appear in our story that an inquiry of this kind can hardly be thought out of place. My later visits to Le Mans have enabled me to examine and consider several points again; and I am now inclined to think that there is very little, if anything, standing in the present church of an earlier date than William the Conqueror’s first taking of Le Mans in 1063. I have got some help from a local book, called “Recherches sur la Cathédrale du Mans. Par L’Abbé….” (Le Mans, 1872); but its architectural criticism is not of a high order. Another local book, “L’Ancien Chapitre Cathédral du Mans, par Armand Bellée, Archiviste de la Sarthe” (Le Mans, 1875), is a very thorough piece of capitular history, but it throws little light on the architecture.
The earliest church of which we have any certain account was a basilica of the ninth century. Saint Aldric, bishop from 832 to 856, rebuilt the cathedral church, of which he consecrated the eastern part in 834 and the rest in 835. I have for these dates to trust the author of the “Recherches sur la Cathédrale du Mans,” who quotes from a manuscript life of Aldric in the library at Le Mans. (I have seen the volume, and I could wish that it was in print.) The time allowed for the building is wonderfully short; but Aldric, if he did all that is attributed to him by the Biographer of the Bishops (Vet. An. 276), must have been a man of wonderful energy. There is nothing said directly of his works at Saint Julian’s; but they might almost be taken for granted when we hear of the many churches which he built and restored (“Ædificia quæ prædictus pontifex multipliciter a novo operatus est, et ecclesias sive nonnulla monasteria quæ a novo fundavit atque perficere et ornare studuit, necnon et restaurationes aliorum monasteriorum et ceterarum ecclesiarum,” &c. &c. &c). In the days of the next Bishop Robert (856-885) Le Mans was sacked by the Northmen and the church burned. We are of course met by the usual difficulty as to the amount of destruction which is implied in words of this kind; but it naturally led to a restoration, and to a new dedication, on which last point however it seems to have been thought needful to consult the Pope (“Matrem ecclesiam, a paganis incensam, diligenti studio renovavit, et ex consilio Romani antistitis jam denuo celeberrime consecravit;” 287*). We hear again (296*) of a dedication under Bishop Mainard (940-960); but not of any rebuilding, just as in some of the intermediate episcopates (Vet. An. 288* et seqq.) we hear a good deal about havoc and desecration, but nothing about actual destruction. The church of Aldric, allowing for the restorations of Robert and any later repairs, seems plainly to have stood till the days of Vulgrin (1055-1067), the earliest Bishop of Le Mans who has even an indirect share in the building of the present church. No work of his, unless possibly the merest fragments, seems to be now standing; but he was the beginner of a great work of rebuilding which gave us what we now see.
In the Life of Vulgrin (Vet. An. 312*) we are simply told that in 1060 he began the foundations of a new church on a greater scale (“Quinto ordinationis suæ anno fundamenta matris ecclesiæ ampliora quam fuerant, inchoavit, sed morte inopina superveniente perficere non potuit”). His foundations were badly laid and his work was unskilful; so that, while attempts were making under his successor Arnold (1067-1082) to prop it up, it fell down. Arnold accordingly destroyed the whole work of Vulgrin, and began again from a new foundation. The extent of his work is clearly marked. He finished the eastern limb, as far as its walls and outer roof were concerned; its internal adornments he left for his successor. Of the transepts with their towers he merely laid the foundations;
“Fabrica novæ ecclesiæ quam præsul Vulgrinus inchoaverat, fundamentorum mobilitate atque lapidum debilitate corrupta, innumera crepidine ruinam suam cœpit terribiliter minitari; quam dum artifices fulcire conantur, repentino fragore nocturno tempore collapsa est…. Inde … episcopus totam cœpti operis fabricam usque ad ima fundamenta destruens, denuo ipsam ecclesiam fundamento firmiori et solidiori lapide construere cœpit, et parti superiori quæ vulgo cancellum nominatur etiam tectum imposuit, membrorum quoque quæ cruces vocantur atque turrium solidissima fundamenta antequam moreretur instituens” (313*).
That he added only the outer roof is plain from what we read of his successor Howel (Vet. An. 289). As Howel adorned the “cancellum” with a pavement and stained glass windows, he also added a painted ceiling;
“Cancellum quod ejus antecessor construxerat pavimento decoravit et cœlo, vitreas quoque per ipsum cancellum, per quod cruces circum quoque laudabili sed sumptuosa nimium artis varietate disponens.”
So again, p. 299;
“Cœpit … superiores partes ejusdem basilicæ diligenti sollicitudine laborare, oratorium scilicet quod chorum vocitant sedemque pontificalem, altaria congrua dimensione disponere, pavimenta substernere, columnas ac laquearia gratissima varietate depingere, parietes per circuitum dealbare.”
Howel also finished the transepts and towers of which Arnold had merely laid the foundations (Vet. An. 289);
“Fabricam novæ ecclesiæ … tanto studio aggressus est consummare ut cruces atque turres, quarum antecessor ipsius … jecerat fundamenta brevi tempore ad effectum perduxit.”
We see then what the work of Vulgrin and Arnold was. It touched the eastern part only; Aldric’s nave was left alone. The original church was a basilica, most likely with three apses, but without transepts. The new design was to rebuild the eastern part on a greater scale with transepts, transept towers (like Geneva and Exeter), and a choir ending in an apse with a surrounding aisle and chapels――as is shown by the mention of many altars. The arrangement was that of the two other great churches of Le Mans, La Couture and Saint Julian in the Meadow, with the single exception of the towers, which do not appear in either of those churches. Arnold built the choir, and began the transepts and towers; Howel adorned the choir and finished the transepts and towers. There is nothing to imply that either of them touched the nave. The arcades of Aldric’s basilica were therefore still standing when William the Great came in 1063 and again in 1073. The work of Vulgrin in the eastern part was doubtless going on at the earlier of those two dates, and that of Arnold at the later.
It must be plain to every one who has seen the building that the work of these bishops in the eastern part of the church has given way to the later choir and transepts. The choir was built between 1218 and 1254, and its great extension to the east involved, as at Lincoln, the destruction of part of the Roman wall. The transepts were built at several times from 1303 to 1424. They are among the very noblest works of the architecture of those centuries; but we may be allowed to rejoice that, as the works of Vulgrin and Arnold left Aldric’s nave standing, so the great works of the thirteenth century and later have left the nave which succeeded that of Aldric. With all its artistic loveliness, the work of the later day cannot share the historic interest of the works of the times of William and Howel, of Helias and Hildebert.
In the present nave it is plain at the first glance that there are two dates of Romanesque; a further examination may perhaps lead to the belief that there are more than two. It is easy to see outside that the aisles and the clerestory are of different dates. The masonry of the aisles is of that Roman type which, in places like Le Mans, where Roman models were abundant, remained in use far into the middle ages, and which in some places can hardly be said to have ever gone out of use at all. The masonry of the clerestory is ashlar. The difference is equally clear between the plain single windows of the aisles and the highly finished coupled windows of the clerestory. Inside, the eye soon sees that the design has undergone a singular change. Without the pulling down of any part, the church put on a new character. Columns supporting round arches after the manner of a basilica were changed into a series of alternate columns and square piers supporting obtusely pointed arches. Each pair of arches therefore forms a couplet, and answers to a single bay of the pointed vaulting and a single pair of windows in the clerestory. The object clearly was to give the building as nearly the air of an Angevin nave, like that of La Couture (see N. C. vol. v. p. 619), as could be given where there were real piers and arches. Now this reconstruction, one which brings in the pointed arch, cannot possibly be earlier than the episcopate of William of Passavant, Bishop from 1143 to 1187. He was a great builder; he translated the body of Saint Julian (Vet. An. 366); he celebrated a dedication of the church (Ib. 370), which my local book fixes, seemingly from manuscripts, to 1158, a date a little early perhaps for such advanced work, but not impossible. To William of Passavant then we must attribute the recasting of the nave, and whatever else seems to be of the same date. To this last head belongs the great south porch, and, I should be inclined to add, the lower part of the southern, the only remaining, tower, though some assign it to Hildebert. The question now comes, What was the nave which William of Passavant recast in this fashion, and whose work was it?
We have seen that we cannot attribute any work in the nave to any prelate earlier than Howel. He must have found the nave of the ninth century still standing. Did he do anything in that part of the church? He performed a ceremony of dedication in 1093 (Vet. An. 300); but that would be fully accounted for by his works in the eastern part. On the other hand, Hildebert celebrated in 1120 (Vet. An. 320) a specially solemn dedication, and the words used seem to imply that the church was now complete in all its parts. The words of Orderic (531 D) seem express. Howel began to build the church (“episcopalem basilicam … condere cœpit”); Hildebert finished it (“basilicam episcopii quam prædecessor ejus inchoaverat, consummavit, et cum ingenti populorum tripudio veneranter dedicavit”). It is doubtless not strictly true that Howel began the church, words which shut out the work of Vulgrin and Arnold; but the time when Orderic wrote makes him a better authority for Hildebert’s finishing than for Howel’s beginning, and the expression might easily be used if Howel began that particular work, namely the nave, which Hildebert finished. I do not think that we need infer from certain expressions of the Biographer that Hildebert left the nave, or any essential part of the building, unfinished. He says indeed (Vet. An. 320);
“Hildebertus opus ecclesiæ, quod per longa tempora protractum fuerat, suo tempore insistens consummare, dedicationem ultra quam res exposcebat accelerans, multa inibi necessaria inexpleta præteriit.”
Comparing this with the words of Orderic, this surely need not mean more than that, though the fabric was perfect, yet much of the ornamental work was left unfinished. Hildebert, in short, left the nave much as Arnold left the choir. At least the nave was in this case when he dedicated the church. For he had time after the dedication to make good anything that was imperfect.
We should then infer from Orderic that the nave which William of Passavant recast was begun by Howel and finished by Hildebert. This may give us the key to a passage in the Biographer on which we might otherwise be inclined to put another meaning. After describing Howel’s building of the transepts in the words quoted above in p. 635, he goes on (289);
“Eisque [crucibus] celeriter culmen imponens, exteriores etiam parietes, quos alas vocant, per circuitum consummavit.”
One might have been tempted to take this of transept aisles; but, weighing one thing with another, it seems to be best understood as meaning that Howel rebuilt the whole of the outer walls of the nave and its aisles. This would give to him the whole extent of the quasi-Roman work of the aisles, together with the great western doorway. The interior work of the aisles seems also to agree with his date. We must therefore suppose that Howel rebuilt the nave aisles only, still leaving the arches of Aldric’s basilica. Then Hildebert rebuilt or thoroughly restored the nave itself, with the columns and arches and whatever they carried in the way of triforium and clerestory. We may therefore suppose that the existing columns, as distinguished from the square piers, are his work, though the splendid capitals of many of them must have been added or carved out of the block in the recasting by William of Passavant.
There is however one fragment of the nave arcades which is older than Hildebert, very likely older than Howel. This is to be seen in the first pier from the east. I need not say that the eastern bay of a nave often belongs to an older work than the rest, being in truth part of the eastern limb continued so far――perhaps for constructive reasons, to act as a buttress――perhaps for ritual reasons, to mark the ritual choir――very often for both reasons combined. One of the best examples is that small part of the nave of Durham abbey which belongs to the work of William of Saint-Calais (see N. C. vol. v. p. 631). At this point then in the nave of Le Mans, we find half columns with capitals and bases of a strangely rude kind, more like Primitive Romanesque (see N. C. vol. v. pp. 613, 618, 628) than anything either Norman or Angevin. These are assuredly not the work of Hildebert. There is one argument for assigning them to Howel, namely that something of the same kind is to be found in the remains of the northern tower of which I shall speak in another Note (see below, Note RR). But if any one holds them to be the work of Arnold or of Vulgrin, or even looks on them as a surviving fragment of the basilica of the days of Lewis the Pious, I shall not dispute against him.
I must add however that, between Hildebert and William of Passavant, we have, according to the use of Le Mans, to account for two fires――“solita civitatis incendia,” as the Biographer (Vet. An. 349) calls them――and their consequences. In 1134 there was a fire which, according to the Biographer (350), was more fearful than any which had ever happened at Le Mans since the city was built, not even excepting the great one of 1098. Everything perished. “Tota Cenomannensis civitas cum omnibus ecclesiis quæ intra muros continebantur, evanuit in favillas.” We read of the “matris ecclesiæ destructio” and “combustio,” all the more lamentable because of its beauty――“ipsa enim tam venustate sui quam claritate tunc temporis vicinis et remotis excellebat ecclesiis.” So Orderic (899 B); “Tunc Cenomannis episcopalis basilica, quæ pulcherrima erat, concremata est.” The then Bishop, Guy of Étampes (1126-1136), spent two hundred pounds in trying to repair the damage; “Ad cujus restaurationem cc. libras Cenomannenses dedit, sine mora contulit, et omnibus modis desudavit quomodo ipsa ad perpetuitatem decenter potuisset restaurari.” Under the next Bishop, Hugh of Saint-Calais (1146-1153), there was another fire, the account of which is very curious (Vet. An. 349);
“Ignis circa meridiem a vico sancti Vincentii prosiliens, sibi opposita usque ad muros civitatis et domos episcopales, tegmenque sacelli beati Juliani adhuc stramineum, cum fenestris vitreis concremavit et macerias, et in summis imagines sculptas lapidibus deturbavit.”
The people break open the shrine of Saint Julian in order to save his body, which they carry to the place where the Bishop was. The Bishop seems to have repaired the episcopal buildings before he touched the church, and the details have some interest in the history of domestic architecture (“domum petrinam ex parte sancti Audoëni positam, decenti solariorum interpositu numerosas fenestras habentium cum sua camera continuavit”). Presently we read;
“Beatissimum patrem nostrum Julianum ipso die a lignea basilica in occidentali membro ecclesiæ intra macerias facta, post incendium in qua fere triennio requieverat, in redivivam sollenniter, clero cantibus insultante, populo congaudente, transtulerunt ecclesiam.”
We do not hear of any more building, but there is a long list (Vet. An. 354) of the ornaments which Bishop Hugh gave to the Church.
Some of the expressions used in these passages are very odd. “Sacellum beati Juliani” is a strange phrase for the cathedral church, and yet the thatched roof and the glass windows must be spoken of a building and not of a mere shrine. It is Saint Julian’s church itself whose roof and windows are spoken of. But the phrase “lignea basilica,” which makes one think of Glastonbury, must not lead us to think that any wooden church of early days was then standing at Le Mans. The whole story seems quite intelligible, without supposing any really architectural work between Hildebert and William of Passavant. The language of the Biographer in describing the fire of 1134 is, as so often happens, very much exaggerated. His own account shows that the walls of the church were left standing. It looks on the whole as if the roof was destroyed in 1134. It was hastily repaired with thatch. It was burned again, and the clerestory (“fenestræ vitreæ”) with it, at the next fire in 1146-1153. The whole church perhaps remained for a while unfit for divine service. Then some wooden structure (“lignea basilica”) was raised within the walls of the nave (“in occidentali membro ecclesiæ intra macerias facta”). Meanwhile Bishop Hugh repaired the choir (“rediviva ecclesia”), seemingly doing nothing to the nave. Bishop William, finding things in this state, rebuilt the clerestory and vaulted it Angevin fashion. So to do required that every alternate column of the nave should be built up into a square pier. This again required a change in the line of the arches, and, according to the fashion just coming in, they were made obtusely pointed. If any one thinks that the superb foliage of the nave capitals must be later than 1158, he may hold that they were cut out afterwards, or he may even hold that Bishop William’s dedication in that year belongs only to the eastern parts――where something was clearly done in his time or thereabouts――and that the whole recasting of the nave came later in his long episcopate.
I am not writing an architectural history of the church of Saint Julian, and I have perhaps, as it is, gone more into detail than my subject called for. I think that any one who has been at Le Mans will forgive me. But there are many architectural points in this wonderful church on which I have not entered. There is much also in the other two minsters of Le Mans which throws much light on the work at Saint Julian’s. I have merely tried in a general way to assign to their most probable dates and founders the different parts of a church which so often meets us in our present history.
NOTE OO. Vol. ii. p. 242.
THE INTERVIEW BETWEEN WILLIAM RUFUS AND HELIAS.
We have two chief accounts of this remarkable interview, one in Orderic, 773 B, the other in William of Malmesbury, iv. 320. As with some of the other anecdotes of William Rufus, Orderic tells the story in its place as part of his regular narrative, while William of Malmesbury brings it in, along with the story of his crossing to Touques, as a mere anecdote, to illustrate the King’s “præclara magnanimitas.” And he tells the tale very distinctly out of its place, for he puts it after the voyage to Touques, that is in the campaign of 1099, whereas it is clear that it happened during the campaign of 1098. One’s feelings are a little shocked when he speaks of “auctor turbarum, Helias quidam,” which reminds one of the meeting between the Count’s earlier namesake and another tyrant (“venit Achab in occursum Eliæ. Et cum vidisset eum, ait; Tune es ille, qui conturbas Israël?” 3 Regg. xviii. 16). To be sure he does afterwards speak of the “alta nobilitas” of the Count of Maine.
There is a good deal of difference in the details of the dialogue in the two accounts. That in William of Malmesbury is much shorter, and consists wholly of an exchange of short and sharp sayings between the speakers, which are certainly very characteristic of William Rufus. There is nothing in this version of the offer of Helias to enter the King’s service, or of the counsel given by Robert of Meulan. In Orderic’s version Helias speaks first, with the offer of service, beginning “Rex inclute, mihi, quæso, subveni pro tua insigni strenuitate;” and we read, “Liberalis rex hoc facile annuere decrevit, sed Rodbertus Mellenticus comes pro felle livoris dissuasit.” Then, after speeches on both sides which are not given, comes the defiance of Helias, in these words;
“Libenter, domine rex, tibi servirem, si tibi placeret, gratiamque apud te invenirem. Amodo mihi, quæso, noli derogare, si aliud conabor perpetrare. Patienter ferre nequeo quod meam mihi ablatam hæreditatem perspicio. Ex violentia prævalente omnis mihi denegatur rectitudo. Quamobrem nemo miretur si calumniam fecero, si avitum honorem totis nisibus repetiero.”
All this is represented in William of Malmesbury by two sentences;
“Cui [Heliæ] ante se adducto rex ludibundus, ‘Habeo te, magister,’ dixit. At vero illius alta nobilitas quæ nesciret in tanto etiam periculo humilia sapere, humilia loqui; ‘Fortuitu,’ inquit, ‘me cepisti; sed si possem evadere, novi quid facerem.’”
This is very characteristic of Rufus; is it equally so of Helias? Surely the two speeches given to him by Orderic――allowing for a little improvement in the process of turning them into Latin――much better suit his character and position. And we can hardly fancy that Helias’ offer to enter William’s service, the King’s inclination to accept it, and the evil counsel given by Robert of Meulan――all likewise thoroughly characteristic――are all mere invention.
The last speech of Rufus is much fuller in William of Malmesbury than in Orderic. Orderic simply says, “Cui turgidus rex ait, ‘Vade, et age quidquid mihi potes agere.’” In the other version this becomes;
“Tum Willelmus, præ furore extra se positus, et obuncans Heliam, ‘Tu,’ inquit, ‘nebulo, tu, quid faceres? Discede, abi, fuge; concedo tibi ut facias quidquid poteris; et, per vultum de Luca, nihil, si me viceris, pro hac venia tecum paciscar.’”
He adds, without any mention of a regular safe-conduct,
“Nec inferius factum verbo fuit, sed continuo dimisit evadere, miratus potius quam insectatus fugientem.”
I have in the text followed the version of Orderic, venturing only to add the eminently characteristic words with which William of Malmesbury begins and ends. They in no way disturb the main dialogue as given by Orderic. But I must add that William of Malmesbury warns us against supposing that William Rufus, either in this speech or in his speech on the voyage to Touques, knowingly quoted Lucan. His words are curious;
“Quis talia de illiterato homine crederet? Et fortassis erit aliquis qui, Lucanum legens, falso opinetur Willelmum hæc exempla de Julio Cæsare mutuatum esse: sed non erat ei tantum studii vel otii ut literas unquam audiret; immo calor mentis ingenitus, et conscia virtus, eum talia exprimere cogebant. Et profecto, si Christianitas nostra pateretur, sicut olim anima Euforbii transisse dicta est in Pythagoram Samium, ita possit dici quod anima Julii Cæsaris transierit in regem Willelmum.”
That is to say, Cæsar and William Rufus, being the same kind of men, uttered the same kind of words. The passage of Lucan referred to is where Domitius (ii. 512) is brought before Cæsar at Corfinium;
“Vive, licet nolis, et nostro munere, dixit, Cerne diem, victis jam spes bona partibus esto, Exemplumque mei: vel, si libet, arma retenta, Et nihil hac venia, si viceris ipse, paciscor.”
That William Rufus should quote Lucan, as his brother Henry could most likely have done, was so very unlikely that William of Malmesbury need hardly have warned us against such a belief. At the same time it does not seem impossible that he might have heard of Cæsar without having read Lucan. But we must remember that whatever William Rufus said was said in French, and not in Latin. Without supposing either that Rufus had read Lucan or that the soul of Cæsar had passed into his body, we may believe that William of Malmesbury or his informant could not resist the temptation of translating his speech into the words of a really appropriate passage of a favourite author; then, when he had done this, the singular apology which I have quoted might seem needful.
It must be remembered that William of Malmesbury puts this story altogether out of place. It is put yet further out of its place by Wace (15106), who makes the capture of Helias follow the siege of Mayet (see p. 289). His version brings in some new details. Helias, having been taken prisoner, makes (15120) a boastful speech to his keepers, swearing by the patron saint of his city that, if he had not fallen by chance into an ambuscade, he would soon have driven the King of England out of all his lands beyond the sea (15120);
“Mais or vos dirai une rien: Par monseignor Saint-Julien, Se jo ne fusse si tost pris, Mult éust poi en cest païs. El rei eusse fait tant guerre, Ke dechà la mer d’Engleterre Plein pié de terre n’en éust, Ne tur ne chastel ki suen feust; Maiz altrement est avenu, Il a cunquis è jo perdu.”
When this is told to the King, he causes Helias to be brought before him; he gives him a horse, and bids him mount and ride whither he will; only he had better take care that he is not caught again, as he will not be let out of prison a second time;
“Dunc le fist li reis amener, E des buies le fist oster, Son palefrei fist demander E mult richement enseler; El conte dit: Dans quens, muntez Alez kel part ke vos volez, Fetes al mielx ke vos porrez, Maiz altre feiz mielx vos gardez; Kar se jo vos prene altre feiz, Jamez de ma prison n’iestreiz. Ne voil mie ke vos kuideiz Ke de guerre sorpris seiz, Mais vos n’ireiz jà nule part, Ke jo près dos ne vos gart.” (vv. 15134-15147.)
In this version the horse is something new, though not at all out of place, as Helias could not well get away without a horse, and he could not have had any horse at his command at the moment. We may note also that William is here made, whether seriously or in mockery, to give Helias the title of Count, “Dans quens.” But the story has very much come down from the level of either of the other versions. The boastful speech to the keepers is not at all in the style of Helias, and it is a poor substitute either for the dignified offer and defiance in Orderic or for the lively dialogue in William of Malmesbury. This last we should gladly have had in Wace’s version, as there would have been some faint chance of recovering a scrap or two more of the original French to match the “Dans quens,” which has a genuine ring on the one hand, as the “magister” and the “nebulo” of William of Malmesbury have on the other.
Geoffrey Gaimar too (Chroniques Anglo-Normandes, i. 37) has a version in which Helias, when a prisoner, makes a boastful speech to the effect that, if it had not been by an ambush, he would never have been taken;
“Li quiens des Mans ert en prison, Aüner voleit grant rançon; Mès ceo diseit que, s’il séust Qe l’om issi prendre le deust, Tut autrement se contenist, Li rois les Mans jà ne préist.”
He is brought before the King, to whom he says that he is much beloved in his land, and that, if he were only able to assemble his men, no king could subdue him in it. William lets him go to see what he can do, and gives up to him Le Mans and all the castles of the country;
“Quant fut conté devant le roi, Si le fist mener devant soi; Par bel amur li ad demandé S’il estoit issi vaunté Cil respondit: ‘Sire, jo’l dis, Mult sui amé en cest païs. Il n’ad souz ciel si fort roi, Si par force venist sus moi, Qu’il ne perdist, si jeo le seusse, Pur quei ma gent assemblé eusse.’ Li rois, quant l’ot, si prent à rire: Par bel amur et nient par ire, Li comanda q’il s’en alast, Préist les Mans, s’il guerreiast. Et cil fui lez, si s’en ala. Touz ses chastels renduz li a Li rois par bone volonté, Rendit les Mans la forte cité.”
Helias calls on his barons to help him in war with the King; but they decline, and advise him to give up the city and all the castles, and to become the King’s man. He does so; otherwise the poet says that the King would have thrown aside his friendship, and that he would have taken the castles and put all concerned to a vile death;
“Et cil manda pur ses barons, Moveir voloit les contençons, Mès si baron li ont loé Qu’il rende au roi la cité Et les chasteus de son païs, Son hom lige seit tuz dis. Li quens Elyes issi fist, Onc ses homes n’en contredist. Et s’il issi ne l’éust fet Mult fust entre els en amur plet; Li rois par force les préist Et de vile mort les occeist.”
I need hardly stop to show how utterly unhistorical all this is. But the “bel amur,” the challenge, the release of the Count and the surrender of the city and the castles, the general looking on war as a kind of game, are all highly characteristic of the chivalrous King. The last words indeed give us the other side of chivalry; but I confess that they seem to me to be unfair to William Rufus, however well they might suit Robert of Bellême. Geoffrey Gaimar lived to see times when the doings of Robert of Bellême, exceptional in his own day, had become the general rule.
NOTE PP. Vol. ii. p. 284.
THE VOYAGE OF WILLIAM RUFUS TO TOUQUES.
This story is told by a great many writers; but, as in the story of the interview of William Rufus and Helias, our two main versions are those of Orderic (775 A) and of William of Malmesbury (iv. 320). And, as in the case of that story, with which William of Malmesbury couples it, he tells it simply as an illustrative anecdote, while with Orderic it is part of his regular narrative. And again William throws one of the speeches into the form of a familiar classical quotation, and the curious apology quoted in the last note is made to apply to this story as well as to the other. At the same time there is no actual contradiction between the two versions. The messenger――Amalchis according to Orderic――reaches England and finds the King in the New Forest. He thus (775 A) describes the delivery of the message; “Ille mari transfretato Clarendonam venit, regi cum familiaribus suis in Novam Forestam equitanti obviavit, et alacriter inquirenti rumores, respondit, Cœnomannis per proditionem surrepta est. Verum dominus meus Balaonem custodit, et regalis familia omnes munitiones sibi assignatas sollerter observavit, auxiliumque regalis potentiæ vehementer desiderat, in hostile robur quod eos undique includit et impugnat.” William of Malmesbury (iv. 320) does not mention the place; “Venationi in quadam silva intentum nuntius detinuit ex transmarinis partibus, obsessam esse civitatem Cinomannis, quam nuper fratre profecto suæ potestati adjecerat.” This is a somewhat inadequate summary of the Cenomannian war.
Now comes the King’s answer, in which I have ventured in the text to bring in both the speeches which are attributed to Rufus on first hearing the news of the loss of Le Mans. In Orderic the story stands thus;
“His auditis, rex dixit, ‘Eamus trans mare, nostros adjuvare. Eodem momento inconsultis omnibus equum habenis regiravit, ipsumque calcaribus urgens ad pontum festinavit, et in quandam vetustam navim quam forte invenit, sine regio apparatu velut plebeius intravit et remigare protinus imperavit. Sic nimirum nec congruentem flatum nec socios nec alia quæ regiam dignitatem decebant exspectavit; sed omnis metus expers fortunæ et pelago sese commisit, et sequenti luce ad portum Tolchæ, Deo duce, salvus applicuit.’”
He then goes on with the graphic details of the landing at Touques and the ride to Bonneville, which find no place in William of Malmesbury. William’s version is as follows;
“Statim ergo ut expeditus erat retorsit equum, iter ad mare convertens. Admonentibus ducibus exercitum advocandum, paratos componendos, ‘Videbo,’ ait, ‘quis me sequetur; putatis me non habiturum homines? si cognovi juventutem meam, etiam naufragio ad me venisse volet.’ Hoc igitur modo pene solus ad mare pervenit. Erat tunc nubilus aer et ventus contrarius; flatus violentia terga maris verrebat. Illum statim transfretare volentem nautæ exorant ut pacem pelagi et ventorum clementiam operiatur. ‘Atqui,’ inquit rex, ‘numquam audivi regem naufragio interiisse.’ Quin potius solvite retinacula navium, videbitis elementa jam conspirata in meum obsequium. Ponto transito, obsessores, ejus audita fama, dissiliunt.”
Then follows the interview with Helias, quite out of place.
Here we have several separate details in each version; but they quite fit into one another. Of Rufus’ two speeches before he rides off, each seems to need the support of the other. The speech to the sailors lurks as it were in the words of Orderic, “remigare protinus imperavit,” and his other words, “fortunæ et pelago sese commisit,” suggest the same general idea which comes out in them. They suggest the well-known story of Cæsar which William of Malmesbury seems to have in his head, which is told by Florus (iv. ii. 37), Appian (Bell. Civ. ii. 57), and Plutarch (Cæsar, 38). The Latin writer says only “Quid times? Caesarem vehis?” while the two Greek writers bring in the word τύχη [tychê] (Ἴθι, γενναῖε, τόλμα καὶ δέδιθι μηδέν. Καίσαρα φέρεις καὶ τὴν Καίσαρος τύχην συμπλέουσαν). ([Ithi, gennaie, tolma kai dedithi mêden. Kaisara phereis kai tên Kaisaros tychên sympleousan]). Our writers are not likely to have read either of the Greek books, and there is enough about “Fortuna” in the passage of Lucan (v. 577-593) which William of Malmesbury at least must have had in his eye, and where the few words of Appian and the fewer of Florus grow into a speech of many lines. The odd thing however is that the actual words do not seem to come from anything in Lucan, but to be in a manner made up out of two passages of Claudian. We get the sentiment in one (De III Cons. Hon. 96);
“O nimium dilecte Deo, cui fundit ab antris Æolus armatas hiemes, cui militat æther, Et conjurati veniunt ad classica venti.”
But the actual words come nearer to the other (De IV Cons. Hon. 284);
“Nonne vides, operum quo se pulcherrimus ille Mundus amore ligat, nec vi connexa per ævum Conspirant elementa sibi?”
Just as in the other story, we may suppose that Rufus said something which, in the course of improving into Latin, suggested the words of the two Latin poets. The saying that he had never heard of a king being drowned surely has the genuine stamp of the Red King about it. And it is to be remembered that there is a passage which evidently refers to the same story in a grave contemporary, who takes his quotations, not from heathen poets but from the New Testament. Eadmer (54) attributes to William Rufus, as a general privilege, something like what in our own day we have been used to call “Queen’s weather;”
“Ventus insuper et ipsum mare videbantur ei obtemperare. Verum dico, non mentior, quia quum de Anglia in Normanniam transire vel inde cursum prout ipsum voluntas sua ferebat, redire volebat, mox, illo adveniente, et mari appropinquante, omnis tempestas, quæ nonnunquam immane sæviebat, sedabatur, et transeunti mira tranquillitate famulabatur.”
It is worth notice that the same idea is found, besides Lucan and Claudian, in a third Latin writer, who is much less likely to have been known to either Orderic or William of Malmesbury. This is in the Panegyric addressed by Eumenius to the elder Constantius (Pan. Vet. v. 14). He is describing the voyage of Constantius to Britain to put down Allectus, when, as in the cases of Cæsar and William Rufus, the weather was bad;
“Quis enim se, quamlibet iniquo mari, non auderet credere, te navigante? Omnium, ut dicitur, accepto nuntio navigationis tuæ, una vox et hortatio fuit; ‘Quid dubitamus? quid moramur? Ipse jam solvit, jam provehitur, jam fortasse pervenit. Experiamur omnia, per quoscumque fluctus eamus. Quid est, quod timere possimus? Cæsarem sequimur.’”
Eumenius of course had the story of the earlier Cæsar in his mind.
In all these versions the saying of William Rufus seems to be quoted as an instance of his pride and irreverence. Matthew Paris alone (Hist. Angl. i. 166) gives his speech an unexpectedly pious turn. To the shipman, who addresses him as “hominum audacissime” and asks “numquid tu ventis et mari poteris imperare?” he answers, “Non frequenter [no longer “never” but “hardly ever”] auditum est, reges Christianos Deum invocantes fluctibus fuisse submersos. Aliqui de oppressis et obsessis apud Cenomannem orant pro me, quos Deus, etsi non me, clementer exaudiet.” Matthew also makes the news be brought to the King, not when he is hunting, but when he is at a feast.
The story is found, in one shape or another, in all the riming chronicles. Wace (14908), who tells the whole story of Helias’ entry into Le Mans with great spirit, but utterly out of place, gives a vivid picture of the coming of the messenger;
“En Engleterre esteit li reis, Mult out Normanz, mult out Engleis; Brachez aveit fet demander, En boiz voloit aler berser. Eis vus par là un sergeant Ki d’ultre mer veneit errant; Li reis l’a mult tost entercié; El Mans garder l’aveit leissié, Crié li a è dist de luing; Ke font el Mans, out il busuing? Sire, dist-il, li Mans est pris, Li quens Helies s’est enz mis, La cité a Helies prise, E la tor ad entor assise; Normanz ki dedenz sa defendent.”
The passage in its general effect, and to some extent in its actual words, recalls the better known description (10983; cf. N. C. vol. iii. p. 258) of the news of Eadward’s death and Harold’s election being brought to William the Great. It is perhaps to make the two scenes more completely tally that Rufus, who, in Orderic and William of Malmesbury, is already engaged in hunting, is in this version merely going out to hunt. Of his father it was said;
“Mult aveit od li chevaliers E dameisels et esquiers.”
But the son,
“Mult out Normanz, mult out Engleis.”
This reminds us of the other passage (see above, p. 533) where “Normans” and “English” are made to help the fallen Rufus before Saint Michael’s Mount. And the question again presents itself; What did Wace exactly mean by Normans and English? We must remember his position. Wace was a writer locally Norman, the chronicler of the Norman Conquest, writing when, in England itself, the distinction of races had nearly died out. His way of thinking and speaking, as that of one accustomed to past times, would most likely be different both from that of the time of which he is writing and from that which would be familiar to either Normans or English――whether genere or natione――in his own time. In Rufus’ day “Normanz et Engleiz” would have meant “Normanni et Angli genere,;” but it is not likely that many “Angli genere” would be in the immediate company of the King. In Wace’s own day, “Normanz et Engleiz” already meant “Normanni et Angli natione;” only there would hardly have been any occasion for using the phrase. Wace very likely used the phrase in a slightly different sense in the two passages. Before the Mount, in describing a warlike exploit, he most likely meant simply Norman and English natione. In the present passage his mind perhaps floated between the two meanings.
The King hears the news brought by the sergeant; he gives up his purpose of hunting that day, and swears his usual oath by the face of Lucca that those who have done him this damage shall pay for it;
“Li reis mua tot son corage Dès ke il oï li message. Li vo de Luche en a juré Ke mult sera chier comperé. Cest serement aveit en us, Ne faiseit nul serement plus.”
He bids the messenger to cross the sea as fast as he can, to go to Le Mans and to tell his forces there that by God’s help he will be there to help them in eight days;
“D’ore en wit jors el Mans serai, Dunc se Dex plaist les secorrai.”
He then――being in England, it must be remembered――asks the nearest way to Le Mans. On the direct line which is shown him, there is a well-built house. He says that he will not for a hundred marks of silver turn a hundred feet out of the way. So he has the house pulled down, and rides over the site to Southampton――not alone, in this version, but with a following;
“Une maiziere li mostrerent, Ço distrent ke il Mans ert là, E ço dist ke par la ira; Por cenz mars d’argent, ço diseit, Del Mans cenz piez n’esluingnereit De là, ù il ses piez teneit, Quant li besuing del Mans oeit, Dunc fist abatre la maiziere, Ki mult esteit bone et entiere; La maiziere fu abatue E fete fu si grant l’issue Ke li Reis Ros è li vassal I passerent tuit à cheval.”
Absurd as this story is, and utterly irreconcileable with the earlier versions, there is still a ring of William Rufus about it. And we may safely accept Southampton as the haven from which he set out. But the zeal for taking the straightest road which was so strong on him by land seems to have passed away by sea, as he goes not to Touques but to Barfleur, certainly not the nearest point for getting from Southampton to Le Mans. The story of the voyage is told in much the same way as in William of Malmesbury, the speech to the sailors standing thus;
“Unkes, dist-il, n’oï parler De Rei ki fu néié en mer; Fetes vos nés el parfont traire, Essaïez ke porreiz faire.”
Geoffrey Gaimar (Chroniques Anglo-Normandes, i. 32) makes the messenger bring a letter, which the King seemingly gives to Randolf Flambard to read;
“‘Tenez cest bref, sire reis.’ Li reis le prist, tost le fruissat, Ranulf Flambard le bref baillat.”
He sends the messenger back with a letter; he rides to Southampton, orders a force to be got together to follow him, and himself crosses with a company of twelve hundred rich knights. Otherwise the tale is essentially the same. But it is worth noticing that Geoffrey, when he gets among sea-faring folk, uses two English words (the steersman we have already met with in his English garb in Domesday; see N. C. vol. v. p. 763);
“Et il od mesnée privée, Vint à la mier, si l’ad passée, Encontre vent la mier passa. Le stieresman li demanda S’il voleit contre vent aler Et périller enz en la mier. Li rois respont; ‘N’estœt parler, Onques ne veistes roi néer, Ne jéo n’ierc jà le primer. Fetes vos eschipes nager.’ Tant ont nagé et governé Q’en Barbefloe e sont arivé. Il out de privée meisnée Mil-et-ii cenz à cele fiée. Tuit erent riches chevaliers; Sacez, li rois les out mult chers.”
Benoît (v. 40379) gives no details peculiar to himself; but he is worth comparing with the others as a piece of language;
“Si fu de passer corajos, Volunteris e desiros: Mais mult furent li vent contraire E la mers pesme e deputaire.”
But the central speech about a king being drowned is in much the same words as in the other riming versions;
“E li reis corajos e proz Responeit e diseit a toz C’unques n’aveit oï parler De ré qui fust neiez en mer, N’il ne sera jà li premiers.”
This writer does not mention Southampton, Touques, Barfleur, or any particular port.
The doctrine that kings were never drowned might seem to be contradicted by the popular interpretation of the fate of the Pharaoh of Exodus. But the text certainly does not imply that the Pharaoh himself was drowned. On the other hand, there is somewhere the story of an Irish king who, setting out with his fleet, was met by Noah’s flood――conceived seemingly as something like the bore in the Severn――and was drowned.
It is worth while comparing this story of William Rufus with the behaviour of our next king of the same name in a case somewhat like this, when he too was sailing from England to the land of his birth. When William the Third was in danger in an open boat off the isle of Goree, we read (Macaulay, Hist. Eng. iv. 2);
“The hardiest mariners showed signs of uneasiness. But William, through the whole night, was as composed as if he had been in the drawing-room at Kensington. ‘For shame,’ he said to one of the dismayed sailors: ‘are you afraid to die in my company?’”
The difference between the two speeches is characteristic. But the parallel of Cæsar was seized on in both cases. Among the pageants when William entered the Hague (iv. 5), when the events of his own life were represented, this scene was shown;
“There, too, was a boat amidst the ice and the breakers; and above it was most appropriately inscribed, in the majestic language of Rome, the saying of the great Roman, ‘What dost thou fear? Thou hast Cæsar on board.’”
NOTE QQ. Vol. ii. p. 289.
THE SIEGE OF MAYET.
I visited Mayet with Mr. Fowler and Mr. Parker in July, 1879, when we examined many other of the castles and sites of castles in that neighbourhood. But we could not pitch on the actual site of the siege of Mayet with the same confidence with which we fixed most of the sites of our present story. The evidence is by no means so clear as it is in the case of most of the Cenomannian towns and fortresses. There are in truth too many sites to choose from.
The small town of Mayet is not rich in antiquities. Its ancient church has been, first desecrated, and then swept away. Nor is the town itself immediately commanded by any fortress, like those of Fresnay, Beaumont, and Ballon. But two spots lie to the east of the town which cannot fail to have had some share in our history. A large house of the Renaissance, with portions of an earlier castle worked into it, stands at the foot of a low hill at some distance from the town, and with a good deal of swampy ground lying between them. This boasts itself to be the site of the fortress where the second Cenomannian expedition of William the Red came to so strange and lame an ending. But there are no traces of eleventh-century work remaining, and the site itself is most unlike the site of an eleventh-century fortress. The hill immediately above the house, far lower than Ballon or any of its fellows, does make some feeble approach to the favourite peninsular shape, and fancy at least has traced, amid the havoc made by the plough, some faint signs of ditches and made ground. On the high ground on the other side of the swamp, less completely cut off from the town, rises a mound, of whose artificial construction and military purpose there can be no doubt, and where ancient objects of various kinds are said to have been found. But this mound seems far too small to have been the site of such a stronghold as the castle of Mayet appears in our story. Could we believe it to have been thrown up during William’s siege, as a besieging mound, like those of which we have so often heard, its interest as regards our story would be almost as great as if it were the site of the head castle itself. But it seems too far off for any purpose save that of keeping the garrison in check; if the besieged castle stood on the opposite hill or at its foot, the stress of the siege must have taken place at some point much nearer to its site. The siege of Mayet is so singular a story, and so important in the history of this war, that it is disappointing not to be able to fix its topography with any confidence. But it is unluckily true that he who traces out the siege of Mayet cannot do so with the same full assurance that he is treading the true historic ground which he feels at Ballon and Fresnay.
In the details of the siege I have strictly followed Orderic, save that I have ventured to bring in the very characteristic story of Robert of Bellême which is told by Wace. But it cannot well have had the effect which Wace (15074) attributes to it, that of causing the army to disperse, and so making the King raise the siege;
“Partant sunt del siège méu A peine fussent retenu. Li siège par treis dis failli, Li reis si tint mal bailli Del siège k’il ne pout tenir, E de l’ost k’il vit despartir. Ne pout cels de l’ost arester Ne il n’oserent retorner; Par veies fuient è par chans, Dunc est li reis venu el Mans.”
The order of events in Wace is really wonderful. After Robert has gone to the East, William Rufus reigns in peace, seemingly over Maine as well as Normandy. Helias seizes Le Mans; the news is brought to William; he sails to Barfleur; he recovers Le Mans (having on his road the singular adventure described in 14998 of Pluquet’s text, 9899 of Andresen’s); he besieges Mayet; he returns to Le Mans; he ravages the land; Helias is taken prisoner; he is brought before the King and released, and then William goes back to England to be shot by Walter Tirel.
NOTE RR. Vol. ii. p. 297.
WILLIAM RUFUS AND THE TOWERS OF LE MANS CATHEDRAL.
Was the bidding of William Rufus actually carried out in this matter? Did Bishop Hildebert pull down the towers or not? Unluckily Orderic tells us nothing about the story, and the language of the Biographer seems to me to be purposely obscure.
Hildebert himself mentions the matter in a passage which I quoted in the text (p. 298), in which he complains of the horrors of a voyage to England. He says (Duchèsne, iv. 248);
“Longum est enarrare quam constanti tyrannide rex Anglicus in nos sævierit, qui, temperantia regis abjecta, decreverit non prius pontifici parendum quam pontificem compelleret in sacrilegium. Quia etenim turres ecclesiæ nostræ dejicere nolumus,” &c.
One can make no certain inference from this, except that Hildebert was not disposed to pull down the towers when he wrote the letter, seemingly in England. The Biographer is fuller. I have quoted (see p. 298) the passages which describe the commands and offers of Rufus; we then read;
“Verumtamen Hildebertus magnis undique coartabatur angustiis, quia sibi et de regis offensione periculum, et de turris destructione sibi et ecclesiæ suæ imminere grande prævidebat opprobrium: propter quod a rege dilationem petebat, donec super his consilium accepisset. Qua vix impetrata, cernens sibi nequaquam esse utile in illis regionibus diutius immorari, breviter ad suam reversus est ecclesiam…. Interea præsul de præcepto regis vehementer anxius, de urbis incendio, de domorum et omnium rerum suarum destructione, de civium expulsione; primo tamen de clericorum, quos violentia regis ab urbe eliminaverat, dispersione, mæstissimus, Dei omnipotentis clementiam jugiter precabatur, ut ab ecclesia et populo sibi commisso iram indignationis suæ dignaretur avertere.”
He then goes on to tell how wonderfully God saved them all by the sudden death of Rufus and the final coming of Helias. But he does not directly say whether the towers were pulled down or not. His way of telling the story might suggest the thought that the towers were pulled down, but that he did not like to say so.
To my mind the appearances of the building look the same way. We have seen that the towers of Howel were clearly at the ends of the transepts. Of the single tower now standing at the end of the south transept, the lower part is of the twelfth century; most likely the work of William of Passavant (see above, p. 636). The ruined building at the end of the other transept has columns and capitals of a much earlier character, agreeing with the work of Howel. A base of the same early kind as the single pair of piers spoken of in the nave (see above, p. 638) may be the work of Howel; it may be either a relic of Arnold’s foundations or a scrap of something much earlier. It has been objected that this ruined building does not seem to have been a tower. And I must allow that it must have been a tower of a somewhat unusual kind. But the appearances are quite consistent with the notion of a transept with aisles, and with its main body ending in an engaged tower.
If these ruins are not the remains of one of Howel’s towers, his towers must have stood nearer to the body of the church than the existing southern tower stands, and the ruins to the north-west must belong to the episcopal palace or some other building. If this be so, something of the interest of the place is lost, but the argument seems almost stronger. It would have been nothing wonderful if the later rebuilding of the transepts had swept away all trace of the work of the eleventh and twelfth century, so that the fabric should in no way show whether any Romanesque towers were ever pulled down or ever built. But it is not so. We see that a late Romanesque tower was built to replace one of the towers of Howel, while the other, according to this view, has vanished without trace or successor. This would seem to point even more strongly than the other view to the belief that two towers were built, that both were pulled down, that afterwards one was rebuilt and the other not.
It is the business of the topographer of Le Mans rather than of the historian of William Rufus to settle what the remains at the end of the north transept are, if they are not the remains of Howel’s tower. But it may be noticed that Howel was a considerable builder or restorer in the adjoining palace (Vet. An. 298), and that the palace itself had a tower hard by the church. William of Passavant (Vet. An. 373) made certain arrangements about the three chapels of the palace――Saint David’s itself has only two――one of which is described as “tertia altior, quæ in turri sita ecclesiam cathedralem vicinius speculabatur.” In any case this group of buildings and ruins at the north-east corner of Saint Julian’s is one of the most striking to be found anywhere. There are these puzzling fragments of the days of the counts and bishops of our story; there is the mighty eastern limb of the present church, begun when Maine had passed away from all fellowship with Normandy and England, when Le Mans was the city of a Countess, widow of Richard, vassal of Philip. There is the northern transept, begun when Maine and Normandy were wholly swallowed up by France, finished at the very moment when Maine had again an English lord (Recherches, p. 122). And earlier than all, there is the Roman wall which the vast choir has overleaped, but which still remains outside the church. And, as if to bring together the earliest and the latest times, one of its bastions is strangely mixed up with work of an almost English character, which seems plainly to proclaim itself as belonging to the reign of Henry, Sixth of England and Second of France. Truly, setting aside exceptional spots like Rome and Athens, like Spalato and Trier and Ravenna, no city of Christendom is fuller of lessons, alike in art and in history, than the city of Helias, the birth-place of Henry Fitz-Empress.
NOTE SS. Vol. ii. p. 320.
THE DEATH OF WILLIAM RUFUS.
I have briefly compared the chief versions of the death of William Rufus, and the writers from whom they come, in Appendix U. in the fifth volume of the Norman Conquest. I will now go somewhat more fully into the matter.
I still hold, as I held then, that no absolute certainty can be come to as to the actor, intentional or otherwise, in the King’s death. Our only sure statement is to be found in the vague and dark words of the Chronicle, which look most like an intentional murder, but which do not absolutely imply it. If Rufus was murdered, it is hopeless to seek for any record of his murderer. We may guess for ever, and that is all. At any rate there can be no ground for fastening a charge of murder on Walter Tirel; for, if we except the dark hint in Geoffrey Gaimar (see p. 325), all those who make him the doer of the deed make it a deed done by accident. And the consent in favour of the belief that Rufus died by an accidental shot of Walter Tirel is very general and very weighty. It is the account of all our highest authorities, except the very highest of all. And even with the version of the Chronicle it does not stand in any literal contradiction. We have to set against it Walter’s own weighty denial (see below, p. 674), and the fact that there were other versions which named other persons. We have also to set against it the circumstance that, if Rufus did die by any conspiracy, never mind on whose part, it was obviously convenient to encourage belief in such a story as the received one. (See p. 326.) If there were anywhere English or Norman murderers, nothing could better serve their purpose, or the purpose of any who encouraged or sheltered them, than to attribute the deed to one who was French rather than either English or Norman, and to describe it as accidental on his part. And if, as one can hardly doubt, Walter Tirel was known to have been in the King’s near company on the day of his death, he was an obvious person to pick out for the character of the accidental slayer.
I can therefore do nothing but leave the doubtful story to the judgement of the reader. To that end I have given a summary of the chief versions in the text. The account of the early part of the day, as given by William of Malmesbury (iv. 333), which I have followed in p. 327, fits in perfectly well with the account in Orderic (782 A), which begins only after dinner. Nor is there any difference, except in details of no importance, between the accounts of the King’s actual death as given by William and by Orderic (see p. 333). In both the King dies by a chance shot of Walter’s, but William makes the King and Walter shoot at two different stags, while in Orderic’s version they both shoot at the same stag. It is from William of Malmesbury that we get the graphic detail of the King sheltering his eyes from the sun’s rays. His whole account stands thus;
“Jam Phœbo in oceanum proclivi, rex cervo ante se transeunti, extento nervo et emissa sagitta, non adeo sævum vulnus inflixit; diutile adhuc fugitantem vivacitate oculorum prosecutus, opposita contra violentiam solarium radiorum manu. Tunc Walterius pulcrum facinus animo parturiens, ut, rege alias interim intento, ipse alterum cervum qui forte propter transibat prosterneret, inscius et impotens regium pectus (Deus bone!) lethali arundine trajecit. Saucius ille nullum verbum emisit; sed ligno sagittæ quantum extra corpus extabat effracto, moxque supra vulnus cadens, mortem acceleravit. Accurrit Walterius; sed, quia nec sensum nec vocem hausit, perniciter cornipedem insiliens, beneficio calcarium probe evasit.”
Orderic is shorter;
“Cum rex et Gualterius de Pice cum paucis sodalibus in nemore constituti essent, et armati prædam avide expectarent, subiter inter eos currente fera, rex de statu suo recessit, et Gualterius sagittam emisit. Quæ super dorsum feræ setam radens rapide volavit, atque regem e regione stantem lethaliter vulneravit. Qui mox ad terram cecidit, et sine mora, proh dolor! expiravit.”
Florence really adds nothing to the account in the Chronicle, except so far that he adds the name of Walter Tirel. He brings in the event with some chronological pomp, but he cuts the actual death of the King short. He is in a moralizing fit, and takes up his parable at much greater length than is usual with him;
“Deinde iv. non. Augusti, feria v., indictione viii., rex Anglorum Willelmus junior, dum in Nova Foresta, quæ lingua Anglorum Ytene nuncupatur, venatu esset occupatus, a quodam Franco, Waltero cognomento Tirello, sagitta incaute directa percussus, vitam finivit, et Wintoniam delatus, in veteri monasterio, in ecclesia S. Petri est tumulatus. Nec mirum, ut populi rumor affirmat, hanc proculdubio magnam Dei virtutem esse et vindictam.”
He then goes on with a great deal of matter, much of which I have referred to in various places. He speaks of the making of the New Forest, of the death of young Richard, the natural phænomena of the reign, the recent appearances of the devil, and the iniquities of Randolf Flambard. It is here that he notices (see p. 335) that a church had once stood on the spot where the King died. Henry of Huntingdon too brings in the event with some stateliness, as the last act of a great drama. But he gives no special details, beyond bringing in, like Orderic, Florence, and William, the name of Walter Tirel;
“Millesimo centesimo anno, rex Willelmus xiii. regni sui anno, vitam crudelem misero fine terminavit. Namque cum gloriose et patrio honore curiam tenuisset ad Natale apud Glouecestre, ad Pascha apud Wincestre, ad Pentecosten apud Londoniam, ivit venatum in Novo foresto in crastino kalendas Augusti, ubi Walterus Tyrel cum sagitta cervo intendens, regem percussit inscius. Rex corde ictus corruit, nec verbum edidit.”
He then goes on to describe at length the evils of the reign, partly in his own words, partly in those of the Chronicle, and records what followed in a kind of breathless haste, keeping the Chronicle before him, but giving things a turn of his own;
“Sepultus est in crastino perditionis suæ apud Wincestre, et Henricus ibidem in regem electus, dedit episcopatum Wincestriæ Willelmo Giffard, pergensque Londoniam sacratus est ibi a Mauricio Londoniensi episcopo, melioratione legum et consuetudinum optabili repromissa.”
The object of piling facts on one another in this fashion is to bring the record of Henry’s promised reforms as near as may be to the picture of the evil doings of Rufus.
By the time that Wace wrote, there were several stories to be chosen from. The King gives arrows to his companions, and specially to Walter Tirel. They go out to hunt in the morning, contrary to the accounts both of Orderic and of William of Malmesbury (15164 Pluquet, 10069 Andresen);
“A un matin qu’il fu leuez, Ses compaignons a demandez, A toz a saetes donees, Que li esteient presentees. Gaulter Tirel, un cheualier Qui en la cort esteit mult chier, Une saete del rei prist Donc il l’ocist si com l’en dist.”
He distinctly says that he does not know who shot the arrow, but that it was commonly said to be Walter Tirel, with some of the variations in detail which we have already seen, as for instance whether the arrow glanced from a tree or not;
“Ne sai qui traist ne qui laissa, Ne qui feri, ne qui bersa, Mais co dist l’en, ne sai sel fist, Que Tirel traist, le rei ocist. Plusors dient qu’il trebucha, En sa cote s’empeecha, E sa saete trestorna E al chaeir el rei cola. Alquanz dient que Tirel uolt Ferir un cerf qui trespassout. Entre lui e le rei coreit: Cil traist qui entese aueit; Mais la saete glaceia, La fleche a un arbre freia, E la saete trauersa, Le rei feri, mort le rua. E Gauter Tirel fost corut La ou li reis chai e iut.”
The other French rimers are this time, though certainly less trustworthy than Wace, of more importance in one way, as showing that there was in some quarters, as there well might be in Normandy, a more charitable feeling towards the Red King than we find in the English writers. I have given in the text the substance of the accounts of Geoffrey Gaimar and Benoît de Sainte-More. The version of Geoffrey Gaimar (Chroniques Anglo-Normandes, i. 54) I do not remember to have ever seen referred to, except in M. Michel’s note to Benoît. It is so curious in its details that it is worth giving at length. It is absolutely impossible to believe it in the teeth of opposite statements of so much higher authority, yet it is strange if all its graphic touches are a mere play of fancy;
“En la foreste estoit li rois, En l’espesse, juste un maroi. Talent li prist d’un cerf berser Qu’en une herde vist aler, Dejuste une arbre est descendu, Il méisme ad son arc tendu. Partut descendent li baron, Li autre ensement d’environ. Wauter Tirel est descenduz; Trop près de roi, lez un sambuz, Après un tremble s’adossa. Si cum la herde trespassa Et le grant cerf a mes li vint, Entesa l’arc qu’en sa main tint, Une seete barbelée Ad tret par male destinée. Jà avint si qu’au cerf faillit De ci qu’au queor le roi férit. Une seete au queor li vint Mès ne savom qi l’arc sustint; Mès ceo distrent li autre archer Qu’ele eissi del arc Wauter. Semblant en fut, car tost fuit; Il eschapa. Li rois chéit, Par iij. foiz s’est escriez, Le corps diũ a demandez; Mès n’i fut qui le li donast, Loingnz fut del mouster en un wast; Et nequedent un venéour Prist des herbes od tut la flour, Un poi en fist au roi manger, Issi le quida acomunier. En Dieu est ço et estre doit: Il avoit pris pain bénoit Le dimenge de devant: Ceo li deit estre bon garant.”
Geoffrey, it should be noticed, has nothing to say about dreams and warnings; the gab between the King and Walter Tirel seems in his version to take their place (see p. 322). But in the other account which deals kindly with Rufus, that of Benoît de Sainte-More (see p. 332), the warning dream, in this case assigned to the King himself, plays an important part. So also does Gundulf, the expounder of the dream. His presence is thus explained (40523);
“Veirs est e chose coneue C’une haors avoit eue Od l’evesque de Rovecestre, Qui chapelains est e deit estre L’arcevesque de Cantorbire: E por c’ert vers le rei en ire Que Saint Anseaume aveit chacié E fors de la terre essilié. Cil evesque de Rovecestre Ert à lui venuz à Wincestre Por pais requerre e demander, Mais ne la poeit pas trover; E li bons hom plein de pitié Out mult Nostre-Seignor preié Que de cele grant mesestance Eust e cure e remembrance.”
We may note that Anselm, not yet canonized, is already called saint in a formal way.
The King is to hunt the next day in the New Forest; in the night he has the dream, which is told with a singular variation. He first sees the dead body of a stag on the altar; then it changes into that of a man (40560);
“Quant il regardout sor l’autel, Si i veeit, ce li ert vis, Un mult grant cerf qui ert ocis, Por eschiver le grant renei Que il voleit faire de sei, Alout e si ’n voleit manger; Kar c’erent tuit si desirer. La où il i tendeit la main, Si li ert vis s’ert bien certain, Que c’ert cors d’ome apertement Ocis e nafré et sanglent.”
Gundulf, “li evesques, li sainz hom,” then preaches a sermon of some length, which the King listens to with unexpected docility; he promises amendment of life, and receives absolution;
“Simple e od bone volunté Out li reis en pais esculté, Bien sont e conut la raison De cele interpretation, Assez pramist amendement Donc de sa vie doucement Al saint evesque a pardoné Tote sa male volonté Quant sa grace out e son congé. Mult s’en torna joios e lié.”
In this version there is no special mention of Anselm and the synod; the exhortation of Gundulf is quite general. In the account given by Giraldus (De Inst. Prin. p. 174)――who, it must be borne in mind, has two dreams, one dreamed by the King, and another by a premature canon of Dunstable――this is strongly brought out. The bishop, whose name is not given, exhorts the King at much less length than Gundulf does in the rimes of Benoît, and the promise of reformation stands thus;
“Cum episcopus consilium ei daret quatenus, convocatis illico episcopis regni sui et clero universo, eorundem consilio se Domino per omnia conciliaret, missisque statim nuntiis venerabilem sanctumque virum Anselmum Cantuariensem archiepiscopum, quem ea tempestate, quod libertates ecclesiæ tueri volebat, exulare compulerat, ab exilio revocaret, respondens rex se cum regni sui proceribus consilium inde in brevi habiturum.”
In Benoît’s version the King’s companions now urge him to go out to hunt. The description is very graphic;
“E si vaslet furent hoesé E en lor chaceors munté, Les arcs ès mains, gamiz e presz, E detrès eus lor bons brachez; Abaient chens e sonent corns, Monté atendent le rei fors.”
He refuses for a while, and sets forth his troubled mind with some pathos;
“Avoi! fait-il, seignors, avoi! Uncor sui-je plus maus assez E plus cent tant que vos ne quidez; Mais c’est la fin, remis m’en sui, Que je n’irai mais en bois ui. Ne voil por rien qu’alé i seie Ne que jamais la forest veie.”
He goes forth, and, as I have said in the text (p. 332), is shot by the arrow glancing from a tree. Benoît knew through what agency;
“Mais tant li mostre li reis Ros Que c’il r’a d’aïr entesée Une sajette barbelée, E deiables tant l’a conveié[e] Qu’à un gros raim fiert e glaceie. Le rei feri delez le quor.”
His speech to his accidental slayer is most pious;
“Va-t’en, fui-tei senz demorer, Kar mort m’as par ma grant enfance. Ci a Deus pris de mei venjance: Or li cri merci e soplei Qu’il ait oi merci de mei Par sa sainte chere douçor, Kar mult sui vers lui peccheor.”
In the earlier of Giraldus’ two stories, one which has much in common with this of Benoît, the arrow strikes the King accidentally, but there is nothing about its glancing from a tree. As he looks on William Rufus as the maker of the New Forest, he describes his going forth to hunt there with some solemnity;
“Protinus contra dissuasionem in prædictam forestam, ubi tot ecclesias destituerat, totosque fideles qui glebæ ibidem ab antiquo ascripti fuerant immisericorditer exheredaverat, venatum ivit. Nec mora, soluta per interemptionem contentione ubi deliquit, casuali cujusdam suorum ictu sagittæ letaliter percussus decubuit; miles enim directo in feram telo, nutu divino cælum pariter et telum regente, non feram eo sed ferum et absque modo ferocem, transpenetravit.” (Cf. the extracts in p. 337.)
Having got thus far, pretty nearly in Benoît’s company, Giraldus goes on to tell his other story which brings in the Prior of Dunstable. But Dunstable, in its own Annals, did not claim an earlier founder than Henry the First. We are therefore left to guess as to the origin of a story which speaks of the priory of Dunstable as already existing in the time of Rufus, and even as enjoying exceptional favour at his hands. The “miles quidam” of the former story here becomes Ralph of Aix, who is brought in after much the same fashion in which Walter Tirel is in those versions of the story which mention him.
These are the chief varieties in the story of the death of Rufus; but the tale is so famous, it has taken such a hold on popular imagination from that day to our own, that it may be well to do as we have done in some earlier cases, and to trace some of the forms which the story took in the hands of writers of later times.
The Hyde writer (302), who always has notions of his own about all matters, has nothing special to tell us about the death of Rufus――“Norman-Anglorum rex Willelmus,” in his odd style――but the story of the dream takes a new shape. A monk in Normandy, in extreme sickness, sees the usual vision of the Lord and the suppliant woman, here called less reverentially “puella vultu sole speciosior,” who complains of the evil doings of Rufus and asks for vengeance (“celerrimam de eo expetiit vindictam, asserens se a canibus ejus et lupis potius quam ministris diu esse laniatam”). He has a further dream about the sins of his own abbot, whom he rebukes, and causes a letter to be sent to the King. The King mocks, but less pithily and characteristically than he does in Orderic (“Quicumque sorti vel somniis crediderit, sicut semper vivet suspiciosus et inquietus, ita semper revertitur”). On this manifestation of unbelief follows the judgement (“Deus Omnipotens telum quod diu vibraverat misericorditer, tandem super regem projecit terribiliter”). He is shot casually in his hunting (“venatum pergens, venatus est, et ex improviso sagitta percussus;”――where surely “venatus est” is meant to be passive). He dies without confession or communion; he is buried, and Henry reigns in his stead. Then, as a kind of after-thought, comes in the mention of Walter Tirel;
“Fertur autem quod eodem die venatum pergenti obtulit munus sagittarum quidam adveniens, quarum unam Waltero Tirello viro Ponteiensi in munere dedit secumque venire coegit. Denique silvam ingressi, dum gregem bestiarum accingunt et invicem trahunt, eadem sagitta, idem Walterus regem vicinus, ut aiunt, percussit et subito extinxit.”
The author of the “Brevis Relatio” (Giles, 11) cuts the actual death of Rufus very short, and mentions no particular actor, but he connects it in a somewhat singular way with the presence of Henry;
“Contigit vero postea ut Robertus comes Normanniæ Hierosolymam iret, totamque Normanniam fratri suo Willelmo regi Anglorum invadiaret, et tunc Henricus fratri suo omnino se conferret atque cum eo ex toto remaneret. Dum itaque cum eo esset post aliquantum temporis contigit ut quadam die rex Willelmus venatum iret, ibique, nescio quo judicio Dei, a quodam milite sagitta percussus occumberet. Quem statim frater suus Henricus Wintoniam referri fecit, ibique in ecclesia Sancti Petri ante majus altare sepulturæ tradidit.”
The introduction of Henry in the former part of the extract is the more remarkable, because the writer has either copied the account given by Robert of Torigny in the Continuation of William of Jumièges (viii. 9), or else he has borrowed from the same source. Robert’s words are;
“Igitur, sicut supra diximus, cum Robertus dux Normannorum anno ab incarnatione Domini mxcvi, Hierusalem perrexisset, et ducatum Normanniæ Willelmo fratri suo regi Anglorum invadiasset: contigit post aliquantum temporis, ut idem rex quadam die venatum iret in Novam forestam, ubi iv. nonas Augusti missa sagitta incaute a quodam suo familiari in corde percussus, mortuus est anno ab incarnatione Domini mc. regni autem sui xiii…. Occiso itaque Willelmo rege, ut præmisimus, statim frater suus Henricus corpus ejus Wintoniam deferri fecit ibique in ecclesia sancti Petri ante majus altare sepulturæ tradidit.”
The words which I have left out record the death of the elder Richard, the son of the Conqueror, in the New Forest――the younger Richard, the son of Robert, is not mentioned――and the belief that the deaths of the two brothers were the punishment of the destruction of houses and churches done by their father. One phrase is remarkable; “Multas villas et ecclesias propter eandem forestam amplificandam in circuitu ipsius destruxerat.” Here is nothing about Walter Tirel or any one else by name, and this is the more to be noticed, because in his own Chronicle, where he seems to have had before him the account of Henry of Huntingdon, who mentions Walter Tirel, he leaves out the name. Henry’s words are; “Ivit venatum in Novo foresto in crastino kalendas Augusti, ubi Walterus Tyrel cum sagitta cervo intendens, regem percussit inscius. Rex corde ictus corruit, nec verbum edidit.” This in Robert’s version becomes “Willelmus rex Anglorum in Nova Foresta, sibi multum dilecta, cum sagitta incaute cervo intenderetur, in corde percussus interiit, nec verbum edidit.” He then goes on to copy part of Henry of Huntingdon’s description of the doings of Rufus somewhat further on.
Among the monastic chroniclers and annalists, the History of Abingdon (ii. 43) seems to see in the Red King’s death a judgement on him for some dealings connected with the lands of that abbey. A man described as Hugo de Dun had, by the help of the Count of Meulan (“Comitis Mellentis Rotberti senioris ope adjutus”), got into his hands some lands of the abbey at Leckhampsted, as had also the better known Hugh of Buckland, Sheriff of Berkshire (“eo quod et Berchescire vicecomes et publicarum justiciarius compellationum a rege constitutus existeret”). The writer then goes on;
“Quadam itaque die rex Willelmus dum cibatus venatum exerceret, suorum unus militum, quasi ad cervum sagittam emittens, regem e contra stantem sibique non caventem eadem sagitta in corde percussit. Qui mox ad terram corruens exspiravit.”
The legend received at Saint Alban’s (Gesta Abbatum, i. 65) seems to have rolled together the dream of the monk at Gloucester and the revelation of William’s death to the abbot of Clugny (see p. 343). Anselm at Clugny has a vision in which many of the saints of England bring their complaints against King William before the tribunal of God. Then the story takes a local turn;
“Iratus Altissimus respondit,――Accede, Anglorum protomartyr. Et accedente Albano, tradidit Deus sagittam ardentem, dicens; vindica te, et omnes sanctos Angliæ, læsos a tyranno. Accipiens autem Albanus sagittam de manu Domini, projecit eam in terram, quasi faculam, dicens; Accipe, Satan, potestatem in ipsum Willelmum tyrannum. Et eadem die, mane, obiit rex transverberatus per medium pectoris sagitta. Dixit autem arcitenenti, Trahe, diabole. Erat tunc temporis, episcopo Wolstano defuncto, episcopatus Wygorniæ nimis afflictus sub manu regis, et multæ aliæ ecclesiæ, sedente tunc Paschali papa.”
I do not know why the Saint Alban’s writer should have specially mentioned the church of Worcester, which certainly had a Bishop (see vol. i. p. 542) at the time of William’s death. But neither should I at p. 43 of this volume have mentioned Saint Alban’s among the churches vacant at that time. For the four years’ vacancy which followed the death of Paul was ended in 1097 by the election of Richard. “Determinata lite quæ in conventu exorta fuerat inter Normannos, qui jam multiplicati invaluerunt, et Anglos, qui, jam senescentes et imminuti, occubuerant” (Gest. Abb. i. 66). Here is a glimpse of the internal state of the convent which would be most precious if it came from a writer of the year 1097, but which must be taken for what it may be worth in the mouth of Matthew Paris or one whom he followed. This abbot Richard was on good terms with Rufus as well as with his successor (“Willelmi Secundi et Henrici Primi regum, amicitia familiari fultus, multos honores et possessiones adeptus est, et adeptas viriliter tuebatur”). Presently we get a second shorter entry of the Red King’s death;
“Tempore quoque hujus abbatis Ricardi, Willelmus rex――immo tyrannus――ultione divina, obiit sagittatus.”
The Winchester Annals which really should, just as much as the Hyde writer, have given us something original at such a moment, have nothing more to tell us than that “hoc anno rex a sagitta perforates est in Nova Foresta a Waltero Tirel et sepultus in ecclesia Sancti Swithuni Wintoniæ.” The Margam Annals merely mark that “hoc anno interfectus est rex Angliæ Willelmus junior, rex Rufus vulgo vocatus, non. Augusti, anno regni sui xiii. cum esset annorum plus xl.” This reckoning falls in with what I said in vol. i. p. 141, and N. C. vol. iii. p. 111. Dunstable, which is so strangely dragged into the tale by Giraldus, and Bermondsey, which has some special things to record during the reign, have nothing fresh to tell us, only Dunstable mentions Walter Tirel and Bermondsey does not. Osney and Worcester merely copy the usual story. Thomas Wykes has been quoted already. Roger of Hoveden simply copies Florence. Ralph the Black and Roger of Wendover at least give a little variety by copying the account in William of Malmesbury. It is not till we get to the English and French rimers, Robert of Gloucester and Peter Langtoft, that we come to anything worthy of much notice or anything showing any imagination. Robert of Gloucester tells the story of the dream, attributing it to a monk, but not saying of what monastery. The appearance on the altar loses perhaps somewhat of its awfulness when it is made into the ordinary rood of the church.
“Þat þe kẏng eode into a chẏrche, as fers man and wod, And wel hokerlẏche bẏ held þe folc þat þere stod. To þe rode he sturte, and bẏgan to frete and gnawe Þe armes vaste, and þẏes mẏd hẏs teþ to drawe. Þe rode ẏt þolede long, ac suþþe atte laste He pulte hẏm wẏt vot, and adoun vp rẏgt hẏm caste.”
This is surely no improvement on the older version of the story. Robert does not forget the bodily appearances of the devil recorded by Florence, but at his distance of time he does not draw the national distinction which the earlier writer drew;
“Vor þe Deuel was þer byuore þer aboute ẏseẏe In fourme of bodẏ, and spec al so mẏd men of þe countreẏe.”
He then goes on to tell the story, clearly after William of Malmesbury, but everywhere with touches of his own. They have the interest of being in any case the earliest detailed account, true or false, of the story in our own tongue. Thus the account of the King’s not going to hunt before dinner takes this shape;
“So þat þe kẏng was adrad and bẏleuede vor such cas To wende er non an honteþ, þe wule he vastyng was. Ac after mete, þo he adde ẏete and ẏdronke wel, He nom on of hẏs priues, þat het Water Tẏrel, And a uewe oþere of hẏs men, and nolde non lenger abẏde, Þat he nolde to hẏs game, tẏde wat so bẏtẏde.”
The actual account of his death stands thus;
“He prẏkede after vaste ẏnou toward þe West rẏgt. Hẏs honden he huld byuore hẏs eẏn vor þe sonne lẏgt. So þat þẏs Water Tẏrel, þat þer bysẏde was neẏ, Wolde ssete anoþer hert, þat, as he sede, he seẏ. He sset þe kẏng in atte breste, þat neuer eft he ne speke, Bote þe ssaft, þat was wẏþoute, grẏslẏch he to brec, And anowarde hẏs wombe vel adoun, and deẏde without spech, Wẏþoute ssrẏft and hosel, anon þer was Gode’s wreche. Þo Water Tẏrel ẏseẏ, þat he was ded, anon He atornde, as vaste as he mẏgte, þat was hẏs best won.”
Peter of Langtoft (i. 446) has some touches of his own. Among other things, the days of the week have got wrong, in order to bring in a precept as to the proper observance of the weekly fast-day. We also get a purely imaginary Bishop of Winchester;
“Par un Jovedy à vespre le ray ala cocher En la Nove Forest, où devayt veneyer. Si tost fu endormy, comença sounger K’il fust en sa chapele, soul saunz esquyer, Les us furent fermés k’yl ne pout passer; Si graunt faym avayt, ke l’estout manger, Ou mourir de faym, ou tost arager. Il n’ad payn ne char, ne pessoun de mer; Il prent et devoure le ymage sur le auter, La Marye et le fiz, saunz rens là lesser. Al matyn, kaunt il leve, le eveske fet maunder, Ode de Wyncestre, et ly va counter Tut cum ly avynt en sun somoyller. Le eveske ly dist, ‘Sir rays, Deus est rays saunz per; Tu l’as coroucez, te covent amender Par penaunce, et desore plus sovent amer. Par Vendredy en boys ne devez mes chacer, Ne à la ryvere of faucoun chuvaucher; Tel est ta penaunce, et tu le days garder.’ Le eveske ad pris congé, et vait à sun maner; Après la messe oye, ala le rays juer, Sa penaunce oblye, fet maunder ly archer, Walter Tirel i fust, ke set del mister, Ad sun tristre vayt, la beste va wayter, Un cerf hors de l’herd comença launcer; Et ly Frauncays Tyrel se pressayt à seter, Quide ferir la beste, et fert le rays al quer Kaunt le eveske l’oyt dire, fist trop mourne cher. Le cors à, Wyncestre fist le eveske porter, Et mettre en toumbe al mouster saynt Per. [Prioms qe sire Dieu pardoun li voile doner.]”
This last line, fittingly according to the belief of William’s own time, is wanting in some manuscripts.
From the writer known as Bromton we might have looked for some new form of the legend, but he gives us (X Scriptt. 996) only the usual story about Walter Tirel, with a rhetorical character of William and an account of his evil doings. One or two expressions however are remarkable;
“In quodam loco ubi priscis temporibus ecclesia fuerat constructa, et tempore patris sui cum multis aliis ecclesiis, et quatuor domibus religiosis, et tota illa patria in solitudinem redacta, vitam crudelem fine miserrimo terminavit. Jure autem in medio injustitiæ suæ inter feras occiditur, qui ultra modum inter homines ferus erat. Nam stabilitis contra malefactores silvarum, forestarum, et venationis, legibus duris, zelotepia sua agente, custos boscorum et ferarum pastor communiter vocabatur.”
To Knighton’s curious account I have referred already (see p. 333). But he tells the story twice. His first version (X Scriptt. 2372) contains nothing remarkable; the second (2373) is quite worth notice. He attributes to Rufus the making of the New Forest, which he describes in words which are not, as far as one can see, copied from any of the usual sources. He enforced the forest laws with great harshness, “quod pro dama hominem suspenderet, pro lepore xx.s. plecteretur, pro cuniculo x.s. daret.” Then the last scene is brought in with some solemnity; but the age which he assigns to the Red King is quite impossible;
“Igitur, ut ante dictum est, iii. nonarum Augusti, per Cistrensem [sic] anno gratiæ MC. regni sui xiii. ætatis liii. venit in novum herbarium suum, scilicet novam forestam, cum multa familia stipatus, venandi gratia set sibi gratia dura. Cum arcubus et canibus stetit in loco suo, et quidam miles sibi nimis familiaris Walterus Tyrel nomine, prope eum ex opposito loco, ut moris est venantium, cæterique sparsim unusquisque cum arcu et sagitta in manu expecteoli [sic] pro præda capienda. Interea accidit miræ magnitudinis cervum præ cæteris præstantiorem regi appropinquare, videlicet inter regem et dictum militem, at rex tetendit arcum volens emittere sagittam, credens se interficere cervum, set, fracta corda in arcu regis, cervus, de sonitu quasi attonitus, restitit circumcirca respiciens, et inde rex aliqualiter motus dixit militi ut cervum sagittaret. Miles vero se sustinuit. At rex objurganter cum magno impetu præcepit ei, dicens, ‘Trahe, trahe, arcum ex parte diaboli, et extendas sagittam, alias te pœnitebit,’ At ille emisit sagittam, volens interficere cervum, percussit regem per medium cordis, et occidit eum, ibidemque expiravit. Walterus evasit, nemine insequente. Rex vero vehitur apud Wyntoniam super redam caballariam impositus. In cujus sepultura luctus defuit. Omnes gaudium de ejus morte arripiunt, adeo quod vix erat quispiam qui lacrimam emiserit, sed omnes de morte ejus lætati sunt.”
This is well told; but how much more men knew about the matter at the end of the fourteenth century than they did in the last year of the eleventh.
To turn to foreign writers, the Annales Cambriæ say simply that “Willelmus rex Angliæ, a quodam milite suo cervum petente sagitta percussus, interiit”――or, in another manuscript, “Willelmus rex Anglorum, improviso ictu sagittæ a quodam milite in venatu occubuit.” The difference is to be noted. The Brut records the death of William the Red, King of the Saxons (Gẃilim Goch, brenhin y Saeson), and says that “as he was on a certain day hunting, along with Henry, his youngest brother, accompanied by some of his knights, he was wounded with an arrow by Walter Tyrell, a knight of his own, who, unwittingly, as he was shooting at a stag, hit the king and killed him.”
The Annales Blandinienses in Pertz, v. 27, record how “secundus Willelmus rex Anglorum in venatione ab uno milite suo ex improvisu sagitta vulneratus obiit; cui successit Henricus frater suus.” The Saint Denis History (Pertz, ix. 405) has a further touch; “Willelmus Rufus, rex Anglorum, venationi intentus sagitta incaute emissa occiditur. Cui Henricus frater ejus velocissime successit, ne impediretur a Roberto fratre suo, jam de Hierosolimitana expeditione reverso.” Another writer in the same volume (ix. 392), Hugh of Fleury, has a remarkable account, quite in the spirit of the English writers, but seemingly not directly copied from any of them;
“Rex Anglorum Guillelmus, magnifici regis Guillelmi successor et filius, dum venationem exercet in silva quæ adjacet Vindoniæ urbi, a quodam milite sagitta percussus interiit. Ille tamen miles qui sagittam jecit illum inscientem percussit. Cervam quippe sagittare parabat, sed sagitta retrorsum acta regem insperate percussit, et illum inopinabiliter interemit. Quod divino nutu contigisse non dubium est. Erat enim rex ille armis quidem strenuus atque munificus, sed nimis lasciviens et flagitiosus. Verum antequam interiret, magnis sibi signis præostensis, si voluisset, corrigi debuisset. Nam dum sibi subitus, peccatis suis exigentibus, immineret interitus, in eadem insula in qua manebat sanguinis unda fœtida per spatium unius diei emanavit, ipso præsente, quod dicebatur ejus portendere mortem. Ipso etiam tempore apparuerunt alia signa stupenda in eadem insula, quibus, sicut jam dictum est, terreri et vitam suam corrigere debuisset. Quæ juventa stolidus et honore superbus contempsit, et semper incorrigibilis mansit. Unde Dei justo judicio subite et intempestiva morte preventus occubuit. Cui successit frater ejus junior Henricus, vir sapiens atque modestus.”
Hugh of Flavigny, whom we have already had often to quote, adds (Pertz, viii. 495) one detail which I do not think appears elsewhere. The King goes to see the well which sent up blood (the event is wrongly put under 1099);
“Anno inc. dom. 1099 obiit Urbanus papa, successit Paschalis. Obiit etiam Willelmus junior rex Anglorum. Quo etiam anno in Anglia fons verum sanguinem olidum et putentem manare visus est. Ad quod spectaculum cum fere tota insula cucurrisset, insolita rei novitate stupefacta, rex præfatus advenit et vidit, nec tamen ei profuit vidisse. Autumabat vulgus promiscuum portentum istud mortem regis portendere, quod etiam ei dicebatur a referentibus; sed homo secularis et in quem timor Dei non ceciderat, voluptatibus carnis et superbiæ deditus, divinorum præceptorum contemptor et adversarius, qui tamen satis regii fuisset animi, si non Deum postposuisset fastu regni inflatus, nec cogitabat se moriturum.”
He carries on this vein a little further, and then gives the account of his death;
“Quia Deum deseruit, sanctam ecclesiam opprimens et eam sibi ancillari constituens, a Deo quoque derelictus est; in silva quæ adjacet Wintoniæ civitati, dum venationem exercet, sagitta a quodam percussus, quo lethali vulnere decidit et exanimatus est, pœnitentia et communione carens, et apud eamdem urbem sepultus.”
The Angevin chroniclers record the death of Rufus without comment or detail. The Biographer of the Bishops of Le Mans (Vet. An. 309), who looks at the matter chiefly with reference to Bishop Hildebert, moralizes at some length; but his statement of fact is no more than this;
“Dum quadam die in silvam venandi gratia perrexisset, ab uno ex militibus qui secum ierant sagitta percussus, interiit.”
This is really hardly more than the few words of the English Chronicler. Alberic of Trois Fontaines, from whom we might have looked for something, merely copies William of Malmesbury and others. Gervase of Tilbury (ii. 20, Leibnitz, i. 945) mentions another agent in the death-blow;
“Defuncto patre successit Guillelmus primogenius in regnum, vir impius, ecclesiarum persecutor, immisericors circa imbelles, qui archiepiscopum Cantuariensem plurimum persecutus, ab angelo percutiente peremtus, Guintoniæ sepultus est, sub infamiæ perpetuo monumento.”
As for Walter Tirel, he has his place in ordinary memory so thoroughly as the slayer of William Rufus and as nothing else, that it is rather hard to take in that his position as the slayer of William Rufus is very doubtful, while there are undoubted, though meagre, notices of him in other characters. We have already seen him entertaining Anselm in one of his Picard dwellings. The fullest account of his family comes from Orderic, who, when he is commenting on the laxity of the Norman clergy and bishops in his time, gives us the story of Walter’s father (574 D). Dean Fulk was a pupil of Bishop Ivo of Chartres, and inherited a knight’s fee from his father. Then we read how “illius temporis ritu, nobilem sociam nomine Orieldem habuit, ex qua copiosam prolem generavit.” Walter was one of a family of ten, seemingly the youngest of eight sons. He was “cognomento Tirellus,” clearly a personal and not a hereditary or local surname.
If the Dean of Evreux kept proper residence, his son would be Norman natione, whatever he was genere; but most accounts of Walter connect him with France rather than with Normandy. Abbot Suger, who knew him personally, speaks of him (Duchèsne, iv. 283 C) as “nobilissimus vir Galterius Tirellus.” In Florence (1100) he is simply “quidam Francus, Walterus cognomento Tirellus.” William of Malmesbury (iv. 333) says that, on the day of the King’s death, he was “paucis comitatus, quorum familiarissimus erat Walterius cognomento Tirel, qui de Francia, liberalitate regis adductus, venerat.” His possession of Poix appears from Orderic, 782 A, where he is described as “de Francia miles generosus, Picis et Pontisariæ dives oppidanus, potens inter optimates et in armis acerrimus; ideo regi familiaris conviva et ubique comes assiduus.” Walter Map (De Nugis Cur. 222) calls him “miles Achaza juxta Pontissaram Franciæ,” which I suppose means Achères. (But in Orderic, 723 B, we have another Walter and also a Peter brought into connexion with Achères.) Walter’s connexion with that district suggests that the King had bought him over to his side, or had taken him prisoner during the campaign in the Vexin. Geoffrey Gaimar (Chron. Anglo-Norm. i. 51) dwells on his possession of Poix;
“Wauter estoit un riches hom, De France ert per del région. Piez estoit soen un fort chastel, Assez avoir de son avel. Au roi estoit venu servir Douns et soudées recoverir, Per grant cherté ert recuilliz, Assez ert bien del roi chériz. Pur ceo q’estranges homs estoit, Le gentil roi le chérissoit.”
His marriage comes from Orderic (783 A); “Adelidam filiam Ricardi de sublimi prosapia Gifardorum conjugem habuit, quæ Hugonem de Pice, strenuissimum militem, marito suo peperit.”
The question now comes whether Walter Tirel appears in Domesday. There is in Essex (41) an entry, “Laingaham tenet Walterus Tirelde. R. quod tenuit Phin dacus pro ii. hidis et dimidia et pro uno manerio.” This comes among the estates of Richard of Clare, and I suppose that “R.” in the entry should be “de R.” as in several others. If this be our Walter Tirel, his estate was not very great, and he did not hold as a tenant-in-chief. One cannot make much out of the extract from an East-Saxon county history in Ellis, ii. 394. Lappenberg (ii. 207) has more to say about this entry and other bearers of the name of Tirel. It cannot much matter that “der Name Tirrel ist in der Liste der Krieger zu Battle Abbey.” It is of more importance when he refers to the Pipe Roll of Henry (56), where we read, “Adeliz uxor Walteri Tirelli reddit compotum de x. marcis argenti de eisdem placitis de La Wingeham.” This comes in Essex, and I suppose that the “Laingaham” of Domesday and the “La Wingeham” of the Pipe Roll are the same place. If so, the two entries, combined with the notice in Orderic, look very much as if they all belong to one Walter and one Adelaide. If this be so, Walter Tirel was a landowner in England, though on no great scale; and whatever was his own case, his wife or widow was living and holding his land in 1131.
Walter’s denial of any share in the King’s death comes from the personal knowledge of Abbot Suger (Duchèsne, iv. 283); “Imponebatur a quibusdam cuidam nobilissimo viro Galterio Tirello, quod eum sagitta perfoderat. Quem cum nec timeret, nec speraret, jurejurando sæpius audivimus, et quasi sacrosanctum asserere, quod ea die nec in eam partem silvæ in qua rex venabatur, venerit, nec eum in silva omnino viderit.”
John of Salisbury in his Life of Anselm, c. xii (Giles, v. 341), refers to this denial on the part of Walter. He speaks of the fate of Julian, likening Anselm to Basil, and goes on; “Quis alterutrum miserit telum, adhuc incertum est quidem. Nam Walterus Tyrrellus ille, qui regiæ necis reus a plurimis dictus est, eo quod illi familiaris erat et tunc in indagine ferarum vicinus, et fere singulariter adhærebat, etiam quum ageret in extremis, se a cæde illius immunem esse, invocato in animam suam Dei judicio, protestatus est. Fuerunt plurimi, qui ipsum regem jaculum quo interemptus est misisse asserunt; et hoc Walterus ille, etsi non crederetur ei, constanter asserebat.” He adds a comment which might be taken in two senses; “Et profecto quisquis hoc fecerit, Dei ecclesiæ suæ calamitatibus compatientis dispositioni fideliter obedivit.”
The very confused story which makes William Rufus the maker of the New Forest, and Walter Tirel the adviser of the deed, comes from Walter Map’s account (De Nugis, 222) of the death of William Rufus, where a good many things are brought close together; “Willielmus secundus, rex Angliæ, regum pessimus, Anselmo pulso a sede Cantiæ, justo Dei judicio a sagitta volante pulsus, quia dæmonio meridiano deditus, cujus ad nutum vixerat, onere pessimo levavit orbem. Notandum autem quod in silva Novæ Forestæ [cf. N. C. vol. iv. p. 841], quam ipse Deo et hominibus abstulerat, ut eam dicaret feris et canum lusibus, a qua triginta sex matrices ecclesias extirpaverat, et populum earum dederat exterminio. Consiliarius autem hujus ineptiæ Walterus Tyrell, miles Achaza juxta Pontissaram Franciæ, qui, non sponte sua sed Domini, de medio fecit eum ictu sagittæ, quæ feram penetrans cecidit in belluam Deo odibilem.” “Exterminium” must of course be taken, not of a massacre, but of a mere driving out. Giraldus too (De Inst. Princ. 173) attributes the making of the New Forest and the driving out of the people to William Rufus;
“Hic Novam in australibus Angliæ partibus Forestam, quæ usque hodie durat, primus instituit; multis ibidem ecclesiis, in quibus divina ab antiquo celebrari obsequia et ipsius præconia sublimari, desertis omnino et destitutis multisque ruricolis et glebæ ascriptis a paternis laribus et agris avitis miserabiliter profugatis et proscriptis.”
We have seen already (see p. 337) how this confusion was further improved in the thirteenth century at the hands of Thomas Wykes, and what rhetorical use of it was made later still by Henry Knighton.
As usual, so-called local tradition knows a vast deal about the matter. The exact place where Rufus fell is known, and is marked by a stone. The tree from which, in some versions, the arrow is said to have glanced, is also known, and its site, or a successor, may be seen. It is of course impossible to say that these things are not so; but one knows too much of the utter worthlessness of the modern guesses which commonly pass for local tradition to attach much value to such stories. I have been on the spot; but, when there is no real evidence to fix the event to one spot rather than another of a large district, it is another matter from tracing out the signs of real history at Le Mans and at Rochester, at Bamburgh and at Saint Cenery. There is also a wild story about a payment made by some neighbouring manor as a penalty, because some one shod Walter’s horse instead of stopping him. The payment is doubtless real enough; the alleged cause for it shows a knowledge of details beyond that of Knighton or Geoffrey Gaimar. The critical historian, after making his way through all these tales, can only come back to the safe statement of the English Chronicler with which he set out.
APPENDIX TT. Vol. ii. p. 338.
THE BURIAL OF WILLIAM RUFUS.
Some of the accounts of William’s burial have been already mentioned in the text, or in the last Note. It may have been noticed that some of them seem anxious to claim for Henry a share in the burial of his brother. The singular narrative of Geoffrey Gaimar (i. 56), where he follows up his attempt to make out a late repentance for Rufus by giving him a specially solemn and Christian burial, has been given in brief in the text. The barons and the rest are mourning, when Gilbert of Laigle bids them stop (“Taisez, seigneurs, pur Jhésu Xpist”) and turn to burying their master. Then the story goes on;
“Donc véissez valez descendre Et venéours lur haches tendre. Tost furent trenche li fussel De quai firent li mainel. Deus blertrons troevent trenchez; Bien sont léger et ensechez, Ne sont trop gros, mès longs estoient; Tut à mesure les conreient, De lur ceintures e de peitrels Lient estreit les mainels, Puis firent lit en la bière. De beles flours et de feugère, Ij palefreis ont amenez, Od riches freinz, bien enseelez; Sur ceus ij. couchent la bière; N’ert pas pesante mès légère; Puis i estendent un mantel Qui ert de paille tut novel. Le fiz Aimon le défoubla, Robert, qi son seignur ama, Sur la bière cuchent le roi, Qe portoient le palefroi. Enséveli fu en un tiret, Dont Willam de Montfichet. Le jour devant ert adubbé, N’avoit esté k’un jor porté, Le mantel gris donc il osta.”
After some more lamentations, they set out on their journey and reach Winchester;
“Tresque Wincestre n’ont finé, Iloeques ont le roi posé Enz el mouster Seint-Swithun. Là s’assemblèrent li baron. Et la clergié de la cité Et li évesque et li abbé. Li bons évesques Walkelin Gaita le roi tresq’au matin. O lui, moigne, clerc et abbé, Bien ont léu et bien chanté Leudemain font cele départie. Tiele ne vit homme de vie, Ne tant messes ne tiel servise N’ert fet tresq’au jour de juise Pur un roi, come pur li firent. Tut autrement l’ensévelirent Qe li baron n’avoient fet. Là où Wauter out à lui tret. Qui ceo ne creit aut à Wincestre, Oïr porra si voir pœt estre.”
This is a pretty story enough; but we may be sure that all its other details are as mythical as the part assigned to the dead Bishop Walkelin. The only question of any importance is whether there is any contradiction between the two more important narratives, that of Orderic and that of William of Malmesbury in the place where he is directly telling the story. The Chronicler and Florence simply mention the burial without detail or comment. The account of William of Malmesbury is the shorter of the two. The King has been shot, and Walter Tirel has fled. Then the story goes on (iv. 333);
“Nec vero fuit qui persequeretur, illis conniventibus, istis miserantibus, omnibus postremo alia molientibus; pars receptacula sua munire, pars furtivas prædas agere, pars regem novum jamjamque circumspicere. Pauci rusticanorum cadaver, in rheda caballaria compositum, Wintoniam in episcopatum devexere, cruore undatim per totam viam stillante. Ibi infra ambitum turris, multorum procerum conventu, paucorum planctu, terræ traditum.”
Orderic (782 D) tells very much the same story;
“Mortuo rege, plures optimatum ad lares suos de saltu manicaverunt, et contra futuras motiones quas timebant res suas ordinaverunt. Clientuli quidem cruentatum regem vilibus utcunque pannis operuerunt, et veluti ferocem aprum, venabulis confossum, de saltu ad urbem Guentanam detulerunt. Clerici autem et monachi atque cives, duntaxat egeni, cum viduis et mendicis, obviam processerunt, et pro reverentia regiæ dignitatis in veteri monasterio Sancti Petri celeriter tumulaverunt.”
The words of William of Malmesbury, it will be noticed, are quite general. They do not assert the usual religious ceremony, but neither do they exclude it. It is Orderic who in a marked way asserts the popular excommunication. His words are;
“Porro ecclesiastici doctores et prælati, sordidam ejus vitam et tetrum finem considerantes, tunc judicare ausi sunt, et ecclesiastica, veluti biothanatum, absolutione indignum censuerunt, quem vitales auras carpentem salubriter a nequitiis castigare nequiverunt. Signa etiam pro illo in quibusdam ecclesiis non sonuerunt, quæ pro infimis pauperibus et mulierculis crebro diutissime pulsata sunt. De ingenti ærario, ubi plures nummorum acervi de laboribus miserorum congesti sunt, eleemosynæ pro anima cupidi quondam possessoris nullæ inopibus erogatæ sunt.”
Here is no contradiction; only Orderic asserts a very remarkable feature in the case of which William takes no notice. To me it seems more likely that William of Malmesbury, whose business it clearly was (see above, p. 491) to make out as good a case for William Rufus as he could without asserting anything positively false, should leave out a circumstance which told so much against the King, than that Orderic, or those from whom he heard the story, should invent or imagine it. On the other hand, the very fact that the story of the popular excommunication is so very striking and solemn and in every way befitting does make us tremble the least bit in admitting it as a piece of authentic history.
We must not however forget that William of Malmesbury in a later passage (v. 393) does seem to imply that the burial of Rufus was accompanied by the ordinary ceremonies. In recording the election of Henry, he says that it happened “post justa funeri regio persoluta.” But it may fairly be doubted whether an obiter dictum of this kind is entitled to the same weight which would undoubtedly have belonged to a direct statement in his regular narrative. The words are, after all, somewhat vague, and if we compare this passage in William of Malmesbury with the entry in the Chronicle, it sounds very much as if it were merely a translation in a grander style of the simple words “syðþan he bebyrged wæs.” The same feeling as that which is expressed in Orderic’s account comes out in a singular passage of the Saxon Annalist (Pertz, vi. 733); “Willehelmus rex de Anglia sagitta interfectus est. Heinricus vero frater ejus in eodem loco pro remedio animi sui volens monasterium constituere, prohibitus est. Apparuit enim ei, et duo dracones ferentes eum, dicens, nichil sibi prodesse, eo quod suis temporibus omnia destructa essent, quæ antecessores sui in honorem Domini construxerant.”
I suppose that there need be no difficulty about the “clientuli” of Orderic as compared with the “rusticani” of William, though the word “clientuli” by itself might rather have suggested some of the King’s inferior followers. But one is amazed to find Sir Francis Palgrave (iv. 686, 687) telling us the name of the churl who brought in the body, “a neighbouring charcoal-burner, Purkis.” And he goes on to say;
“We are not told that Purkis received any reward or thanks for his care. His family still subsists in the neighbourhood, nor have they risen above their original station, poor craftsmen or cottagers. They followed the calling of coal-burners until a recent period; and they tell us that the wheel of the Cart which conveyed the neglected corpse was shown by them until the last century.”
I have often heard of this local legend about Purkis, but really so palpable a fiction ought not to have found its way into the pages of a scholar like Sir Francis Palgrave. There are some stories which need no argument against them, but which the evidence of nomenclature at once upsets. Purkis is on the face of him as mythical as Crocker and Crewis and Copleston――I am not sure whether I have remembered the first two names right, and it is not worth turning to any book to see. By the way in which the story is told, one would fancy that Purkis is meant for a surname, and it may be that those who believe in him think that he was baptized John or Thomas. In inventing legends it is at least better to invent legends which are possible. If any one chooses to say that the cart was driven by Godwine or Æthelstan, we cannot say that it was not.
It is after this that Orderic goes on to speak of the classes of people who did mourn for the Red King, and how gladly they would have done summary vengeance on his slayer, if he had not been far out of their reach;
“Stipendiarii milites et nebulones ac vulgaria scorta quæstus suos in occasu mœchi principis perdiderunt, ejusque miserabilem obitum, non tam pro pietate quam pro detestabili flagitiorum cupiditate, planxerunt, Gualteriumque Tirellum, ut pro lapsu sui defensoris membratim discerperent, summopere quæsierunt. Porro ille, perpetrato facinore, ad pontum propere confugit, pelagoque transito, munitiones quas in Gallia possidebat expetiit, ibique minas et maledictiones malevolentium tutus irrisit.”
NOTE UU. Vol. ii. p. 347.
THE ELECTION OF HENRY THE FIRST.
The details of the accession of Henry come chiefly from Orderic (782 D), though, oddly enough, he does not record the election in so many words. But there can be no doubt as to the fact of a regular, though necessarily a very hasty, election. The words of the Chronicle are distinct; “And syðþan he bebyrged wæs þa witan þe þa neh handa wæron, his broðer Heanrig to cynge gecuran.” So Henry of Huntingdon; “Henricus, ibidem in regem electus.” Florence strangely slurs over the election, saying only, “successit junior frater suus Heinricus.” William of Malmesbury (v. 393) is quite distinct;
“In regem electus est, aliquantis tamen ante controversiis inter proceres agitatis atque sopitis, annitente maxime comite Warwicensi Henrico, viro integro et sancto, cujus familiari jamdudum usus fuerat contubernio.”
Here we hear only of “proceres;” but we get the important facts of the division among the electors, and of the special agency of the Earl of Warwick, which falls in with the notice of Orderic (783 B) that the Count of Meulan accompanied the King-elect to London. The Beaumont brothers act together. But Orderic, in his zeal to describe the picturesque scene between Henry and William of Breteuil, leaves out any distinct record of the election. It is however implied in the words which follow the passage quoted in p. 347;
“Tandem, convenientibus amicis et sapientibus consiliariis, hinc et inde lis mitigata est, et saniori consultu, ne pejor scissura fieret, arx cum regalibus gazis filio regis Henrico reddita est.”
The assembly which settled the matter, and which gave up the royal treasury to Henry, was beyond all doubt the assembly which, according to William of Malmesbury, elected Henry king. It was only to a king or king-elect that they would decree the surrender of the treasure. Indeed one might be tempted to make a slight change in the order of events as told by Orderic. One is tempted to suspect that the assembly voted the election of Henry, that he went, armed with this vote, to demand the treasure, and that it was then that William of Breteuil withstood him. This however is simply conjecture. But there can be no doubt as to the election of Henry by such an assembly as could be got together at the moment. Nor do I see any reason to doubt Orderic’s story as to the scene between Henry and William of Breteuil. At all events, Orderic has made it the occasion of putting forward some very sound constitutional doctrine, which is just as valuable, even if any severe critic should reject the story as a fact.
I have spoken elsewhere (see N. C. vol. v. p. 845) of two tales in Matthew Paris with regard to Henry’s accession, of which Thierry made a characteristic use. I have nothing to add to what I said then.
There can, I think, be no doubt that the celebrant at Henry’s coronation was Maurice Bishop of London. The Chronicler, Florence, Orderic, and Henry of Huntingdon, all mention Maurice and no other prelate, though of course some other bishops would take a secondary part in the ceremony. The Archbishop of York would have been the regular celebrant during the vacancy of Canterbury; but, as Thomas died so soon afterwards, the natural inference is that he was too sick to come. And indeed, if he was in his own province, he could not, even if he had been in the best of health, have come to Westminster at such short notice. Even Thomas Stubbs does not claim the consecration of Henry for his namesake, unless indeed he means (X Scriptt. 1707) to insinuate it in a very dark way. He mentions the vacancy of Canterbury after the death of Lanfranc, and adds;
“Ex antiquo tamen extitit consuetudo inter duos Angliæ metropolitanos, ut altero defuncto alter in provincia defuncti archiepiscopalia faceret, utpote episcopos consecrare, regem coronare, coronato rege natalis domini, paschæ et pentecostes majorem missam cantare. Hæc interim fecit Thomas archiepiscopus, nec quisquam episcoporum erat qui hæc in sua ipsius diocesi præsente archiepiscopo præsumeret.”
He then mentions the bishops whom Thomas consecrated, Hervey of Norwich――that is, Herbert of Thetford――Ralph of Chichester, and Hervey of Bangor. If he had really thought that Thomas had crowned a king, he would surely have said so distinctly. I can therefore attach no importance to the strange statement of the two Ely writers (Anglia Sacra, i. 613; Stewart, Liber Eliensis, 284) that Henry was consecrated by Maurice, but crowned by Thomas (“a Mauritio Lundoniensi episcopo in regem est consecratus, sed a Thoma Eboracensi coronatus”). But the distinction between consecration and coronation may be worth the attention of ritual students.
It was an easy mistake of a Welsh writer (see the Brut, 1098, that is 1100) to transfer the election from Winchester to London; “From thence [Winchester] he went to London, and took possession of it, which is the chiefest and crown of the whole kingdom of England [Lloeger]. Then the French and Saxons [Ffreinc a Saeson] all flocked together to him, and by royal council appointed him king in England [vrenhin yn Lloeger].”
APPENDIX WW. Vol. ii. p. 384.
THE OBJECTIONS TO THE MARRIAGE OF HENRY AND MATILDA.
Our two fullest accounts of this matter are those of Eadmer and of Hermann of Tournay (D’Achery, ii. 894, see above, p. 600). Eadmer’s is the account, not only of a contemporary, but, we cannot doubt, of an eye-witness. Hermann wrote in another land, long afterwards, when the wars of Stephen and Matilda and the pleadings in the papal court (see N. C. vol. v. p. 857) had called men’s minds back to the story of the marriage of Matilda’s parents. His memory, as we see, failed him as to details. He did not remember either of the names of Eadgyth-Matilda; he mistakes her brother David for her father; he makes her (D’Achery, ii. 894) the mother of both the sons of Henry who were drowned in the White Ship. It is quite plain that his remembrance of what he had heard from Anselm forty or fifty years before was coloured by later ways of looking at things.
It is quite plain from Eadmer’s account that Eadgyth herself had not the slightest feeling against the marriage, but that she was eager for it; she disliked neither King Henry nor his crown. Nor has Anselm any objection, as soon as the evidence shows that no rule of the Church would be broken by the marriage. That he was strict in requiring such evidence was only natural and right; “Affirmabat nulla se unquam ratione in hoc declinandum ut suam Deo sponsam tollat et eam terreno homini in matrimonium jungat” (Eadmer, Hist. Nov. 56). But when the evidence shows that Eadgyth was not “Dei sponsa,” he makes no further objection. Nothing is proved by his use of a negative form, “judicium vestrum non abjicio” (Hist. Nov. 58). The sentimental objection which Hermann puts into his mouth seems quite out of character. Anselm takes the common-sense view; If she is a nun, she must not marry; if she is not a nun, she may. One can believe that Anselm would in his heart have preferred that any virgin should abide in the state which he deemed the higher. But he would hardly have stooped to say; “This marriage is perfectly lawful; but the veil has touched her head; so you had better marry somebody else.” In this and in the prophecy we surely see the beginning of the growth of a legend. Some legends of Anselm seem to have arisen in his life-time. This one could not, as no ill-luck happened to the children of the marriage till after Anselm was dead.
I am not sure that a very slight touch in the same direction may not be seen in the account of William of Malmesbury, v. 418; the words follow the passage quoted above, p. 603; “Cum rex suscipere vellet eam thalamo, res in disceptationem venit; nec nisi legitimis productis testibus, qui eam jurarent sine professione causa procorum velum gessisse, archiepiscopus adduci potuit ad consentiendum.”
William, it is to be noticed, does not repeat the English pedigree, on which in his former notice (v. 393) he was less emphatic than Eadmer. I do not know what can be meant by “ignobiles nuptiæ.” Hardly Count Alan; hardly Earl William of Warren or Surrey, who is also spoken of.
Thierry (ii. 152) has an elaborate romance, in which the father of Western theology comes in casually as “un moine du Bec, nommé Anselme.” Here Eadgyth dislikes the marriage, but sacrifices herself for the good of her people. All this comes from Matthew Paris, who has two amazing stories. In one (Hist. Angl. i. 188), though Malcolm and Margaret have been killed off at the proper time, they appear again in full life when King Henry seeks their daughter――“filia elegantissimæ speciei, et, quod pluris erat, vitæ sanctissimæ.” She was brought up in a monastery, perhaps as a nun (“in sanctimonialium claustro propter honestatem educata, et, ut dicitur, velo sacro Deo dicato ac jam professa”). King Henry woos her with much fervour of passion (“ipsam propter ipsius mores et faciei venustatem sitienter adoptavit, et instanter petiit in uxorem”). The parents dare not withstand such a lover; they go to ask their daughter’s own wishes. She rebukes them in fearful and mysterious words for speaking of any such matter (“increpans patrem et matrem de zelotipiæ præsumptione, nec ipsos debere de corpore suo fructum mortalitatis exposcere, vel fructum posteritatis infructuosum”). At this the father is sad; the mother is pleased by the decision of her daughter (“matri propositum puellare complacuit”). The King’s passion only waxes warmer; like Balak, he sends more honourable messengers; he commands, prays, promises, till he stumbles into a hexameter “missis sollemnioribus nuntiis, urgentius adolescentulam in reginam expostulans, imperium, promissa, preces, confudit in unum”). Malcolm, knowing that his wife will never agree to the marriage, turns, without her knowledge, to the abbess by whom his daughter had been brought up. The reverend mother is prevailed on to argue the point at length, and to set forth every possible argument, personal and political, on behalf of the marriage;
“Proponens utilitatem inde proventuram, scilicet regnorum fœdera, regum mutuam dilectionem, pacis tranquillitatem, propagationis posteritatem, reginalem dignitatem, honoris magnificentiam, divitiarum affluentiam, amoris desiderium, amatoris pulcritudinem.”
Father and abbess together are too much for the “beata virgo Matilda.” She yields, but only “maledicens fructui sui ventris affuturo.” Anselm marries them, “nuptiis sollemniter, ut decuit, celebratis;” but a contemporary note in the margin is added, “Nota nuptias illicitas.” And we are told that the disturbances which presently followed, the invasion of Robert and anything else, were all judgements on this unlawful marriage;
“Facta est commotio magna in regno, quasi Deo irato, quoniam rex Henricus zelotipaverat, et, sicut fratrem Robertum de regno supplantando alienaverat, sic Christum de sponsa sua defraudaverat.”
It is to be noticed that the writer who brings in all this action of Malcolm under the year 1101 had long before (i. 43) recorded his death in its proper place, or rather before its proper place, as he puts it in 1092 instead of 1093.
The other account comes in the Chronica Majora, ii. 121. It is chiefly remarkable for two speeches, the second of which is put into the mouth of Matilda herself. Matthew had just copied a business-like bit from Roger of Wendover (ii. 169), recording the marriage without comment; he then goes on to say that Matilda was married against her will, being won over by the importunity of kinsfolk and friends. The words are, “parentum et amicorum consiliis vix adquiescens; tandem tædio affecta, adquievit.” (“Parentes” may be taken by the charitably disposed in the wider French sense, but it must be remembered that in the other version Malcolm and Margaret are brought in as living in the year 1100.) This version is quite certain that Matilda had made a vow, but leaves it open whether she had actually taken the veil (“Cum Christiana matertera sancta sanctissime in claustro religionis educata fuerat, et votum virginitatis Deo spoponderat, et, ut multi perhibent, velum susceperat professæ religionis”). The kinsfolk and friends make a solemn appeal on patriotic grounds;
“O mulierum generosissima ac gratissima, per te reparabitur Anglorum genialis nobilitas, quæ diu degeneravit, et fœdus magnorum principum redintegrabitur, si matrimonio prælocuto consentias. Quod si non feceris, causa eris perennis inimicitiæ gentium diversarum, et sanguinis humani effusionis irrestaurabilis.”
Matilda, “virgo clementissima,” gets angry, and, in the bitterness of her soul, uses yet stronger language than she does in the other version;
“Ex quo sic oportet fieri, utcunque consentio, sed fructum ventris mei, quod est horribile dictu, diabolo commendo. Me enim Deo vovi, quod non sinistis, immo sponsum meum, quem elegi, ausu temerario, immemores causæ sancti Matthæi apostoli, zelotipatis.”
We are then told of the vehement love of the King for the wife whom he had thus wrongfully married;
“Sic igitur nuptiæ magnifice, ut decuit, celebrabantur, et tanto ardentius exarsit rex in ipsius amorem, quanto scelestius adamavit. Secundum illud poeticum
“Nitimur in vetitum semper.”
Peccato igitur exigente, facta est commotio subito in regno.”
From this point Matthew goes on copying Roger of Wendover’s account of Robert’s invasion, but putting in bits of colouring of his own. When Henry sends his fleet to meet that of Robert, we are told that he does it “conscientiam habens multipliciter cauteriatam.” And when some of the sailors (see p. 404)――who are enlarged by Robert of Wendover into “pars major exercitus”――go over to Robert, the reason for their so doing is said to be “quia rex jam tyrannizaverat.”
There is something very strange in this echo at so late a time of objections which one would have thought that both common sense and the authority of Anselm would have set aside for ever. Was there any lurking wish in the thirteenth century to weaken the title of the Angevin kings, even on so stale a ground as the doubtful validity of the marriage of so distant an ancestress? We must remember that something of the kind really happened in Scotland long after. The right of the Stewarts was murmured against at a very late time on the ground of the doubtful marriage of Robert the Second. And we have seen that in an intermediate time, during the reign of Stephen, the validity of the elder Matilda’s marriage, and the consequent legitimacy of the younger Matilda, were called in question by Stephen’s supporters in arguments before the papal court. See N. C. vol. v. p. 857.
There is something singular in the way in which the marriage is entered in the Winchester Annals (1100), among a crowd of other facts not put in exact chronological order; “Matildis, Malcolmi regis filia Scotiæ, de monacha Wiltoniæ non tamen professa, regina Angliæ facta est.” One almost thinks of the wild story about Eadgyth of Wilton which I have spoken of in N. C. vol. i. p. 267. But the words have a parallel in the language of the Brut (1098, that is 1110), which, after the account of Henry’s election, adds,
“And immediately he took for his wife Mahalt, daughter of Malcolm, king of Prydyn, by Queen Margaret her mother [‘Vahalt uerch y Moel Cólóm, brenhin Prydein’――another manuscript more reasonably has ‘y Pictieit’――‘o Vargaret urenhines y mam’]. And she, by his marrying her, was raised to the rank of queen; for William Rufus [Gúilim Goch] his brother, in his lifetime, had consorted with concubines, and on that account had died without an heir.” Cf. p. 503.
I have said, what is perfectly true, that Orderic is the only writer who directly mentions that Matilda had once borne the name of Eadgyth. But I think that I have lighted on a most curious trace of the fact in a later writer. Peter Langtoft (i. 448) mentions the return of Robert, and adds;
“La femme le duk Robert fu en proteccioun Le counte de Cornewaylle, fillye [fu] Charloun Seygnur de Cecylle, Egyth la dame ad noun; Robert la prent e mene à sa possessioun.”
The name appears in various spellings in different manuscripts, Edgith, Egdith, and what not. It was perhaps not very wonderful that, in Peter Langtoft’s day, a Count of Conversana should grow into a lord of Sicily, and that a lord of Sicily should be thought to be of necessity called Charles. But why should Sibyl be turned into Edith? I can think of no reason except that the next lines are;
“Cel houre en Escoce un damoysele estait, Fillye al ray Malcolme, de ky maynt hom parlayt. Taunt fu bone et bele, ke Henry le esposayt, Ray de Engleterre, Malde home l’appelayt.”
Surely the poet had read somewhere that Matilda had been called Edith, and then mixed up her and Sibyl together. But why Sibyl should be in the protection of the “Count of Cornwall”――meaning, if anybody, William of Mortain――it is not easy to see. Had he read in Orderic (784 B, C) that Robert and Sibyl went together to “mons sancti Michaelis archangeli de periculo maris,” and took it for the Cornish mount? Robert of Brunne (i. 95, Hearne) translates;
“Noþeles þe erle of Cornwaile kept his wife þat while Charles douhter scho lord of Cezile, Dame Edith bright as glas: Roberd þouht no gile, Bot com on gode manere tille his broþer Henry, He wife þat soiorned here he led to Normundie.”
NOTE XX. Vol. ii. p. 412.
THE TREATY OF 1101.
I do not know that there is any necessary contradiction between the detailed narrative of Orderic (788), who alone speaks of the personal interview between the brothers, and the shorter accounts of the other writers, who have more to say about the action of the wise men on each side. Nothing is more likely than that the terms of the treaty should be discussed by commissioners on both sides, and then finally agreed on in a personal meeting of the two princes. The only point of difficulty is that Orderic seems to imply that nobody on either side could be trusted, except the princes themselves. He begins with Henry’s message to ask why Robert had entered his kingdom (“cur Angliæ fines cum armato exercitu intrare præsumpserit”). Robert’s answer reminds one of the answer of Edward son of Henry the Sixth to Edward the Fourth (Hall, 301; Lingard, iv. 189). His words are; “Regnum patris mei cum proceribus meis ingressus sum, et illud reposco debitum mihi jure primogenitorum.”
The armies are now face to face, and the negotiations begin. In the Chronicle the reconcilation clearly seems to be the work of the head men; “Ac þa heafod men heom betwenan foran and þa broðra gesehtodan.” So Florence; “Sapientiores utriusque partis, habito inter se salubri consilio, pacem inter fratres composuere.” William of Malmesbury (v. 395) adds a special reason for peace; “Satagentibus sanioris consilii hominibus, qui dicerent pietatis jus violandum si fraterna necessitudo prælio concurreret, paci animos accommodavere; reputantes quod, si alter occumberet, alter infirmior remaneret, cum nullus fratrum præter ipsos superesset.” There is here nothing to throw any doubt on the good faith of anybody, and no negotiators are mentioned by name. It is Wace (15508 Pluquet, 10423 Andresen) who mentions negotiators on Robert’s side whom we certainly should not have looked for;
“Conseillie out comunement Qu’il le feront tot altrement; Les dous freres acorderont, Ia por els ne se combatront. Robert, qui Belesme teneit E qui del duc s’entremeteit, E cil qui Moretoig aueit, Qui a s’enor aparteneit ――Will, co dient, out non―― E Robert, qui fu filz Haimon, Ouoc altres riches barons, Donc io ne sai dire les nons, Qui del rei e del duc teneient E amedous seruir deueient, De l’accorder s’entremeteient, Por la bataille qu’il cremeient. Del rei al duc souent aloent E la parole entre els portoent; La pais aloent porchacant E la concorde porparlant.”
It is Orderic alone who implies that Henry asked for a personal interview, and gives his reason;
“Seditiosi proditores magis bellum quam pacem optabant. Et quia plus privatæ quam publicæ commoditati insistebant, versipelles veredarii verba pervertebant, et magis jurgia quam concordiam inter fratres serebant. Porro sagax Henricus istud advertit, unde fratris colloquium ore ad os petiit; et convenientes fraterni amoris dulcedo ambos implevit.”
He then goes on to describe the meeting of the brothers;
“Soli duo germani spectantis in medio populi collocuti sunt, et ore quod corde ruminabant sine dolo protulerunt. Denique post pauca verba mutuo amplexati sunt, datisque dulcibus basiis, sine sequestro concordes effecti sunt. Verba quidem hujus colloquii nequeo hic inserere, quia non interfui, sed opus, quod de tantorum consilio fratrum processit, auditu didici.”
He then gives the terms of the treaty, and adds;
“Remotis omnibus arbitris soli fratres scita sua sanxerunt, et, cunctis in circumitu eos cum admiratione spectantibus, decreverunt quod sese, ut decet fratres, invicem adjuvarent, et omnia patris sui dominia resumerent, scelestosque litium satores pariter utrinque punirent.”
The colouring of Orderic in these passages can hardly be reconciled with the other accounts. They clearly speak of the terms as agreed upon between the chief men of both sides, while Orderic implies that, on account of their untrustworthiness, the princes met and settled matters for themselves. But it is possible to accept Orderic’s fact without accepting his colouring. Or we may suppose that there were among the negotiators some who wished to hinder peace, but that those who laboured for it got the better in the end. Then, we may suppose, they agreed upon terms, and the King and the Duke met to ratify the treaty. As for the terms of the treaty, they are, as usual, given in the best and most formal way in the Chronicle. The brothers agree,
“On þa gerád þet se cyng forlet eall þæt he mid streangðe innan Normandig togeanes þam eorle heold, and þæt ealle þa on Englelande heora land ongean heafdon, þe hit ær þurh þone eorl forluron, and Eustaties eorl eac eall his fæderland her on lande, and þet se eorl Rotbert ælce geare sceolde of Englalande þreo þusend marc seolfres habban, and loc hweðer þæra gebroðra oðerne oferbide wære yrfeweard ealles Englalandes and eac Normandiges, buton se forðfarena yrfenuman heafde be rihtre æwe.”
Florence says nothing about the mutual succession of the two brothers, nor does he mention Eustace by name. He also leaves out the cession of Henry’s Norman dominions;
“Pacem inter fratres ea ratione composuere ut iii. mille marcas, id est MM. libras argenti, singulis annis rex persolveret comiti, et omnibus suos pristinos honores quos in Anglia pro comitis fidelitate perdiderant, restitueret gratuito, et cunctis quibus honores in Normannia causa regis fuerant ablati, comes redderet absque pretio.”
Nothing in the treaty seems to have struck William of Malmesbury, except the yearly payment of three thousand marks by the King to the Duke. And even that he brings in quite incidentally, as if to account for its being very shortly given up;
“Sed et trium millium marcarum promissio lenem comitis fallebat credulitatem, ut, procinctu soluto, de tanta pecunia menti blandiretur suæ, quam ille posteriori statim anno voluntati reginæ libens, quod illa peteret, condonavit.”
One is reminded of the story which William elsewhere (iii. 251) tells, without any date, of Robert’s friend Eadgar; “Quantula simplicitas ut libram argenti, quam quotidie in stipendio accipiebat, regi pro uno equo perdonaret.” No doubt in both cases the horse and the gift to the Queen were mere decent pretences for stopping the payment; but the gift to Matilda is quite of a piece with Robert’s conduct to her at Winchester (see p. 406). The Chronicler two years later (1103) records Robert’s surrender of his pension;
“Ðises geares eac com se eorl Rotbert of Normandig to sprecene wið þone cyng [the common Domesday form in English] her on lande, and ær he heonne ferde he forgeaf þa þreo þusend marc þe him seo cyng Heanrig be foreweard ælce geare gifan sceolde.”
Here we have no mention of Matilda, unless she anyhow lurks in the feminine article so oddly assigned to her husband.
Orderic helps us to the more distinct resignation by Robert of his claims on the English crown, which is however implied in all the other accounts――to the release of Henry from his homage to Robert――and to the stipulation about Domfront, which was naturally more interesting to him than it was to those who wrote in England. He does not mention the mutual heirship of the brothers. He also confounds marks and pounds;
“In primis Rodbertus dux calumniam quam in regno Angliæ ingesserat fratri dimisit, ipsumque de homagio, quod sibi jamdudum fecerat, pro regali dignitate absolvit. Henricus autem rex tria milia librarum sterilensium sese duci redditurum per singulos annos spopondit, totumque Constantinum pagum et quidquid in Neustria possidebat, præter Danfrontem, reliquit. Solum Danfrontem castrum sibi retinuit, quia Danfrontanis, quando illum intromiserunt, jurejurando pepigerat quod nunquam eos de manu sua projiceret, nec leges eorum vel consuetudines mutaret.”
I am glad to end with the mention of one of the noblest spots of which I have had to speak in my story, and with one of the most honourable features in the history of King Henry.
[1] In this chapter we have to make more use than usual of the Scottish, British, and Northumbrian writers. I do not undertake to go very deeply into any purely literary questions about them. I have simply used them for facts, and have dealt with their statements according to the usual rules of criticism. The Scottish and Northumbrian writers will be found in Mr. Skene’s edition of Fordun and in the Surtees Society’s edition of Simeon. This last contains, among other things, Turgot’s Life of Saint Margaret and the passages from Fordun which profess to be extracts from Turgot. The Surtees’ text and Mr. Skene’s text do not always agree, but their differences are not often of much importance for my purposes. It is certainly strange if some of these passages really come from a contemporary writer. For Welsh matters we are, to my mind, better off. Unhappily I do not know enough of the Welsh tongue really to make use of the originals, though I am not utterly at the mercy of the translator as to proper names and technical terms. In the Chronicles and Memorials are two volumes of most valuable matter which need a fresh editor. It is not my business to enter into any questions as to their authorship, how far it is due to Caradoc of Llancarfan or anybody else. In any case the Latin Annales Cambriæ, meagre as they are, form a thoroughly good and trustworthy record, but the Editor seems in many places to have been unable either to read his manuscript or to construe his Latin. Many of the readings too which are most valuable historically are thrust into notes. The Welsh Brut y Tywysogion, published in the same series by the same Editor, is a fuller version of the Annals, and also I believe essentially trustworthy. I have been obliged to quote this in the translation, though often with some doubts as to its accuracy. In the preface a good deal of matter by the late Mr. Aneurin Owen is reprinted without acknowledgement. There is also another Brut y Tywysogion, otherwise “The Gwentian Chronicles of Caradoc of Llancarvan,” translated by Mr. Owen and published by the Cambrian Archæological Association. Here we have the translating and editing of a really eminent Welsh scholar, but the book, as a historical authority, is very inferior to either the Latin Annals or the other Brut. A great deal of legendary matter, some of which must be of quite a late date, has been thrust in. I quote the more trustworthy Brut in the Chronicles and Memorials as the elder, and that published by the Cambrian Archæological Association as the later Brut.
[2] Chron. Petrib. 1093. See Appendix BB.
[3] See vol. i. p. 304.
[4] Chron. Petrib. 1093. See Appendix BB.
[5] See vol. i. p. 307.
[6] See vol. i. p. 298.
[7] See vol. i. p. 410.
[8] See vol. i. p. 421.
[9] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 259.
[10] See N. C. vol. ii. p. 355.
[11] See vol. i. p. 417.
[12] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 237.
[13] See N. C. vol. v. p. 629.
[14] So says the Northern interpolator of Florence whom we are used to call Simeon, 1093; “Ecclesia nova Dunelmi est incepta tertio idus Augusti feria quinta, episcopo Willelmo et Malcholmo rege Scottorum et Turgoto priore ponentibus primos in fundamento lapides.” Fordun (v. 20) says the same in a passage which purports to come from Turgot, and of which we shall have to speak again. It is certainly remarkable, as Mr. Hinde remarks in his note on the passage in the Gesta Regum (i. 104), that in the History of the Church of Durham (iv. 8) Simeon makes no mention of Malcolm. “Eo die episcopus, et qui post eum secundus erat in ecclesia prior Turgotus, cum cæteris fratribus primos in fundamento lapides posuerunt. Nam paulo ante, id est, iiii. Kal. Augusti feria vi. idem episcopus et prior, facta cum fratribus oratione, ac data benedictione, fundamenta cœperant fodere.”
[15] Chron. Petrib. 1093. See Appendix BB.
[16] Ib.
[17] This is from Florence. See Appendix BB.
[18] See Appendix BB.
[19] See N. C. vol. i. pp. 58, 119, 576, 579.
[20] Chron. Petrib. 1093. See Appendix BB.
[21] See Appendix CC.
[22] See vol. i. p. 297.
[23] See Appendix CC.
[24] See N. C. vol. i. pp. 315, 648.
[25] See Appendix CC.
[26] Chron. Petrib. 1091. “Hine sloh Moræl of Bæbbaburh se wæs þæs eorles stiward and Melcolmes cinges godsib.” See N. C. vol. iii. pp. 456, 777.
[27] On the history of Tynemouth, see Appendix FF.
[28] Will. Malms. iii. 250. “Humatus multis annis apud Tinemuthe, nuper ab Alexandro filio Scotiam ad Dunfermlin portatus est.”
[29] Sim. Dun. Gesta Regum, 1093. “In cujus morte justitia judicantis Dei aperte consideratur, ut videlicet in illa provincia cum suis interiret, quam sæpe ipse vastare avaritia stimulante consuevit, quinquies namque illam atroci depopulatione attrivit, et miseros indigenas in servitutem redigendos abduxit captivos.”
[30] Ib. “Exercitus illius vel gladiis confoditur, vel qui gladios fugerunt inundatione fluminum, quæ tunc pluviis hiemalibus plus solito excreverant, absorti sunt.”
[31] Ib. “Corpus regis, cum suorum nullus remaneret qui terra illud cooperiret, duo ex indigenis carro impositum in Tynemuthe sepelierunt.”
[32] Sim. Dun. Gesta Regum, 1093. “Sic factum est ut, ubi multos vita et rebus et libertate privaverat, ibidem ipse Dei judicio vitam simul cum rebus amitteret.”
[33] I am sorry that Mr. Burton (Hist. Scotland, i. 416) should have thought it necessary to tell the story of Margaret and her biographer in somewhat mocking tones. I can see nothing but what is exquisitely beautiful and touching in her life as written by Turgot, for Turgot I suppose it really is.
[34] Turgot, Vit. Marg. vi. (Surtees Simeon, p. 241), enlarges on this head; “Fateor, magnum misericordiæ Dei mirabar miraculum, cum viderem interdum tantam orandi regis intentionem, tantam inter orandum in pectore viri sæcularis compunctionem.” He adds, “Quæ ipsa respuerat eadem et ipse respuere, et quæ amaverat, amore amoris illius amare.” William of Malmesbury (iv. 311) speaks to the same effect; Malcolm and Margaret were “ambo cultu pietatis insignes, illa præcipue.”
[35] So witnesses Turgot in the chapter just quoted; “Libros in quibus ipsa vel orare consueverat vel legere, ille, ignarus licet literarum, sæpe manu versare solebat et inspicere: et dum ab ea quis illorum esset ei carior audisset, hunc et ipse cariorem habere, deosculari, sæpius contrectare.” Then follows about the bindings.
[36] Turgot is of course full on this head throughout, and we have a further witness from our own Florence (1093) and Orderic (701 D). From the last we get her bounty to Iona――that barbarous name is more intelligible than any other. In his words it is “Huense cœnobium quod servus Christi Columba, tempore Brudei, regis Pictorum, filii Meilocon, construxerat.”
[37] Turgot, in his fourth chapter, enlarges on the strict order which Margaret kept in her household, especially among her own attendant ladies. “Inerat enim reginæ tanta cum jocunditate severitas, tanta cum severitate jocunditas, ut omnes qui erant in ejus obsequio, viri et feminæ, illam et timendo diligerent et diligendo timerent. Quare in præsentia ejus non solum nihil execrandum facere, sed ne turpe quidem verbum quisquam ausus fuerat proferre. Ipsa enim universa in se reprimens vitia, cum magna gravitate lætabatur, cum magna honestate irascebatur.”
[38] Orderic (703 B, C) has his panegyric on the three brothers, and specially on David; but it is William of Malmesbury (v. 400) who is especially emphatic on the unparalleled purity of life of all three. “Neque vero unquam in acta historiarum relatum est tantæ sanctitatis tres fuisse pariter reges et fratres, maternæ pietatis nectar redolentes; namque præter victus parcitatem, eleemosynarum copiam, orationum assiduitatem, ita domesticum regibus vitium evicerunt, ut nunquam feratur in eorum thalamos nisi legitimas uxores isse, nec eorum quenquam pellicatu aliquo pudicitiam contristasse.”
[39] Will. Malms, ib. “Solus fuit Edmundus Margaritæ filius a bono degener.” We shall hear of him and his doings presently.
[40] Turgot, viii. p. 243. “Scottorum quidam, contra totius ecclesiæ consuetudinem, nescio quo ritu barbaro missam celebrare consueverunt.”
[41] Ib. viii. (Surtees Simeon, p. 243). “Qui [Malcolmus] quoniam perfecte Anglorum linguam æque ac propriam noverat, vigilantissimus in hoc concilio utriusque partis interpres extiterat.”
[42] Ib. vii. (p. 242). “Obsequia regis sublimiora constituit, ut eum procedentem sive equitantem multa cum grandi honore agmina constiparent, et hoc cum tanta censura, ut quocumque devenissent, nulli eorum cuiquam aliquid liceret rapere, nec rusticos aut pauperes quoslibet quolibet modo quisquam illorum opprimere auderet vel lædere.” He describes at some length the new-fashioned splendour which she brought into the Scottish court, and adds; “Et hæc quidem illa fecerat, non quia mundi honore delectabatur, sed, quod regia dignitas ab ea exigebat, persolvere cogebatur.”
[43] Take for instance our own Chronicle, 1093; “Da þa seo gode cwen Margarita þis gehyrde, hyre þa leofstan hlaford and sunu þus beswikene, heo wearð oð deað on mode geancsumed, and mid hire prestan to cyrcean eode, and hire gerihtan underfeng, and æt Gode abæd þæt heo hire gast ageaf.” Florence and Orderic are much to the same effect.
[44] These details come from Turgot, chap. xii, xiii. He was not himself present, having seen her for the last time some while before her death, but late enough to bear witness (chap. xii.) to her expectation of death. The story of her last moments was told to Turgot by a priest who was specially in the Queen’s favour, who was present at her death, and who afterwards became a monk at Durham as an offering for her soul. “Post mortem reginæ, pro ipsius anima perpetuo se Christi servitio tradidit; et ad sepulchrum incorrupti corporis sanctissimi patris Cuthberti suscipiens habitum monachi, seipsum pro ea hostiam obtulit.”
[45] Turgot, ib. “Ipsa quoque illam, quam Nigram Crucem nominare, quamque in maxima semper veneratione habere consuevit, sibi afferri præcepit.” Another manuscript has “Crucem Scotiæ nigram.”
[46] “Quinquagesimum psalmum ex ordine decantans;” that is the fifty-first in our reckoning.
[47] “Ille quod verum erat dicere noluit, ne audita morte illorum continuo et ipsa moreretur; nam respondebat, eos benevalere.”
[48] “Sed in omnibus his non peccavit labiis suis, neque stultum quid contra Deum locuta est.” We must always remember the common habit of reviling God and the saints which it was thought rather a special virtue to be free from. See N. C. vol. ii. p. 24, note.
[49] “In laudem et gratiarum actionem prorupit, dicens: ‘Laudes et gratias tibi, omnipotens Deus, refero, qui me tantas in meo exitu angustias tolerare, hasque tolerantem ab aliquibus peccati maculis, ut spero, voluisti mundare.’”
[50] The place is not mentioned by Turgot in the Life. According to Fordun (v. 21), who professes to copy Turgot, Margaret died “in castro puellarum;” see the Surtees Simeon, p. 262.
[51] “Quod mirum est, faciem ejus, quæ more morientium tota in morte palluerat, ita post mortem rubor cum candore permixtus perfuderat, ut non mortua sed dormiens credi potuisset,” Cf. the picture of her uncle Eadward. See N. C. vol. iii. p. 15.
[52] See Appendix DD.
[53] See Appendix AA.
[54] Three parties are clearly described by Mr. E. W. Robertson, i. 155. There were the remnants of the partisans of the house of Moray, the house of Macbeth, the party of the North, and the partisans of the reigning house, divided into a strictly Scottish and an English party. The success of Donald must have been owing to a momentary union of the first two of these parties. I hardly know what to make of the statement in the Turgot extracts (Simeon, p. 262) that Donald arose “auxilio regis Norwegiæ.”
[55] He appears in Fordun (v. 21) as “Donaldus Rufus vel Bane, frater regis.” One cannot too often remind oneself of the true position of Macbeth. I was perhaps a little hard on him in N. C. vol. ii. p. 55.
[56] Chron. Petrib. 1093. “Þa Scottas þa Dufenal to cynge gecuron, Melcolmes broðer, and ealle þa Englisce út adræfdon, þe ǽr mid þam cynge Melcolme wæron.” So Florence; “Omnes Anglos qui de curia regia extiterunt de Scottia expulerunt.”
[57] See N. C. vol. i. p. 315. And compare the alleged design for a massacre of Normans, N. C. vol. v. p. 281.
[58] In the passages just quoted only English are mentioned. We hear of English and French directly afterwards, when the strangers are driven out in Duncan’s time. This difference may be accidental, or it may be meant to mark a specially Norman element under Duncan which had not shown itself under Malcolm.
[59] Fordun, v. 21. “Filios et filias regis et reginæ sororis suæ congregatos in Angliam secum secretius traduxit, et eos per cognatos et cognitos, non manifeste sed quasi in occulto nutriendos, destinavit. Timuit enim, ne Normanni, qui tunc temporis Angliam invaserant, sibi vel suis malum molirentur, eo quod Angliæ regnum eis hereditario jure debebatur.”
[60] See Appendix EE.
[61] See N. C. vol. v. pp. 244, 294-309.
[62] See N. C. vol. v. p. 169.
[63] See Appendix EE.
[64] See Appendix EE.
[65] Eadmer, Hist. Nov. 57. “Quem pannum in ipsius quidem præsentia gemens ac tremebunda ferebam, sed mox ut me conspectui ejus subtrahere poteram, arreptum in humum jacere, pedibus proterere, et ita quo in odio fervebam, quamvis insipienter, consueveram desævire. Isto, non alio modo, teste conscientia mea, velata fui.”
[66] See Appendix EE.
[67] See vol. i. p. 435.
[68] See vol. i. p. 438.
[69] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 517; vol. v. p. 121. Will. Malms. v. 400; “Ille [Willelmus] Duncanum, filium Malcolmi nothum, militem fecit.” So Fordun, v. 24; “Duncanus, Malcolmi regis filius nothus, cum obses erat in Anglia cum rege Willelmo Rufo, armis militaribus ab eo insignitus.” See N. C. vol. iv. p. 785.
[70] See vol. i. pp. 13, 305.
[71] Chron. Petrib. 1093. “Da þa Dunecan Melcolmes cynges sunu þis eall gehyrde þus gefaren, se on þæs cynges hyrede W. wæs, swa swa his fæder hine ures cynges fæder ær to gisle geseald hæfde, and her swa syððan belaf, he to þam cynge com, and swilce getrywða dyde, swa se cyng æt him habban wolde.” So Florence; “Quibus auditis, filius regis Malcolmi, Dunechan, regem Willelmum, cui tunc militavit, ut ei regnum sui patris concederet petiit, et impetravit, illique fidelitatem juravit.” William of Malmesbury (v. 400) perhaps goes a step too far in saying that William “Duncanum … regem Scottorum mortuo patre constituit.” Fordun (v. 24) takes care to leave out the homage; Duncan is “ejus [Willelmi] auxilio suffultus;” that is all.
[72] Chron. Petrib. 1093. “And swa mid his unne to Scotlande fór, mid þam fultume þe he begytan mihte, Engliscra and Frenciscra [see note, vol. i. p. 30], and his mæge Dufenal þes rices benam, and to cynge wærð underfangen.” So Florence; “Ad Scottiam cum multitudine Anglorum ac Normannorum properavit.”
[73] “Ac þa Scottas hi eft sume gegaderoden, and forneah ealle his mænu ofslogan, and he sylf mid feawum ætbærst.” So Florence.
[74] “Syððan hi wurdon sehte on þa gerád, þæt he næfre eft Englisce ne Frencisce into þam lande ne gelogige.” So Florence; “Post hæc illum regnare permiserunt, ea ratione ut amplius in Scottiam nec Anglos nec Normannos introduceret, sibique militare permitteret.” Mr. Robertson (i. 158) fixes the date of this revolution to May, 1094, which is very likely in itself. But it seems to come from the confused statement of Fordun (v. 24) that Donald reigned six months (November 1093-May 1094), and then Duncan a year and six months, which is a year wrong anyhow.
[75] See Robertson, i. 158, without whose help I might not have recognized a Mormaor in the person described by Fordun (u. s.) as “comes de Mesnys, nomine Malpei, Scottice Malpedir.” William of Malmesbury (v. 400) witnesses to the share of Eadmund, “qui Duvenaldi patrui nequitiæ particeps, fraternæ non inscius necis fuerit, pactus scilicet regni dimidium.” See above, p. 22.
[76] Chron. Petrib. 1094. “Ðises geares eac þa Scottas heora cyng Dunecan besyredon and ofslogan, and heom syððan eft oðre syðe his fæderan Dufenal to cynge genamon, þurh þes lare and totihtinge he wearð to deaðe beswicen.” So Florence; “Interim Scotti regem suum Dunechan, et cum eo nonnullos, suasu et hortatu Dufenaldi per insidias peremerunt, et illum sibi regem rursus constituerunt.” Fordun adds the place of his death and burial; “Apud Monthechin [Monachedin on the banks of the Bervie, says Mr. Robertson] cæsus interiit et insula Iona sepultus.”
[77] See vol. i. p. 474.
[78] Orderic (703 A, B) brings in his account of the rebellion of Earl Robert with a general remark on the pride and greediness of the Normans who had received large estates in England. He then describes their dissatisfaction with the rule of William Rufus in words which are not altogether discreditable to the King; “Invidebant quippe et dolebant quod Guillelmus Rufus audacia et probitate præcipue vigeret, nullumque timens subjectis omnibus rigide imperaret.” That is to say, such justice and such injustice as he did――and in the case of Robert of Mowbray we shall find him doing justice――were both dealt out without respect of persons. Orderic does not specially mention the hunting-laws; but William of Malmesbury (iv. 319) speaks of their harshness, and adds, “Quapropter multa severitate quam nulla condiebat dulcedo, factum est ut sæpe contra ejus salutem a ducibus conjuraretur.” He then goes on to speak of Robert of Mowbray. I hardly see the ground for the word “sæpe.”
[79] Hen. Hunt. vii. 4. “Robertus consul Nordhymbra, in superbiam elatus, quia regem Scottorum straverat.”
[80] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 654.
[81] See vol. i. pp. 249, 256.
[82] See above, p. 16.
[83] See the extract from the Chronicles in p. 55, note 2.
[84] He is on the list in Florence, 1096.
[85] Ord. Vit. 704 C. See vol. i. p. 33.
[86] So says Florence, 1095. “Northymbrensis comes Rotbertus de Mulbrei et Willelmus de Owe, cum multis aliis, regem Willelmum regno vitaque privare, et filium amitæ illius, Stephanum de Albamarno, conati sunt regem constituere, sed frustra.” On the pedigree, see N. C. vol. ii. p. 632.
[87] See vol. i. p. 279.
[88] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 576.
[89] Ord. Vit. 703 C. “Primus cum complicibus suis futile consilium iniit, et manifestam rebellionem sic inchoavit. Quatuor naves magnæ quas canardos vocant, de Northwegia in Angliam appulsæ sunt. Quibus Rodbertus et Morellus nepos ejus ac satellites eorum occurrerunt, et pacificis mercatoribus quidquid habebant violenter abstulerunt.”
[90] Ib. “Illi autem, amissis rebus suis, ad regem accesserunt, duramque sui querimoniam lacrimabiliter deprompserunt.”
[91] Ord. Vit. 703 C. “Qui mox imperiose mandavit Rodberto ut mercatoribus ablata restitueret continuo. Sed omnino contempta est hujusmodi jussio, magnanimus autem rex quantitatem rerum quas amiserant inquisivit, et omnia de suo eis ærario restituit.”
[92] Chron. Petrib. 1095. “And þa to Eastran heold se cyng his hired on Winceastre, and se eorl Rodbeard of Norðhymbran nolde to hirede cuman, and se cyng forðan wearð wið hine swiðe astyrod, and him to sænde, and heardlice bead, gif he griðes weorðe beon wolde, þæt he to Pentecosten to hired come.”
[93] Ib. “On þisum geare wæron Eastron on viii. kal. Ap[~r]. and þa uppon Eastron, on S[~c]e Ambrosius mæsse night, þæt is ii. noñ Ap[~r]. wæs gesewen forneah ofer eall þis land, swilce forneah ealle þa niht, swiðe mænifealdlice steorran of heofenan feollan, naht be anan oððe twam, ac swa þiclice þæt hit nan mann ateallan ne mihte.”
[94] See vol. i. p. 478.
[95] See vol. i. pp. 527 et seqq.
[96] See N. C. vol. ii. pp. 149, 621.
[97] See vol. i. p. 530.
[98] Chron. Petrib. 1095. “Hereæfter to Pentecosten wæs se cyng on Windlesoran, and ealle his witan mid him, butan þam eorle of Norðhymbran, forðam se cyng him naðer nolde ne gislas syllan ne uppon trywðan geunnon, þæt he mid griðe cumon moste and faran.”
[99] Ib. “And se cyng forði his fyrde bead, and uppon þone eorl to Norðhymbran fór.” Orderic (703 D) seems also to mark the presence both of the national force and of mercenaries; “Tunc rex, nequitiam viri ferocis intelligens, exercitum aggregavit et super eum validam militiæ virtutem conduxit.”
[100] See vol. i. p. 32.
[101] See the extract in note 1, p. 38. The same seems to be the idea of the Hyde writer, p. 301; “Malcolmum … bellando cum toto pene exercitu interfecit, dum bellare contra regem Willelmum temptat fortuito, ab eo est captus et carceri mancipatus.”
[102] See vol. i. p. 537. This fact comes out only in the two letters from Anselm to Walter of Albano; Epp. Ans. iii. 35, 36. In the first he says “quotidie expectamus ut hostes de ultra mare in Angliam per illos portus, qui Cantuarberiæ vicini sunt, irruant.” He speaks to the same effect in the next letter. They were “in periculo vastandi vel perdendi terram.”
[103] The presence of the Archbishop of York and the Cardinal comes from the second letter. There the Cardinal and Anselm part from the King and Thomas. From the former letter we see that the place was Nottingham.
[104] Ep. iii. 35. “Dominus meus rex ore suo mihi præcepit, antequam ab illo apud Notingeham discederem, et postquam Cantuarberiam redii, mihi mandavit per litteras proprio sigillo signatas, ut Cantuarberiam custodiam, et semper paratus sim ut quacunque hora nuntium eorum qui littora maris ob hoc ipsum custodiunt audiero, undique convocari jubeam equites et pedites, qui accurrentes violentiæ hostium obsistant.” So in Ep. 36; “Rex mihi præcepit ut illam partem regni sui in qua maxime irruptionem hostium quotidie timemus, diligenter custodirem, et quotidie paratus essem hostibus resistere si irruerent.”
[105] Ord. Vit. 703 D. “Ut rex finibus Rodberti appropinquavit.”
[106] See vol. i. p. 68.
[107] Ord. Vit. u. s. “Gislebertus de Tonnebrugia, miles potens et dives, regem seorsum vocavit, et pronus ad pedes ejus corruit, eique nimis obstupescenti ait,” &c.
[108] See N. C. vol. i. p. 327.
[109] Ord. Vit. 703 D. “Præfato barone indicante, quot et qui fuerant proditores, agnovit.”
[110] Ib. 704 A. “Delusis itaque sicariis, qui regem occidere moliti sunt, armatæ phalanges prospere loca insidiarum pertransierunt.”
[111] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 672.
[112] Ib. p. 667.
[113] Wallsend is often mentioned in the Durham charters, beginning with the grants of Bishop William to his own monks; Scriptores Tres, iv. Wallcar――that is, in local language, the meadow by the wall――has got sadly degraded into Walker. See Appendix CC.
[114] On Bamburgh, see Appendix FF.
[115] The Farn Islands, close off Bamburgh, must not be confounded with Lindisfarn, some way to the north. Bæda (Vit. Cuthb. 17) carefully distinguishes them; “Farne dicitur insula medio in mari posita, quæ non, sicut Lindisfarnensium incolarum regio, bis quotidie accedente æstu oceani, quem rheuma vocant Græci, fit insula, bis renudatis abeunte rheumate littoribus contigua terræ redditur, sed aliquot millibus passuum ab hac semi-insula ad eurum secreta, et hinc altissimo et inde infinito clauditur oceano.” See Hist. Eccl. iii. 16, iv. 27, 29, v. 1. It is spoken of as “insula Farne, quæ duobus ferme millibus passuum ab urbe [Bamburgh] procul abest.”
[116] See vol. i. p. 291.
[117] Will. Gem. viii. 8. See vol. i. p. 552.
[118] Florence says only, “Moreal vero factæ traditionis causam regi detexit.” The Chronicler is fuller; “Moreal wearð þa on þes cynges hirede, and þurh hine wurdon manege, ægðer ge gehadode and eac læwede, geypte þe mid heora ræde on þes cynges unheldan wæron.”
[119] Chron. Petrib. 1095. “Þa se cyng sume ær þære tíde hét on hæftneðe gebringan.”
[120] Ib. “Syððan swiðe gemahlice ofer eall þis land beodan, þæt ealle þa þe of þam cynge land heoldan, eallswa hi friðes weorðe beon woldan, þæt hi on hirede to tide wæron.”
[121] The change of place seems clear from the Chronicle. The entry for 1096 begins; “On þison geare heold se cyng Willelm his hired to X[~p]es mæssan on Windlesoran, and Willelm biscop of Dunholme þær forðferde to geares dæge. And on Octab’ Epyphañ wæs se cyng and ealle his witan on Searbyrig.” Florence is to the same effect. See vol. i. p. 542.
[122] See N. C. vol. v. pp. 394, 406.
[123] Ib. vol. i. p. 102; vol. v. p. 415.
[124] Ib. vol. v. p. 420.
[125] See N. C. vol. v. p. 408.
[126] The vision of Boso fills the ninth chapter of the fourth book of Simeon’s Durham history. He sees first, “Per campum latissimum totius hujus provinciæ indigenas congregatos, qui equis admodum pinguibus sedentes, et longas, sicut soliti sunt, hastas portantes, earumque collisione magnum facientes strepitum, multa ferebantur superbia.” One might have taken these mounted spearmen for Normans; but we read, “Multo majori quam priores superbia secuti sunt Francigenæ, qui et ipsi frementibus equis subvecti et universo armorum genere induti, equorum frementium sonitu et armorum collisione immanem late faciebant tumultum.” Lastly came the worst class of all; “Deinde per extensum aliquot miliariis campum innumeram feminarum multitudinem intueor, quarum tantam turbam dum admirarer, eas presbyterorum uxores esse a ductore meo didici. Has, inquit, miserabiles et illos qui ad sacrificandum Deo consecrati sunt, nec tamen illecebris carnalibus involvi metuerunt, væ sempiternum et gehennalium flammarum atrocissimus expectat cruciatus.” But how vast must have been the number of priests in the bishopric, if their wives, seemingly not on horseback, filled up so much room. The monks of Durham, on the other hand, were seen in a beautiful flowery plain, all except two sinners, whose names are not given, but who were to be reported to the Prior in order that they might repent.
[127] The nature of the omen does not seem very clear; “In loco vastæ ac tetræ solitudinis, magna altitudine domum totam ex ferro fabrifactam aspexi, cujus janua dum sæpius aperiretur sæpiusque clauderetur, ecce subito episcopus Willelmus efferens caput, ubinam Gosfridus monachus esset a me quæsivit.” This monk Geoffrey must surely be the same as the one we heard of before as concerned in Bishop William’s former troubles (see vol. i. p. 116). This gives the confirmation of an undesigned coincidence to that story.
[128] See N. C. vol. iv. p 674.
[129] Ib. vol. v. p. 631.
[130] It is curious that, while the Durham writer implies the summons by the use of the word “placitum” in the account of Boso’s vision, he gives no account of the summons in his own narrative. The gap is filled up by William of Malmesbury, Gest. Pont. 273; “Non multo post orto inter ipsum et regem discidio, ægritudine procubuit apud Gloecestram. Ibi tunc erat curia, et jussus est episcopus exhiberi, ut causam suam defensaret.” The place of King William’s sickness in 1093 is here confounded with the place of Bishop William’s sickness in 1096. But Gloucester was the right place for holding the Gemót, though it was held at Windsor.
[131] Will. Malms. u. s. “Cui cum responsum esset infirmitate detineri quo minus veniret: ‘Per vultum de Luca fingit se,’ inquit. Enimvero ille vera valitudine correptus morti propinquabat.”
[132] Sim. Dun. Hist. Eccl. Dun. iv. 10. We have already had the date of his death in the Chronicle. He died “instante hora gallicantus.”
[133] See Simeon, u. s., and Will. Malms. Gest. Pont. 273. The names of the bishops come from Simeon.
[134] Simeon, u. s. “Placuit ergo illis, ut in capitulo tumulari deberet, quatenus in loco quo fratres cotidie congregarentur, viso ejus sepulchro, carissimi patris memoria in eorum cordibus cotidie renovaretur.” William of Malmesbury speaks to the same effect. But no amount of good works could save him from being crushed by Wyatt and the Durham Chapter.
[135] Simeon is eloquent on the grief at his death; “Nullus enim, ut reor, tunc inter illos erat, qui non illius vitam, si fieri posset, sua morte redimere vellet.” The puzzling contradictions as to the character of this bishop follow him to the grave.
[136] Orderic (704 D) speaks of the “consules et consulares viri,” who were known to have had a share in the conspiracy, and were now ashamed of themselves; “Porro hæc subtiliter rex comperiit, et consultu sapientum hujusmodi viris pepercit. Nec eos ad judicium palam provocavit, ne furor in pejus augmentaretur,” &c.
[137] See vol. i. p. 61.
[138] Ord. Vit. 704 C. “Hugonem, Scrobesburensium comitem, privatim affatus corripuit, et acceptis ab eo tribus millibus libris, in amicitiam callide recepit.”
[139] Chron. Petrib. 1096. “Þær beteah Gosfrei Bainard Willelm of Ou þes cynges mæg, þæt he heafde gebeon on þes cynges swicdome.” So Florence. Stephen’s name is not here mentioned; but we have already seen (see p. 39) what the exact charge was, and Odo, Stephen’s father, is significantly mentioned just after.
[140] The Chronicle seems to make the accuser the challenger; “And hit him ongefeaht, and hine on orreste ofercom, and syððan he ofercumen wæs, him het se cyng þa eagan ut adón, and syþðan belisnian.” But perhaps the meaning is really the same as in the account of William of Malmesbury (iv. 319); “Willelmus de Ou, proditionis apud regem accusatus delatoremque ad duellum provocans, dum se segniter expurgat, cæcatus et extesticulatus est.” Orderic says merely, “palam de nequitia convictus fuit,” without saying how.
[141] Unless anything special was done, or meant to be done, to Grimbald after the siege of Brionne. See N. C. vol. ii. pp. 270-273.
[142] See N. C. vol. i. pp. 490, 491, 496.
[143] Ord. Vit. 704 C. “Hoc nimirum Hugone Cestrensium comite pertulit instigante, cujus sororem habebat, sed congruam fidem ei non servaverat.”
[144] See his character in N. C. vol. iv. p. 490.
[145] See N. C. vol. v. p. 159.
[146] All the accounts agree as to the punishment. Florence says specially, “oculos eruere et testiculos abscidere;” so it was the worst form of blinding. The Hyde writer (301) employs an euphemism; “Rex oculis privavit et per omnia inutilem reddidit.”
[147] Chron. Petrib. 1093. “And sume man to Lundene lædde, and þær spilde.” This last word seems to imply mutilation of any kind, whether blinding or any other.
[148] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 30.
[149] Their names come over and over again in the Gloucester Cartulary. See the Index.
[150] Liber de Hyda, 301. “Ernulfus de Hednith [sic], statura procerus, industria summus, possessionibus suffultus, apud regem tam injuste quam invidiose est accusatus.”
[151] Ib. “Denique cum se bello legitimo per unum ex suis contra unum ex hominibus regis facto defendisset atque vicisset.”
[152] Liber de Hyda, 301. “Tanto dolore et ira est commotus ut, abdicatis omnibus quæ regis erant in Anglia, ipso rege invito et contradicente, discederet.”
[153] Ib. 302. “Vincit Dominus, quare medicus me non continget, nisi ille pro cujus amore hanc peregrinationem suscepi.”
[154] Chron. Petrib. 1096. “Ðær wearð eac Eoda eorl of Campaine, þæs cynges aðum, and manege oðre, belende.” Florence says; “Comitem Odonem de Campania, prædicti scilicet Stephani patrem, Philippum Rogeri Scrobbesbyriensis comitis filium, et quosdam alios traditionis participes, in custodiam posuit.”
[155] Ib. “And his stiward Willelm hætte se wæs his modrian sunu, het se cyng on rode ahón.”
[156] Flor. Wig. 1097. “Dapiferum illius Willelmum de Alderi, filium amitæ illius, traditionis conscium, jussit rex suspendi.”
[157] Will. Malms. iv. 319. “Plures illa delatio involvit, innocentes plane et probos viros. Ex his fuit Willelmus de Alderia, speciosæ personæ homo et compater regis.” So the Hyde writer (301); “Willelmum etiam de Aldriato, ejusdem Willelmi dapiferum, de eadem conjuratione injuste, ut aiunt, accusatum patibulo suspendi præcepit.”
[158] Liber de Hyda, 302. “Erat enim idem corpore et animo et genere præclarus.”
[159] Ib. “Cum principes dolore permoti … de ejus vita regem rogassent, volentes eum ter auro et argento ponderare, rex nullis precibus, nullis muneribus, ab ejus morte potuit averti.”
[160] Will. Malms. iv. 319. “Is patibulo affigi jussus, Osmundo episcopo Salesbiriæ confessus, et per omnes ecclesias oppidi flagellatus est.” The account in the Hyde Writer is to the same effect as that of William, but shorter, and without any verbal agreement.
[161] Ib. “Dispersis ad inopes vestibus, ad suspendium nudus ibat, delicatam carnem frequentibus super lapides genuflectionibus cruentans.”
[162] Ib. “Tunc dicta commendatione animæ, et aspersa aqua benedicta, episcopus discessit.”
[163] Ib. “Ille appensus est admirando fortitudinis spectaculo, ut nec moriturus gemitum, nec moriens produceret suspirium.”
[164] Will. Gem. viii. 34; Ord. Vit. 814 A.
[165] Ord. Vit. 704 C. “Morellus, domino suo vinculis indissolubiter injecto, de Anglia mœstus aufugit, multasque regiones pervagatus pauper et exosus in exsilio consenuit.”
[166] See very emphatically in the Chronicle, 1097.
[167] Will. Malms. iv. 311. “Contra Walenses … expeditionem movens, nihil magnificentia sua dignum exhibuit, militibus multis desideratis, jumentis interceptis. Nec tum solum, sed multotiens, parva illi in Walenses fortuna fuit, quod cuivis mirum videatur, cum ei alias semper alea bellorum felicissime arriserit.” This last is hardly true of his French and Cenomannian campaigns. The writer goes on to attribute the failure of Rufus in Wales mainly to the nature of the country, and to say that Henry the First found out the right way of dealing with the Welsh, by planting the Flemings in their country.
[168] Chron. Petrib. 1097. “Ac þa ða se cyng geseah þæt he nan þingc his wiiles þær geforðian ne mihte, he ongean into þison lande fór, and hraðe æfter þam, he be þam gemæron castelas let gemakian.”
[169] See N. C. vol. ii. p. 478.
[170] Ib. p. 481.
[171] Ib. p. 479.
[172] Ib. p. 396.
[173] See N. C. vol. ii. pp. 483, 707.
[174] Ib. p. 483.
[175] See vol. i. p. 164.
[176] “That stubborn British tongue which has survived two conquests,” is, I think, a phrase of Hallam’s.
[177] See vol. i. p. 122, and N. C. vol. iv. p. 489.
[178] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 501.
[179] Ib. p. 676.
[180] Ib. vol. iv. p. 489; v. p. 109.
[181] Ib. vol. ii. p. 708; v. p. 777.
[182] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 501.
[183] See vol. iv. pp. 676, 777.
[184] See vol. i. p. 121.
[185] Ann. Camb. 1088, 1089 [1089-1091]. “Menevia fracta est a gentilibus insulanis.” The Brut is to the same effect, and has a warm panegyric on the bishop. The dates in the Welsh Chronicles are here wrong, but only by the fault of the editor. The entries are made quite regularly year by year, and they agree with those in the English writers.
[186] Brut y Tywysogion, 1089; it should be 1092.
[187] Will. Malms. iv. 310. “Quod eum Scottorum et Walensium tumultus vocabant, in regnum se cum ambobus fratribus recepit.” See vol. i. p. 295.
[188] See Appendix GG.
[189] See Appendix GG.
[190] The descendants of Jestin appear very clearly in Giraldus, It. Camb. i. 6 (vol. vi. p. 69); “Quatuor Caradoci filii Jestini filiis, et Resi principis ex sorore nepotibus, his in finibus herili portione, sicut Gualensibus mos est, pro patre dominantibus, Morgano videlicet, et Mereducio, Oeneo, Cadwallano.” Morgan appears soon after (p. 69) as guiding Archbishop Baldwin and his companion Giraldus over the dangerous quicksands of his Avon.
[191] See Appendix GG.
[192] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 186.
[193] See vol. i. p. 62.
[194] See N. C. vol. ii. p. 250.
[195] He has an entry to himself in Essex (Domesday, ii. 54 b). He appears again in 100 b, and in the town of Colchester (106) he holds “i. domum, et i. curiam, et i. hidam terræ, et xv. burgenses.” A building with some trace of Romanesque work used to be shown as “Hamo’s Saxon hall or curia.” Why more “Saxon” than everything else in that Saxon land it was not easy to guess. In Ellis he is made to be the same as “Haimo vicecomes” who appears in Kent and Surrey (Domesday, 14, 36). This last witnesses a letter of Anselm’s (Epp. iii. 71) to the monks of Canterbury, along with another Haimo, “filius Vitalis,” “Wimundus homo vicecomitis,” and a mysterious “Robertus filius Watsonis”――what name is meant? In Epp. iv. 57 a letter is addressed to him by Anselm, complaining of damage done by his men to the Archbishop’s property at Canterbury and Sandwich. Or is this “vicecomes” in Kent the same as Haimer or Haimo――he is written both ways――the “vicecomes” (in another sense) of Thouars, who plays an important part before and after the great battle? See N. C. vol. iii. pp. 315, 457, 551.
[196] See vol. i. p. 197.
[197] In this way we may put a meaning on the account in the Tewkesbury History quoted in N. C. vol. iv. p. 762. Brihtric had not any honour of Gloucester.
[198] See Ord. Vit. 578 D; William of Malmesbury, Hist. Nov. i. 3. She was “spectabilis et excellens fœmina, domina tunc viro morigera, tunc etiam fœcunditate numerosæ et pulcherrimæ prolis beata.” She was the mother-in-law of his patron.
[199] See Mr. Clark, Archæological Journal, vol. xxxv. p. 3 (March, 1878).
[200] Will. Malms. v. 398. “Monasterium Theochesbiriæ suo favore non facile memoratu quantum exaltavit, ubi et ædificiorum decor, et monachorum charitas, adventantium rapit oculos et allicit animos.”
[201] See the Gloucester History, i. 93, 122, 223, 226, 334, 349; ii. 125. The gift of the church of Saint Cadoc at Llancarfan is mentioned over and over again. At i. 334 there is an alleged confirmation of this gift by William the Conqueror in 1086. Can this be trusted so far as to make us carry back the conquest of Glamorgan into his day, or are we to suppose that a wrong date has crept in? In the Monasticon, ii. 67, is a charter of Nicolas Bishop of Llandaff (1148-1153) confirming the grants of a crowd of churches in Glamorgan to the abbey of Tewkesbury. Among them is “ecclesia de Landiltwit,” that is Llaniltyd or Llantwit Major.
[202] See Mr. Clark, Archæological Journal, xxxiv. 17.
[203] See Mr. Clark. Archæological Journal, xxxiv. 25.
[204] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 676.
[205] In the second Brut he appears as Wiliam de Lwndwn in 1088 (p. 72), Wiliam de Lwndrys in 1094 (p. 78).
[206] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 782.
[207] See Mr. Clark, Archæological Journal, xxxiv. pp. 22, 30.
[208] See N. C. vol. v. pp. 854, xxxix.
[209] See the Margam Annals, 1130 (Ann. Mon. i. 13), and Mon. Angl. v. 258.
[210] Margam Annals, 1147; Ann. Mon. i. 14.
[211] See vol. i. p. 34.
[212] See the wonderful story in Giraldus, It. Camb. i. 2 (vol. vi. p. 32).
[213] Ib. p. 36. The wonders of the lake, now known as Llangorse pool, fill up more than two pages.
[214] Chron. de Bello, 34. He is described as “vir magnificus Bernardus cognomento de Novo Mercato.” His gift is “ecclesia … sancti Johannis Evangelistæ extra munitionem castri sui de Brecchennio sita.” But the gift was made only “ejusdem prædictæ ecclesiæ Belli monachi, nomine Rogerii, apud eum aliquamdiu forte commanentis, importuna suggestione.”
[215] We have seen (see vol. i. p. 34) Bernard spoken of as son-in law of the old enemy Osbern of Herefordshire. Could Osbern have married the elder Nest, perhaps as a second wife? Or was the younger Nest a second wife of Bernard?
[216] See N. C. vol. ii. p. 679; vol. iii. pp. 710, 777.
[217] See the story in Giraldus, It. Camb. ii. 2 (vol. vi. p. 29). The son was disinherited, and the honour of Brecknock passed to the husband of the daughter, whom her mother allowed to be Bernard’s child. He speaks of her as “Nesta nomine, quam Angli vertendo Anneis vocavere.” In the Battle Chronicle (35) she appears as a benefactress by the name of Agnes. She gave to Battle “de propria hereditate quamdam villulam extra Walliam in Anglia sitam [in Herefordshire], quæ Berinton vocatur.” She gave it “forte invalitudine tacta.”
[218] See above, p. 78.
[219] Brut y Tywysogion, 1091 (1093). “And then fell the kingdom of the Britons.” (Teyrnas y Brytanyeit.) Florence, recording the same event, adds; “Ab illo die regnare in Walonia reges desiere;” but he himself in 1116 says, “Owinus rex Walanorum occiditur.” Cf. Ann. Camb. in anno, where the royal title is not given to Owen. Indeed in the present entry the Annals call Rhys only “rector dextralis partis;” that is, of South Wales.
[220] See vol. i. p. 121.
[221] Ann. Camb. 1091 (1093). “Post cujus obitum Cadugaun filius Bledint prædatus est Demetiam pridie kalendarum Maii.”
[222] Brut y Tywysogion. So Ann. Camb. “Circiter Kalendas Julii Franci primitus Demetiam et Keredigean tenuerunt, et castella in eis locaverunt, et abinde totam terram Britonum occupaverunt.”
[223] On the beavers in the Teif, see a long account in Giraldus, It. Camb. ii. 3. Cp. Top. Hib. i. 26. He discusses the lawfulness of eating the beaver’s tail on fast-days, without coming to so decided a conclusion as when he rules (Top. Hib. i. 15) that the barnacle might not be eaten.
[224] It is very hard to put Irish kings in their right places; but there is no doubt that this Murtagh――I take the shortest way of spelling his name――is the same as the Murtagh of Connaught, head King of Ireland, though Giraldus calls him King of Leinster, of whom we shall hear a good deal before long.
[225] It. Camb. ii. 1 (vi. 109). “Rex Rufus … Kambriam suo in tempore animose penetrans et circumdans, cum a rupibus istis Hiberniam forte prospiceret, dixisse memoratur: Ad terram istam expugnandam, ex navibus regni mei huc convocatis, pontem adhuc faciam.” The Irish king, when he hears, “cum aliquamdiu propensius inde cogitasset, fertur respondisse: Numquid tantæ comminationis verbo rex ille ‘Si Deo placuerit’ adjecit?”
[226] See vol. i. p. 166.
[227] It. Camb. u. s. “Tanquam prognostico gaudens certissimo, Quoniam, inquit, homo iste de humana tantum confidit potentia, non divina, ejus adventum non formido.”
[228] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 676.
[229] Ib. p. 526.
[230] On Bishop Wilfrith, see N. C. vol. v. p. 209, and vol. i. p. 534. We shall hear of him again.
[231] I refer to such names as Hasgard and Freystrop. The fords in this district are of course fiords. The names of Hereford and Haverfordwest have sometimes been confounded, but the ford comes from a different quarter in the two names.
[232] See N. C. vol. v. p. 75.
[233] He does justice to his birthplace in It. Camb. i. 12 (vol. vi. p. 92), and proves by a sorites “ut Kambriæ totius locus sit hic amœnissimus.” “Pembrochia” here appears as part of Demetia.
[234] Sir Rhys ap Thomas, the hero of Carew (Caerau) in Henry the Seventh’s time, is chiefly of local fame. But his name has made its way into general history. See Hall’s Chronicle, p. 410, and several other places.
[235] It. Camb. i. 12 (vol. vi. p. 89). “Provincia Pembrochiensis principale municipium, totiusque provinciæ Demeticæ caput, in saxosa quadam et oblonga rupis eminentia situm, lingua marina de Milverdico portu prosiliens in capite bifurco complectitur. Unde et Pembrochia caput maritimæ sonat. Primus hoc castrum Arnulfus de Mungumeri, sub Anglorum rege Henrico primo, ex virgis et cespite, tenue satis et exile construxit.” The date is of course wrong, as the castle of Pembroke appears both in the Annales Cambriæ and in the Brut in 1094, and as Giraldus himself describes the castle as in being soon after the death of Rhys ap Tewdwr. He perhaps confounds Arnulf’s first rude work with the stronger castle built by Gerald on the same site in 1105. This, according to the Brut, was fortified with a ditch and wall and a gateway with a lock on it.
[236] Giraldus describes his namesake, the husband of his grandmother, as “vir probus prudensque, Giraldus de Windesora, constabularius suus [Arnulfi] et primipilus.”
[237] See N. C. vol. ii. p. 482.
[238] I have discussed this matter at length in Appendix BB. (p. 851) of the fifth volume of the Norman Conquest. Miss Williams (History of Wales, p. 209), like Sir Francis Palgrave, knows more about Nest than I can find in any book. But the tale in the Brut of her being carried off by Owen in 1106 (see N. C. vol. v. p. 210) is very graphic.
[239] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 501.
[240] So says the Brut, 1094 (1096). Is this William the son of that Baldwin from whom Montgomery took its Welsh name?
[241] See vol. i. p. 464.
[242] Chron. Petrib. 1094. “Eac on þisum ylcan geare þa Wylisce men hi gegaderodon, and wið þa Frencisce þe on Walon oððe on þære neawiste wæron and hi ǽr belandedon, gewinn úp ahofon, and manige festena and castelas abræcon, and men ofslogon, and syððan heora gefylce weox, hí hí on ma todældon. Wið sum þæra dæle gefeaht Hugo eorl of Scrobscire, and hi aflymde. Ac þeah hweðer þa oðre ealles þæs geares nanes yfeles ne geswicon þe hi dón mihton.”
[243] Brut y Tywysogion, 1092 (1094). The translation runs; “Whilst William remained in Normandy, the Britons resisted the domination of the French, not being able to bear their cruelty, and demolished their castles in Gwynedd, and iterated their depredations and slaughters among them.” The Latin annalist says only; “Britanni jugum Francorum respuerunt. Wenedociam, Cereticam et Demetiam ab iis et eorum castellis emundaverunt.” Both these writers have oddly mistaken the state of things in Normandy. One manuscript of the Annales says that William went into Normandy, and that the revolt happened, “ibi morante et fratrem suum expugnante,” while the Brut says more wildly that “King William Rufus [Gwilim Goch], who first by a most glorious war prevailed over the Saxons, went to Normandy to keep and defend the kingdom [teyrnas] of Robert his brother, who had gone to Jerusalem [Kærcesalem] to fight against the Saracens and other barbarous nations and to protect the Christians, and to acquire greater fame.”
[244] Flor. Wig. 1094. “Ad hæc etiam primitus North-Walani, deinceps West-Walani et Suth-Walani, servitutis jugo, quo diu premebantur, excusso, et cervice erecta, libertatem sibi vindicare laborabant. Unde collecta multitudine, castella quæ in West-Walonia firmata erant frangebant et in Cestrensi, Scrobbesbyriensi, et Herefordensi provincia frequenter villas cremabant, prædas agebant, et multos ex Anglis et Normannis interficiebant.” The names of Gruffydd and Cadwgan come from the later Brut, which copies Florence or comes from the same source.
[245] Flor. Wig. 1094. “Fregerunt et castellum in Mevania insula, eamque suæ ditioni subjiciebant.” This confirms the statement of the later Brut about the building of the castle of Aberlleiniog (see p. 97); but he says nothing about Anglesey here.
[246] “In the wood of Yspwys,” says the Brut.
[247] So both the Annales and the Brut. The name of William son of Baldwin comes from the Brut two years later.
[248] Brut y Tywysogion, 1092 (1094). “And the people and all the cattle of Dyved they brought away with them, leaving Dyved and Ceredigion a desert.”
[249] See vol. i. p. 476.
[250] Ann. Camb. 1095. “Franci devastaverunt Gober et Kedweli et Stratewi. Demetia, Ceretica, et Stratewi deserta manent.”
[251] I have no better direct authority for this than the later Brut, which says under 1094――the chronology is very confused――that “the Frenchmen led their forces into Gower, Cydweli, and the Vale of Tywi, and devastated those countries, and William de Londres [William de Lwndrys] built a strong castle in Cydweli.”
[252] This comes under the year 1099, and is attributed to “Harry Beaumont [Harri Bwmwnt].” Is this the Earl of Warwick? I know no other “Henricus de Bello Monte.”
[253] This is from the same entry in the later Brut. After mentioning the castles, it is added that Harry Beaumont “established himself there and brought Saxons from Somersetshire [Saeson o wlad yr Haf] there, where they obtained lands; and the greatest usurpation of all the Frenchmen was his in Gower.” Nothing can be made of this writer’s dates, even when we accept his facts with a little trembling.
[254] This account comes only from the younger Brut (79). It is in fact part of the legend of the conquest of Glamorgan. But that legend, as we have seen, has elements of truth in it, and this particular story seems to fit in well with the general course of events. The men of Morganwg and Gwaenllwg――that is the modern Wentloog, the land between Rhymny and Usk――rose and destroyed the castle, Pagan of Turberville leading them.
[255] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 501.
[256] It is strange that the mention of this great British success comes only from the English accounts. Just after the King had left Bamburgh, he heard (Chron. Petrib. 1095) “þæt þa Wylisce men on Wealon sumne castel heafdon tobroken Muntgumni hatte, and Hugon eorles men ofslagene, þe hine healdon sceoldan.”
[257] Chron. Petrib. ib. “He forði oðre fyrde hét fearlice abannan.”
[258] Ib. “And æfter S[~c]e Michaeles mæsse into Wealan ferde, and his fyrde toscyfte, and þæt land eall þurhfor, swa þæt seo fyrde eall togædere com to Ealra Halgena to Snawdune. Ac þa Wylisce a toforan into muntan and moran ferdan, þæt heom man to cuman ne mihte.” On the use of the word muntas see N. C. vol. v. p. 517.
[259] Ib. “And se cyng þa hamweard gewende, forþam he geseah þæt he þær þes wintres mare don ne mihte.”
[260] Ann. Camb. 1095. “Mediante autumno rex Anglorum Willielmus contra Britones movit exercitum, quibus Deo tutatis, vacuus ad sua rediit.”
[261] Ann. Camb. 1096. “Willielmus filius Baldewini in domino (?) Ricors obiit, quo mortuo castellum vacuum relinquitur.”
[262] Brut y Tywysogion, 1094 (1096). The words are most emphatic in the manuscript of the Annales quoted as C; “Britones Brecheniauc et Guent et Guenliauc jugum Francorum respuunt.”
[263] Chron. Petrib. 1096. “Eac on þison geare þa heafod men þe þis land heoldan oftrædlice fyrde into Wealon sendon, and mænig man mid þam swiðe gedrehtan, ac man þær ne gespædde, butan man myrringe and feoh spillinge.”
[264] Ann. Camb. C. “Franci exercitum movent in Guent, et nihil impetrantes vacui domum redeunt, et in Kellitravant versi sunt in fugam.” The name of the place is given in the text of the Annals as “Celli Darnauc;” the Brut as “Celli Carnant.” I do not know its site.
[265] Ib. “Iterum venerunt in Brechinauc et castella fecerunt in ea, sed in reditu apud Aberlech versi sunt in fugam a filiis Iduerth filii Kadugaun.” The Brut gives their names as Gruffydd and Ivor.
[266] So says the Brut, 1094 (1096).
[267] These details of the siege of Pembroke come from Giraldus, It. Camb. i. 12. As he has mistaken the date of the whole matter by putting it in the reign of Henry, so he has mistaken the special date of the siege, which he places soon after the death of Rhys ap Tewdwr, that is in 1093. His stories may belong to the movement of 1094; but they seem to come more naturally here. When the knights have deserted, “ex desperatione scapham intrantes navigio fugam attemptassent, in crastino mane Giraldus eorum armigeris arma dominorum cum feodis dedit, ipsosque statim militari cingulo decoravit.”
[268] They are brought “ad ultimam fere inediam.” Then Gerald, “ex summa prudentia spem simulans et solatia spondens, quatuor qui adhuc supererant bacones a propugnaculis frustatim ad hostes projici fecit.”
[269] Ib. “Die vero sequente ad figmenta recurrens exquisitiora, literas sigillo suo signatas coram hospitio Menevensis episcopi, cui nomen Wilfredus, qui forte tunc aderat, tanquam casu a portitore dilapsas inveniri procuravit.” I suppose this means that the Bishop was in a house outside the besieged castle; otherwise it is not clear how the Welsh could have got hold of the letter. It seems also to imply that the Bishop was on friendly terms with the besieged. But the whole story is a little dark.
[270] Ib. “Quo per exercitum literis lectis audito, statim obsidione dispersa ad propria singuli sunt reversi.” Directly after――“nec mora”――Gerald marries Nest. If we could at all trust her grandson’s chronology, this would throw some light on her relation to Henry.
[271] Ann. Camb. 1096. “Penbrochiam devastaverunt et incolumes domum redierunt.” The cattle come from the Brut.
[272] Ann. Camb. 1097. “Geraldus præfectus de Penbroc Meneviæ fines devastavit.” In the other manuscript he is dapifer, and in the Brut ystiwart.
[273] See vol. i. p. 572.
[274] Ib.
[275] Chron. Petrib. 1097. “Se cyng Willelm … mid mycclum here into Wealon ferde, and þæt land swiðe mid his fyrde þurhfór, þurh sume þa Wyliscean þe him to wæron cumen, and his lædteowas wæron.” Eadmer (Hist. Nov. 37), to whom the details of a Welsh war did not greatly matter, makes overmuch of these seeming successes; “Rex … super Walenses qui contra eum surrexerant excercitum ducit, eosque post modicum in deditionem suscipit, et pace undique potitus est.”
[276] See vol. i. p. 582.
[277] Chron. Petrib. 1097. “Ða Wylisce men syððon hi fram þam cynge gebugon.”
[278] Ib. “Heom manege ealdras of heom sylfan gecuron. Sum þæra wæs Caduugaun gehaten, þe heora weorðast wæs: se wæs Griffines broðer sunu cynges.” On the use of “sum,” see Earle, Parallel Chronicles, p. 357. It is surely a little hard when Giraldus (It. Camb. i. 2. p. 28) speaks of his grandmother’s grandfather as one “cujus tyrannis totam aliquamdiu Gualliam oppresserat.”
[279] See N. C. vol. i. p. 506.
[280] Ib. vol. ii. p. 396.
[281] Ib. p. 399.
[282] Flor. Wig. 1097. “Post pascha”――he seems to have mixed up the two expeditions of the year――“cum equestri et pedestri exercitu secundo profectus est in Waloniam, ut omnes masculini sexus internecioni daret; at de eis vix aliquem capere aut interimere potuit.” Cf. N. C. vol. ii. p. 481.
[283] The Brut here waxes so spirited that one is sorry not to have a better knowledge of the original. “The French dared not penetrate the rocks and the woods, but hovered about the level plains. At length they returned home empty, without having gained anything; and the Britons, happy and unintimidated, defended their country.” The Annals say, “Willelmus rex Angliæ secundo in Britones excitatur, eorum omnium minans excidium; Britones vero divino protecti munimine in sua remanent illæsi, rege vacuo redeunte.” The other MS. has, “nihil impetrans vacuus domum rediit.”
[284] Chron. Petrib. 1097. “Þærinne wunode fram middesumeran forneah oð August.”
[285] Ib. “And mycel þærinne forleas on mannan and on horsan and eac on manegan oðran þingan.” Florence softens a little; “De suis nonnullos, et equos perdidit multos.”
[286] See vol. i. pp. 572, 575.
[287] See above, p. 71.
[288] See vol. i. p. 583.
[289] See above, p. 9.
[290] See above, p. 30.
[291] On the story of Godwine and Ordgar, see Appendix HH.
[292] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 620.
[293] Fordun, v. 22 (vol. i. p. 221, Skene). “Fit mox hinc inde magnus armorum apparatus, pugnaturi conveniunt; Orgarus favore regis elatus, regiis satellitibus hinc inde vallatus, insignibus etiam armorum ornamentis splendidus procedit.”
[294] Ib. “Silentio per præconem omnibus imposito, et vadiis utrorumque a judice in certaminis locum projectis, ut Deus, secretorum cognitor, hujus causæ veritatem ostenderet, proclamante, postremo res armis, et causa superno judici committitur.”
[295] There is no need to go through all the details. The strangest is when the hilt of Godwine’s sword breaks off; the blade drops; he picks it up, but naturally cannot use it without cutting his fingers. It is an odd coincidence that his son drops his whole sword in his exploit at Rama.
[296] Fordun, v. 22. “Abstracto namque cultro qui caliga latebat, ipsum perfodere conatur; cum ante initum congressum juraverit se nihil nisi arma decentia militem in hoc duello gestaturum.”
[297] “Mox perjurii pœnas persolvit. Cultro siquidem erepto, cum spes reum desereret, crimen protinus confitetur. Attamen hæc confessio nihil ad vitam illi profuit elongandam, undique vero, vulnere succedente vulneri, perfodebatur, donec animam impiam vis doloris et magnitudo vulnerum expelleret.”
[298] See N. C. vol. v. pp. 561, 893.
[299] Chron. Petrib. 1097. “Ða uppon S[~c]e Michaeles mæssan iiii. noñ Octobre, ætywde án selcuð steorra, on æfen scynende, and sona to setle gangende. He wæs gesewen suðweast, and se leoma þe him ofstód wæs swiðe lang geþuht, suðeast scinende, and forneah ealle þa wucan on þas wisan ætywde, manige men leton þæt hit cometa wære.” Here the comet shines very brightly, but it shines alone. William of Malmesbury (iv. 328) adds; “apparuerunt et aliæ stellæ quasi jacula inter se emittentes.” (We had shooting stars two years before; see p. 41.) Florence adds yet another portent; “Nonnulli signum mirabile et quasi ardens, in modum crucis, eo tempore se vidisse in cælo affirmabant.”
[300] Both the Chronicler and Florence mark that the departure of Anselm soon followed the appearance in the heavens; but it is William of Malmesbury who is most emphatic; “Ille fuit annus quo Anselmus lux Angliæ, ultro tenebras erroneorum effugiens, Romam ivit.”
[301] So I should understand the words of the Chronicle, “ferde Eadgar æþeling mid fyrdes þurh þæs cynge fultum into Scotlande.” But Florence says that the King “clitonem Eadgarum ad Scottiam cum exercitu misit.” Fordun (v. 5) makes him go, “collectis undique ingentibus amicorum copiis, auxilioque Willelmi regis vallatus.”
[302] See above, p. 111.
[303] Fordun tells this tale (v. 25); the younger Eadgar tells the vision to the elder, who acts accordingly.
[304] We have surely passed the bounds of history when Robert, accompanied by two other knights, charges the enemy, slays the foremost (“fortissimi qui ante aciem quasi defensores stabant”), puts Donald and the rest to flight, “et sic incruentam victoriam, Deo propitio, meritis sancti Cuthberti feliciter obtinuit.” The Chronicler says that Eadgar “þet land mid stranglicum feohte gewann.”
[305] Fordun, v. 26. “Ab ipso quidem ipse Donaldus captus est et cæcatus, ac carceri perpetuo damnatur.” “Ipso” is the younger Eadgar; this treatment of Donald would have been more pardonable in the elder. See more in Robertson, i. 159.
[306] See Robertson, i. 159, and N. C. vol. i. p. 529; vol. ii. p. 449; vol. iii. p. 431; vol. iv. p. 170.
[307] See Mon. Angl. v. 163, 165.
[308] Will. Malms. v. 400. “Captus vel perpetuis compedibus detentus, ingenue pœnituit; et ad mortem veniens, cum ipsis vinculis se tumulari mandavit, professus se plexum merito pro fratricidii delicto.” Cf. the burial of Grimbald in N. C. vol. ii. p. 273.
[309] Chron. Petrib. 1097. “Eadgar æþeling … þone cyng Dufenal út adræfde, and his mæg Eadgar, se wæs Melcolmes sunu cynges and Margarite þære cwenan, he þær on þæs cynges Willelmes heldan to cynge sette.” I do not find the words in Italics represented either by Fordun or by Mr. Robertson. They are not forgotten by Sir F. Palgrave, English Commonwealth, ii. cccxxxiv.
[310] The Chronicler tells us that Eadgar “syþþan ongean into Engleland fór.” And he had just before drawn a vivid picture of the state of England; “Ðis wæs on eallon þingan swiðe hefigtyme geár, and ofer geswincfull on ungewederan, þa man oððe tilian sceolde oððe eft tilða gegaderian, and on ungyldan þa næfre ne ablunnon.”
[311] Fordun, v. 26.
[312] Ib. This grant is made “episcopo et suis successoribus Dunelmensibus,” in distinction to the grant of Coldingham, which was “monachis Dunelmensibus.”
[313] Ib. “De licentia regis ad terram a rege sibi datam in Laudonia moratus est, et dum castellum ibidem ædificare niteretur, a provincialibus subito et baronibus tandem Dunelmensibus circumventus, eodem Ranulfo episcopo agente, captus est; in qua tamen captione magnam suæ virtutis memoriam apud totius regionis incolas dereliquit.”
[314] Ib. “Quod rex Edgarus rediens ut audivit, illum ex præcepto regis Angliæ liberatum, secum in Scociam reduxit cum honore, et quicquid ante episcopo donaverat, omnino sano consilio sibimet reservabat.”
[315] See vol. i. p. 564.
[316] See vol. i. p. 269.
[317] This siege and sally is described by William of Tyre, x. 17, 18, Gesta Dei per Francos, 786.
[318] Will. Malms. iii. 251. “Qui [Baldwinus] cum obsidionis injuriam ferre nequiret, per medias hostium acies effugit, solius Roberti opera liberatus præuntis, et evaginato gladio dextra lævaque Turchos cædentis; sed cum, successu ipso truculentior, alacritate nimia procurreret, ensis manu excidit; ad quem recolligendum cum se inclinasset, omnium incursu oppressus, vinculis palmas dedit.” Cf. iv. 384.
[319] Ib. “Inde Babylonem (ut aiunt) ductus, cum Christum abnegare nollet, in medio foro ad signum positus, et sagittis terebratus, martyrium sacravit.”
[320] See vol. i. p. 565.
[321] The story of Robert of Saint Alban’s is told in Benedict, i. 341, R. Howden, ii. 307.
[322] Fordun, v. 26. “Erat autem iste rex Edgarus homo dulcis et amabilis, cognato suo regi sancto Edwardo per omnia similis, nihil durum, nihil tyrannicum aut amarum in suos exercens subditos, sed eos cum maxima caritate, bonitate, et benevolentia rexit et correxit.”
[323] See Robertson, i. 163. The passage in Æthelred of Rievaux to which he refers comes in the speech of Robert of Bruce to David (X Scriptt. 344; see N. C. vol. v. p. 269). It seems to imply that David needed English help to keep his principality. “Tu ipse rex cum portionem regni quam idem tibi frater moriens delegavit, a fratre Alexandro reposceres, nostro certe terrore quidquid volueras sine sanguine impetrasti.”
[324] Mr. Robertson gives her the name of Sibyl. William of Malmesbury, v. 400, gives an odd account of her; “Alexandrum successorem Henricus affinitate detinuit, data ei in conjugium filia notha; de qua ille viva nec sobolem, quod sciam, tulit nec ante se mortuam multum suspiravit; defuerat enim fœminæ, ut fertur, quod desideraretur, vel in morum modestia, vel in corporis elegantia.” I cannot find her in the list of Henry’s daughters in Will. Gem. viii. 29.
[325] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 602; vol. v. p. 209.
[326] See Robertson, i. 172.
[327] See N. C. vol. v. pp. 237, 238.
[328] See Robertson, i. 123 et seqq.
[329] See N. C. vol. v. p. 305.
[330] Ib. pp. 260-263.
[331] Ib. p. 267.
[332] See above, p. 109.
[334] I get this phrase from the elder Brut, but I follow the order of events in the Annales Cambriæ, 1098. “Omnes Venedoti in Mon insula se receperunt, et ad eos tuendos de Hibernia piratas invitaverunt, ad quos expugnandos missi sunt duo consules, Hugo comes urbis Legionum, et alter Hugo, qui contra insulam castrametati sunt.”
[335] One manuscript of the Annals has “Gentiles de Ybernia.” See vol. i. pp. 121, 122.
[336] They are “Hugi Prúdi oc Hugi Digri” in the Saga (Johnstone, p. 234). In the younger Brut, p. 84, the earls are called “Huw iarll Caerllion a Huw goch [red] o’r Mwythig.” By Caerleon is of course meant Chester. The elder Brut confounds the two earls. The bulk of Earl Hugh of Chester we have long known. In Orderic’s account (768 B) he is “Hugo Dirgane, id est, Grossus.”
[337] See above, p. 97.
[338] See vol. i. p. 124.
[339] The priory of Penmon was described in 1849 by Mr. Longueville Jones in three articles in the Archæologia Cambrensis, vol. iv. pp. 44, 128, 198, and in an earlier article in the Archæological Journal, i. 118. The date of the original building cannot be very far off either way from the times with which we are dealing. The tower-windows are a kind of transition from Primitive Romanesque to Norman. A doorway of later Norman character seems to be an insertion.
[340] There is a minute description of the castle, by Mr. Longueville Jones, in Archæologia Cambrensis iii. 143. The building of a castle at this time is distinctly asserted in one manuscript of the elder Brut. But the other Brut under 1096 speaks of Earl Hugh of Chester as already lord of Aberlleiniog (Arglwydd Aberlleiniawc).
[341] One manuscript of the Annals (1098 C) seems to make them builders of the castle; “Gentiles pretio corrupti consules in insulam introduxerunt et castra ibi fecerunt.”
[342] Ann. Camb. u. s. “Relicta insula, Hiberniam aufugerunt.” The elder Brut adds that it was “for fear of the treachery of their own men.”
[343] Here Florence (1098) comes to our help. “Interea comites Hugo de Legeceastra et Hugo de Scrobbesbyria Mevaniam insulam, quæ consuete vocatur Anglesege, cum exercitu adierunt, et multos Walanorum quos in ea ceperunt occiderunt, quosdam vero, manibus vel pedibus truncatis testiculisque abscisis, excæcaverunt.”
[333] Eadwine, as Bæda witnesses (ii. 5), held the two Mevaniæ. But Mona appears as Welsh whenever the island is spoken of in either British or English Chronicles. Nennius (or the writer who goes by that name) has a heading (Mon. Hist. Brit. 52 D) of “Monia insula quæ Anglice Englesei vocatur, id est, insula Anglorum.” In our Chronicles it is Mon-ige in the year 1000. Our present story (1098) happens “innan Anglesege.”
[344] Giraldus, It. Camb. ii. 7 (vi. 129 ed. Dimock). “Est in hac insula ecclesia sancti Tevredauci confessoris, in qua comes Hugo Cestrensis, quoniam et ipse fines hos Kambriæ suo in tempore subjugaverat, cum canes nocte posuisset, insanos omnes mane recepit, et ipsemet infra mensem miserabiliter exstinctus occubuit.” The two Hughs are here confounded, as Hugh of Chester was certainly not killed. But the story of the hounds sounds specially like him, as he seems to have been even more given to the chase than other men of his day. See N. C. vol. iv. p. 491.
A little earlier in the same chapter Giraldus has a tale about Hugh of Shrewsbury and a wonderful stone, which must belong to this same expedition, though Giraldus places it in the time of Henry the First.
[345] Flor. Wig. 1098. “Quendam etiam provectæ ætatis presbyterum, nomine Cenredum, a quo Walani in iis quæ agebant consilium accipiebant, de ecclesia extraxerunt, et ejus testiculis abscisis et uno oculo eruto, linguam illius absciderunt.”
[346] Ib. “Die tertia, miseratione divina illi reddita est loquela.” See Milman, Latin Christianity, i. 332, 478.
[347] Florence, directly after, notes that Hugh of Shrewsbury “die vii. quo crudelitatem in præfatum exercuerat presbyterum, interiit.”
[348] See N. C. vol. iv. pp. 122, 663, 684.
[349] Ord. Vit. 767 B. “De legali connubio Eustanum et Olavum genuit, quibus regnum magnamque potentiam dimisit. Tertium vero, nomine Segurd, Anglica captiva sed nobilis ei peperit, quem Turer, Inghevriæ filius, regis Magni nutritius, nutrivit.” The Saga however (Laing, 339) calla Eystein “the son of a mean mother,” and gives the name of Sigurd’s mother as Thora.
[350] See Ord. Vit. 812.
[351] Compare the story of Turgot in N. C. vol. iv. p. 662.
[352] Ib. 143, 317, 754.
[353] See vol. i. p. 14.
[354] The only mention of Harold the son of Harold which I have come across occurs in William of Malmesbury’s account (iv. 329) of the invasion of Magnus, where “rex Noricorum Magnus cum Haroldo filio Haroldi regis quondam Angliæ, Orcadas insulas et Mevanias, et si quæ aliæ in oceano jacent, armis subegit.”
[355] See N. C. vol. iii. p. 326.
[356] Ib. vol. ii. p. 481.
[357] Ib. vol. iii. pp. 476, 487. Roger of Montgomery was in command of the French contingent, though it is the personal exploits of Robert of Meulan which are specially spoken of.
[358] Ord. Vit. 767 D. “Hic filiam regis Irlandæ uxorem duxerat. Sed quia rex Irensis pactiones quas fecerant non tenuerat, Magnus rex stomachatus filiam ejus ei remiserat. Bellum igitur inter eos ortum est.”
[359] Laing, iii. 133. This is placed after the death of Earl Hugh.
[360] See Appendix II.
[361] See N. C. vol. iii. pp. 347, 373.
[362] Chron. Manniæ, 4. “Scotos vero ita perdomuit, ut nullus qui fabricaret navem vel scapham ausus esset plus quam tres clavos inserere.” Mr. E. W. Robertson (i. 165) adds; “Such are the words of the Chronicle; their exact meaning I do not pretend to understand.” Neither do I, but Mr. Robertson was more concerned in the matter than I am.
[363] Chron. Man. p. 4. His repentance is thus described; “Post hæc Lagmannus, pœnitens quod fratris sui oculos eruisset, sponte regnum suum dimisit, et signo crucis dominicæ insignitus, iter Jerosolimitanum arripuit, quo et mortuus est.” This is singularly like the story of Swegen the son of Godwine.
[364] Chron. Man. 5. “Omnes proceres insularum, audientes mortem Lagmanni, miserunt legatos ad Murecardum Obrien, regem Yberniæ, postulantes ut aliquem virum industrium de regali stirpe in regem eis mitteret, donec Olavus filius Godredi cresceret.” Murtagh sends Donald with a great deal of good advice; but we read that. “postquam ad regnum pervenit, parvi pendens præcepta domini sui, cum magna tyrannide abusus est regno, et multis sceleribus perpetratis, tribus annis enormiter regnavit.” Then the leaders conspire, and drive him out.
[365] See Appendix II.
[366] Chron. Manniæ, 1098 (p. 5). “Eodem anno commissum est prœlium inter Mannenses apud Santwat, et aquilonares victoriam obtinuerunt. In quo bello occisi sunt Other comes et Macmarus, principes ambarum partium.” From the names, this sounds like a war between Scandinavians and Celts. May we translate “aquilonares” by “Northmen,” or does it mean merely the northern part of the island?
[367] See Appendix II.
[368] See N. C. vol. iii. p. 344.
[369] Ib. vol. iv. p. 520.
[370] See the story in Laing, ii. 347, 352. Ælfgifu of Northampton, who was then in Norway with her son Swegen (see N. C. vol. i. p. 480), was naturally inclined to unbelief.
[371] This story is told by the Manx Chronicler, 6. “Episcopo et clero resistente, ipse rex audacter accessit, et vi regia aperiri sibi scrinium fecit. Cumque et oculis vidisset, et manibus attrectasset incorruptum corpus, subito timor magnus irruit in eum et cum magna festinatione discessit.” This is singularly like the story of William and Saint Cuthberht, which I have just referred to.
[372] See N. C. vol. iii. p. 341.
[373] Ib. p. 345.
[374] Laing, iii. 129, 133.
[375] Ib.; Johnstone, 231. “En hann setti eptir Sigurd son sinn til höfdingia ysir eyonom, oc seck hönom rádoneyti.” It is as well to have the exact Norsk titles of the governor and his council.
[376] Johnstone, 232. “Magnus konongr kom Eidi sino vid eyna Helgo, oc gaf þar grid oc frid öllum mönnum oc allra manna varnadi.” A not very intelligible story follows, how he opened the door of the little church, but did not go in, but at once locked the door and ordered that no one should ever go in again, which was faithfully obeyed. Here, as ever in Celtic holy places, we find the group of several churches.
[377] Johnstone, ib.; Laing, iii. 130.
[378] Chron. Man. p. 6. “Galwedienses ita constrinxit, ut cogeret eos materias lignorum cædere et ad litus portare ad munitiones construendas.”
[379] Ord. Vit. 767 D. “Hiberniam ingredi voluit; sed, Irensibus in maritimis littoribus ad bellum paratis, alias divertit.”
[380] Ib. “Insulam Man, quæ deserta erat, inhabitavit, populis replevit, domibus et aliis necessariis ad usus hominum graviter instruxit.”
[381] Chron. Man. 6. “Cum applicuisset ad insulam sancti Patricii, venit videre locum pugnæ, quam Mannenses paulo ante inter se commiserant, quia adhuc multa corpora occisorum inhumata erant. Videns autem insulam pulcherrimam, placuit in oculis ejus, eamque sibi in habitationem elegit, munitiones in ea construxit, quæ usque hodie ex ejus nomine nuncupantur.”
[382] Ord. Vit. 767 D. “Alias quoque Cycladas, in magno mari velut extra orbem positas, perlustravit, et a pluribus populis inhabitari regio jussu coegit.”
[383] Ib. “Maritimæ vero plebes, quæ in Anglia littus infiniti Amphitritis incolebant in boreali climate, ut barbaricas gentes et incognitas naves viderunt ad se festinare, præ timore nimio vociferatæ sunt, et armati quique de regione Merciorum convenerunt.”
[384] Ord. Vit. 767 D. “Quondam princeps militiæ Magni regis cum sex navibus in Angliam cursum direxit, sed rubeum scutum, quod signum pacis erat, super malum navis erexit.”
[385] Ib. 768 A. “Maxima multitudo de comitatu Cestræ et Scrobesburiæ congregata est, et in regione Dagannoth secus mare ad prœlium præparata est.”
[386] See Appendix II.
[387] See Appendix II.
[388] See Appendix II.
[389] See Appendix II.
[390] See Appendix II.
[391] Ord. Vit. 768 B. “Cujus mortem Magnus rex ut comperiit, vehementer cum suis planxit, et Hugoni Dirgane, id est Grosso, pacem et securitatem mandavit. Exercitum, inquit, non propter Anglos sed Hibernos ago, nec alienam regionem invado, sed insulas ad potestatem meam pertinentes incolo.”
[392] Ib. “Normanni tandem et Angli cadaver Hugonis diu quæsierunt, pontique fluctu retracto, vix invenerunt.”
[393] Ib. “Hic solus de filiis Mabiliæ mansuetus et amabilis fuit, et iv. annis post mortem Rogerii patris sui paternum honorem moderatissime rexit.”
[394] Ib.
[395] Johnstone, 236. “Aunguls-ey er þridiongr Brettlandz,” This is strange measurement even if Wales alone is meant, much more if by “Brettlandz” we are to understand the whole isle of Britain.
[396] See Appendix II.
[397] Brut y Tywysogion, 1096. “So the French [y Freinc] reduced all, as well great as small, to be Saxons [Sæson].” But in the Latin Annals, 1098, the words are, “Franci vero majores et minores secum ad Angliam perduxerunt.”
[398] Johnstone, 236; Laing, iii. 132.
[399] The treaty is noticed by the Irish writers. Chronicon Scotorum, 1098. “A year’s peace was made by Muircertach Ua Briain with Magnus, King of Lochlann.” On the marriage, see above, p. 136.
[400] Johnstone, 237. “Oc gaf hönom konongs nafn, oc setti hann yfir Orkneyar oc oni Sudreyar, oc seck hann i hendur Hák Pálssyni frænda sinom.”
[401] “Mælkolf Skota konong” he appears in the Norsk text (236). The ceremony of crossing the isthmus is minutely described, and it is said that ships were often drawn across it.
[402] Ord. Vit. 768 C. “Quo [Hugone] defuncto, Robertus Belesmensis, frater ejus, Guillelmum Rufum requisivit, eique pro comitatu fratris iii. millia librarum sterilensium exhibuit. Et comes factus, per quatuor annos immania super Gualos exercuit.”
[403] Ord. Vit. 768 C. “Angli et Guali, qui jamdudum ferales ejus ludos quasi fabulam ridentes audierunt, nunc ferreis ejus ungulis excoriati, plorantes gemuerunt, et vera esse quæ compererant sentientes experti sunt.”
[404] Ib. “Ipse quanto magis opibus et vernulis ampliatus intumuit, tanto magis collimitaneis, cujuscunque ordinis fuerint, auferre fundos suos exarsit, et terras quas prisci antecessores sanctis dederant, sibi mancipavit.”
[405] Orderic bears him this witness, 766 B, C, in recording the fortification of Gisors, of which we shall have to speak presently, “ingeniosus artifex Rodbertus Belesmensis disposuit.”
[406] See above, p. 100.
[407] See N. C. vol. i. p. 506.
[408] See the Chronicles, 895. In Winchester, Canterbury, and Abingdon the name is Quatbridge. “Þæt hic gedydan æt Cwatbrycge be Sæfryn and þæt geweorc worhtan.” Worcester has “æt Brygce.”
[409] This is distinctly marked by Florence, 1101. “Arcem quam in occidentali Sabrinæ fluminis plaga, in loco qui Brycge dicitur lingua Saxonica, Ægelfleda Merciorum domina quondam construxerat, fratre suo Eadwardo Seniore regnante, Scrobbesbyriensis comes Rotbertus de Beleasmo, Rogeri comitis filius, contra regem Heinricum, ut exitus rei probavit, muro lato et alto summoque restaurare cœpit.” The work of the Lady is recorded in the Canterbury and Abingdon Chronicles, 912. “Her cóm Æþelflæd Myrcna hlæfdige on þone halgan æfen muentione S[~c]e Crucis to Scergeat, and þar ða burh getimbrede, and þæs ilcan géares þa æt Bricge.” It was therefore not a mere earthwork to be wrought, but a wall of some kind, whether of wood or of stone, to be timbered. This marks the position of Bridgenorth itself as distinguished from the earthwork at Oldbury.
[410] Domesday, 254. “Ipse comes tenet Ardintone; Sancta Milburga tenuit T. R. E. Ibi … nova domus, et burgum Quatford dictum. Nil reddit.”
[411] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 499.
[412] A singular story is preserved in Bromton (X Scriptt. 988). When Earl Roger’s second and better-behaved wife Adeliza was coming for the first time to England, she was in danger of shipwreck. Her chaplain, who was on board, had a vision, in which a certain matron told him that, in order to lull the storm, his lady must vow to build a church to Saint Mary Magdalene on the spot where she should first meet her husband, a spot which was to be marked in a manner not unknown either at Glastonbury or at Alba Longa; “Præcipue ubi concava quercus cum tugurio porcorum crescit.” The vow is made; the Countess meets the Earl hunting; “apud Quatford, quæ tunc deserta fuit, in loco ubi dicta quercus crescebat venanti domino suo primo occurrit.” The church was founded and endowed; but it afterwards became annexed to the collegiate chapel in the castle at Bridgenorth. Some further details about this college are given. See also Mon. Angl. viii. 1463. The foundation at Bridgenorth is attributed to Robert of Bellême.
[413] Ord. Vit. 768 C. “Oppidum de Quatfort transtulit, et Brugiam, munitissimum castellum, super Sabrinam fluvium condidit.”
[414] It appears in Domesday, 255, in the form of “Aldeberie.”
[415] These windows are a distinct case of traces of the primitive Romanesque even in a military building, just as in Oxford Castle. See N. C. vol. v. p. 636.
[416] Just as in the case of Conan at Rouen, we must get rid of the notion of anybody standing on the top of a flat tower. An English traveller on the continent is struck by seeing military towers with high roofs; but it is simply because in England the roofs have been destroyed.
[417] I have not myself seen this site. Mr. Clark writes to me; “The township of that name is within the Shropshire parish of Llan y-mynech but a part of an island of Denbigh. The site, coveted on account of some silver mines, was conquered soon after the Great Survey, and annexed to the palatine earldom of Salop, though after the conquest of Wales it was transferred to Denbigh. The castle stood upon Offa’s Dyke, and was protected on the immediate south by the Vyrnwy, and a mile or two to the west by its tributary the Tarrat. Three British camps to the north and west show how at least as early as the Mercian days the position had been watched.”
[418] His lands in Nottinghamshire (Domesday, 284) cover more than five pages. At one place, Ættune, we read, “habuerunt x. taini quisque aulam suam.” In other places, 285, 286, we have entries of the same kind of five thegns, six thegns, and seven thegns. Land in Nottinghamshire would seem to have been greatly divided T. R. E. The first entry in Yorkshire, 319, in “Lastone and Trapum,” we read, “ibi habuit comes Edwinus aulam; nunc habet Rogerius de Busli ibi in dominio.” In 320, in Hallun, for which we may read Sheffield, it is said, “ibi habuit Wallef comes aulam.”
The Norman lordship of Roger is written in many ways; he appears as “Rogerus de Buthleio,” “de Busli,” and other forms. In the French Ordnance map the name of the place is given as Bully.
[419] See Domesday, 319, and N. C. vol. iv. p. 290.
[420] Domesday, 320. “Hanc terram habet Rogerius de Judita comitissa.”
[421] Domesday, 113. This is Sanford in Devonshire, which had been held by a Brihtric, whether the son of Ælfgar or any other. “Regina dedit Rogerio cum uxore sua.” Very unlike lands in Yorkshire, it had doubled its value since Brihtric’s time.
[422] Domesday, 319. It is “Tyckyll” in Florence, 1102. The history of the place may be studied in Mr. John Raine’s History of Blyth.
[423] Bæda, ii. 12. “In finibus gentis Merciorum, ad orientalem plagam amnis qui vocatur Idlæ.” There Eadwine smote Æthelfrith. Bæda’s description marks Nottinghamshire as Mercian.
[424] I have had to mention Blyth in my paper on the Arundel case in the Archæological Journal, xxxvii. 244 (1880). The monastic part at the east end is gone, and the effect of the parochial part strangely changed by later additions. No one would think from the first glance at the outside that the nave of a Norman minster lurked there.
There are two notices of Blyth in the Normanniæ Nova Chronica under 1088 and 1090. The first merely records a grant of the church to the Trinity monastery (also called Saint Katharine) at Rouen; “a viro venerabili Rogerio de Bully et ab Munold [sic] uxore sua.” The second records the gift a second time, and adds, “ibi constituit xiii. monachos.” He had had dealings with the house before. In the cartulary of the monastery, No. xliii. p. 444, he sells the tithe of Bully [Buslei], “quemadmodum sibi jure hæreditario competebat,” for threescore and twelve pounds and a horse (“pro libris denariorum lx. et xii. et i. equo”). The signatures, besides those of Duke William and Count Robert of Eu, are mainly local, as “Hernaldi cujus pars decimæ,” “Huelini de Brincourt,”――Neufchâtel that was to be. Mr. A. S. Ellis suggests that this sale was to supply the lord of Bully with the means of crossing in 1066. It is odd that there is no mention of Blyth in the cartulary.
[425] Compare Florence, 1102, with Orderic, 806 C. No one without local knowledge would guess that “Blida” and “Tyckyll” meant the same place.
[426] Ord. Vit. 768 C. “Blidam totamque terrain Rogerii de Buthleio cognati sui jure repetiit, et a rege grandi pondere argenti comparavit.” Mr. A. S. Ellis, in a paper reprinted from the Yorkshire Archæological Journal, headed “Biographical Notices on the Yorkshire Tenants named in Doomsday Book,” suggests that what Robert really bought was the wardship of Roger’s son. The history of the family will be found in Mr. Raine’s book and in Mr. Ellis’s paper.
[427] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 537.
[428] Ord. Vit. 768 C. “Sicut idem vir multis possessionibus in terris est locupletatus, sic majori fastu superbiæ sequax Belial inflatus, flagitiosos et crudeles ambiebat insatiabiliter actus.” There is no need to take “flagitiosus” in the special sense.
[429] The authorities for this chapter take in such French and Cenomannian records as we have. Suger’s Life of Lewis the Sixth, in the fourth volume of the French Duchèsne, gives us but few facts as to the French war, but he draws a vivid general picture. For Maine we have the Lives of Bishops Howel and Hildebert in the History of the Bishops of Le Mans in Mabillon’s Vetera Analecta. The accounts there given have to be compared throughout with the narrative of the French and Cenomannian wars in Orderic. The strictly English writers tell us nothing about France, next to nothing about Maine. Something may be gleaned from the writers in French rime, as Wace and Geoffrey Gaimar; but Wace has by no means the same value now which he had during the actual time of the Conquest.
[430] See N. C. vol. v. p. 99.
[431] See N. C. vol. i. p. 249.
[432] See N. C. vol. iii. p. 130.
[433] See N. C. vol. ii. p. 263.
[434] Lewis is in Suger constantly spoken of as “Dominus Ludovicus;” special titles for kings’ sons had not yet been invented.
[435] William of Malmesbury tells the story (iii. 257); “Pacem cum Philippo rege comparavit [Robertus Friso], data sibi in uxorem privigna, de qua ille Lodovicum tulit qui modo regnat in Francia; nec multo post pertæsus connubii (quod illa præpinguis corpulentiæ esset), a lecto removit, uxoremque Andegavensis comitis contra fas et jus sibi conjunxit.” The reason here given for separation seems a strange one, especially on the part of Philip. Henry the Eighth, according to some accounts, is said at one stage to have sought for a wife of his own size. The Queen appears in Orderic (699 B) as “generosa et religiosa conjux.” It appears from Geoffrey Malaterra (iv. 8) that Philip next wished to marry Emma, the daughter of Count Robert of Sicily; but the trick was found out. It was not easy to entrap a Sicilian Norman.
[436] This is Orderic’s story. The three wives of Fulk are carefully reckoned up in the Gesta Consulum (Chroniques d’Anjou, i. 140) and in the Gesta Ambasiensium Dominorum (i. 191). Bertrada therefore had some reason when we read, “Bertrada Andegavorum comitissa, metuens ne vir suus quod jam duabus aliis fecerat sibi faceret, et relicta contemptui ceu vile scortum fieret, conscia nobilitatis et pulcritudinis suæ fidissimum legatum Philippo regi Francorum destinavit, eique quod in corde tractabat, evidenter notificavit. Malebat enim ultro virum relinquere aliumque appetere quam a viro relinqui, omniumque patere despectui.” Some details of the elopement of Bertrada from Tours are given in the Gesta Consulum, i. 142, and in the acts of the Lords of Amboise, i. 192. She appears there as “pessima uxor Fulconis comitis.”
[437] William of Malmesbury (v. 404) lays the blame in a quarter which we should not have looked for; “Adeo erat [Philippus] omnibus episcopis provinciæ suæ derisui, ut nullus eos desponsaret præter Willelmum archiepiscopum Rotomagensem, cujus facti temeritatem luit multis annis interdictus, et vix tandem aliquando per Anselmum archiepiscopum apostolicæ communioni redditus.” (See De Rémusat, Anselme, 355.) It is hard to have to believe this of the Good Soul, and one rather takes to Orderic’s version (699 C); “Odo Baiocensis episcopus hanc exsecrandam desponsationem fecit, ideoque dono mœchi regis pro recompensatione infausti famulatus ecclesias Madanti oppidi aliquamdiu habuit.” Orderic waxes very eloquent on Philip’s crime.
[438] See his letters in Duchèsne, iv. 2, 3, 4, 7. Ivo distinctly refuses to have anything to do with the marriage; but it seems that Philip pretended to have been divorced by a council under Reginald Archbishop of Rheims.
[439] Betholi Constantiensis Chron., Bouquet, xi. 27, 28. “1094. In Galliarum civitate quam vulgariter Ostionem (Augustodunum) dicunt, congregatum est generale concilium a venerando Hugone Lugdunensi archiepiscopo et sedis apostolicæ legato cum archiepiscopis, episcopis et abbatibus diversarum provinciarum xvii. cal. Nov. in quo concilio renovata est excommunicatio in Heinricum regem et in Guibertum sedis apostolicæ invasorem et in omnes eorum complices. Item rex Galliarum Philippus excommunicatus est, eo quod, vivente uxore sua, alteram superinduxerit.”
[440] Ord. Vit. 669 C. “Permissu tamen præsulum, quorum dominus erat, pro regali dignitate capellanum suum habebat, a quo cum privata familia privatim missam audiebat.”
[441] Ib. “In quodcunque oppidum vel urbem Galliarum rex advenisset, mox ut a clero auditum fuisset, cessabat omnis clangor campanarum, et generalis cantus clericorum.” William of Malmesbury, v. 404; “Quocirca ab apostolico excommunicatus, cum in villa qua mansitabat nihil divini servitii fieret, sed discedente eo, tinnitus signorum undique concreparent, insulsam fatuitatem cachinnis exprimebat, ‘Audis,’ inquiens, ‘bella, quomodo nos effugant.’”
[442] Ord. Vit. u.s. “Quo tempore nunquam diadema portavit, nec purpuram induit, neque sollennitatem aliquam regio more celebrabat.”
[443] Her death is recorded in the year 1094 in the Chronicle of Clarius or of Saint Peter at Sens (D’Achery, ii. 477), which gives some curious details of the council of that year, and how the Archbishop of Sens was allowed to sit on a level with the Archbishop of Rheims.
[444] Ord. Vit. 700 A. “Ludovico filio suo consensu Francorum Pontisariam et Madantum totumque comitatum Vilcassinum donavit, totiusque regni curam, dum primo flore juventutis pubesceret, commisit.”
[445] Ord. Vit. 766 A. “Guillelmus Rufus, ut patris sui casus et bellorum causas comperit, Philippo Francorum regi totum Vilcassinum pagum calumniari cœpit, et præclara oppida, Pontesiam et Calvimontem atque Medantum, poposcit,”
[446] Ib. “Francis autem poscenti non acquiescentibus, imo prœlianti atrociter resistere ardentibus, ingens guerra inter feroces populos exoritur, et multis luctuosa mors ingeritur.”
[447] Chron. Petrib. 1097. “And se cyng þeræfter uppon S[~c]e Martines mæssan ofer sǽ intó Normandig fór.”
[448] See N. C. vol. v. p. 159.
[449] Chron. Petrib. 1097. “Ac þa hwile þe he wederes abád, his hired innon þam sciran þær hi lágon þone mæston hearm dydon þe æfre hired oððe here innon friðlande don sceolde.”
[450] See vol. i. p. 154.
[451] It is hardly an exception when William of Malmesbury (iv. 320) tells the story of William Rufus’ dialogue with Helias, which belongs to this time, altogether out of place, and as a mere illustrative anecdote.
[452] Suger, 283 A. “Similiter et dissimiliter inter eos certabatur, similiter cum neuter cederet, dissimiliter cum ille maturus, iste juvenculus, ille opulentus et Anglorum thesaurorum profusor, mirabilisque militum mercator et solidator; iste peculii expers, patri qui beneficiis regni utebatur parcendo, sola bonæ indolis industria militiam cogebat, audacter resistebat.” Orderic (766 A) says, in a somewhat different strain, “Philippus rex piger et corpulentus belloque incongruus erat; Ludovicus vero filius ejus puerili temeritudine detentus, adhuc militare nequibat.” This strange statement comes before that quoted in p. 175.
[453] Orderic (766 A) waxes very eloquent on William, his host, and its captains, how they could have met Cæsar, and what not. He gives the list in the text, with the notice, “Robertus Belesmensis princeps militiæ hujus erat, cujus favor erga regem et calliditas præ cæteris vigebat.”
[454] Suger, 283 A. “Videres juvenum celerrimum, modo Bituricensium, modo Arvernorum, modo Burgundionum, militari manu transvolare fines; nec idcirco tardius si ei ignotescat Vilcassinum regredi, et cum trecentis aut quingentis militibus præfato regi Guillelmo cum x. millibus fortissime refragari.”
[455] Suger, 283 A. “Ut dubius se habet belli eventus, modo cedere, fugare modo.”
[456] Ib. B. “Angliæ captos ad redemptionem celerem militaris stipendii acceleravit anxietas, Francorum vero longa diuturni carceris maceravit prolixitas, nec ullo modo evinculari potuerunt, donec, suscepta ejusdem regis Angliæ militia, hominio obligati regnum et regem impugnare et turbare jurejurando firmaverunt.” So Pyrrhos proposed to his Roman prisoners to enter his service.
[457] Suger (287, 291) has much to say about “Guido de Rupe-forti, vir peritus et miles emeritus.” In p. 297 he describes the castle; “Supersistitur promontorio ardui litoris magni fluminis Sequanæ horridum et ignobile castrum, quod dicitur Rupes Guidonis, in superficie sui invisibile, rupe sublimi incaveatum, cui manus æmula artificis in devexo montis, raro et misero ostio, maximæ domus amplitudinem rupe cæsa extendit, antrum ut putatur, fatidicum.” He goes on to quote Lucan. Orderic (766 B) witnesses to Guys treason; “Guido de Rupe, Anglorum argenti cupidus, eis favit, et munitiones suas de Rupe et Vetolio dimisit. Sic alii nonnulli fecerunt, qui suis infidi exteris avide obtemperaverunt.”
[458] Cf. N. C. vol. iv. p. 200, for the same state of things at Nottingham. The like may be seen along the banks of the Loire.
[459] Ord. Vit. 766 B. “Rodbertus comes de Mellento in suis munitionibus Anglos suscepit, et patentem eis in Galliam discursum aperuit, quorum bellica vis plurima Francis damna intulit.” “Angli” here must take in all the subjects of Rufus. “Gallia,” I need hardly say, is high-polite for France, and does not take in Normandy.
[460] See N. C. vol. iii. p. 486.
[461] Ord. Vit. 766 B. “Plerique Francorum qui binis cogebantur dominis obsecundare, pro fiscis quibus abunde locupletati sub utriusque regia turgebant ditione, anxii quia nemo potest duobus dominis servire, animis acriorem opibusque ditiorem elegerunt, et cum suis hominibus municipiisque favorabiliter paruerunt.”
[462] Among the Norman prisoners Suger (283 A) counts “Paganum de Gisortio, qui castrum idem primo munivit.” Orderic (766 C) gives him, like several other people, a double name; he appears as “Tedbaldus-Paganus de Gisortis.” This first fortification of Gisors must be that which is referred to by Robert of Torigny under the year 1096; “Rex Willermus fecit quoddam castellum, Gisorth videlicet, in confinio Normanniæ et Franciæ.” See below, p. 190.
[463] Orderic, 766 B. “Guillelmus rex firmissimum castrum Gisortis construi præcepit, quod usque hodie contra Calvimontem et Triam atque Burriz oppositum, Normanniam concludit, cujus positionem et fabricam ingeniosus artifex Rodbertus Belesmensis disposuit.” See above, p. 151.
[464] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 494.
[465] Ord. Vit. 766 C. “Illi nimirum insignem Francorum laudem deperire noluerunt, seseque pro defensione patriæ et gloria gentis suæ, ad mortem usque inimicis objecerunt.” This is said specially of the knights of the Vexin; “In illa quippe provincia egregiorum copia militum est quibus ingenuitas et ingens probitas inest.”
[466] Suger gives the list, 283 A. Orderic (766 C) also speaks of the captivity of “Tetbaldus-Paganus de Gisortis,” and some others. Suger calls Gilbert of Laigle “nobilis et Angliæ et Normanniæ seque illustris baro.” But his English estates (Domesday 36, ii. 263) in Surrey and Norfolk were not very large. Another prisoner was “Comes Simon, nobilis vir;” that is, I suppose, Simon of Senlis, Earl of Northampton. See N. C. vol. iv. p. 602.
[467] See vol. i. p. 211.
[468] Ord. Vit. 681 B. “Audientes Cenomanni dissidium Normannorum cogitaverunt fastuosum excutere a se jugum eorum, quod olim facere multoties conati sunt sub Guillelmo Magno rege Anglorum. Hoc Robertus dux ut comperiit, legatos et exenia Fulconi Andegavensium satrapæ destinavit, obnixe rogans ut Cenonannos a temerario ausu compesceret, ac in Normanniam ad se graviter ægrotantem veniret.”
[469] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 562. We shall meet him again in this character.
[470] See above, p. 172. Orderic’s words (681 D) are, “viventibus adhuc duabus uxoribus tertiam desponsavit.” But the accounts of the Angevin writers do not bear this out.
[471] Fulk is made to say (Ord. Vit. 681 C), “Amo Bertradam sobolem Simonis de Monteforti, neptem scilicet Ebroicensis comitis Guillermi, quam Heluissa comitissa nutrit et sua sub tutela custodit.” Presently Count William himself speaks of her as “neptis mea, quæ adhuc tenera virago est, quam sororius meus mihi commendavit nutriendam.” Here the word “virago,” the use of which is a little doubtful, seems equivalent to “virgo,” unless it is meant that Bertrada had graduated in the school of her aunt. But see Ducange in Virago.
[472] See Appendix C.
[473] Ord. Vit. 681 C. “Si mihi quam valde cupio rem feceris unam, Cenomannos tibi subjiciam, et omni tempore tibi ut amicus fideliter serviam.”
[474] Ib. “Radulfus patruus meus, qui pro magnitudine capitis et congerie capillorum jocose cognominatus est Caput asini.” We have heard of him as the murderer of Gilbert of Eu and the guardian of William the Great. See N. C. vol. i. pp. 196, 202.
[475] See vol. i. p. 220. Orderic gives the list of counsellors.
[476] See vol. i. pp. 220, 256.
[477] Ord. Vit. 681 D. “Ex consultu sapientum”――Duke Robert had his Witan――“decrevit dare minora ne perderet majora.”
[478] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 545.
[479] Orderic tells the tale, 683 B, C. “Qui vivente Guillelmo rege contra eum rebellare multoties conati sunt, ipso mortuo statim de rebellione machinari cœperunt, legationem igitur filiis Azsonis marchisi Liguriæ direxerunt.” Then they set forth their story, “non pro amore eorum, sed ut aliqua rationabili occasione jugum excuterent a se Normannorum, quod fere xxx. annis fortiter detriverat turgidas cervices eorum.”
[480] Orderic (683 C, D) makes “Gaufridus Madeniensis et Helias aliique cives et oppidani” join in the reception of Hugh, therefore seemingly in the mission to him. The biographer of the Bishops (Vet. An. 292) makes the embassy the work of Geoffrey only.
[481] Orderic draws his outward likeness, 769 D. “Erat probus et honorabilis, et multis pro virtutibus amabilis. Corpore præcellebat, fortis et magnus, statura gracilis et procerus, niger et hirsutus, et instar presbyteri bene tonsus.”
[482] Ib. “Eloquio erat suavis et facundus, lenis quietis et asper rebellibus, justitiæ cultor rigidus, et in timore Dei ad opus bonum fervidus.” He goes on with details of his devotions. There is another shorter panegyric in 768 D.
[483] Ib. 684 C. Helias there sets forth his own pedigree; “Filia Herberti comitis Lancelino de Balgenceio nupsit, eique Lancelinum Radulfi patrem et Johannem meum genitorem peperit.”
[484] Ib. 769 A. “Generosam conjugem Mathildam filiam Gervasii accepit, qui Rodberti cognomento Brochardi fratris Gervasii Remensis archiepiscopi filius fuit.” On Bishop Gervase see N. C. vol. iii. pp. 193-196.
[485] Ord. Vit. 769 A. “Helias de paterna hereditate Flechiam castrum possedit, quatuor vero castella de patrimonio uxoris suæ obtinuit, id est, Ligerim et Maiatum, Luceium et Ustilliacum.” We shall hear of these places again.
[486] Not that the department is called from the town, but from the river.
[487] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 545.
[488] Ord. Vit. 683 C. “Gaufridus Madeniensis et Helias, aliique cives et oppidani, venientem Hugonem susceperunt, eique ad obtinendum jus ex materna hereditate competens aliquamdiu suffragati sunt.”
[489] Ib. B. “Anno ab Incarnatione Domini m.xc. Indictione xiii. Cenomanni contra Normannos rebellaverunt, ejectisque custodibus de munitionibus, novum principem sibi constituerunt.”
[490] See vol. i. p. 205. Cf. N. C. vol. iv. p. 546.
[491] Ord. Vit. 683 D. “In quantum potuit truculentam recalcitrationem dissuasit, pertinaces verum interdixit, pontificali jure anathematizavit, et a liminibus sanctæ matris ecclesiæ sequestravit. Quapropter rebellionis incentores contra eum nimis irati sunt, et injuriis eum afficere terribiliter comminati sunt.”
[492] I am here following Orderic, whose account (683 D) runs thus; “Interea dum per diocesim suam cum clericis suis equitaret, et episcopali more officium suum sollerter exerceret, Helias de Flechia eum comprehendit, et in carcere, donec Hugo in urbe Cenomannica susceptus fuisset, vinctum præsulem tenuit.” The biographer of the Bishop (Vet. An. 291) is of course much more angry with Helias, and seems quite to misconceive the state of things. Very soon after the death of the Conqueror, Helias seizes Ballon and makes war on Le Mans; “Surrexit quidam nobilis adolescens, qui erat de genere Cenomannensium consulum, Helias nomine, et cœpit calumniari ipsum comitatum, ingressusque castrum quod Baledonem nominant, regionem undique devastabat, maximeque adversus civitatis habitatores, qui ei viriliter resistebant, multis insidiis assiduisque deprædationibus grassabatur.” The Bishop opposes him in the interest of Duke Robert, and then, “Quorumdam perversorum consilio, in tantam prorupit audaciam ut in christum Domini manum mittere, eumque apud castrum patrimonii sui, quod Fissa dicitur, in custodia ponere non timeret.” “Fissa” is La Flèche. This writer says nothing of the message to Hugh till after the imprisonment of Howel. It is then set on foot by Geoffrey of Mayenne, who is described as “Ratus se opportunum tempus invenisse, quo regionem denuo perturbaret.” We must remember that Orderic is here writing the history of Maine, while the biographer is merely writing the history of Howel; but for that very reason we may trust him as to the details of the Bishop’s imprisonment.
[493] Vet. An. 291. “Clericos suos ita ab ipsius fecit præsentia removeri, ut cum nullo eorum nec familiare nec publicum posset habere colloquium, rusticumque presbyterum ejus obsequio deputavit, ne custodum calliditas Latina posset confabulatione deludi.”
[494] This comes from Orderic (683 D), who has some curious details; “Domini sanctas imagines cum crucibus, et sanctarum scrinia reliquiarum, ad terram deposuit, et portas basilicarum spinis obturavit.” The biographer of the Bishops mentions only the thorns, and he seems to imply that only Le Mans and its suburbs were thus treated; “Matris ecclesiæ omniumque ejusdem civitatis vel suburbii ecclesiarum januas.”
[495] All this is told at some length, Vet. An. 291. “Helias, pœnitentia ductus, pontificisque genibus provolutus, veniam precabatur.”
[496] Vit. An. 292. “Cum esset apud castrum quod Carcer dicitur, occurrerunt ei proceres civitatis, sacramenta fidelitatis quæ Roberto comiti promiserant pro nihilo reputantes.”
[497] Ib. “Rotbertus ultra modum inertiæ et voluptati deditus, nihil dignum ratione respondens, quæ Cenomannenses fecerant, pro eo quod inepto homini nimis onerosi viderentur, non multum sibi displicuisse monstravit.” This is important, now that an attempt is made to saddle Orderic with the invention of the received character of Robert.
[498] Ib. “Non curare videbatur, nisi ut episcopatus tantum in ejus dominio remaneret. Unde præcepit episcopo ut ad ecclesiam quidem reverteretur, de episcopatu vero nullatenus Hugoni marchisio responderet.” On the advowson of the see of Le Mans, see N. C. vol. iii. p. 194; vol. iv. p. 544.
[499] Vet. Ann. 292. “Comes malo ingenio episcopum circumvenire cupiens, postulabat ut ab ipso donum episcopatus acciperet.” That is, Howel is to do homage to the new prince, much as Henry the First, as we shall see in a later chapter, demanded the homage of Anselm. Howel’s objection seems simply to be that Robert was the lawful lord, not that it was unlawful to accept the benefice from any temporal lord.
[500] The troubles of the Bishop are set forth at length by his biographer (Vet. An. 292 et seqq.). This device of his enemies in the Chapter was the cruellest of all. Finding no fault in him, but wishing that some fault should be found, “sub specie veræ amicitiæ persuaserunt ei ut fraterculum duodennem qui necdum perfecte litterarum elementa didicerat, in ejus [decani] loco constitueret, et contra ecclesiastica instituta inductum prudentibus puerulum senioribus anteferret.” Geoffrey was a Breton, brother of Judicail――the name familiar in so many spellings――Bishop of Saint Malo. See Ord. Vit. 770 C. There was much disputing between him and the other candidate for the deanery. This was Gervase, nephew of the former Bishop Gervase (see N. C. vol. iii. p. 193), who had on his side the memory of his uncle, and the special favour of his brothers with Count Hugh (“quia fratres ejus eo tempore nimia familiaritate principis uterentur”).
[501] Vet. An. 294. “Ad regem Anglorum se contulit, ejusque liberalitate levamen maximum suæ persecutionis accepit.”
[502] The story is told in Vet. An. 294. Howel stayed four months in England; ib. 295.
[503] Ib. 297.
[504] A great number of grants and privileges are reckoned up in Vet. An. 298. Among them several exemptions were granted to the episcopal lordship of Coulaines, a place of which we shall hear again.
[505] According to Orderic (684 A) the people of Maine found him “divitiis et sensu et virtute inopem.” The Biographer (299) calls him “propter inconstantiam suam bonis omnibus infestus,” and says that he went away, “omnibus quæ habere poterat in pecuniam redactis.”
[506] Ord. Vit. 684 A.
[507] Orderic (u. s.) graphically sets forth the fears of one who was “inscius inter gnaros et timidus inter animosos milites consul constitutus.” He and his countrymen are “Allobroges,” which seems odd; the men of Maine are “Cisalpini.”
[508] Ord. Vit. 684 A. See vol. i. p. 277. According to Helias or Orderic, the reconciled princes could muster a hundred thousand men. It was, so Helias is made to think, chiefly for the conquest of Maine that Rufus had crossed the sea.
[509] Ord. Vit. u. s.
[510] Ib. “Me quoque libertatis amor nihilominus stimulat, et hereditatis avitæ rectitudo dimicandi pro illa fiduciam in Deo mihi suppeditat.”
[511] Both Orderic and the Biographer record the sale; the Biographer throws some doubt on its validity; “Heliæ cognato suo ipsam civitatem totumque comitatum, quantum in ipso erat, vendidit.” Orderic names the price.
[512] Ord. Vit. 684 D. “Hic in accepta potestate viam suam multum emendavit, et multiplici virtute floruit. Clerum et ecclesiam Dei laudabiliter honoravit, et missis servitioque Dei quotidie ferventer interfuit. Subjectis æquitatem servavit pacemque pauperibus pro posse suo tenuit.” He comes in again for the like praise in 768 D, and more fully in 769 D.
[513] His works are described by the Biographer, Vet. An. 299, 300.
[514] Vet. An. 299.
[515] See above, p. 15, and vol. i. p. 227.
[516] Vet. An. 301. “Ei [papæ] cum omni comitatu suo per triduum cuncta necessaria hilariter et abundantissime ministravit, quamvis eodem anno non solum annonæ, sed et omnium quæ ad cibum pertinent, maximum constet exstitisse defectum.” The Biographer is naturally eloquent on the Pope’s visit.
[517] He appeared (Vet. An. ib.) “facie hilaris, colore vividus, ingenio perspicax, cibo et potu sobrius, membrisque omnibus incolumis.”
[518] Orderic (769 A) makes Helias say, “Consilio papæ crucem Domini pro servitio ejus accepi.” He does not mention the visit of Urban to Le Mans, nor does the Biographer mention the crusading vow of Helias; but the two accounts fit in together.
[519] See their dialogue in Laing, iii. 178.
[520] Orderic (769 A) describes the agreement between William and Robert, and the payment of the pledge-money (see vol. i. p. 559). Then he adds; “Helias comes ad curiam regis Rothomagum venit. Qui postquam diu cum duce consiliatus fuit, ad regem accessit.”
[521] See vol. i. pp. 175, 302.
[522] Ord. Vit. 769 A. “Domine mi rex … amicitiam, ut vester fidelis, vestram deposco, et hoc iter cum pace vestra inire cupio.”
[523] Ib. “Quo vis vade; sed Cenomannicam urbem cum toto comitatu mihi dimitte, quia quidquid pater meus habuit volo habere.”
[524] Ib. 769 B. “Si placitare vis, judicium gratanter subibo, et patrium jus, secundum examen regum, comitumque et episcoporum, perdam aut tenebo.” I cannot see with Sir Francis Palgrave (iv. 633) that this proposal “indicates that Helias assumed the existence of a High Court of Peers, possessing jurisdiction over the whole Capetian monarchy――that realm to which the name of France can scarcely yet be given.” Surely Helias simply means to refer the matter to arbitration.
[525] Ord. Vit. u. s. “Ensibus et lanceis innumerisque missilibus tecum placitabo.”
[526] Ord. Vit. 769 C. “Ipse mihi Cænomannorum præposituram dignatus est commendare.” The strictly feudal language is worth noticing; but “præpositura” is an odd word to express the countship of Maine.
[527] I give the substance of the speech in Orderic, 769 B, C.
[528] Ib. “Ego contra cruciferos prœliari nolo, sed urbem quam pater meus in die transitus sui nactus erat mihi vendicabo.”
[529] Ib. “Tu igitur dilapsos aggeres munitionum tuarum summopere repara, et cœmentarios lapidumque cæsores lucri cupidos velociter aggrega, vetustasque neglectorum ruinas murorum utcumque resarciendo restaura.”
[530] Ib. “Cinomannicos enim cives quantocius visitabo, et centum milia lanceas cum vexillis ante portas eis demonstrabo; nec tibi sine calumnia hæreditatem meam indulgebo.”
[531] Ord. Vit. 769 C. “Currus etiam pilis atque sagittis onustos illuc bobus pertrahi faciam. Sed ego ipse cum multis legionibus armatorum bubulcos alacriter boantes ad portas tuas præcedam. Hæc verissime credito et complicibus tuis edicito.” All this talk is at least very characteristic of William Rufus.
[532] Ord. Vit. 770 C. “Helias comes Goiffredum Britonem, decanum ejusdem ecclesiæ, ad episcopatum elegit.” See above, p. 201.
[533] Vet. An. 303. “A domno Hoello venerabilis memoriæ episcopo Cenomannensis ecclesiæ scholarum magister et archidiaconus factus.” He was “ex Lavarzinensi castro, mediocribus quidem sed honestis exortus parentibus.” On his relations to Helias see Appendix KK.
[534] Ord. Vit. 770 C. “Præveniens clerus Hildebertum de Lavarceio archidiaconum in cathedra pontificali residere compulit, et altæ vocis cum jubilatione tripudians cantavit Te Deum laudamus, et cetera quæ usus in electione præsulis exposcit ecclesiasticus.” An. Vet. 303. “Post discessum ipsius [Hoelli] proper scientiæ et honestatis suæ meritum, communi cleri plebisque assensu in ejus loco substitutus est.”
[535] Ord. Vit. u. s. “Quod Helias ut comperiit, valde iratus resistere voluit. Sed clericis dicentibus illi, Electionem tuam ecclesiasticæ præferre non debes electioni, reveritus, quia Deum timebat, siluit et, ne letale in membris ecclesiæ schisma fieret, canonicis consensit.” For Saint Eadward’s opposite conduct in the like case, see N. C. vol. ii. p. 120.
[536] Ib. “Goiffredus quippe de præsulatu securus erat, jamque copiosas dapes pro sublimatione sui præparaverat. Paratæ quidem dapes ab avidis comessoribus absumptæ sunt. Sed ipsum Cenomanni episcopum habere penitus recusaverunt.” He then mentions his promotion to Rouen.
[537] The story of Hildebert’s dealings with the heretic Henry are told at large by the Biographer, 312 et seqq. See also Milman, Latin Christianity, iv. 176.
[538] Vet. An. 326. He became Archbishop, “concedente Ludovico rege Francorum, Cenomannensibus et Turonensibus clericis et populis devotum præbentibus assensum.” The King therefore kept at Tours the right of advowson which he had lost at Le Mans. But had Hildebert, like Anselm (see vol. i. pp. 397, 404), to get leave from his church to go away, or had Cenomannian electors any share in choosing the Metropolitan? Orderic (770 D) says that he was chosen “a clero et populo,” seemingly of Tours, and “nutu Dei.” He does not mention any action on the part of Le Mans.
[539] See above, p. 200.
[540] Vet. An. 305. “Eo tempore inter regem Anglorum et Heliam comitem bellum gravissimum exortum est, pro eo scilicet quod idem rex Cenomannensem episcopatum calumniabatur [cf. N. C. vol. iii. p. 194], ideoque ordinationi episcopi moliebatur obsistere.”
[541] Ib. “Cum eum ordinatum audisset, inimicitiarum quas dudum mente conceperat manifestis bellorum incursibus patefecit.” He gives no details of the war till the capture of Helias.
[542] Ord. Vit. 770 A. “Helias castrum apud Dangeolum contra Rodbertum Talavacium firmavit, ibique satellites suos ad defensandos incolas terræ suæ collocavit.”
[543] See N. C. vol. iv. pp. 552, 652.
[544] Ord. Vit. 770 A. “Inde præfatus tyrannus, quod vicina passim depopulari arva non posset, contristatus est. Intempestivus igitur mense Januario regem inquietavit.” Then comes his speech; and then, “invitus rex pluribus ex causis expeditionem inchoavit, sed Rodberto instigante et prospera pollicente, differre, ne ignavus putaretur, erubuit.”
[545] Ib. “Principalis ordinatio provinciales competentibus armaturis munitos adscivit, et ad transitus aquarum sepiumque difficilesque aditus silvarum in hostes coaptavit. Tunc rex inimicis nihil nocere potuit.” He now gives his orders to Robert of Bellême, and we hear no more of him personally in Maine till after the capture of Helias.
[546] Ord. Vit. 770 A. “Rex … rancore stomachatus ferocior in illos exarsit, et Rodberto ingentem familiam bellatorum suis in municipiis adunare præcepit, et copiosos pecuniæ sumptus erogavit, unde municipia ejus vallis et muris et multiplicibus zetis undique clauderentur et bellicosis larga stipendiariis donativa largirentur.”
[547] Ib. B. “Oppida nova condidit, et antiqua præcipitibus fossis cingens admodum firmavit.”
[548] Ib. “Novem in illo comitatu habuit castra, id est Blevam et Perretum, Montem de Nube et Soonam, Sanctum Remigium de Planis, et Orticosam, Allerias et Motam Galterii de Clincampo, Mamerz, et alias domos firmas quamplurimas.” On “domus firmæ,” see N. C. vol. ii. p. 625.
[549] Ord. Vit. 770 B. “Hæc siquidem regio censu argutus artifex sibi callide præparavit, et in his bestialis sævitiæ colonos vicinisque suis malefidos collocavit, per quos arrogantiæ suæ satisfaceret, et atrocem guerram in Cænomannos exercuit.” Our own chronicler in Stephen’s day goes even beyond Orderic’s rhetoric. The “devils and evil men” outdo even the “bestialis sævitiæ coloni.”
[550] Orderic tells all this out of place, 768 C, D. “Terras quas prisci antecessores sanctis dederant, sibi mancipavit. Is jamdudum in Cænomannico consulatu castra violenter in alieno rure construxit, in possessionibus scilicet sancti Petri de Cultura et sancti Vincentii martyris, quibus colonos graviter oppressit.”
[551] Ib. They fought “in nomine Domini, invocato sancto Juliano pontifice.”
[552] See vol. i. p. 273, and Appendix M.
[553] Ord. Vit. u. s. “Pro quibus Cænomannenses maximas redemptiones habuerunt, et sic injurias sanctorum et damna suorum ulti sunt.”
[554] Ord. Vit. 770 B. “In quadragesima, dum peccatores cælitus compuncti prava relinquunt, et ad medicamentum pœnitentiæ pro transactis sceleribus trepidi confugiunt, in carcere Rodberti plusquam trecenti vinculati perierunt. Qui multam ei pecuniam pro salute sua obtulerunt, sed crudeliter ab eo contempti, fame et algore aliisque miseriis interierunt.”
[555] I infer as much from the somewhat vague words of Orderic, 771 A; “Helias comes hebdomada præcedente rogationes expeditionem super Robertum fecit, et facto discursu post nonam suos remeare præcepit.”
[556] Ord. Vit. u. s. “Illis autem redeuntibus, comes cum septem militibus a turma sua segregatus, prope Dangeolum divertit, ibique in condensis arboribus et frutectis latitantes quosdam advertit, in quos statim cum paucis sodalibus irruit.” So the Biographer (Vet. An. 305); “Dum comes Helias … hostes qui adversus eum venerant incautius sequeretur, ab ipsis, proh dolor! comprehensus est.” Wace, who tells the whole story in the wildest order, and makes the capture of Helias follow the siege of Mayet, preserves (15100) the memory of the ambush;
“Mais Normanz par une envaïe Unt retenu li conte Helie Li conte unt pris è retenu Et el rei l’uat tot sain rendu.”
[557] Ord. Vit. 771 A. “Rodbertus in insidiis ibi latitabat. Qui ut paucos incaute discurrentes vidit, vafer militiæque gnarus ex improviso cum plurimis prosiluit, comitemque mox et Herveum de Monteforti signiferum ejus et pene omnes alios comprehendit.”
The Angevin version (Chron. S. Alb. Andeg. 1098) is somewhat different; “Helias comes Cenomannorum captus est a Rotberto de Belesma, defectione suorum, iv. kal. Maii, feria iv. et redditus Willelmo secundo regi Anglorum.” There is nothing in the fuller story of Orderic to bear out the charge in Italics; but it might be an easy inference from the Count’s small attendance.
[558] Ord. Vit. 776 A. “Prævii exercitus, postquam Balaonem alacres pervenerunt, per eos qui evaserunt captum esse audierunt, subitoque post inanem lætitiam ingenti mœrore pariter inebriati sunt.”
[559] Ord. Vit. 771 B. “Rodbertus deinde regi Heliam Rothomagum præsentavit, quem rex honorifice custodiri præcepit.” I do not think that this is set aside by the words of the Biographer (Vet. An. 305); “Rotomagum usque productus, in arce ipsius civitatis in vincula conjectus est.” For “vincula,” like Orderic’s own “carcer” in 771 B, is a vague kind of word which need not be always taken literally. Orderic adds; “Non enim militibus erat crudelis, sed blandus et dapsilis, jocundus et affabilis.” This, with the proper emphasis on “militibus,” is the very picture of the Red King. Wace however, who is also strong about the fetters, seems to have mistaken it for a character of Helias (15106);
“Li reis à Roem l’envéia E garder le recomenda; En la tour le rova garder Et en bones buies fermer. Helies fu boen chevaliers, Bels fu è genz è bien pleniers,” &c.
He goes on with a speech of Helias to his guardians, which seems to be made out of his speech to the King in Orderic, 773 B.
[560] See below, p. 230, note 2.
[561] Ord. Vit. 771 B. “Felici fortuna rex Guillelmus sibi arridente tripudiavit, et convocatis in unum Normanniæ baronibus, ait, Hactenus de nanciscenda hæreditate paterna negligenter egi, quia pro cupiditate ruris augendi populos vexare vel homines perimere nolui.”
[562] Ord. Vit. 771 B. “Nunc autem, ut videtis, me nesciente, hostis meus captus est, Deoque volente, qui rectitudinem meam novit, mihi traditus est.” Here we get the sentiment of the wager of battle.
[563] 2 Kings x. 9.
[564] Ord. Vit. u.s. “Communi consilio, domine rex, decernimus ut jussione vestra universus Normannorum aggregetur exercitus, cum quo nos omnes ad obtinendam Cænomannorum regionem audacter et alacriter ibimus.”
[565] Ord. Vit. 771 B. “Franci ergo et Burgundiones, Morini et Britones, aliæque vicinæ gentes ad liberalem patricium concurrerunt, et phalanges ejus multipliciter auxerunt.”
[566] Ib. D. “Gilo de Soleio, de nobilissimis Gallorum antiquus heros, de familia Henrici regis Francorum, qui multas viderat et magnas congregationes populorum, in arduo monte stans, turmas armatorum undique prospexit, et quinquaginta millia virorum inibi esse autumavit, nec se unquam citra Alpes tantum insimul exercitum vidisse asseruit.”
[567] Cf. N. C. vol. v. p. 268.
[568] I have quoted Wace’s accurate bit of geography on this head, N. C. vol. ii. p. 291.
[569] Ord. Vit. 771 C. “Mense Junio Guillelmus rex per Alencionem exercitum duxit, multisque millibus stipatus, hostium regionem formidabilis intravit.” Yet, after his dealings with Ralph and the others, we read (ib. D), “Prima regis mansio in terra hostili apud Ruceiam [see below, p. 232] fuit.” This surely means that his head-quarters still remained at Alençon, though he doubtless made raids on the Cenomannian side of the river.
[570] Ib. “Militum vero turmæ regio jussu Fredernaium repente adierunt, et cum oppidanis equitibus militari exercitio ante portas castri aliquantulum certaverunt.”
[571] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 558.
[572] See N. C. vol. ii. pp. 269, 624.
[573] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 652.
[574] Ord. Vit. 771 C. “A sublimitate vestra requiro, domine rex, inducias, donec salvus de Cænomannis redeas. Illic enim præsul et senatorum concio consistit, ibique communis quotidie de statu reipublicæ tractatus et providentia fit. Quidquid ibi pactum fuerit vobiscum nos gratanter subsequemur, et jussionibus vestris in omnibus obsequemur. Hæc idcirco, domine rex, loco majorum natu consilio, quia, si sine bello primus defecero pariumque meorum desertor primus pacem iniero, omni sine dubio generi meo dedecus et improperium generabo. Membra caput subsequi debent, non præcedere; et faceti legitimique vernulæ magis optant obsequi domino quam jubere.” The words here especially the “faceti legitimique vernulæ,” are doubtless Orderic’s; but surely the very strangeness of the proposal is almost enough to show that he is recording a real transaction.
[575] Ib. D. “Hæc et plura similia dicentem rex laudavit, et quæ postulata fuerant annuit.”
[576] Ord. Vit. 771 D. We first heard of Geoffrey as long ago as 1055. See N. C. vol. ii. p. 167.
[577] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 553.
[578] The Biographer (Vet. An. 305) says nothing of the bargain with Ralph and the other lords; but he says that “rex Anglorum, cernens civitatem principis sui præsidio destitutam, quorumdam perfidorum civium assensu illuc accedere properavit.” We need not take “cives” too strictly; and if anything like the commune had been set up again, the lords would be “cives.”
[579] Chron. S. Alb. And. 1098. “Fulco Andegavorum comes, Rechin cognominatus, Cenomanniam urbem ut suam sequenti sabbato recepit.” The date is reckoned from the capture of Helias. So Ord. Vit. 772 A. “Fulco cognomento Richinus, Andegavorum comes, ut Heliam captum audivit, Cænomannis, quia capitalis dominus erat, actutum advenit, et a civibus libenter susceptus, munitiones militibus et fundibulariis munivit.” The local writer (Vet. An. 305) is silent about Fulk’s lordship, but remembers the family connexion between him and Helias; “Quo comperto, Fulco Andegavorum comes protinus cum filio suo Gaufrido, cui filia Heliæ comitis jam desponsata fuerat, in civitatem advenit, et consensu civium in munitionibus civitatis custodiam posuit.” The “consensus civium” sounds like a formal act of the municipal body.
[580] Eremburga, who afterwards married the younger Fulk, seems to have been at an earlier time promised to his half-brother Geoffrey. See Gesta Consulum, Chroniques D’Anjou, i. 143.
[581] Vet. An. 305. “Ibi relicto filio ad alia negotia properavit.”
[582] See above, p. 229, note 1.
[583] Ord. Vit. 771 D. “Sequenti die rex ad Montem Bussoti castra metatus pernoctavit.”
[584] Ib. “Tertia die Colunchis venit, et in pratis Sartæ figi multitudinis tentoria imperavit.”
[585] See above, p. 221.
[586] Vet. An. 305. “Circa Colonias vicum episcopalem cum magno exercitu consedit, ipsumque vicum cum ecclesia quæ ibidem erat igne concremavit, et omnia quæ ibi episcopus habebat crudeliter devastavit. Oderat enim illum … pro eo quod contra calumniam illius episcopatum acceperat.”
[587] See N. C. vol. i. p. 423.
[588] Vet. An. 306. “Cives cum bellico apparatu de civitate egressi, contra ejus exercitum viriliter obsidere conabantur. Rex autem, perfidorum consilio se intelligens deceptum, facto vespere, cum imminentis noctis profundum silentium advenisset, cum exercitu suo clam discessit et castra vacua hostibus dereliquit. Cives autem mane surgentes, cum semetipsos ad pugnam præparare cœpissent, comperto regis abscessu, castra illius invaserunt, et neminem ibi reperientes ad propria reversi sunt.” Orderic (772 A) substitutes a drawn battle by daylight, and mentions the occupation of Ballon; but they both agree in the main fact that Rufus, for whatever cause, withdrew from before Le Mans for a season. Ballon is spoken of as “fortissima mota, per quam totum oppidum adversariis subactum paruit.”
[589] Some of Orderic’s expressions (772 B) are worth notice. “Diuturnam obsidionem tenere nequivit. Nam egestas victus gravis hominibus et equis instabat, quia tempus inter veteres et novas fruges tunc iter agebat. Sextarius avenæ decem solidis Cænomannensium vendebatur, sine qua cornipedum vigor in occidentalibus climatibus vix sustentatur.” Such a straw as this shows how the crusades had made the East and its ways present to men’s minds.
[590] Ord. Vit. ib. “Rex legiones suas relaxavit, et messes suas in horreis recondi præcepit, atque ut post collectionem frugum obsidere hostium castra parati essent, commonuit.”
[591] Ord. Vit. 772 C. “Dum comes et exercitus in tentoriis suis pranderent, et mendici de oppido accepta stipe obsessis renuntiarent quod obsidentes tunc, videlicet circa tertiam, comederent, in armis ordinatæ acies militum subito prosilierunt, et inermes ad mensam residentes ex insperato proturbaverunt, et pluribus captis omnes alios fugaverunt.” He gives the numbers with a few names, and enlarges on their greatness.
[592] Ord. Vit. 772 D. “Jussit omnes protinus absolvi [they are just before called ‘vinculati’], eisque cum suis in curia foris ad manducandum copiose dari, et per fidem suam usque post prandium liberos dimitti. Cumque satellites ejus objicerent quod in tanta populi frequentia facile aufugerent, rex illorum duritiæ obstitit, et pro vinctis eos redarguens dixit, Absit a me ut credam quod probus miles violet fidem suam. Quod si fecerit, omni tempore velut exlex et despicabilis erit.”
[593] Ib. “Fulco comes de obsidione ad urbem confugerat, et in cœnobiis sanctorum exitus rerum exspectabat.”
[594] See Appendix LL.
[595] See Appendix LL.
[596] See N. C. vol. iii. p. 498; vol. iv. p. 73.
[597] Ord. Vit. 773 A. “Milites electos loricis et galeis et omni armatura fulgentes.”
[598] Ib. “Protinus illi, custodibus egressis, cunctas urbis munitiones nacti sunt, et in principali turre vexillum regis cum ingenti tropæo levaverunt. In crastinum rex post illos mille præclaros milites direxit, et pro libitu suo datis legibus totam civitatem possedit. Regia turris et Mons Barbatus atque Mons Barbatulus regi subjiciuntur, et merito, quia a patre ejus condita noscuntur.” In these last words Orderic throws himself fully into the position of Rufus. The Biographer (Vet. An. 306) says; “Rex recepta civitate et positis in munitionibus ejus copiosis virorum, armorum, escarumque præsidiis, in Angliam transfretavit.” This last statement is clearly wrong.
On the fortresses of Le Mans, see Appendix MM.
[599] Ord. Vit. 773 A. “Omnes cives in pace novo principi congratulantur plausibus et cantibus variisque gestibus. Tunc Hildebertus præsul et clerus et omnis plebs obviam regi cum ingenti gaudio processerunt, et psallentes in basilicam sancti Gervasii martyris perduxerunt.” See Appendix LL.
The joy, one would think, was a little conventional, and there is no sign of it in the native writer. Cf. N. C. vol. iii. p. 550.
[600] See N. C. vol. iii. p. 206.
[601] See Appendix NN.
[602] Ord. Vit. 773 D. “Guillelmo Ebroicensium comiti et Gisleberto de Aquila, aliisque probis optimatibus urbem servandam commisit, et regiam turrem armis et cibis et omnibus necessariis opime instructam Galterio Rothomagensi filio Ansgerii commendavit.” Is this Walter the brother of the William of whom we heard above?
[603] Ib. “Radulfus vicecomes et Goisfredus de Meduana, Robertusque Burgundio, aliique totius provinciæ proceres regi confœderati sunt, redditisque munitionibus, datis ab eo legibus solerter obsecundarunt.”
[604] Ord. Vit. 773 B. See Appendix OO.
[605] Ib. “Niger et hispidus.” See above, p. 196.
[606] See Appendix OO.
[607] Ord. Vit. 773 B. “Callidus senex regalibus consiliis et judiciis præerat. Quapropter in prætorio principali parem seu potiorem perpeti metuebat.” See vol. i. pp. 186, 551. “Senex” seems too strong a word.
[608] Ord. Vit. 773 C. “Helias conductum per terram regis ab illo requisivit, quo accepto liber ad sua gaudentibus amicis remeavit.”
[609] Ord. Vit. 766 D. “In ipsa nocte terribile signum mundo manifestatum est. Totum nempe cælum quasi arderet, fere cunctis occidentalibus rubicundum ut sanguis visum est. Tunc, ut postmodum audivimus, in eois partibus Christiani contra ethnicos pugnaverunt, Deoque juvante triumpharunt.”
[610] Ord. Vit. 766 D. “Guillelmus rex in Galliam usque Pontesiam discurrit, incendiis et prædis hominumque capturis, omnium ubertate rerum nobilem provinciam devastavit.”
[611] Ord. Vit. 767 A. “Illustres oppidani propugnacula quidem sua vivaciter protexerunt, sed timoris Dei et humanæ societatis immemores non fuerunt. Insilientium corporibus provide benigniterque pepercerunt, sed atrocitatem iræ suæ pretiosis inimicorum caballis intulerunt. Nam plusquam septingentos ingentis pretii equos sagittis et missilibus occiderunt, ex quorum cadaveribus Gallicani canes et alites usque ad nauseam saturati sunt. Quamplures itaque pedites ad propria cum rege remeant, qui spumantibus equis turgidi equites Eptam pertransierant.”
[612] There is something strange in the casual way in which Orderic (767 A) brings in so mighty an ally; “Guillelmus rex cum Guillelmo duce Pictavensium, ductu Almarici juvenis, et Nivardi de Septoculo, contra Montemfortem et Sparlonem maximam multitudinem duxit, circumjacentem provinciam devastavit.” The bargain between the two Williams, of which this was surely an instalment, comes later, 780 B.
[613] See Will. Malms. v. 439.
[614] Had either William ever done personal homage to Philip? There is no sign of it in the case of William of England.
[615] Ord. Vit. 767 A. See note 1 on p. 250. Who is young Almaric or Amalric? Surely not an unworthy member of the house of Montfort. I have never made my way to Epernon, which gives a title to one of the minions of the last Valois.
[616] It is odd, after the account in Suger, to read in Orderic (766 A), “Ludovicus puerili teneritudine detentus adhuc militare nequibat.” It is just possible that Lewis was not eager to help the kinsfolk of Bertrada.
[617] Ord. Vit. 767 B. “Petrus cum filiis suis Ansoldo et Tedbaldo Mauliam, aliique municipes quos singillatim nequeo nominare, firmitates suas procaciter tenuere.” On the house of Maule and its works, see Ord. Vit. 587 et seqq. Peter is described as “filius Ansoldi divitis Parisiensis.”
[618] Ord. Vit. 767 A. “Simon juvenis munitiones suas auxiliante Deo illæsas servavit. Simon vero senex servavit Neëlfiam.” See the marriage of the younger Simon with Agnes of Evreux, Ord. Vit. 576 C, and his exploits, 836 C. Of him in the fourth generation came our own Simon. But, according to the Art de Vérifier les Dates, “Simon senex” was dead before this time.
[619] See N. C. vol. iii. p. 133.
[620] See note 2 on p. 253.
[621] Ord. Vit. 767 B. “Interea, dum Guillelmus rex pro regni negotiis regrederetur in Angliam, treviis utrobique datis, serena pax Gallis dedit serenitatis lætitiam.”
[622] Orderic (773 D), immediately after recording the submission of the Cenomannian castles, goes on to draw a harrowing picture of the sufferings of England during the King’s absence; how “Rannulfus Flambardus jam Dunelmi episcopus, aliique regis satellites et gastaldi, Angliam spoliabant, et latronibus pejores, agricolarum acervos, ac negotiatorum congeries immisericorditer diripiebant, nec etiam sanguinolentas manus a sacris cohibebant.” He then goes on to describe the special wrongs of the Church, and adds, “Sic immensi census onera per fas perque nefas coacervabant, et regi trans fretum, ut in nefariis seu commodis usibus expenderentur, destinabant. Hujusmodi utique collectionibus grandia regi xenia præsentabantur, quibus extranei pro vana laude ditabantur.” They then cried to God who had raised up Ehud to slay the “rex pinguissimus” Eglon, which sounds rather like a prayer for the coming of Walter Tirel. But the chronology is utterly confused. The time of which Orderic is speaking is the year 1098; yet he makes Flambard already Bishop of Durham, which he was not till 1099, and he makes Anselm withstand all these oppressions and go away because he could not hinder them. But, as we well know, Anselm was already gone in 1097.
Henry of Huntingdon also (vii. 20) notices the special oppression during the continental war. The King “in Normannia fuit, semper hosticis tumultibus et curis armorum deditus, tributis interim et exactionibus pessimis populos Anglorum non abradens sed excorians.”
[623] Chron. Petrib. 1099. “Se cyng Willelm … to Eastron hider to lande com and to Pentecosten forman siðe his hired innan his niwan gebyttlan æt Westmynstre heold.”
[624] See vol. i. p. 557.
[625] Chron. Petrib. 1096. “Ðis wæs swiðe hefigtime gear geond eall Angelcyn ægðer ge þurh mænigfealde gylda, and eac þurh swiðe hefigtymne hunger, þe þisne eard þæs geares swiðe gedrehte.”
[626] This prodigy is put by the Chronicler under two years, 1098 and 1100. Florence and William of Malmesbury (iv. 331) place it under the latter year only. See above, p. 246.
[627] Chron. Petrib. 1098. “Toforan S[~c]e Michaeles mæssan ætywde eo heofon swilce heo forneah ealle þa niht byrnende wære.”
[628] Ib. “Ðis wæs swiðe geswincfull gear þurh manigfealde ungyld and þurh mycele renas, þe ealles geares ne ablunnon forneah ælc tilð on mersclande forferde.”
[629] Chron. Petrib. 1097. “Eac manege sciran þe mid weorce to Lundenne belumpon wurdon þærle gedrehte, þurh þone weall þe hi worhton onbutan þone Tur, et þurh þa brycge þe forneah eall toflotan wæs, and þurh þæs cynges healle geweorc, þe man on Westmynstre worhte and mænige men þær mid gedrehte.” This is connected by Henry of Huntingdon (vii. 19) with the other oppressions of the time and with the departure of Anselm; “Anselmus vero archiepiscopus recessit ab Anglia, quia nihil recti rex pravus in regno suo fieri permittebat, sed provincias intolerabiliter vexabat in tributis quæ numquam cessabant, in opere muri circa turrim Londoniæ, in opere aulæ regalis apud Westminstre, in rapina quam familia sua hostili modo, ubicunque rex pergebat, exercebant.” The other side of the story comes out in William of Malmesbury (iv. 321); “Unum ædificium, et ipsum permaximum, domum in Londonia incepit et perfecit, non parcens expensis dummodo liberalitatis suæ magnificentiam exhiberet.” We see here how the “liberalitas” of the Red King looked in the eyes of those who had to pay for it. But it is hard to understand Sir T. D. Hardy’s note on the passage of William of Malmesbury; he is speaking not of the Tower of London, but of Westminster Hall.
[630] See Livy, i. 56, 59.
[631] See N. C. vol. i. pp. 93, 601.
[632] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 310.
[633] See note on p. 259.
[634] See N. C. vol. iii. pp. 64, 340.
[635] See N. C. vol. i. pp. 306, 317; vol. iii. pp. 66, 540, 640; vol. iv. p. 59.
[636] See N. C. vol. v. p. 600.
[637] Hen. Hunt. vii. 21. “Quam [novam aulam] cum inspecturus primum introisset, cum alii satis magnam vel æquo majorem dicerent, dixit rex eam magnitudinis debitæ dimidia parte carere. Qui sermo regi magno fuit, licet parvi constasset, honori.” This is copied by Robert of Torigny, the Waverly Annalist, Bromton, and most likely others.
[638] Matthew Paris (Hist. Ang. i. 165) copies Henry of Huntingdon with a few touches, and adds, “nec eam esse nisi thalamum ad palatium quod erat facturus.” The foundations of the wall which he designed extended “scilicet a Tamensi usque ad publicam stratam; tanta enim debuit esse longitudo.”
[639] Ann. Wint. 1099. “Rex venit de Normannia, et regis diademate coronatus est apud Londoniam, ubi Edgarus rex Scotiæ gladium coram eo portavit.” The authority is not first-rate; but it is the kind of thing which can hardly have been invented.
[640] The Chronicler (1098) records the deaths of Walkelin, Baldwin, and Turold. Florence (1097, 1098) adds that of Robert, and in one manuscript that of Abbot Reginald of Abingdon, who (Hist. Ab. ii. 42) would seem to have died somewhat earlier, in the year 1097. This prelate is said to have been in the King’s good graces, and to have been employed by him in the pious and charitable distribution from his father’s hoard at the beginning of his reign (see vol. i. p. 17). There is also just before in the local History (ii. 41) a writ of Rufus to Peter Sheriff of Oxfordshire, witnessed by Randolf the chaplain, in which the Sheriff is bidden to let the Abbot and his monks enjoy all that they had T. R. E. and T. R. W., and specially to make good the wrongs done by his reeve Eadwig and others his officers. Here are the reeves again; but this time an English reeve oppresses a Norman abbot.
[641] See vol. i. p. 586.
[642] See N. C. vol. iv. pp. 372-816.
[643] Will. Malmb. Gest. Pont. 172, copied in Ann. Wint. 1098.
[644] William of Malmesbury (u. s., and see N. C. vol. iv. p. 817) marks the change in him. The local annalist who copies him gives Walkelin a warm panegyric; “Erat vir perfectæ pietatis et sanctitatis, immensæque prudentiæ, et tantæ demum abstinentiæ ut nec carnes nec pisces comederet.” (His brother Simeon (Ann. Wint. 1082), afterwards Abbot of Ely (see N. C. vol. iv. pp. 481, 833), had taught the monks to give up flesh.) “Semper secum monachos habebat … non enim minus conventum suum diligebat quam si omnes dii essent.” This somewhat pagan way of talking has its contradictory in the words of Hugh of Nonant, Bishop of Coventry (Ric. Div. § 85); “Ego clericos meos deos nomino, monachos dæmonia.”
[645] The well-known trick by which Walkelin cut down the king’s wood at Hempage is recorded in Ann. Wint. 1086. Cf. Willis, Winchester, 17.
[646] Ann. Wint. 1093. See Willis, Winchester, 6, 17.
[647] Ann. Wint. 1097. “Hoc anno transfretavit rex, et regnum Walkelino et Radulfo Passeflabere commisit.”
[648] The exact date comes from Ann. Wint. 1098. He dies ten days after his receipt of the king’s message, which comes “die natalis Domini post inceptum missarum officium.”
[649] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 456.
[650] See vol. i. p. 355. I there carelessly followed the date, 1093, given in the Monasticon, ii. 431, as the year of the death of Robert of New Minster. It must be a misprint or miswriting for 1098.
[651] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 407.
[652] On this early hero, son of King Anna of East-Anglia, whose name has gone through endless corruptions, see Liebermann’s note (Ungedruckte Anglo-Normannische Geschichtsquellen, p. 277) to Heremann’s Miracles of Saint Eadmund. William of Malmesbury (Gest. Pont. 156) writes him “Germinus,” and not unnaturally says that he knows very little about him, save that he was brother of Saint Æthelthryth. His editor turns him into Saint German of Auxerre; he then wonders that William should know so little of Saint German of whom he had found a good deal to say elsewhere, but he does not himself seem the least surprised to hear Saint German spoken of as brother of Saint Æthelthryth.
[653] This and the following stories come from the work of Heremann just mentioned (Dr. Liebermann’s collection contains also the Annals of Saint Eadmund’s). This story of Osgod comes at p. 242. He enters the church, “armillas bajulans in brachiis ambobus superbe [see N. C. vol. iv. p. 288], Danico more deaurata securi in humero dependente;” and presently, “non sincere conatur securim a collo deponere, vel se arroganter super eam appodiare.” On the way of carrying the axe, see N. C. vol. iii. p. 767.
[654] Liebermann, 248 et seqq. Herfast is described as “duarum Eastengle vicecomitatuum episcopus.” A branch runs into his eye as he is riding through a wood. A document is referred to which is witnessed by Hugh of Montfort, Roger Rigod, Richard of Tunbridge, “et cum eis Lincoliensis Turoldus simul et Hispaniensis Alveredus.” Liebermann finds this Turold in the Norfolk Domesday, 172; but as he is “Lincoliensis,” we should rather look for him in the company discussed in N. C. vol. iii. p. 778; only Ælfred of Spain (see N. C. vol. v. pp. 737, 777) is not Ælfred of Lincoln.
[655] See N. C. vol. i. p. 366.
[656] Liebermann, 265. “Natione Normannicus cum rege Willelmo priore quidam fuerat aulicus, Rannulfus quidem nomine, ceu tunc moris erat, militari perversus in opere.” This cannot mean Randolf the chaplain. In his vision, “somniat quod equitans fugam ineat, et sanctus martyr eques insequutor fiat ejus armatus.”
[657] Ib. 268. “Robertus de Curzun” is in Domesday R. de Curcun or Curcon. He appears several times in Domesday in both the East-Anglian shires (175 b, 181 b, 187, 299 b, 331 b, 336), always as an under-tenant, and commonly under Roger Bigod.
[658] The date is given (Liebermann, 274) as 1094, and the King presently crosses the sea; this fixes it to the assembly at Hastings. Baldwin has finished the eastern part of his church (“ad unguem perduxerat suæ novæ et inceptæ ecclesiæ presbiterii opus, multifariam compositum modis omnibus, quale decuit esse regium decus”). The King first grants leave for both ceremonies; then “regia voluntas alterata prædicto patri Baldwino mandat in hæc verba; translationem sancti martyris se concedere, dedicationem vero minime fieri debere.”
[659] Compare the story of Saint Olaf, above, p. 139. Flambard here appears in a marked way as “Rannulfus capellanus,” “capellanus;” see Appendix S.
[660] “Omnia Romæ venalia,” says Heremann (Liebermann, 251); but the story is rather of an attempt of Bishop Herfast to bribe the Conqueror.
[661] Florence at least (1097) sends him out of the world with very kindly feelings; “Eximiæ vir religionis, monasterii S. Eadmundi abbas Baldwinus, natione Gallus, artis medicinæ bene peritus, iv. kal. Jan. feria iii. in bona senectute decessit.” He uses the same formula of Earl Leofric forty years earlier. Several English names occur in Heremann’s story; among them (Liebermann, 259) “domnus Eadricus præpositus et cum eo presbyter Siwardus,” who are spoken of in connexion with the Abbot’s journey to Rome.
[662] Chron. Petrib. 1099. “Se cyng Willelm … to Pentecosten forman siðe his hired innan his nywan gebyttlan æt Westmynstre heold, and þær Rannulfe his capellane þæt biscoprice on Dunholme geaf, þe æror ealle his gemót ofer eall Engleland draf and bewiste.” See vol. i. p. 333.
[663] The date, place, and consecrator are given by his biographer in Ang. Sac. i. 707, who adds that it was done “sine ulla exactione professionis, sicut et Willelmus quondam prædecessor illius.”
[664] William of Malmesbury (Gest. Pont. 274), after describing Flambard’s former doings, adds emphatically; “Quibus artibus fretus, episcopatum Dunelmensem meruit.” But he scratched out what he at first went on to say――“meruit ut sanctius ingrederetur, datis mille libris.” One would have looked for a larger sum.
[665] See N. C. vol. v. p. 631. But it would seem from the words of the biographer (X Scriptt. 62; Ang. Sac. ii. 709) that the work was not quite finished till after his death; “Eo tempore [in the five years’ vacancy that followed] navis ecclesiæ Dunelmensis monachis operi instantibus peracta est.” This can hardly mean the vault, which seems later still. The biographer also describes his other local works, specially how “urbem hanc, licet natura munierit, muro ipse reddidit fortiorem et augustiorem.” William of Malmesbury (Gest. Pont. 274) records new buildings for the monks among his better deeds.
[666] The biographer (u. s.) says, “Condidit castellum in excelso præruptæ rupis super Twedam flumen, ut inde latronum incursus inhiberet et Scotorum irruptiones. Ibi enim, utpote in confinio regni Anglorum et Scotorum, creber prædantibus ante patebat incursus, nullo ibidem quo hujusmodi impetus repelleretur præsidio locato.” From Simeon’s Gesta Regum we find that the place was Norham and the date 1121. The words in Italics should be noticed. By the time of this writer the older position of Lothian was beginning to be forgotten; it had passed to Northumberland. The building of the castle suggests to the biographer a remark on Flambard’s character; “Taliter impulsu quodam impatiente otii de opere transibat ad opus, nil reputans factum, nisi factis nova jam facienda succederent.”
[667] “Jura libertatis episcopii secundum vires contra extraneos defendebat,” says the biographer.
[668] “Inerat ei episcopo magnanimitas quam quondam procurator regni contraxit ex potentia, ut in conventu procerum vel primus vel cum primis semper contenderet esse, et inter honorificos honoris locum magnificentius obtineret. Vastiori semper clamore vultuque minaci magis simulare quam exhibere.” In all this the servant is very like his master.
[669] According to William of Malmesbury (Gest. Pont. 274), he first behaved well for fear of Saint Cuthberht, but finding that some smaller misdeeds went unpunished, he presently ventured on greater. But in the existing text he mentions only that Flambard dragged criminals out of sanctuary, “ausus scelus omnibus retro annis inauditum.” William had written, but he found it expedient to strike out, how the Bishop not only set forbidden food before his monks, but, “ut magis religionem irritaret, puellas speciosissimas quæ essent procatioris formæ et faciei eis propinare juberet, strictis ad corpus vestibus, solutis in terga crinibus.”
[670] The details of a very penitent end are given by the biographer. Among other confessions of sin, the Bishop says. “plus volui illis nocere quam potui”――the complaint of the Confessor. The persons who were to be hurt seem to be the monks and men of the church of Durham.
[671] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 544.
[672] Vet. An. 306. “Quasi taurus in latebris silvarum.”
[673] Ib. “Helias apud castrum Lid et in castris circumpositis morabatur, atque vires suas … ad nova certamina, in quantum poterat, reparabat, castella sua vallo atque fossa muniendo, et sibi vicinorum amicitias atque auxilia consciscendo.” So Orderic, 773 C; “Quinque oppida sua cum adjacentibus vicis instruxit, sollicita procuratione damna supplevit, propriisque negotiis sedulus institit. Ab Augusto usque ad pascha in pace siluit. Interim tamen quasi specimine nisus suos hostibus ostenderet, callide cogitavit, et multotiens cum fidis affinibus tractavit.”
The five castles may be Château-du-Loir, Lude (Lit), Mayet, Outille, and Vaux. La Flèche is perhaps taken for granted. All these, except Lude, are mentioned as we go on.
[674] Ord. Vit. 774 C. “Sequenti anno Helias post pascha iterare guerram cœpit, et clam consentientibus indigenis, depopulari confinia et militiam regis lacessere sategit.”
[675] Ib. “Mense Junio cum insigni multitudine militum venit.” Vet. An. 307. “Sequenti æstate magno vicinorum atque amicorum exercitu congregato.”
[676] Of the two bridges side by side, the elder is useless, two arches having been broken down by the Vendeans in 1793. But there has been fighting not far off in still later times.
[677] Ord. Vit. 774 C. “Venit ad Planchias Godefredi, vadum Egueniæ fluminis pertransivit, regiosque pugiles qui urbem custodiebant ad conflictum lacessiit.” Vet An. 307. “Non longe a civitate improvisus advenit; cui milites regis simul cum populo usque ad Pontem Leugæ hostiliter occurrentes quum ejus impetum sustinere non possent in fugam conversi sunt. Ille vero amne transmisso, eos viriliter insecutus,” &c. These two accounts seem to place the fighting on different sides of the river. I incline to Orderic’s version on this ground. A version which carries men across by a ford is always to be preferred to one which carries them across by a bridge, as likely to preserve the older tradition. The bridge may always have been built between the time of the event and the time of the writer, and he may easily be led to speak as if it had been there at the earlier time. Orderic himself speaks of the bridge in 775 B.
[678] Ord. Vit. 774 C. “Audaces Normanni foras proruperunt, diuque dimicaverunt, sed numerosa hostium virtute prævalente in urbem repulsi sunt. Tunc etiam hostes cum eisdem ingressi sunt, quia eorum violentia coerciti municipes portas claudere nequiverunt; sed per urbem fugientes vix in arcem aliasque munitiones introire potuerunt.” Vet. An. 307. “Ille [Helias] cum suo exercitu civitatem nullo prohibente audacter ingressus, eos qui in munitionibus erant repentina obsidione conclusit.”
[679] Ord. Vit. 774 C. “Cives Heliam multum diligebant, ideoque dominatum ejus magis quam Normannorum affectabant…. Porro Helias a gaudentibus urbanis civitate susceptus est.” Wace (14884) strongly brings out the general zeal for Helias, though he has his own explanation for it;
“Cil del Mans od li se teneient, D’avancier li s’entremetteient, E li homes de la loée Esteient tuit à sa criée. E li baron de la cuntrée Orent por li mainte medlée; Mult le preisoent et amoent, Et à seignor le desiroent, Com costumes est de plusors, Ki conveitent novels seignors. Par espeir des veisins chastels E par consence des Mansels, Helies el Mans s’embati, E cil del Mans l’unt recoilli.”
Helias however was not a new lord, a fact which Wace’s confused order puts out of sight. On the somewhat different tone of the Biographer of the Bishops, see Appendix KK.
[680] Ord. Vit. u. s. “Municipes qui munimenta regis servabant omnibus necessariis pleniter abundabant, et idcirco usque ad mortem pro domini sui fidelitate prœliari satagebant.”
[681] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 266.
[682] Ord. Vit. 774 D. “Galterius Ansgerii filius custos arcis jussit fabris quos secum habebat operari, scoriam quoque candentem super tecta domorum a balistariis impetuose jactari. Tunc rutilus Titan sublimes Geminos peragrabat, et ingenti siccitate mundus arebat, flammeusque turbo imbricibus aularum insidebat. Sic nimius ignis accensus est, quo nimium prævalente tota civitas combusta est.” Vet. An. 307. “Illi qui erant in arce, facto vespere ignem maximum incendentes, in subjectas domos ardentes faculas summa instantia jactare cœperunt. Ignis vero flante Euro convalescens totam civitatem cum magna parte suburbiorum consumpsit.” For Bishop Hildebert’s view of the matter, see Appendix KK.
[683] Vet. An. 307. “Quo incendio populus stupefactus atque in mœstitiam conversus non satis fidum comiti præstabat auxilium.”
[684] The work of destruction which has been done in modern times at Paris and Rouen seems a trifle compared to the merciless havoc wrought at Le Mans. It amounts almost to a physical destruction of the city. The hill has been cut through to make a road from the modern part of the town to the river. This has involved breaking through the Roman walls, cutting through the Vielle Rome and the other ancient streets, sweeping away the finest of the Romanesque houses, dividing in short the hill and the ancient city into two parts severed by a yawning gap. The mediæval wall has further been broken down and made into a picturesque ruin. When I was first at Le Mans in 1868, the city was still untouched; in 1876 the havoc was doing; by 1879 it was done. Some conceited mayor or prefect doubtless looks on all this brutal destruction as a noble exploit.
[685] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 267.
[686] Vet. An. 307. “Comes contra munitiones machinas atque tormenta ad jactandos lapides erigens, eos qui intus erant summo conamine expugnare nitebatur. At illi contra machinas ejus machinas facientes, omnia ejus molimina frustrabant.” Ord. Vit. 774 D. “Helias et sui frustra machinis et assultibus valde laboraverunt; sed contra inexpugnabiles munitiones nihil prævaluerunt.” So Wace, 14898;
“Li Mans li unt abandoné, Tot, forz la tor de la cité. La tor se tint, Mansels l’asistrent, Tot environ li borc porpristrent.”
[687] Ord. Vit. 774 D. “Rodbertus Belesmensis Balaonem munivit.”
[688] Ord. Vit. 774 D. “Cursorem suum Amalchisum confestim ad regem in Angliam direxit.” We do not get the name anywhere else. Wace (14902) well brings out the opposition of “Normanz” and “Mansels;”
“Normanz ki la tor desfendirent Quant la force des Mancels virent, En Engleterre unt envéié, De secors unt li reis préié, L’adventure li unt mandée, E des Mansels la trestornée.”
[689] See Appendix PP. It is Normant and Mansels in the new edition of Andresen, 9803.
[690] See Appendix PP.
[691] Ord. Vit. 775 A. “Ibi, ut moris est in æstate, plures utriusque ordinis adstabant, et visa rate de Anglia velificante, ut aliquid novi ediscerent, alacres exspectabant.”
[692] Ib. “In primis de rege sciscitantibus ipse certus de se adfuit nuntius.” So in Greek, αὐτὸς ἄγγελος [autys angelos].
[693] Ib. B. “Et quia ex insperato respondit ridens, percunctantibus admiratio exorta est, mox et lætitia omnibus.”
[694] Ib. “Deinde cujusdam presbyteri equa vectus, cum magno cœtu clericorum et rusticorum qui pedites eum cum ingenti plausu conducebant, Bonamvillam expetiit.”
[695] See N. C. vol. iii. pp. 241, 696. As commonly happens with so-called local tradition, a tower not earlier than the thirteenth century is shown as the place of Harold’s lodging, while in another tower the wide splay of a narrow window is shown as the strait prison-house of Robert of Bellême.
[696] Ord. Vit. 775 B. “Tandem directis legationibus ingentem exercitum in brevi aggregavit, et hostilem provinciam depopulatum festinavit.”
[697] Ib. “Agmen hostium cum Helia duce suo, statim ut regem citra fretum venisse comperit, absque procrastinatione fugiens invasam urbem multo pejorem quam invenerat deseruit.” The turn in the Biographer (Vet. An. 307) is somewhat different; “Cernens quia nihil proficeret, et quod ejus paulatim dilaberetur exercitus, regisque timore perterritus, qui cum maximo exercitu suis properabat succurrere, propriæ saluti consulens, relicta obsidione repente a civitate discessit.” In Orderic Helias might be thought to be carried away by the flight of his followers; in the Biographer he almost seems to forsake them.
[698] Ord. Vit. 775 C. “Tunc Helias cum ingenti militia castro Ligeri morabatur, seseque ad meliora tempora reservans, exitum rei præstolabatur.”
[699] Vet. An. 307. “Quo comperto, quatenus timor simul ac stupor animos civium invaserit, et quanta populi multitudo cum mulieribus et parvulis relictis omnibus quæ habebant eum secuta sit … miserum est audire.”
[700] Ord. Vit. 775 B. “Animosus rex, hostium audito recessu, pedetentim eos sectatus est, et Cænomannis nec una nocte eum hospitari dignatus est. Verum concrematam urbem pertransiens vidit, et ultra pontem Egueniæ in epitimio spatioso tentoria figi præcepit.” This strange word “epitimium” must be the same as that which he uses in 659 B, where the site of the great battle is placed “in epitumo Senlac.” I there took it to mean a hill, and I gave Orderic credit for knowing that Senlac was a hill; but I fear that I must withdraw that praise, as here the word can only mean a plain. See Ducange in Epitumum. It must be from this word that some local blunderer first drew the notion, which I have seen repeated since I wrote my third volume, that Senlac was once called Epiton.
[701] Ib. This was done, “ne malivoli prædones … domata ubi ad capessendam quietem strata sibi coaptarent.” Orderic adds, “sic profecto Valles et Ostilliacum consumpta sunt, aliaque quamplurima oppida et rura penitus pessumdata sunt.” Helias, after all, was not Harold.
[702] Ord. Vit. 775 B. “Robertus de Monteforti princeps militiæ cum quingentis militibus agmina præcessit, incendium castri de Vallibus extinxit, munitionemque ad opus regis confirmavit.”
[703] On the site of Mayet, and the versions of the siege, see Appendix QQ. Wace brings it in thus; I quote the text of Andresen, 9929 (15026 of Pluchet);
“Li quens Helies s’en parti, Al chastel del Leir reverti. Donc ueissiez guerre esmoueir Del Mans e del chastel del Leir E de Maiet, un chastelet, Ou Mansel orent pris recet. Tresqu’al borc que l’endit la Fesse Fu la guerre forte e espesse.”
[704] Ord. Vit. 775 C. “Feria vi. rex Maiatum obsedit, et in crastinum expugnare castrum exercitui jussit.”
[705] Ib. “Sabbato, dum bellatores certatim armarentur, et acrem assultum castrensibus dare molirentur.”
[706] See N. C. vol. ii. p. 243.
[707] Ord. Vit. 775 C. “Rex consultu sapientum [mid his witena geþeaht] Deo gloriam dedit, et pro reverentia Dominicæ sepulturæ et resurrectionis hostibus pepercit, eisque trevias usque in Lunæ diem annuit.”
[708] Ib. “Erant viri constantes dominoque suo fideles, ideoque pertinaciter pro illo usque ad mortem pugnaces, et exemplo probabilis probitatis prædicabiles.”
[709] Ord. Vit. 775 C. “Interea ipsi castrum interius toto annisu munierunt, et in assultum virgeas crates ictibus missilium lapidumque opposuerunt.”
[710] Wace, 15038;
“Maiet ert bien clos de fossé Tot environ parfont è lé; Li reis ros por mielx assaillir Volt li fossé d’atrait emplir.”
Robert of Bellême then counsels him;
“Cil dist el rei k’atrait falleit, E ke attait querre estueit, Jà li chastel nel cunquerreit, Se li fossé d’atrait n’empleit.”
The King gives his orders;
“E li reis li dist, en gabant, Ke à chescun chevalier mant Roncin, mule, ou palefrei, Ne pot aveir altre charrei, Trestuit quant k’il porra baillier, E fossé fasse tresbuchier.”
[711] Ib.
“Robert s’en torna sorriant, Et à plusors de l’ost gabant Ke li reis aveit comandé Ke l’en getast tot el fossé, Kank’as servanz veindreit as mains, Tuit li chevals è li vilains.”
[712] Froissart, i. 152. ed. 1559. “Quand le roy de France veit les Génevois retourner, il dit, Or tost tuez ceste ribaudaille; car ils nous empescheront la voye sans raison.” Compare also the language of Bayard about the German roturiers quoted in vol. i. p. 173.
[713] Wace, 15066;
“Par tels semblanz è par tels diz Fu li pople tot estormiz. Del siège s’en torment fuiant, E plusors vunt par gap criant: Filz a putains, fuiez, fuiez, Toz estes morz s’un poi targiez; Se ci poez estre entrepris, Jà sereiz tut el fossé mis.”
[714] Ord. Vit. 775 D. “Cum forinseci pugnatores admodum insudarent, ut ingenti strue lignorum cingentem fossam implerent, viamque sibi usque ad palum pluribus sustentamentis magnopere substratis publice præpararent, oppidani flascas prunis ardentibus plenas desuper demittebant, et congestiones rerum quæ ad sui damnum accumulatæ fuerant, adminiculante sibi æstivo caumate prorsus concremabant.” What was the exact form of the “flascæ”?
[715] Ord. Vit. 775 D. “Hujusmodi conflictu feria ii. mutuo vexabantur, et hæc videns rex nimis anxiabatur.”
[716] Ib. “Porro dum ira et dolore torqueretur quod omnes ibidem conatus illius cassarentur, quidam ad illum de sublimi zeta lapidem projecit, nutu Dei non illum sed adstantis athletæ caput immaniter percussit, et ossa cerebro non parcente ictu commiscuit.”
[717] Ib. “Illo itaque coram rege miserabiliter occumbente, subsannatio castrensium continuo facta est, cum alto et horribili clamore: ‘Ecce rex modo recentes habet carnes; deferantur ad coquinam, ut ei exhibeantur ad cœnam.’”
[718] Ib. 776 A. “Prudentes enim consiliarii provide considerabant quod in munitione validissima magnanimi pugiles resistebant, munitique firmis conclavibus contra detectos multiplicibus modis facile prævalebant.” This argument, one would think, might have been brought against every military undertaking of the time.
[719] Ord. Vit. 776 A. “Alio ulciscendi genere inimicus puniret, et sic suæ genti sospitatem et hostium dejectionem callide procuraret.”
[720] Ib. “Mane celeres surrexerunt, ac diversis ad desolationem hostilis patriæ ferramentis usi sunt. Vineas enim exstirpaverunt, fructiferas arbores succiderunt, macerias et parietes dejecerunt, totamque regionem, quæ uberrima erat, igne et ferro desolaverunt.”
[721] Vet. An. 307. “Hi qui in civitate remanserant quam crudeliter et quam inhumane ab hostibus sint oppressi, et miserum est audire et nimis tædiosæ prolixitatis exponere.”
[722] Ord. Vit. 776 A. “Rex Cenomannis triumphans accessit.”
[723] Vet. An. 307. “Nisi regis liberalitas prædonum sævientium rapacitatem compesceret, diebus illis pro certo civitas nostra ad extremum pervenisset excidium.”
[724] This appears from the account of Hildebert’s troubles somewhat later (Vet. An. 309); first among which comes “clericorum quos violentia regis ab urbe eliminaverat dispersio mœstissima.”
[725] Ord. Vit. 776 A. “Multarum tribubus provinciarum licentiam remeandi ad sua donavit.”
[726] Vet. An. 307. “Denique rex civitate pro suo potitus arbitrio, et positis in ea custodiis, iterum in Angliam reversus est.” Our own Chronicler (1099) sums up the whole campaign; “And sona þæræfter [after Pentecost] ofer sǽ fór, and þone eorl Elias of þære Manige adraf, and bi syððan on his gewealde gesætte, and swa to S[~c]e Michaeles mæssan aft hider to lande com.”
[727] See above, p. 234.
[728] Ord. Vit. 775 B. “Ildebertus pontifex in Normannia regem humiliter aggressus est, et ab eo ut familiaris amicus benigniter susceptus est. Non enim consilio neque præsentia sui prædictis perturbationibus interfuerat.”
[729] An. Vet. 308. “Quidam ex clericis a principio promotioni præsulis invidentes, et dolos tota die contra eum meditantes, illum apud regem graviter accusabant, nuntiantes eum conscium fuisse proditionis quando Helias comes consentientibus civibus civitatem occupavit et milites regis in munitionibus obsedit. Unde eum rex suspectum habens, et contra eum semper occasiones quærens, instanter atque pertinaciter ab eo exigebat ut aut turres ecclesiæ, unde sibi damnum illatum fuisse querebatur, dirui præciperet, aut post ipsum remota omni occasione in Angliam transfretaret.”
[730] Ann. Vet. 308. “Qui licet invitus, regis tamen urgente imperio, vellet nollet, maris pericula subire coactus est.” He is himself (Duchèsne, iv. 248) specially eloquent on this head; “Quia turres ecclesiæ nostræ dejicere nolumus, transmarinis subjiciendi judiciis, coacti sumus injurias pelagi sustinere, singularem scilicet molestiam itineris atque unicam totius humanæ compaginis dissolutionem.”
[731] Vet. An. 308. “Ibique eum rex iterum stimulantibus æmulis de turrium destructione cœpit vehementer urgere, eique ob hanc causam intolerabilem inferre molestiam.”
[732] Ib. “Obtulit pontifici maximum pondus auri et argenti, unde sepulcrum beati Juliani honorifice, immo ad ignominiam sempiternam, fieri potuisset. Nam talis instabat conditio ut statim turres ecclesiæ delerentur.” He calls this a “pactio toxicata.”
[733] Ib. “Nos caremus in partibus nostris artificibus qui tantum opus congrue noverint operari; exhinc regiæ congruit dispositioni tam diligens opera et impensa, in cujus regno et mirabiles refulgent artifices et mirabilem operantur cælaturam.” See N. C. vol. iv. pp. 41, 85, 86, 93.
[734] Ib. “Detulit plane duo pretiosa cimbala, et optimam cappam de pallio et duas pelves argenteas cum aliis ornamentis.”
[735] See Appendix RR.
[736] See Appendix RR.
[737] See vol. i. p. 566.
[738] See vol. i. p. 622.
[739] The true text of the Annales Cambriæ, 1099, is clearly that which the editor thrusts into a note; “Cadugaun filius Bledin de Hibernia rediens, pacificatus est cum Francis et partem regni sui accepit. Lewelin filius Cadugaun ab hominibus de Brecheiniauc occiditur. Grifud filius Kenan Moniam obsedit.”
The Brut might imply a peaceful settlement of Gruffydd.
[740] Ann. Camb. 1099.
[741] See above, p. 146.
[742] Chron. Petrib. 1099. “Ðises geares eac on S[~c]e Martines Mæssedæg, asprang up to þan swiðe sæ flod, and swa mycel to hearme gedyde swa nan man ne gemunet, þæt hit æfre æror dyde and wæs þæs ylcan dæges luna prima.” This is translated in the Roman annals in Liebermann, p. 47.
[743] Chron. Petrib. 1099. “And Osmund biscop of Searbyrig innon aduent forðferde.” Florence gives the exact date, December 3.
[744] There is nothing special to note as to the authorities for this chapter. Our main story still comes from the same sources from which it has long come. Possibly the importance of Orderic, long growing, grows yet greater at the very end of our tale. And we still make a certain use of Wace. The story of the death of William Rufus is one of those in which it is desirable to look in all manner of quarters to which we should not commonly think of turning, not so much in search of facts, as to see how such a story impressed men’s minds, and what forms it took in various hands.
[745] See the entry in the Chronicle, 1087.
[746] See Plutarch, Periklês, 8.
[747] See N. C. vol. iii. p. 161.
[748] Ord. Vit. 781 D. We shall come to this again.
[749] Ann. Burton, 1100.
[750] The three assemblies are recorded in the Chronicle in a marked way; “On þison geare se cyng W. heold his hired to X[~p]es mæssa on Gleaweceastre, and to Eastron on Winceastre, and to Pentecosten on Westmynstre.”
[751] See vol. i. p. 623.
[752] The portrait of Sibyl is drawn by William of Malmesbury, iv. 389, where she appears as “Filia Willelmi de Conversana, quam rediens in Apuliam duxerat, cujus elegantissimæ speciei prodigium vix ullius disertitudinis explicabit conatus.” So Orderic, 780 A; “Hæc nimirum bonis moribus floruit, et multis honestatibus compta, his qui noverant illam amabilis extitit.” The continuator of William of Jumièges (viii. 14) goes further; “Fuit vero prædicta comitissa pulcra facie, honesta moribus, sapientia præclara, et aliquando absente duce ipsa melius per se negotia provinciæ, tam privata quam publica, disponebat, quam ipse faceret si adesset.” Wace (15422) calls her Sebire, and speaks only of her personal beauty. She was the mother of William Clito who plays so conspicuous a part in Henry’s reign. According to William of Malmesbury she died at his birth in 1103, but Orderic (810 A) tells a strange story how she was poisoned by Agnes the widow of the old Earl Walter Giffard, who hoped to marry the Duke. The more general statement in the continuation of William of Jumièges is to the same effect.
[753] Will. Malms, iv. 389. “Pecuniam infinitam, quam ei socer dotis nomine annumeraverat, ut ejus commercio Normanniam exueret vadimonio, ita dilapidavit ut pauculis diebus nec nummus superesset.”
[754] All these stories are told by William of Malmesbury, v. 439.
[755] Orderic (780 B) allows only thirty thousand. In William of Malmesbury (iv. 349, 383) they have grown into sixty thousand. Figures of this kind, whether greater or smaller, are always multiples of one another.
[756] Ord. Vit. 780 B. “Is nimirum decrevit Guillelmo Ruffo, regi Anglorum, Aquitaniæ ducatum, totamque terram suam invadiare, censumque copiosum abundanter ab illius ærario haurire, unde nobiliter expleret iter, quod cupiebat inire. Eloquentes itaque legatos ad regem direxit eique quod mente volvebat per eosdem insinuavit.”
[757] Orderic (780 C) describes the ambition of the “pomposus sceptriger” whose yearning for dominion was like the thirst of a dropsical man, and then tells us, “Maximam jussit classem præparari, et ingentem equitatum de Anglia secum comitari, ut pelago transfretato, in armis ceu leo supra prædam præsto consisteret, fratrem ab introitu Neustriæ bello abigeret. Aquitaniæ ducatum pluribus argenti massis emeret, et, obstantibus sibi bello subactis, usque ad Garumnam fluvium imperii sui fines dilataret.”
[758] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 539.
[759] I have quoted the passages in N. C. vol. v. p. 99.
[760] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 640.
[761] See N. C. vol. iv. pp. 609, 650, 843.
[762] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 843. Orderic’s account (780 C) is; “Tunc circa rogationes lugubris eventus in Nova-foresta contigit. Dum regii milites venatu exercerentur, et damulas vel cervos catapultis sauciare molirentur, quidam miles sagittam, ut agrestem feram vulneraret, emisit, egregiumque juvenem Ricardum Rodberti ducis filium casu percussit.”
[763] Orderic goes on to say, “Eques, infortunio gravi territus, ad sanctum Pancratium statim confugit, ibique mox monachus factus genuinam ultionem ita evasit.” “Sanctus Pancratius” means Lewes, the foundation of William of Warren.
[764] So says Orderic, u. s.
[765] See above, p. 5.
[766] Florence (1100) gives a long list of wonders. Among others, “Multis Normannis diabolus in horribili specie se frequenter in silvis ostendens, plura cum eis de rege et Rannulfo et quibusdam aliis locutus est.” Orderic (781 B) does not draw this national distinction, and speaks of visions in holier places; “Mense Julio (1100), dum regia classis regalis pompæ apparatu instrueretur, et ipse pervicaciter, immensa pretiosi metalli pondera undecunque congerens, prope fretum præstolaretur, horrendæ visiones de rege in cœnobiis et episcopiis ab utrisque ordinibus visæ sunt, unde in populis publicæ collocutiones in foris et cœmeteriis passim divulgatæ sunt, ipsum quoque regem minime latuerunt.”
[767] See that strangest of all stories which I have referred to in Appendix G.
[768] The consecration and the bishops who had a hand in it are recorded by Florence, 1100. But he does not mention the other Gloucester stories; these come from Orderic, who does not mention the consecration. The two accounts thus fit in to one another. We see why the monks of Gloucester should be in a special fit of exalted devotion.
[769] Ord. Vit. 781 B, C. The dreamer was “quidam monachus bonæ famæ, sed melioris vitæ.” He at last understands “sanctæ virginis et matris ecclesiæ clamores pervenisse ad aures Domini, pro rapinis et turpibus mœchiis, aliorumque facinorum sarcina intolerabili, quibus rex et pedissequi ejus non desistunt divinam legem quotidie transgredi.”
[770] Ib. “His auditis, venerandus Serlo abbas commonitorios apices edidit, et amicabiliter de Gloucestra regi direxit, in quibus illa quæ monachus in visu didicerat luculenter inseruit.” This letter of Serlo’s will appear under various shapes.
[771] Ib. C, D.
[772] “Fulcheredus, Sagiensis fervens monachus, Scrobesburiensis archimandrita primus, in divinis tractatibus explanator profluus, de grege seniorum electus, in pulpitum ascendit.”
[773] “Quasi prophetico spiritu plenus, inter cætera constanter vaticinatus dixit.”
[774] “Effrenis enim superbia ubique volitat, et omnia, si dici fas est, etiam stellas cæli conculcat.”
[775] See above, p. 310.
[776] “Ecce arcus superni furoris contra reprobos intensus est, et sagitta velox ad vulnerandum de pharetra extracta est. Repente jam feriet, seseque corrigendo sapiens omnis ictum declinet.” I tell the tale as I find it; it is easy to guess that the Abbot’s preaching put it into some one’s head to shoot the King; it is equally easy to guess that the story of the sermon is a legend suggested by the fact that the King was shot.
[777] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 498.
[778] On these various stories of the death of Rufus and of the warnings which went before it, see Appendix SS.
[779] See N. C. vol. i. p. 276.
[780] As to the New Forest all accounts agree. I get Brockenhurst as the immediate spot from Geoffrey Gaimar, Chroniques Anglo-Normandes, i. 51;
“Li rois estoit alé chacer Vers Bukerst od li archer: C’est en la Noeve-Forest Un liu qi ad non Brokeherst.”
For Bukerst in the second line another MS. has Brokehest.
[781] See above, p. 45.
[782] See below, p. 345.
[783] See Appendix SS.
[784] See vol. i. p. 380.
[785] See Appendix SS.
[786] Geoffrey Gaimar (Chroniques Anglo-Normandes, i. 52);
“Ensemble vout amdiu parlant, De meinte chose esbanoiant, Tant qe Wauter prist à gaber Et par engin au roi parler; Demanda lui en riant A quei il sojournoit tant.”
[787] Geoffrey Gaimar, Chron. Anglo-Norm. i. 52;
“Breton, Mansel et Angevin.”
[788] See vol. i. p. 411.
[789] Geoffrey Gaimar, u. s.;
“Cil de Boloine te tienent roi. Eustace, cil de Boloigne, Poez mener en ta besoigne.”
Another manuscript reads,
“Cil de Burgoine te unt pur roi.”
[790] Ib.
“D’ici q’as monz merrai ma guet, En occident puis m’en irrai, A Peiters ma feste tendrai. Si jo tant vif, mon fié i serra.”
[791] Geoffrey Gaimar, Chroniques Anglo-Normandes, i. 52;
“De male mort pussent morir Li Burgoinon et li François, Si souzget soient as Englois!”
Cf. the use of the word English in Orderic and Suger which I have commented on in N. C. vol. v. p. 835.
[792] Will. Malms. iv. 333. “Tanta vis erat animi, ut quodlibet sibi regnum promittere auderet. Denique ante proximam diem mortis interrogatus ubi festum suum in natali teneret, respondit Pictavis, quod comes Pictavensis, Jerosolymam ire gestiens, ei terram suam pro pecunia invadaturus dicebatur.” See above, p. 313.
[793] Geoffrey Gaimar, u. s.;
“Li rois par gab li avoit dit; Et cil come fel le requit En son queor tint la félonie, Purpensa soi d’une estoutie: S’il jà lui veeir porreit, Tut autrement le plait irroit.”
[794] Chron. Petrib. 1100. “And þæræfter on morgen æfter Hlammæsse dæge wearð se cyng Willelm on huntnoðe fram his anan men mid anre fla ofsceoten and syððan to Winceastre gebroht, and on þam biscoprice bebyrged.” The bishopric of course means the Old Minster, the episcopium.
[795] “Radulphus de Aquis,” says Giraldus, De Inst. Princ. 176. See below, p. 335. We are not told which of all the places called Aquæ is meant.
[796] See Appendix SS.
[797] On the different versions of the death of Rufus, see Appendix SS.
[798] William of Malmesbury (iv. 333) describes the process with some pomp of words; “Pridie quam excederet vita, vidit per quietem se phlebotomi ictu sanguinem emittere, radium cruoris in cælum usque protentum lucem obnubilare, diem interpolare.” But the common word for being bled is “minuere” (see Ducange in voc.), and the many monastic rules which forbid the practice of bleeding except at stated times would seem to imply that the process, if not liked in itself, was at least made use of as an excuse for idleness.
[799] Ib. “Lumen inferri præcipit.” This is a comment on the reform of Henry (v. 393), “Lucernarum usum noctibus in curia restituit, qui fuerat tempore fratris intermissus.”
[800] Ib. “Quod ei a secretis erat.” Robert is also described as “vir magnatum princeps.”
[801] Ib. “Monachus est et causa nummorum monachaliter somniat; date ei centum solidos.”
[802] “Seriis negotiis cruditatem indomitæ mentis eructuans” is the odd phrase of William of Malmesbury.
[803] Will. Malms. v. 333. “Ferunt, ea die largiter epulatum, crebrioribus quam consueverat poculis frontem serenasse.” This phrase is almost equally odd with the last.
[804] Ord. Vit. 782 A. “Cum hilaris cum clientibus suis tripudiaret, ocreasque suas calcearet, quidam faber illuc advenit, et sex catapultas ei præsentavit.”
[805] “Justum est, ut illi acutissimæ dentur sagittæ, qui lethiferos inde noverit ictus infigere.”
[806] “Abbatis sui litteras regi porrexit, quibus auditis, rex in cachinnum resolutus est.”
[807] Ord. Vit. 782 A. “Gualteri, fac rectum de his quæ audisti. At ille: Sic faciam, domine.” I do not quite see what these words mean.
[808] “Ex simplicitate nimia, mihi tot negotiis occupato somnia stertentium retulit, et per plura terrarum spatia scripto etiam inserta destinavit. Num prosequi me ritum autumat Anglorum, qui pro sternutatione et somnio vetularum dimittunt iter suum seu negotium?”
[809] He is brought in as “Henricus comes frater ejus.”
[810] “Cum rex et Gualterius de Pice cum paucis sodalibus in nemore constituti essent,” says Orderic; “Solus cum eo [Walterio] remanserat,” says William of Malmesbury.
[811] This is the version of Geoffrey Gaimar. See Appendix SS.
[812] Thus the English took each a morsel of earth in their mouths before the battle of Azincourt. See Lingard, v. 498.
[813] This is the version of Benoît de Sainte More. See Appendix SS.
[814] So William of Malmesbury. See Appendix SS.
[815] So Orderic. See Appendix SS.
[816] As in Benoît’s account. So Matthew Paris in the Historia Anglorum. See Appendix SS. This seems to have become the most popular version.
[817] This is one of two accounts which reached Eadmer. Hist. Nov. 54. “Quæ sagitta, utrum, sicut quidam aiunt, jacta ipsum percusserit, an, quod plures affirmant, illum pedibus offendentem superque ruentem occiderit, disquirere otiosum putamus.”
[818] This tale, some of the details of which have become popular, is preserved by Matthew Paris, and in a fuller form by Knighton. See Appendix SS.
[819] This is from Giraldus Cambrensis. See Appendix SS.
[820] This is the line taken by Florence. It is at this point that he brings in his account of the making of the New Forest (see N. C. vol. iv. p. 841), and of the deaths of the two Richards in it. He then adds; “In loco quo rex occubuit priscis temporibus ecclesia fuerat constructa, sed patris sui tempore, ut prædiximus, erat diruta.” Sir Francis Palgrave naturally makes the most of this, and with fine effect; iv. 9, 680, 682.
[821] Orderic (782 D) says that they brought his body, “veluti ferocem aprum venabulis confossum.” We get the same idea a little improved in William of Newburgh (i. 2), who says, “Quippe in venatione sagitta proprii militis homo ferocissimus pro fera confossus interiit.” (The words in Italics must be a translation of the Chronicle.) The full developement comes in Thomas Wykes (Ann. Mon. iv. 13), who must surely have had William of Newburgh before him. He, like Giraldus and others (see above, p. 322), looked on Rufus as the maker of the New Forest, if not as the inventor of forests in general. “Rex Willelmus Angliæ, dictus Rufus, qui pro eo quod accipitrum et canum ludicris quasi se totum dederat, totum fere regnum Angliæ in multorum perniciem et omnium regnicolarum dispendium primus afforestavit, propellentibus eum ad interitum peccatis suis, a quodam milite suo Waltero Tyrel, in Nova Foresta, tanquam pro fera, confossus sagitta quadam, vulneratus interiit.”
[822] This is Geoffrey Gaimar’s story (i. 55). See Appendix TT.
[823] “Li filz Ricard erent cil dui, Quens Gilebert e dan Roger, Cil furent preisé chevaler.”
But Roger ought to be Richard.
[824] This is from Orderic, whose story is essentially the same as that of William of Malmesbury. See Appendix TT.
[825] This is all brought out most plainly by Orderic; but the less distinct words of William of Malmesbury and others in no sort contradict Orderic, and in truth look the same way.
[826] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 599.
[827] See Appendix TT.
[828] Eadmer, Vit. Ans. ii. 6. 55. “Intulit idem venerabilis abbas sub testimonio veritatis proxime præterita nocte eumdem regem ante thronum Dei accusatum, judicatum, sententiamque damnationis in eum promulgatam.”
[829] Ib. 56. “Juvenis ornatu ac vultu non vilis” speaks to the clerk, “qui prope ostium cameræ jacebat, et necdum dormiens, oculos tamen ad somnum clausos tenebat.” The message runs thus; “Pro certo noveris quia totum dissidium quod est inter archiepiscopum Anselmum et Willelmum regem determinatum est atque sedatum.”
[830] Eadmer, Vit. Ans. ii. 6. 56. “Sequenti autem nocte inter matutinas unus nostrum clausis oculis stabat et psallebat. Et ecce illi quidam chartulam admodum parvam legendam exhibuit. Aspexit, et in ea, obiit rex Willelmus, scriptum invenit. Confestim aperuit oculos, et nullum vidit præter socios.” None of these stories are found in the Historia Novorum, but they are copied by Roger of Wendover, ii. 159.
[831] Matthew Paris, Hist. Angl. i. 71. “Eadem hora comes Cornubiæ in silva ab illa qua hoc acciderat per duas dietas distante, dum venatum iret, et solus casu a suis derelinqueretur sodalibus, obvium habuit unum magnum pilosum et nigrum hircum ferentem unum regem nigrum et nudum, per medium pectoris sauciatum.”
[832] Ib. “Et adjuratus hircus per Deum trinum et unum, quid hoc esset, respondit, Fero ad judicium suum regem vestrum, imo tyrannum, Willelmum Rufum. Malignus enim spiritus sum, et ultor malitiæ suæ, qua desævit in ecclesiam Christi; et hanc necem suam procuravi, imperante prothomartire Angliæ beato Albano, qui conquestus est Domino quod in insulam Britanniæ, cujus ipse fuit primus sacrator, supra modum grassaretur. Comes igitur hæc statim sociis enarravit.” Wonders, though not quite so wonderful as this, reached Devonshire as well as Cornwall. Walter Map (223) tells us, “Eadem die Petro de Melvis, viro de partibus Exoniæ, persona quædam vilis et fœda, telum ferens cruentum, cursitans apparavit dicens, Hoc telum hodie regem vestrum perfodit.”
[833] Chron. Petrib. 1100. “Swa þæt þæs dæges þe he gefeoll he heafde on his agenre hand þæt arcebiscoprice on Cantwarbyrig, and þæt bisceoprice on Winceastre, and þæt on Searbyrig, and xi. abbotrices, ealle to gafle gesette.” This is copied by various writers.
[834] See vol. i. p. 279.
[835] Chron. Petrib. 1100. “On þæne Þunresdæg he wæs ofslagen, and þæs on morgen bebyrged. And syðþan he bebyrged wæs, þa witan þe þa neh handa wæron his broðer Heanrig to cynge gecuran.”
[836] This story, to which we have already referred (see above, p. 321), is told by Wace, 15194 et seqq. The words of the prophetess are;
“Amis, dist-el, or sai, or sai, Une novele te dirai; Henris iert Reis hastivement, Se mis augures ne ment; Remembre tei de ço k’ai dit, Ke cil iert Reis jusqu’à petit; Se ço n’est veir ke jo te di, Dire porras ke j’ai menti.”
Here again I can only tell the story as I find it in a writer whose authority at this stage is not first-rate. It is easy to say (see N. C. vol. v. p. 824) that it points to a known plot for the King’s murder. It is equally easy to say that the story is a mere fable suggested by what followed. In short, where there is no real evidence, it is easy to make any guesses that we think good.
[837] Wace, 15194 seqq.;
“Jà esteit près del boiz venuz, Quant un hoem est del boiz issuz, Poiz vindrent dui, poiz vindrent trei, Poiz noef, poiz dis à grant desrei, Ki li distrent la mort li rei.”
Wace’s way of piling up numbers reminds us of his arithmetic at the assembly of Lillebonne. See N. C. vol. iii. p. 295.
[838] Ib.
“Et il ala mult tost poignant La à il sout la dolor grant, Dunc crust li dols, dunc crust li plors, E crust la noise è li dolors.”
[839] Ord. Vit. 782 C. “Henricus concito cursu ad arcem Guentoniæ, ubi regalis thesaurus continebatur, festinavit, et claves ejus, ut genuinus hæres, imperiali jussu ab excubitoribus exegit.”
[840] See the story in Plutarch, Cæsar, 25; Merivale, ii. 154.
[841] Ord. Vit. u. s. “Legaliter, inquit, reminisci fidei debemus, quam Rodberto duci, germano tuo, promisimus. Ipse nimirum primogenitus est Guillelmi regis filius, et ego et tu, domine mi Henrice, hominium illi fecimus. Quapropter tam absenti quam præsenti fidelitas a nobis servanda est in omnibus.” “Legaliter” is of course to be construed “loyally.”
[842] Ord. Vit. 782 C. “Inter hæc aspera lis oriri cœpit, et ex omni parte multitudo virorum illuc confluxit, atque præsentis hæredis qui suum jus calumniabatur virtus crevit. Henricus manum ad capulum vivaciter misit et gladium exemit, nec extraneum quemlibet per frivolam procrastinationem patris sceptrum præoccupare permisit.”
Not only is all this graphically told; but every word is of political importance. Whether the exact words which are put into the mouth of William of Breteuil are his or Orderic’s, they clearly set forth the doctrines which were creeping in. Orderic himself speaks for the English people, as the English people doubtless did speak.
[843] Orderic and William of Malmesbury are the fullest on the election; but it is distinctly marked everywhere. See Appendix UU.
[844] See N. C. vol. i. p. 486.
[845] See N. C. vol. iii. p. 529.
[846] The speed with which events happened is strongly marked by the Chronicler. As soon as Henry is chosen, “he þærrihte þæt biscoprice on Winceastre Willelme Giffarde geaf, and siþþan to Lundene for.” The appointment is also recorded by Florence and Henry of Huntingdon. William of Malmesbury (Gest. Pont. 110) says, when speaking of a somewhat later time, “Willelmus fuerat adhuc recenti potestate Henrici violenter ad Wintoniensem episcopatum electus, nec electioni assentiens, immo eligentes asperis convitiis et minis incessens.” Henry of Huntingdon (De Contemptu Mundi, 315) speaks of him as “vir nobilissimus.” Orderic (783 C) marks his former office; “Guillelmo cognomento Gifardo, qui defuncti regis cancellarius fuerat, Guentanæ urbis cathedram commisit.”
[847] See the references in N. C. vol. v. p. 225.
[848] Will. Malms. v. 393. “Hæc eo studiosius celebrabantur, ne mentes procerum electionis quassarentur pœnitudine, quod ferebatur rumor Robertum Normanniæ comitem ex Apulia adventantem jam jamque affore.”
[849] Ord. Vit. 783 B. “Henricus, cum Rodberto, comite de Mellento, Lundoniam properavit.”
[850] Maurice is mentioned as the consecrator by Orderic, 783 B, and by the Chronicler. Orderic is wrong when he gives as a reason not only that Anselm was absent, but that Thomas of York was dead. But he was hard to get at, and as he died three months later, he may very likely have been sick. On the alleged consecration by Thomas, see Appendix UU.
[851] See vol. i. p. 16, and N. C. vol. iii. p. 561.
[852] Chron. Petrib. 1100. “On þan Sunnandæge þæræfter toforan þam weofode on Westmynstre Gode and eallan folce behét ealle þa unriht to aleggenne þe on his broðer timan wæran, and þa betstan lage to healdene þe on æniges cynges dæge toforan him stodan.” So more briefly Henry of Huntingdon; “Sacratus est ibi a Mauricio Londoniensi episcopo, melioratione legum et consuetudinum optabili repromissa.” This is the promise, the charter published the same day was its first fulfilment. These special provisions must have been an addition to the ordinary coronation oath, which was taken by Henry in the form prescribed in the office of Æthelred. Stubbs, Select Charters, 95.
[853] Chron. Petrib. “And hine syððan æfter þam se biscop of Lundene Mauricius to cynge gehalgode, and him ealle on þeosan lande to abugan, and aðas sworan, and his men wurdon.”
[854] William of Malmesbury (v. 393) is emphatic on the popular joy; “Lætus ergo dies visus est revirescere populis, cum, post tot anxietatum nubila, serenarum promissionum infulgebant lumina.” He adds that Henry was crowned “certatim plausu plebeio concrepante.” The adjective is important. Orderic (783 C, D) takes the opportunity for an elaborate panegyric on Henry and his reign. He had already (782 D), before William is buried, said, “Hoc antea dudum fuit a Britonibus prophetatum, et hunc Angli optaverunt habere dominum, quem nobiliter in solio regni noverant genitum.” The prophecy is given in full in 887 D (see N. C. vol. v. p. 153); “Succedet Leo justitiæ, ad cujus rugitum Gallicanæ turres et insulani dracones tremebunt.” For an “insularis draco” of the same class, see vol. i. p. 124.
[855] Florence marks the charter as granted on the day of the coronation. He gives a good summary;
“Qui consecrationis suæ die sanctam Dei ecclesiam, quæ fratris sui tempore vendita erat et ad firmam erat posita, liberam fecit, ac omnes malas consuetudines et injustas exactiones quibus regnum Angliæ injuste opprimebatur, abstulit, pacem firmam in toto regno suo posuit, et teneri præcepit: legem regis Eadwardi omnibus in commune reddidit, cum illis emendationibus quibus pater suus illam emendavit: sed forestas quas ille constituit et habuit in manu sua retinuit.”
[856] See vol. i. pp. 335-341, and N. C. vol. v. pp. 373-381.
[857] Select Charters, 96. “Sciatis me Dei misericordia et communi consilio baronum totius regni Angliæ ejusdem regni regem coronatum esse.”
[858] Ib. 97. “Sanctam Dei ecclesiam imprimis liberam facio, ita quod nec vendam nec ad firmam ponam.”
[859] See vol. i. p. 338.
[860] See N. C. vol. v. p. 374.
[861] Ib. p. 376.
[862] Select Charters, 97. “Monetagium commune quod capiebatur per civitates et comitatus quod non fuit tempore regis Edwardi, hoc ne amodo fiat omnino defendo. Si quis captus fuerit sive monetarius sive alius cum falsa moneta, justitia recta inde fiat.”
[863] See vol. i. pp. 345, 394.
[864] Select Charters, 97. “Et si quis pro hæreditate sua aliquid pepigerat, illud condono, et omnes relevationes quæ pro rectis hæreditatibus pactæ fuerant.”
[865] See vol. i. p. 338.
[866] Select Charters, 98. “Si quis baronum sive hominum meorum forisfecerit, non dabit vadium in misericordia pecuniæ, sicut faciebat tempore patris mei vel fratris mei, sed secundum modum forisfacti, ita emendabit sicut emendasset retro a tempore patris mei, in tempore aliorum antecessorum meorum.”
[867] See N. C. vol. i. p. 758; vol. v. pp. 444, 881.
[868] Select Charters, 98. “Murdra etiam retro ab illa die qua in regem coronatus fui omnia condono: et ea quæ amodo facta fuerint, juste emendentur secundum lagam regis Edwardi.”
[869] Ib. “Forestas communi consensu baronum meorum in manu mea retinui, sicut pater meus eas habuit.”
[870] Ib. “Militibus qui per loricas terras suas defendunt, terras dominicarum carrucarum suarum quietas ab omnibus gildis, et omni opere, proprio dono meo concedo, ut sicut tam magno allevamine alleviati sint, ita se equis et armis bene instruant ad servitium meum et ad defensionem regni mei.” We have had an example of this tenure “per loricam” in the case of an Englishman T. R. W. in N. C. vol. iv. p. 339.
[871] Select Charters, 98. “Lagam Edwardi regis vobis reddo cum illis emendationibus quibus pater meus eam emendavit consilio baronum suorum.” The half-English, half-Latin, form “laga” should be noticed.
[872] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 325.
[873] See N. C. vol. v. p. 149.
[874] Select Charters, 98. “Si quis aliquid do rebus meis vel de rebus alicujus post obitum Willelmi regis fratris mei ceperit, totum cito sine emendatione reddatur, et si quis inde aliquid retinuerit, ille super quem inventum fuerit mihi graviter emendabit.”
[875] Roger of Wendover, iii. 293. “Producta est in medium charta quædam regis Henrici primi, quam iidem barones a Stephano, Cantuariensi archiepiscopo, ut prædictum est, in urbe Londoniarum acceperant. Continebat autem hæc charta quasdam libertates et leges regis Eadwardi sanctæ ecclesiæ Anglicanæ pariter et magnatibus regni concessas, exceptis quibusdam libertatibus quas idem rex de suo adjecit.”
[876] See the list in Select Charters, 98. Why does not Walter Giffard sign as Earl? Or is it his son? William of Malmesbury (v. 393) seems to speak of a general oath to the charter on the part of the nobles; “Antiquarum moderationem legum revocavit in solidum, sacramento suo et omnium procerum, ne luderentur corroborans.”
[877] See N. C. vol. ii. p. 295; iii. p. 590; v. p. 893.
[878] See N. C. vol. v. p. 602.
[879] On Abbot Simeon, see N. C. vol. iv. pp. 481, 833. According to the local writers (Anglia Sacra, i. 612; Stewart, 284) he reached his hundredth year. They have much to tell of the troubles of the abbey during the vacancy at the hands of Flambard (Stewart, 276-283). But it seems that Flambard needed to be stirred up by a local enemy, who, we are sorry to find, bears an English name and a singular surname; “vir Belial Ælwinus cognomento Retheresgut, id est venter pecudis.”
[880] Orderic (783 C, D) mentions all these appointments to abbeys along with the appointment of William Giffard to Winchester and that of Gerard to York. It will be remembered that he fancied that Archbishop Thomas was dead before the coronation. “Eliense cœnobium dedit Ricardo, Ricardi de Benefacta filio, Beccensi monacho, et abbatiam Sancti Edmundi regis et martyris Rodberto juveni Uticensi monacho, Hugonis Cestrensis comitis filio. Glastoniam quoque commisit Herluino Cadomensi, et Habundoniam Farisio Malmesburiensi.” That the appointments were made on the day of the coronation appears from the two local histories, the Annals of Saint Eadmund’s in Liebermann, 130, and the two Ely histories, that in Anglia Sacra, i. 613, and the Liber Eliensis (Stewart, 284), which largely copies Florence. As Richard the second Earl of Chester was “filius unicus Hugonis consulis” (Hen. Hunt. De Contemptu Mundi, 304), and as Orderic (787 C) calls him “Pulcherrimus puer, quem solum ex Ermentrude filia Hugonis de Claromonte genuit [Hugo],” it would follow that Abbot Robert was one of the many natural children of Earl Hugh. See N. C. vol. v. p. 490. He was appointed, say the local Annals, “renitentibus monachis.”
[881] Orderic, as we have seen, calls Abbot Richard a son of Richard of Bienfaite, while the Ely writers call him the son of Count Gilbert, which must be wrong. Yet they have much to say about his family, who are oddly spoken of as the “Ricardi,” along with the “Gifardi.” They tell at length the story of his deposition, but attribute it to the King rather than to Anselm. But see Florence, 1102; Eadmer, 67; Ans. Ep. iii. 140.
[882] See Willis, Glastonbury, p. 9.
[883] Faricius fills a large space in the history of his abbey. He was a native of Arezzo, and had been cellarer at Malmesbury; Hist. Ab. ii. 44, 285. He was kept back from the archbishopric by the scruples of Robert (Bloet) Bishop of Lincoln and Roger Bishop of Salisbury; Hist. Ab. ii. 287.
[884] William of Malmesbury (v. 393) puts the whole story emphatically enough; “Ne quid profecto gaudio accumulato abesset, Rannulfo nequitiarum fæce tenebris ergastularibus incluso, propter Anselmum pernicibus nuntiis directum.” Florence also joins the imprisonment of Flambard and the recall of Anselm; “Nec multo post Dunholmensem episcopum Rannulfum Lundoniæ in turri custodiæ mancipavit, et Dorubernensem archiepiscopum Anselmum de Gallia revocavit.” In the Chronicle we get the Tower named in our own tongue, as in 1097; “And se cyng sona æfter þam be þære ræde þe him abutan wæran, þone biscop Rannulf of Dunholme let niman, and into þam Ture on Lundene lét gebringon and þær healdan.”
[885] See Macaulay, ii. 557.
[886] Ord. Vit. 783 D. “Hugo Cestrensis comes, et Rodbertus Belesmensis, ac alii optimates, qui erant in Normannia, audito casu infortunati principis, rerumque mutatione subita, compositis in Neustria rebus suis, iter in Angliam acceleraverunt, novoque regi debitam subjectionem obtulerunt, eique hominio facto, fundos et omnes dignitates suas cum regiis muneribus ab eo receperunt.” Directly after he gives a list of the inner council; “Rodbertum scilicet de Mellento et Hugonem de Cestra, Ricardum de Radvariis et Rogerium Bigodum, aliosque strenuos et sagaces viros suis adhibuit consiliis, et quia humiliter sophistis obsecundavit, merito multis regionibus et populis imperavit.”
[887] See the extract in the note at p. 361.
[888] See above, p. 341.
[889] Eadmer, 55.
[890] Ib. “Singultu verba ejus interrumpente, asseruit in ipsa veritate quam servum Dei transgredi non decet, quia, si hoc efficere posset, multo magis eligeret seipsum corpore quam illum sicut erat mortuum esse.” So in the Life, ii. 658.
[891] Eadmer, 55. “Ecce alius e fratribus ecclesiæ Cantuariensis advenit, literas deferens, preces offerens, quibus obnixe ab Anglorum matre ecclesia interpellatur, quatenus, extincto tyranno, filios suos, rupta mora, revisere, consolarique, dignetur.”
[892] Ib. “Ipso pontifice et toto populo terræ super hoc dolente, et nisi rationi contrairet, modis omnibus, ne fieret, prohibere volente.”
[893] Ib. “Alter nuncius ex parte novi regis Anglorum, et procerum regni patri occurrens, moras ejus in veniendo redarguit, totam terram in adventu ejus attonitam, et omnia negotia regni ad audientiam et dispositionem ipsius referens pendere dilata.”
[894] Ep. Ans. iii. 41. “Nutu Dei, a clero et a populo Angliæ electus, et quamvis invitus propter absentiam tui, rex jam consecratus.”
[895] Ep. Ans. iii. 41. “Precor ne tibi displiceat quod regiam benedictionem absque te suscepi; de quo, si fieri posset,… libentius eam susciperem quam de alio aliquo … hac itaque occasione a tuis vicariis illam accepi.”
[896] Ib. “Requiro te sicut patrem, cum omni populo Angliæ, quatenus mihi filio tuo et eidem populo cujus tibi animarum cura commissa est, quam citius poteris, venias ad consulendum.”
[897] Ib. “Me ipsum quidem ac totius regni Angliæ populum, tuo eorumque consilio qui tecum mihi consulere debent, committo.”
[898] Ib. “Sed necessitas fuit talis quia inimici insurgere volebant contra me et populum quem habeo ad gubernandum; et ideo barones mei, et idem populus, noluerunt amplius eam protelari; hac itaque occasione a tuis vicariis illam accepi. Misissem quidem ad te a meo latere aliquos per quos tibi etiam de mea pecunia destinassem, sed pro morte fratris mei circa regnum Angliæ ita totus orbis concussus est, ut nullatenus ad te salubriter pervenire potuissent.”
[899] Ib.
[900] Ep. Ans. iii. 41. “Et aliis tam episcopis quam baronibus meis.”
[901] Ord. Vit. 784 B. “Pro quibusdam injuriis, quas ipse suis comparibus ingesserat, per fraudulenta consilia, quæ Ruffo regi contra illos suggerere jamdudum studuerat.”
[902] The expressions of Orderic which follow the words last quoted are very remarkable. They show that, in Normandy at least, William the Red did in some sort go on with the work of his father. “Similiter alii plures iram et malivolentiam, quas olim conceperant, sed propter rigorem principalis justitiæ manifestis ultionibus prodere non ausi fuerant, nunc habenis relaxatis toto nisu contra sese insurrexerunt, et mutuis cædibus ac damnis rerum miseram regionem rectore carentem desolaverunt.”
[903] Ord. Vit. 784 B, C.
[904] “Sona swa se eorl Rotbert into Normandig com, he wearð fram eallan þam folce bliþelice underfangen.”
[905] “Butan þam castelan þe wæron gesætte mid þæs cynges Heanriges mannan, togeanes þan he manega gewealc and gewinn hæfde.”
[906] Will. Malms. v. 394. “Quo audito [Robert’s return to Normandy], omnes pene hujus terræ optimates fidei regi juratæ transfugæ fuere; quidam nullis extantibus causis, quidam levibus occasiunculis emendicatis, quod nollet iis terras quas vellent ultro pro libito eorum impertiri.”
[907] Chron. Petrib. 1100. “Ða toforan S[~c]e Michaeles mæssan com se arcebiscop Ansealm of Cantwarbyrig hider to lande, swa swa se cyng Heanrig, be his witena ræde him æfter sende, forþan þe he wæs út of þis lande gefaren, for þan mycelan unrihte þe se cyng Willelm him dyde.” Everything is thoroughly constitutional just now.
[908] Eadmer, Hist. Nov. 55. “Prosperrimo itaque cursu marina pericula transvecti nono kl. Octobris Dofris appulimus, et ingenti gaudio totam terram in adventu Anselmi exultantem reperimus. Quædam etenim quasi novæ resurrectionis spes singulorum mentibus oriebatur, qua et ab oppressione calentis adhuc calamitatis se quisque liberandum et in statum optatæ prosperitatis aditum sibi pollicebatur.” The short English Chronicle printed by Liebermann, 5, gives a rather odd name to Anselm’s absence; “Ansælm ærcebiscop com fram peregrinatione.”
[909] See vol. i. p. 437.
[910] Ib. p. 450.
[911] Ib. p. 481.
[912] Ib. p. 559.
[913] Ib. p. 572.
[914] Ord. Vit. 784 C. “Ut rumores quos optaverat audivit, Guillelmum videlicet regem occubuisse veraciter agnovit, cum armatorum turma Cœnomannis venit, et ab amicis civibus [see Migne’s text] voluntarie susceptus, urbem pacifice obtinuit.” The Biographer (309) says merely “sine mora cum populo qui eum secutus fuerat ad civitatem venit.”
[915] See above, pp. 241, 281. As he was “Rothomagensis,” he would seem to be a brother of the William son of Ansgar of whom we heard in vol. i. p. 261.
[916] Ord. Vit. u. s. “Fulconem Andegavorum comitem dominum suum accersiit, a quo adjutus arcem diu obsedit.” The Biographer says nothing about Fulk.
[917] Ord. Vit. 784 D. “Heliæ comiti privilegium dederunt ut quotienscumque vellet, albam tunicam indueret, et sic ad eos qui turrim custodiebant, tutus accederet.” Presently we read of the “candida tunica, pro qua Candidus Bacularis solitus est ab illis nuncupari.” The story is told in full detail.
[918] Ib. 784 C. “Haimericus de Moria.” I can give no further account of him.
[919] See N. C. vol. ii. p. 26.
[920] Ord. Vit. 784 D. “Lædere quidem vos lapidibus et sagittis possumus, quia in eminentiori prætorio constituti vobis prævalemus.”
[921] Ib. 785 A. “Donec legatus noster redeat a dominis nostris, Angliæ et Normanniæ principibus, qui postquam reversus fuerit, faciemus prout ratio nobis intimaverit.”
[922] Ord. Vit. 785 A. “Dux longæ laboribus peregrinationis fractus, et magis quietem lecti quam bellicum laborem complecti cupidus.”
[923] “Rex Albionis … transmarinis occupatus negotiis regni, callide maluit sibi debita legaliter amplecti quam peregrinis præ superbia et indebitis laboribus nimis onerari.”
[924] “Naturali hero caremus, cui strenuitatis nostræ servitium impendamus. Unde, strenue vir, probitatem tuam agnoscentes, te eligimus, et, arce reddita, te principem Cœnomannorum hodie constituimus.” This time no one would (see N. C. vol. iv. p. 575) think of translating “strenue vir” by “valiant Saxon;” yet, as there were Saxons in Anjou, the lord of La Flèche may have had more right to the name than the Earl of the Northumbrians.
[925] Ord. Vit. 785 D. “Ne a civibus quorum domos præterito anno combusserant læderentur, alacriter protexit.” The Biographer (309) cuts the whole matter much shorter; but it is from him that we learn the three months’ length of the siege. The garrison, having no hope, “tandem coacti de munitionibus egressi sunt, et consulis liberalitate membrorum et vitæ impunitate donati, in patriam [where was that?] reversi sunt.”
[926] See Appendix KK. The Biographer tells us now; “pacata igitur civitate et hostibus inde effugatis, Hildebertus Romam proficiscitur.”
[927] Ord. Vit. 785 D. “Fœdus amicitiæ cum Rodberto duce et Henrico rege postmodum copulavit, eorumque bellis viriliter interfuit, unique multum nocuit, alterique ingens suffragium contulit.” He records instances in 818 C, 820 B, 821 A, B. In this last case, at Tinchebrai, Helias commands Bretons as well as his own people. Cf. the Chronicle of Saint Albinus of Angers, 1105, 1106, and that of Saint Sergius, 1106. Orderic (822 B) records a curious discourse between Helias and his old enemy Robert of Bellême, who calls himself “tuus homo.”
[928] We read casually in the Biographer (311) of a time “dura comes Rotrodus Perticencis in turri Cenomannica captus teneretur, et episcopus ad eum trepidum mortis accessisset.” But the story is all about Hildebert, not about Helias. It is taken from a letter of Hildebert himself (Duchesne, iv. 279), who speaks of Rotrou as “in vinculis.” We find that Count Rotrou’s mother gave the Bishop the kiss of peace, which the Lady Eadgyth had refused to receive from Abbot Gervinus. See N. C. vol. ii. p. 544.
[929] Orderic seems to complain that “defuncta conjuge sua, cælibem vitam actitare renuit.” Was it because of this backsliding that, when he dies, he becomes, notwithstanding all his good deeds, merely “cadaver” and not “soma”? On the other hand, our own Chronicler records his death in 1110, and the Angevin Chronicler of Saint Sergius thinks the event worthy of a heavenly phænomenon; “Apparuit cometa, atque ilico mortuus est Helias, Cenomannensis comes.”
[930] Orderic, 785 C, notes that Helias made Fulk his heir; “Ipsum Cœnomannis dominum sibi successorem constituit.” Cf. 818 C.
[931] See N. C. vol. v. pp. 220, 225.
[932] Eadmer, Hist. Nov. 56. “Cum post paucos sui reditus dies Serberiam ad regem venisset, et ab eo gaudenter susceptus, rationi illius qua se excusavit cur in suscipienda regiæ dignitatis benedictione, illum cujus juris eam esse sciebat, non expectaverit, adquievisset.”
[933] Ib. See N. C. vol. v. p. 220.
[934] Eadmer, Hist. Nov. 56. “Cum ille nequaquam se aut velle aut posse assensum præbere responderet, interrogantibus quare, statim quid super his et quibusdam aliis in Romano concilio acceperit, manifesta relatione innotuit, itaque subinferens ait, si dominus rex ista suscipere, et suscepta servare voluerit, bene inter nos et firma pax erit.”
[935] Ib. “Nec ea de causa Angliam redii, ut, si ipse Romano pontifici obedire nolit, in ea resideam. Undo quid velit precor edicat, ut sciam quo me vertam.”
[936] Ib. “Grave quippe sibi visum est investituras ecclesiarum et hominia prælatorum perdere; grave nihilominus Anselmum a regno, ipso nondum in regno plene confirmato, pati discedere.”
[937] Eadmer, Hist. Nov. 56. “In uno siquidem videbatur sibi quasi dimidium regni perderet, in alio verebatur ne fratrem suum Robertum … Anselmus adiret, et eum in apostolicæ sedis subjectionem deductum, quod facillimum factu sciebat, regem Angliæ faceret.” These words make us see how unknown the new doctrines had hitherto been in Normandy as well as in England. The dukes up to this time had not been in subjection to the Holy See, as subjection was understood by Paschal, and, at Paschal’s bidding, by Anselm.
[938] Ib. “Induciæ usque pascha petitæ sunt, quatenus utrinque Romam mitterentur qui decreta apostolica in pristinum regni usum mutarent.” Rome and Bari had not wholly eaten the Englishman out of our Eadmer.
[939] Eadmer, Hist. Nov. 56. “Interim ecclesiis Angliæ in quo erant statu manentibus, Anselmus redditis terris quas rex mortuus ecclesiæ Cantuariensi abstulerat, suis omnibus revestiretur, sicque fieret, ut si a sententia flecti papa nequiret, totius negotii summa in eum quo tunc erant statum rediret.”
[940] Ib. “Hæc Anselmus, quamvis frivola esse, et in nihil utile tendere sciret, atque prædiceret, tamen ne novo regi seu principibus ullam contra se suspicionem de regni translatione aut aliunde incuteret, precibus illorum passus est vinci.”
[941] Will. Malms. v. 393. “Suadentibus amicis, et maxime pontificibus, ut, remota voluptate pellicum, legitimum amplecteretur connubium.” Orderic (783 D) gives the same idea a more grotesque turn; “Princeps quarto mense ex quo cœpit regnare, nolens ut equus et mulus, quibus non est intellectus, turpiter lascivire, generosam virginem nomine Mathildem regali more sibi desponsavit.” So in the continuation of William of Jumièges, viii. 10; “Ut idem rex legaliter viveret, duxit venerabilem Matildem.” “Legaliter” must here be taken in the older, not in the chivalrous sense.
[942] Will. Malms. u. s. See Appendix G.
[943] See N. C. vol. v. p. 852.
[944] Ib. p. 853.
[945] Ib. p. 843; vol. iv. p. 733.
[946] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 731; v. p. 306.
[947] See vol. i. p. 187, and N. C. vol. v. p. 844.
[948] Hist. Ab. ii. 36. “Optimatum hujus loci ea tempestate virorum Anskillus erat unus, cujus juri pertinebant Suvecurda [Seacourt] et Speresholt, et Baigeuurtha [Bayworth] et apud Merceham [Marsham] hida una. Hunc contra, suorum delatione osorum, ita regis exarsit iracundia, ut vinculis arctatum carcerali præciperet custodiæ macerandum. Ubi insolito rigore deficiens post dies paucos interiit.”
[949] It was held by the new grantee and his son till it was got back from King Henry by Abbot Faricius (Hist. Ab. ii. 288), “retracto inde ecclesiæ in hoc temporis spatio servitii omni genere” (Ib. ii. 37). This seems to be the Sparsholt of which I spoke in N. C. vol. iv. p. 726, as being held by “Godricus unus liber homo,” a different person from Godric the Sheriff. He is distinguished in the Abingdon History (i. 477) as “Godricus Cild,” and his Sparsholt is said to be “juxta locum qui vulgo Mons Albi Æqui nuncupatur.” In Domesday (59) we find Anschil holding Sparsholt of the Abbot. It had been held T. R. E. by Eadric. Eadric and Godric are clearly the same man, and there must be a mistake of name in one place or the other, just as in Domesday, 146, Eadwine Abbot of Westminster is miscalled Godwine. But a most curious entry follows, from which it appears that Eadric or Godric had given the lordship for the support of his son as a monk in the abbey as long as he lived, after which it was to come back to himself. The shire therefore threw a doubt on the right of the abbey to its possession. They had seen no writ or seal of King William granting it to the abbey; but the abbot and all his monks produced a writ and seal of King Eadward, from which it appeared that Eadric had given the manor to the abbey; “Abbas testatur quod in T. R. E. misit ille manerium ad ecclesiam unde erat, et inde habet brevem et sigillum R. E. attestantibus omnibus monachis suis.” The words “unde erat” show that Eadric or Godric held the lordship of the abbey (for its possession of Sparsholt see Hist. Ab. i. 283, 478), but that he gave up his rights in it to the church. It was then again granted to Anskill.
[950] Hist. Ab. ii. 37. “Cum hæc agerentur, uxore Anskilli jam defuncti domo exclusa, filio vero ejus, nomine Willelmo, a rebus paternis funditus eliminato, eadem mulier fratrem regis Henricum, tunc quidem comitem, suffragiorum suis incommodis gratia frequentans, ex eo concepit, et filium pariens Ricardum vocavit.” On this Richard, see N. C. vol. v. pp. 188 (note), 195, 843.
[951] He married the sister of Simon, the king’s dispenser, and niece of Abbot Reginald, who succeeded Æthelhelm in 1083. As Reginald died in 1097 (see p. 265), the whole story, including the birth of Richard, must have happened before that year.
[952] Hist. Ab. ii. 122. “Ansfrida, qua concubinæ loco rex ipse Henricus usus ante suscepti imperii monarchiam, filium Ricardum nomine genuit, ac per hoc celebri sepultura a fratribus est intumulata, videlicet in claustro ante ostium ecclesiæ ubi fratres intrant in ecclesia et exeunt.” Why was a doubly imperial style needed on such a matter?
[953] Ord. Vit. 784 A. “Sapiens Henricus, generositatem virginis agnoscens, multimodamque morum ejus honestatem jamdudum concupiscens, hujusmodi sociam in Christo sibi elegit.” So William of Malmesbury, v. 393; “Cujus amori jampridem animum impulerat, parvi pendens dotales divitias, dummodo diu cupitis potiretur amplexibus.” So Eadmer (Hist. Nov. 56) mentions the story of the veil, and adds, “quæ res, dum illa jam olim dimisso velo a rege amaretur, plurimorum ora laxaret, et eos a cupitis amplexibus retardaret.” In the genuine story she certainly seems anxious for the marriage. The story of her dislike to it is a mere legend. See Appendix WW.
[954] This seems implied in the whole story, especially in the words of Eadmer, “dimisso velo.” Her father, it will be remembered, is said to have taken her away from Romsey in 1093. See Appendix EE.
[955] Sir Francis Palgrave (iv. 366), countersigned by Dean Church, Anselm, 243, assures us that “Edith was very beautiful.” Mr. Robertson (i. 153, note) will not allow that she was more than “rather pretty.” The Abbess in Hermann of Tournay witnesses to her beauty at the age of twelve, but all that William of Malmesbury (v. 418) can say of her is that she was “non usquequaque despicabilis formæ.” We have already heard of her studies at Romsey, and in her letters to Anselm (Epp. iii. 55, 119) the display of scriptural and classical learning might have satisfied Orderic himself. It is more comforting to find in the second letter that she wishes to bestow the abbey of Malmesbury on one bearing the English name of Eadwulf. Anselm refuses his consent, because Eadwulf sent him a cup, which seemed like an attempt at simony. Eadwulf however did in the end become abbot.
[956] Will. Malms. v. 393. “Erat illa, licet genere sublimis, utpote regis Edwardi ex fratre Edmundo abneptis, modicæ tamen domina supellectilis, utroque tunc parente pupilla.”
[957] Chron. Petrib. 1100. “And siðþan sona heræfter se cyng genam Mahalde him to wife, Malcolmes cynges dohter of Scotlande, and Margareta þære goda cwæne, Eadwardes cynges magan, and of þan rihtan Ænglalandes kyne kynne.” Eadmer (Hist. Nov. 56) traces up the pedigree to Eadgar, but he does not forget that she was “filia Malcholmi nobilissimi regis Scotorum.”
[958] See N. C. vol. ii. p. 308.
[959] See above, p. 31, and Appendix EE. Eadmer, Hist. Nov. 56. “Siquidem eadem Mathildis, inter sanctimoniales in monasterio ab infantia nutrita et adulta, credebatur a multis in servitium Dei a parentibus oblata, eo quod publice visa fuerat earum inter quas vivebat more velata.”
[960] Ib. “Ipsa Anselmum cujus in hoc nutum omnes expectabant adiit.”
[961] Ib. 57. “Differt Anselmus sententiam ferre et causam judicio religiosarum personarum regni determinandam pronunciat. Statuto itaque die coeunt ad nutum illius, episcopi, abbates, nobiles quique, ac religiosi ordinis viri.” Anselm’s Convocation thus admitted lay members.
[962] The archdeacons are sent “Wiltuniam, ubi illa fuerat educata,” but Romsey must surely be meant. See Appendix EE.
[963] Ib. “Remoto a conventu solo patre, ecclesia Angliæ quæ convenerat in unum de proferenda sententia tractat.”
[964] See N. C. vol. iv. pp. 564, 835.
[965] Hist. Nov. 58. The members of the Assembly say that they remember the judgement of Lanfranc, and that they hold that the present case is still stronger than that which he decided. “Licet enim sciamus causam illarum istius esse leviorem dum illæ sponte, ista coacta, pari de causa velum portaverit.” They add their protest, “nequis nos favore cujusvis duci existimet.”
[966] Ib. “Ego judicium vestrum non abjicio, sed eo securius illud suscipio quo tanti patris auctoritate suffultum audio.”
[967] Ib. “Gesta comi vultu audit et amplectitur.”
[968] Ib. “Quod non propterea facturam fatetur quasi sibi non creditum esse putet, sed ut malevolis hominibus omnem deinceps blasphemandi occasionem amputet.”
[969] Ib. “Si malus homo de malo thesauro cordis sui protulerit mala, dicto citius opprimetur ipsa veritate jam tantarum personarum adstipulatione probata et roborata.”
[970] Ib. “Allocutione posthæc et benedictione Anselmi potita abiit.”
[971] This is the version of Hermann of Tournay (D’Achery, ii. 893) referred to in Appendix EE, WW; “Confirmatus in regno voluit conjugem habere puellam quamdam filiam David regis Scotiæ, dixitque D. Anselmo, tunc temporis Cantuariensis urbis venerabili archiepiscopo, ut eam sibi benediceret et solemnibus nuptiis benedictam in conjugium sociaret.”
[972] Ib. “Ideoque pro conservando juramento suo se non eam dimissurum, nisi canonico judicio fuisset determinatum.”
[973] Ib. “Præcepit ut, adscito archiepiscopo Eboracensi, congregaretur consilium episcoporum et abbatum totiusque Angliæ ecclesiasticarum personarum ad diffiniendum ecclesiastica censura tantum negotium.” Thomas of York, it must be remembered, must have been now on his deathbed; at least he died a few days later. The lay nobles of Eadmer’s account are left out in this version.
[974] See above, p. 32, and Appendix WW.
[975] D’Achery, ii. 894. “In communi judicaverunt propter hujusmodi factum non ei prohibendum conjugium, quoniam, quamdiu infra legitimam ætatem sub tutela patris fuerat, nihil ei sine ejus assensu facere licuerat.” See the answer of Harold, N. C. vol. iii p. 265.
[976] D’Achery, ii. 894. “Vos quidem, domine rex, consilio meo prætermisso, facietis quod vobis placuerit, sed qui diutius vixerit, puto quod videbit non diu Angliam gavisuram de prole quæ de ea nata fuerit.”
[977] See Appendix WW.
[978] Chron. Petrib. 1100. “And siðþan sona heræfter se cyng genam Mahalde him to wife, Malcolmes cynges dohter of Scotlande, and Margareta þære goda cwæne Eadwardes cynes magan of þan rihtan Ænglalandes kynekynne. And on S[~c]e Martines mæssedæg heo wearð him mid mycelan weorðscipe forgifen on Westmynstre, and se arcebiscop Ansealm hi him bewæddade and siððan to cwene gehalgode.” Florence notes that, at the wedding, “rex Anglorum Heinricus majores natu Angliæ congregavit Lundoniæ.” Orderic (784 A) makes Gerard of Hereford the consecrator of the Queen. Her descent from the “right cynecyn of England” stirs him up to a grand flight, going up to the very beginnings of things. We there read how “Angli de Anglo insula, ubi Saxoniæ metropolis est, in Britanniam venerunt, et, devictis, seu deletis, quos modo Gualos dicunt, occupatam bello insulam, Hengist primo duce, a natali solo Angliam vocitaverunt.”
[979] Eadmer, Hist. Nov. 58. See N. C. vol. v. p. 169.
[980] Ib. “Cunctis una clamantibus rem juste definitam nec in ea quid residere unde quis nisi forte malitia ductus jure aliquam posset movere calumniam, legitime conjuncti sunt, honore quo decuit regem et reginam.”
[981] It is so implied by Eadmer, who of course gives his own very distinct witness in favour of the righteousness of all that Anselm did.
[982] See N. C. vol. v. pp. 251, 857.
[983] See N. C. vol. v. p. 170. The note in Sir T. D. Hardy’s edition of William of Malmesbury is very strange. Ages after, Knighton (X Scriptt. 2375) gives these English names an odd turn; “Multi de proceribus clam vel palam a rege Henrico se subtraxerunt, fictis quibusdam occasiunculis vocantes eum Godrych Godefadyr, et pro Roberto comite clam miserunt.” In his day Godric, in his various spellings, was doubtless, as now, in familiar use as a surname. Godgifu must have been pretty well forgotten, except in the form which she takes at Coventry, though I suppose that she too survives in the surname Goodeve.
[984] See N. C. vol. v. p. 184.
[985] The Continuator of Florence (1121) tells us how Henry, “legalis conjugii olim nexu solutus, ne quid ulterius inhonestum committeret,” by the advice of Archbishop Ralph and his great men, marries Adeliza. Orderic (823 B) witnesses that Henry’s bad habits in this way went on to old age.
[986] Will. Malms. v. 418. “Æquanimiter ferebat, rege alias intento, ipsa curiæ valedicere, Westmonasterio multis annis morata. Nec tamen quicquam ei regalis magnificentiæ deerat,” &c.
[987] William of Malmesbury gives many details of her piety, with the curious remark that she was “in clericos bene melodos inconsiderate prodiga” [that is surely the right reading, and not “provida”]. He tells how she kissed the wounds of the lepers. The half-profane saying of David comes from Æthelred of Rievaux (X Scriptt. 367; Fordun, v. 20; Surtees Simeon, 267), who had the story from David himself. Matilda wished her brother to follow her example, which he refused; “Necdum enim sciebam Dominum, nec revelatus fuerat mihi Spiritus ejus.” One is reminded of the story of Saint Lewis and John of Joinville, when the seneschal refuses to wash the feet of the poor. It is twice told in his Memoirs, pp. 8, 218, ed. Michel, 1858.
[988] “Very vain,” says Mr. Robertson, who is determined to be hard upon her.
[989] There is an important passage of William of Malmesbury about the reeves, of whom we have heard so often; “Eo effectum est ut prodige donantium non effugeret vitium, multimodas colonis suis deferens calumnias, inferens injurias, auferens substantias, quo bonæ largitricis nacta famam, suorum parvi pensaret contumeliam. Sed hæc qui recte judicare volet, consiliis ministrorum imputabit, qui, more harpyarum, quicquid poterant corripere unguibus, vel infodiebant marsupiis vel insumebant conviviis, quorum fœculentis susurris aures oppleta, nævum honestissimæ menti contraxit.” In all this we learn the more to admire the constant care of Anselm that no wrong should be done to his people.
The story of Matilda and David is told also by Robert of Gloucester (ii. 434, 435, Hearne), who preserves the popular memory of “Mold þe god quene” in several passages. Perhaps the strongest is,
“Þe godenesse þat god Henry & þe quene Mold Dude here to Engelond ne may neuere be ytolde.”
[990] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 329.
[991] See vol. i. p. 527. Abbot Jeronto was hardly a Legate in the same sense as Walter of Albano.
[992] Eadmer, Hist. Nov. 58. “Quod per Angliam auditum in admirationem omnibus venit, inauditum scilicet in Britania cuncti scientes quemlibet hominum super se vices apostolicas gerere nisi solum archiepiscopum Cantuariæ.”
[993] See N. C. vol. v. p. 236.
[994] Eadmer, u. s. “Quapropter sicut venit ita reversus est, a nemine pro legato susceptus, nec in aliquo legati officio functus.”
[995] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 370. Our English Florence sends him out of the world with a special panegyric; “Venerandæ memoriæ et vir religionis eximiæ, affabilis, omnibusque amabilis, Eboracensis archiepiscopus Thomas.” William of Malmesbury (Gest. Pont. 258) is more copious to the same effect. T. Stubbs (X Scriptt. 1709) gives us his epitaph.
[996] See vol. i. p. 543.
[997] William of Malmesbury (Gest. Pont. 260), after mentioning some of the stories against him, adds; “Certe canonici Eboracenses ne in ecclesia sepeliretur pertinacissime restitere, vix ignobilem cespitem cadaveri præ foribus injici passi.”
[998] Ord. Vit. 786 A, B. “Pro penuria vestitus, usque ad sextam de lecto non surrexit, nec ad ecclesiam, quia nudus erat, divinum auditurus officium, perrexit. Meretrices enim et nebulones qui, lenitatem ejus scientes, eum indesinenter circumdederunt, braccas ejus et caligas et reliqua ornamenta crebro impune furati sunt.”
[999] The list is given by Orderic (786 A).
[1000] Ord. Vit. 786 A, “Multis, si rex foret, majora quam dare posset, promisit.”
[1001] See vol. i. p. 463.
[1002] Ord. Vit. 786 A. “Rodberto de Belismo Sagiensem episcopatum et Argentomum castrum, silvamque Golferni donavit,” On the phrase of granting the bishopric, compare the passages referred to in p. 200, note 4.
[1003] “Tedbaldo Pagano, quia semel eum hospitatus fuerat, tribuit.” On this Theobald, see above, p. 186.
[1004] The Christmas and Easter meetings are marked by the Chronicler, who adds to his record of the former, “And þa sona þæræfter wurdon þa heafod men her on lande wiðerræden togeanes þam cynge, ægðer ge for heora agenan mycelan ungetrywðan, and eac þurh þone eorl Rodbert of Normandig þe mid unfriðe hider to lande fundode.”
[1005] The escape of Flambard is oddly recorded by the Chronicler at the end of the year, after he had mentioned all that his escape led to. But he gives the date; “Ðises geares eac se bisceop Rannulf to þam Candelmæssan út of þam Túre on Lunden nihtes oðbærst, þær he on hæftneðe wæs, and to Normandige fór.” Florence (1101) tells us how “Dunholmensis episcopus Rannulfus, post nativitatem Domini, de custodia magna calliditate evasit, mare transiit.” William of Malmesbury (v. 394) gives some details, but the full story comes from Orderic (786). Flambard was to be “custodiendus in vinculis,” a phrase which seems to show that the fetters in this and many other cases were metaphorical.
[1006] Ord. Vit. 786 D. “Exitum callide per amicos procuravit. Erat enim sollers et facundus, et, licet crudelis et iracundus, largus tamen et plerumque jucundus, et ob hoc plerisque gratus et amandus.”
[1007] Ib. “Quotidie ad victum suum duos sterilensium solidos jussu regis habebat. Unde cum adjumentis amicorum in carcere tripudiabat, quotidieque splendidum sibi suisque custodibus convivium exhiberi jubebat.”
[1008] Orderic and William of Malmesbury both mention the bringing in of the rope in a vessel, which Orderic calls “lagena vini,” while William of Malmesbury rather implies that it was brought in water; “Funem minister aquæ bajulus (proh dolus!) amphora immersum detulit.” Orderic well marks the double window; “Funem ad columnam, quæ in medio fenestræ arcis erat, coaptavit.”
[1009] “Fune ad solum usque non pertingente, gravi lapsu corpulentus flamen ruit, et pene conquassatus, flebiliter ingemuit.” William of Malmesbury makes merry over his troubles; “Ille muro turris demissus, si læsit brachia, si excoriavit manus, parum curat populus.”
[1010] See above, p. 261.
[1011] It is now that Orderic tells the wonderful tales of Flambard’s mother which I have quoted in vol. i. p. 331. He now brings her on the scene; “In alia nave cum filii thesauro sui per pelagus in Neustriam ferebatur, et a sociis ibidem pro scelestis incantationibus cum derisoriis gestibus passim detrahebatur. Intereo totum piratis occurrentibus in ponto ærarium direptum est, et venefica cum nauderis et epibatis anus nuda mœrensque in littus Normanniæ exposita est.”
[1012] The influence which Flambard obtained over Robert is marked in all our writers, beginning with the Chronicle; “þurh þes macunge mæst and tospryttinge se eorl Rotbert þises geares þis land mid unfriðe gesohte.” Florence (1101) and Orderic (787 A) are to the same effect; William of Malmesbury (v. 394) gets metaphorical; “Normanniam evadens, comiti jam anhelanti, et in fervorem prælii prono, addidit calcaria ut incunctanter veniret.”
[1013] Eadmer, Hist. Nov. 58.
[1014] See the passage in p. 396.
[1015] See the extract from William of Malmesbury in p. 368.
[1016] This is William of Malmesbury’s (v. 394) list of those who “justas partes fovebant.” Orderic (787 B) says, “Rodbertus de Mellento et Ricardus de Radvariis, aliique multi barones strenui regem suum vallaverunt.”
[1017] The Whitsun Gemót is described by Eadmer, 58, 59; “Ad sponsionem fidei regis ventum est, tota regni nobilitas cum populi numerositate.” Before this he has some remarkable expressions which seem to point to debates in an inner council, before the general assembly was summoned; “In solemnitate Pentecostes adventus comitis Roberti fratris regis in Angliam prævia fama totam regalem curiam commovit, et quorundam animos, ut postmodum patuit, in diversa permovit. Rex igitur principes et principes regem suspectum habentes, ille scilicet istos ne a se instabili, ut fit, fide dissilirent, et isti illum formidando ne undique pace potitus in se, legibus efferatis desæviret, actum ex consulto est ut certitudo talis hinc inde fieret, quæ utrinque quod verebatur excluderet.”
[1018] Orderic (787 C, D) puts a long and pious speech into Count Robert’s mouth. The most emphatic words are; “Cunctos milites tuos leniter alloquere, omnibus ut pater filiis blandire, promissis universos demulce, quæque petierint concede, et sic omnes ad favorem tui sollerter attrahe. Si Lundoniam postulaverint vel Eboracam, ne differas magna polliceri, ut regalem decet munificentiam.”
[1019] I suppose this is the meaning of the words which come soon after; “Cum ad finem hujus negotii auxiliante Deo prospere pervenerimus, de repetendis dominiis quæ temerarii desertores tempore belli usurpaverint, utile consilium suggeremus.” He goes on to set forth the doctrine of confiscation for treason.
[1020] Eadmer, Hist. Nov. 59. “Anselmum inter se et regem medium fecerunt, quantus ei vice sui manu in manum porrecta promitteret, justis et sanctis legibus se totum regnum quoad viveret in cunctis administraturum. Hoc facto sibi quisque quasi de securitate applaudebat.”
[1021] Ord. Vit. 787 B. “Omnes Angli, alterius principis jura nescientes, in sui regis fidelitate perstiterunt, pro qua certamen inire eatis optaverunt.” Cf. the passages quoted in pp. 347, 352. William of Malmesbury (v. 395) bears the same witness; “Licet principibus deficientibus, partes ejus solidæ manebant; quas Anselmi archiepiscopi, cum episcopis suis, simul et omnium Anglorum tutabatur favor.”
[1022] It is rather curious that it is Florence who notices at what Norman haven the fleet came together; “Comes Nortmannorum Rotbertus, equitum, sagittariorum, et peditum, non parvam congregans multitudinem, in loco, qui Nortmannica lingua dicitur Ultresport, naves coadunavit.” Eadmer (Hist. Nov. 59) is more general; “Postquam certitudo de adventu fratris sui regi innotuit, mox ille, coacto exercitu totius terræ, ipsi bello occurrendum impiger statuit.”
[1023] Eadmer, Hist. Nov. 59. “Exercitus grandis erat atque robustus, et circa regem fideliter cum suis in expeditione excubabat pater Anselmus.”
[1024] See vol. i. p. 614. Orderic (774 B) has another mention of the siege of Capua; “Papa nimirum ibi tunc admodum occupatus erat, quia Capuanos, qui contra Richardum, principem suum, Jordani filium rebellaverant, eidem pacificare satagebat; quos idem juvenis, auxilio et animositate Rogerii senis, avunculi sui, Siculorum comitis, ad deditionem pertinaciter compulerat.” He goes on to say that Anselm was now “inter Italos, de quorum origine propagatus fuerat.” Eadmer (see vol. i. p. 367) knew the geography of Aosta better, unless indeed we are to excuse Orderic by calling in the Lombard origin of Anselm’s father.
[1025] The Chronicle mentions the place; “Ða to middesumeran ferde se cyng út to Pefenesæ mid eall his fyrde togeanes his broðer and his þær abád.” Florence says only, “Innumerabili exercitu congregato de tota Anglia, non longe ab Heastinga castra posuit in Suth-Saxonia; autumabat enim pro certo, fratrem suum illis in partibus nave appulsurum.”
[1026] Chron. Petrib. 1101. “And se cyng syððan scipe ut on sǽ sende his broðer to dære and to lættinge.”
[1027] See N. C. vol. iii. p. 327.
[1028] So says Florence; “Ille [Rotbertus] consilio Rannulfi episcopi, quosdam de regis butsecarlis adeo rerum diversarum promissionibus fregit, ut, fidelitate quam regi debebant postposita, ad se transfugerent, et sibi ad Angliam duces existerent.” But the Chronicler says only, “Ac hi sume æft æt þære neode abruðon, and fram þam cynge gecyrdon, and to þam eorle Rotberte gebugan.” Is the cause of this difference between sea-folk and land-folk to be found in the fact that the sailors must always have been a professional class, coming one degree nearer to the nature of mercenaries than the land forces?
[1029] Such is the comment of Orderic (787 B); “Classis ejus Guillelmi patris sui classi multum dispar fuit quæ, non exercitus virtute, sed proditorum procuratione, ad portum Portesmude applicuit.”
[1030] All our accounts take Robert to Portsmouth, but that vaguer name may take in the whole haven, so that we may accept the more definite statement of Wace, 15450;
“O grant gent et o grant navie, Et od noble chevalerie Passa mer, vint à Porecestre.”
On the castle and church of Portchester, see the Winchester Volume of the Archæological Institute. The Chronicler gives the date as “xii. nihtan toforan Hlafmæssan,” which would be July 20. Florence says “circa ad Vincula S. Petri,” that is August 1; and William of Malmesbury says “mense Augusto.” It is safer to keep to the more definite statement in the Chronicle.
[1031] Flor. Wig. 1101. “Statim versus Wintoniam exercitum movens, apto in loco castra posuit.” So Wace, as we shall see presently. Orderic says more vaguely, “Protinus ipse dux a proceribus regni, qui jamdudum illi hominium fecerant, in provinciam Guentoniensem perductus, constitit.”
[1032] Wace, 15453;
“D’iloc ala prendre Wincestre; Maiz l’en li dist ke la réine Sa serorge esteit en gésine, Et il dist ke vilain sereit, Ki dame en gésine assaldreit.”
[1033] Wace, 15458;
“Vers Lundres fist sa gent torner, Kar là kuidont li reis trover.”
[1034] Our geography comes from Wace, whom I must now quote in the new edition of Dr. Andresen (10373, answering to 15460 in the edition of Pluquet);
“Al bois de Hantone esteient ia Quant li dus un home encontra, Qui li dist que li reis ueneit, Ultre le bois l’encontrereit; Ultre le bois li reis l’atent.”
Here the word is Hantone in both texts, but directly after (10393) we read in Andresen, “Al bois de Altone trespasser,” where Pluquet has Hantone. This he explains to be “Hampton, dans le comté de Middlesex.” If Hantone were the right reading, it would of course mean Southampton, but we may be quite sure that Andresen’s second reading Altone is what Wace wrote in both places. I had myself thought of Alton before I saw the new text, but I must confess that I have not studied this Hampshire campaign on the spot, as I have studied those of Maine, Northumberland, Sussex, and Shropshire.
[1035] Both Robert of Bellême and William of Warren are marked by Orderic (787 B) as traitors, but seemingly a little earlier; but the account in Florence reads as if some at least of the nobles deserted at this stage, or at all events after Robert had landed; “Cujus adventu cognito, quidam de primoribus Angliæ mox ad eum, ut ante proposuerant, transfugere, quidam vero cum rege ficta mente remansere: sed episcopi, milites gregarii, et Angli, animo constanti cum illo perstitere, unanimiter ad pugnam parati cum ipso descendere.” Eadmer (Hist. Nov. 59) is to the same effect.
[1036] See Wace, 15622 et seqq. in Pluquet’s edition, 10537 Andresen. “Li quens de Waumeri,” who, Pluquet saw, must be the Earl of Warren or Surrey, appears in the new text as “Li quens de Warenne.” His “gab” against the King is described at great length. The special lines run thus;
“Li quens Guill. le gabout, Pie de cerf par gap l’apelout, E sovent sore li meteit E sovent par gap li diseit Que al pas de cerf conoisseit De quanz ramors li cers esteit.”
[1037] Ord. Vit. 787 B. “Interea Hugo Cestrensis comes in lectum decidit, et, post diutinum languorem, monachatum in cœnobio, quod idem Cestræ construxerat, suscepit, atque post triduum, vi. kalendas Augusti obiit.”
[1038] Eadmer, Hist. Nov. 59. “Rex ipse non modo de regni amissione sed et de vita sua suspectus, nulli credere, in nullo, excepto Anselmo, fidere valebat. Unde sæpe ad illum venire; principes quos magis a se labi timebat illi adducere; quatenus, audito verbo illius, et ipse a formidine relevaretur, et illis metus, si a fide quam sibi spoponderant, aliquatenus caderent, incuteretur.”
[1039] Ib. “Robertus igitur amissa fiducia quam in principum traditione habebat, et non levem deputans excommunicationem Anselmi, quam sibi ut invasori (nisi cœpto desisteret) invehi certo sciebat, paci adquievit et in fraternum amorem reversus est, exercitusque in sua dimissus.”
[1040] Ib. “Quapropter in dubia licet assertione fateri, quoniam si post gratiam Dei fidelitas et industria non intercessisset Anselmi, Henricus rex ea tempestate perdidisset jus Anglici regni.”
[1041] Eadmer, Hist. Nov. 59. “Ipse igitur Anselmo jura totius Christianitatis in Anglia exercendæ se relicturum, atque decretis et jussionibus apostolicæ sedis se perpetuo obediturum summopere promittebat.”
[1042] Wace has a good deal of vivid description at this stage, but this specially stirring picture, which almost suggests a ballad, comes from William of Malmesbury (v. 395); “Quapropter ipse provincialium fidei gratus et saluti providus, plerumque cuneos circuiens, docebat quomodo militum ferociam eludentes, clypeos objectarent et ictus remitterent, quo effecit ut ultroneis votis pugnam deposcerent, in nullo Normannos metuentes.”
This is really almost a translation of the lines in the song of Maldon quoted in N. C. vol. i. p. 272.
From Orderic too (788 B) we get one vivid sentence strongly bringing out the nationality of the two armies; “Nobilis corona ingentis exercitus circumstitit, ibique terribilis decor Normannorum et Anglorum in armis effulsit.”
[1043] See Appendix XX.
[1044] See Appendix XX.
[1045] See Appendix XX.
[1046] See Appendix XX.
[1047] See Appendix XX.
[1048] See Appendix XX.
[1049] See Appendix XX.
[1050] “Quibus pacatis,” says Florence, “regis exercitus domum, comitis vero pars in Normanniam rediit, pars in Anglia secum remansit.” The mischief done comes from the Chronicle; “And se eorl syððan oððet ofer S[~c]e Michaeles mæsse her on lande wunode, and his men mycel to hearme æfre gedydon swa hi geferdon, þa hwile se eorl her on lande wunode.” Orderic (788 D) says nothing about the army, but records the “regalia xenia” which Henry gave to Robert.
[1051] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 656.
[1052] Ord. Vit. 789 A. Fulcher is described as “pene illiteratus,” but “dapsilitate laudabilis.” He was “ad episcopatum procuratione fratris sui de curia raptus.” Of the second appointment we read, “Luxoviensem pontificatum filio suo Thomæ puero suscepit, et per triennium, non ut præsul, sed ut præses, gubernavit.”
[1053] Ib. 788 D. “Robertus dux in Neustriam rediit, et secum adduxit Guillelmum de Guarenna pluresque alios pro se exhæredatos.”
[1054] Ord. Vit. 805 A. “Guillelmus autem, postquam paternum jus, quod insipienter amiserat, recuperavit, per xxxiii. annos, quibus simul vixerunt, utiliter castigatus, regi fideliter adhæsit, et inter præcipuos ac familiares amicos habitus effloruit.”
[1055] Ib. 804 C. “Proditores … paulatim ulcisci conatus est, nam … quamplures ad judicium submonuit, nec simul, sed separatim, variisque temporibus et multimodis violatæ fidei reatibus implacitavit.”
[1056] The names are given in the passage just quoted. They are coupled with “potentior omnibus aliis Rodbertus de Belismo.” So again in 805 C.
[1057] See N. C. vol. ii. pp. 238, 241.
[1058] Ord. Vit. 805 C. “Ivonem quoque, quia guerram in Anglia cœperat, et vicinorum rura suorum incendio combusserat, quod in illa regione crimen est inusitatum nec sine gravi ultione fit expiatum, rigidus censor accusatum, nec purgatum, ingentis pecuniæ redditione oneravit, et plurimo angore tribulatum mœstificavit.”
[1059] Ib. “Imprimis erubescebat improperia quæ sibi fiebant derisoria, quod funambulus per murum exierat de Antiochia.”
[1060] The temporary possession is expressed by the words, “totam terram ejus usque ad xv. annos in vadimonio possideret.”
[1061] Ib. “Hæreditas ejus alienis subdita est” is a comment of Orderic.
[1062] See the song on the recovery of the Five Boroughs in the Chronicle, 941, 942.
[1063] The expressions of the Chronicler under the year 918 are remarkable. It is not said that the Lady wrought or timbered anything at Leicester; she found the stronghold, whatever it was, ready made; “Her heo begeat on hyre geweald mid Godes fultume on foreweardne gear þa burh æt Ligranceastre.”
[1064] Ord. Vit. 805 D. “Urbs Legrecestria quatuor dominos habuerat.” He then names them.
[1065] Ib. “Præfatus consul de Mellento per partem Yvonis, qui municeps erat et vicecomes et firmarius regis, callide intravit, et auxilio regis suaque calliditate totam sibi civitatem mancipavit, et inde consul in Anglia factus, omnes regni proceres divitiis et potestate præcessit, et pene omnes parentes suos transcendit.”
[1066] Orderic remarks, “Inter tot divitias mente cæcatus, filio Yvonis jusjurandum non servavit, quia idem adolescens statuto tempore juratam feminam, hæreditariamque tellurem non habuit.” On the deathbed of Earl Robert, see vol. i. p. 187.
[1067] See vol. i. p. 187. Orderic, it may be noticed, calls him “senex” even at the time of the release of Helias. See above, p. 243.
[1068] See the story in William of Malmesbury, v. 406. Besides these better known sons, Orderic gives him another, “Hugo cognomento pauper.”
[1069] See the Chronicle, 1123; N. C. vol. v. p. 197.
[1070] See above, p. 380. Orderic gives him four other daughters.
[1071] See vol. i. p. 186. The words of William of Malmesbury (v. 417) are remarkable; “Comes de Mellento qui, in hoc negotio magis antiqua consuetudine quam recti tenore rationem reverberans, allegabat multum regiæ majestati diminui, si, omittens morem antecessorum, non investiret electum per baculum et annulum.”
[1072] See Mon. Angl. viii. 1456. The changes by which Earl Robert’s church was enlarged into the present church of Saint Mary are singular indeed. The three churches of Our Lady in and by Leicester must be carefully distinguished.
[1073] For the abbey of Leicester, or rather St. Mary de Pré, see Mon. Angl. vi. 462.
[1074] Ord. Vit. 806 A. “Diligenter eum fecerat per unum annum explorari, et vituperabiles actus per privatos exploratores caute investigari, summopereque litteris adnotari.”
[1075] Ib. “Anno ab incarnatione Domini mcii. indictione x. Henricus rex Rodbertum de Belismo, potentissimum comitem, ad curiam suam ascivit, et xlv. reatus in factis seu dictis contra se vel fratrem suum Normanniæ ducem, commissos objecit, et de singulis eum palam respondere præcepit.”
[1076] Ord. Vit. u. s. “Cum Rodbertus licentiam, ut moris est, eundi ad consilium cum suis postulasset, eademque accepta.” It is possible that the “licentia” means the safe-conduct, but the other interpretation seems more natural.
[1077] Ord. Vit. 806 A. “Egressus, purgari se de objectis criminibus non posse cognovisset, equis celeriter ascensis, ad castella sua pavidus et anhelus confugit, et, rege cum baronibus suis responsum exspectante, regius satelles Rodbertum extemplo recessisse retulit.”
[1078] Ib. “Rodbertum itaque publicis questibus impetitum, nec legaliter expiatum, palam blasphemavit, et nisi ad judicium, rectitudinem facturus, remearet, publicum hostem judicavit.”
[1079] “Iterum rebellem ad concionem invitavit, sed ille venire prorsus refutavit.” All these important details of the legal process are given by Orderic only, but the Chronicler directly connects the dispute between the King and Robert with the holding of the regular assemblies, and the writer takes the opportunity to draw a picture of the greatness of the Earl of Shropshire; “On þisum geare to Natiuiteð wæs se cyng Heanrig on Westmynstre, and to Eastron on Winceastre, and sona þæræfter wurdon unsehte se cyng and se eorl Rotbert of Bælæsme, se hæfde þone eorldom her on lande on Scrobbesbyrig, þe his fæder Roger eorl ær ahte, and micel rice þærto, ægðer ge beheonon sǽ ge begeondon.”
It is worth noticing that the Chronicler here uses the English form, “Rotbert of Bælæsme;” in 1106 he changes to the French, “Rotbert de Bælesme.”
[1080] See above, p. 310.
[1081] Ord. Vit. 675 C, 708 B, 897 D.
[1082] Arnulf and Roger are both mentioned by Orderic, 808 C, and William of Malmesbury, v. 396, as having to leave England with their elder brother. They were therefore his accomplices; but it is only from the Brut y Tywysogion that we learn how great a share Arnulf had in the whole matter.
[1083] Brut, 1096 [1098]. “And when the Gwyneddians could not bear the laws and judgements and violence of the French over them, they rose up a second time against them.”
[1084] Brut, ib. This may refer either to the expedition of the two Hughs or to the earlier expedition of Hugh of Chester (see pp. 97, 129). But there seems to be no mention of Owen in the Welsh writers at either of those points.
[1085] See above, p. 301. The Brut couples Gruffydd with Cadwgan.
[1086] The words of the annals quoted in p. 301 look as if Gruffydd held Anglesey strictly as a conqueror. The portion assigned to Cadwgan comes from the Brut, which distinctly asserts their vassalage in its account of Robert’s rebellion (1100 [1102]). “Robert and Arnulf invited the Britons, who were subject to them, in respect of their possessions and titles, that is to say, Cadwgan, Jorwerth, and Maredudd, sons of Bleddyn, son of Cynvyn, to their assistance.”
[1087] So says the Brut, at least in the English translation; “They [Robert and Arnulf] gladdened their country with liberty.”
[1088] So says Giraldus, It. Camb. ii. 12 (vol. vi. p. 143); “In hac tertia Gualliæ portione, quæ Powisia dicitur, sunt equitia peroptima, et equi emissarii laudatissimi, de Hispaniensium equorum generositate, quos olim comes Slopesburiæ Robertus de Beleme in fines istos adduci curaverat, originaliter propagati.”
[1089] So again witnesses the Brut; but we hardly need witnesses on such a point.
[1090] So the Brut tells the tale. Orderic mentions the betrothal, which with him becomes a marriage, somewhat later (808 C); “Arnulfus filiam regis Hiberniæ nomine Lafracoth uxorem habuit, per quam soceri sui regnum obtinere concupivit.”
[1091] So says the Brut (p. 69), which adds that the marriage “was easily obtained,” and that “the Earls buoyed themselves up with pride on account of these things.”
[1092] Ord. Vit. 806 C. “Interea rex legatos in Neustriam direxit, ducique veridicis apicibus insinuavit, qualiter Rodbertus utrisque forisfecerit, et de curia sua furtim aufugerit. Deinde commonuit ut, sicut pepigerant in Anglia, utrique traditorem suum plecterent generali vindicta.”
[1093] Ord. Vit. 806 C. Vignats is mentioned by Wace (8061) long before when he speaks of
“Li vieil Willame Talevaz Ki tint Sez, Belesme è Vinaz.”
On the abbey founded in 1130, see Neustria Pia, 749.
[1094] This seems to be the meaning of Orderic’s words, “Non enim sese sine violentia dedere dignabantur, ne malefidi desertores merito judicarentur.”
[1095] See above, p. 289.
[1096] Orderic’s way of telling this is curious; “Quia dux deses et mollis erat, ac principali severitate carebat, Rodbertus de Monteforti, aliique seditionis complices, qui vicissim dissidebant, mappalia sua, sponte immisso igne, incenderunt, totum exercitum turbaverunt, et ipsi ex industria, nemine persequente, fugerunt, aliosque, qui odibilem Rodbertum gravare affectabant, turpiter fugero compulerunt.” Of all the Roberts concerned, it would seem to be he of Montfort who was “odibilis” at the present moment.
[1097] Ord. Vit. u. s. “Cum ululatu magno post eos deridentes vociferati sunt.”
[1098] Ord. Vit. 806 D. “Per totam ergo provinciam pagensium prædas rapiebant, et direptis omnibus, domos flammis tradebant.”
[1099] Orderic (806 B) implies that the works at Bridgenorth were still going on; “Brugiam, munitissimum castrum, super Sabrinam fluvium construebat.” But Florence is still more emphatic; “Muros quoque ac turres castellorum, videlicet Brycge et Caroclove, die noctuque laborando et operando, perficere modis omnibus festinavit.” The Brut speaks obscurely of some earlier dealings about Bridgenorth, of which we have no record elsewhere; “Brygge, concerning which there had been war, against which the whole deceit was perpetrated, and which he had founded contrary to the order of the King.” The rebels are described generally as fortifying their castles and surrounding them with ditches and walls, which are expressed in the Welsh text by the loan words “O ffossyd a muroed.”
[1100] Orderic and the Brut stand alone among our authorities in mentioning all the four castles, Arundel, Tickhill, Bridgenorth, and Shrewsbury. The Chronicle and William of Malmesbury leave out Tickhill. Florence and the Chronicle both leave out Shrewsbury. William of Malmesbury (v. 396) further confounds the siege of Arundel with that of Shrewsbury. From Orderic we get a clear and full account, while the Brut supplies many details as to the Welsh side of the business. Orderic opens his story in a becoming manner; “Rex exercitum Angliæ convocavit, et Arundellum castellum, quod prope litus maris situm est, obsedit.”
[1101] The Malvoisins before Arundel seem to have struck all our writers. We get them in the Chronicle; “Se cyng ferde and besæt þone castel æt Arundel, ac þa he hine swa hraðe gewinnan ne mihte, he let þær toforan castelas gemakian, and hi mid his mannan gesette.” They appear also in Florence, William of Malmesbury, and Henry of Huntingdon. They were doubtless of wood; but it is only from Roger of Wendover (ii. 170), who is followed by Matthew Paris (Hist. Angl. i. 190), that we get the direct statement, “castellum aliud ligneum contra illud construxit.”
[1102] So I understand the words of Orderic, 806 B; “Ibi castris constructis, stratores cum familiis suis tribus mensibus dimisit.”
[1103] Flor. Wig. 1102. “Idcirco mox Walanis et Nortmannis, quot tunc habere potuit, in unum congregatis, ipse et suus germanus Arnoldus partem Staffordensis pagæ vastaverunt, ac inde jumenta et animalia multa, hominesque nonnullos in Waloniam abduxerunt.”
[1104] Ord. Vit. 806 B. “Audiens defectionem suorum ingemuit, eosque a promissa fide, quia impos erat adjutorii, absolvit, multumque mœrens licentiam concordandi cum rege concessit.”
[1105] So Orderic; I add the stipulation about Robert from William of Malmesbury; “Egregia sane conditione, ut dominus suus integra membrorum salute Normanniam permitteretur abire.” William’s account just here is very confused; but this condition seems to have struck him, and it explains some things which come later. He goes on to make this strange statement; “Porro Scrobesbirienses per Radulfum tum abbatem Sagii, postea Cantuariæ archiepiscopum, regi misere castelli claves, deditionis præsentis indices, futuræ devotionis obsides.” Now Orderic has, as we shall see, a wholly different account of the surrender of Shrewsbury, and Abbot Ralph, a victim of Robert of Bellême (see vol. i. p. 184), is not at all likely to have been in one of his castles. Can it be that William has got hold of the wrong castle and the wrong Ralph? Did Bishop Ralph of Chichester act by any chance as mediator between the King and the garrison of Arundel, a place in his diocese?
[1106] The name of Howard is not heard till the time of Edward the First, and it is not noble till some generations later. If it really be the name of an English office, Hayward or Hogward, and not a Norman Houard, then Arundel, already a castle T. R. E., has fittingly come back to the old stock.
[1107] See above, p. 160. Tickhill appears as “Tyckyll” in Florence, as “Blida” in Orderic, as “Blif” in the Brut. The editor of this last, who carefully translates “Amúythia” as Shrewsbury, seems not to have known that “Blif” and “Bryg”――there seem to be several readings――meant Blyth and Bridgenorth.
[1108] So Florence; “Rotbertum, Lindicolinæ civitatis episcopum, cum parte exercitus Tyckyll obsidere jussit [rex]: ille autem Brycge cum exercitu pene totius Angliæ obsedit.”
[1109] “Unde,” says Orderic――that is from Arundel――“rex ad Blidam castrum, quod Rogerii de Buthleio quondam fuerat, exercitum promovit. Cui mox gaudentes oppidani obviam processerunt, ipsumque naturalem dominum fatentes, cum gaudio susceperunt.” Yet it may be that Bishop Robert, like Joab and Luxemburg, fought against the castle, and that Henry, like David and Lewis the Fourteenth, came to receive its submission.
[1110] The succession of the lords of Tickhill is traced by Mr. John Raine in his history of Blyth.
[1111] See Raine, p. 168.
[1112] See N. C. vol. v. p. 488.
[1113] Ord. Vit. 806 B. “His ita peractis, rex populos parumper quiescere permisit, ejusque prudentiam et animositatem congeries magnatorum pertimuit.”
[1114] Ord. Vit. 807 A. “Rodbertus autem Scrobesburiam secesserat, et præfatum oppidum Rogerio, Corbati filio, et Rodberto de Novavilla, Ulgerioque Venatori commiserat, quibus lxxx. stipendiarios milites conjunxerat.”
[1115] Corbet――“Corbatus”――appears in Orderic (522 B, C), along with his sons Roger and Robert, as a chief man in Shropshire under Earl Roger. He must have died before the Survey, as only his sons appear there. The lands which Corbet’s son Roger held of Earl Roger fill nearly two columns in Domesday, 255 b; they are followed by those of his brother Robert in 256. Several of Roger’s holdings had been held by Eadric, and in one lordship of Robert’s he is distinctly marked as “Edric Salvage.” Several of Roger’s under-tenants are mentioned, of whom “Osulfus” and “Ernuinus” must be English, while another lordship had been held by Ernui. If these names mean the same person, then Earnwine or Earnwig had held two lordships, one of which he lost altogether, while the other he kept in the third degree, holding it under Roger son of Corbet, who held it under Earl Roger. I suppose that these sons of Corbet have nothing to do with “Robertus filius Corbutionis” who appears in the east of England and whose name is said to be “Corpechun.” See Ellis, i. 478. I cannot find Robertus de Novavilla in Domesday.
[1116] I cannot find Wulfgar in Domesday, unless he be the Vlgar who appears as an antecessor in 256, 257 b. Some other huntsmen, fittingly bearing wolfish names, as Wulfgeat (50 b) and Wulfric (50 b, 84), appear in Domesday as keeping land T. R. W., but no Wulfgar.
[1117] The action of the Welsh appears in all our accounts, but most fully in Orderic and the Brut. The Annales Cambriæ say only “Seditio [magna] orta est inter Robertum Belleem et Henricum regem.” William of Malmesbury says spitefully, “Wallensibus pro motu fortunæ ad malum pronis.” But he seems somehow to connect them specially with Shrewsbury. Florence is emphatic, and brings out the feudal relation between them and Earl Robert (see above, p. 424); “Walanos etiam, suos homines, ut promptiores sibique fideliores ac paratiores essent ad id perficiendum quod volebat, honoribus, terris, equis, armis incitavit, variisque donis largiter ditavit.” From the Brut we get the names of all three, Cadwgan, Jorwerth, and Meredydd. Orderic leaves out Meredydd, and calls them sons of Rhys instead of Bleddyn. He adds, “Quos cum suis copiis exercitum regis exturbare frequenter dirigebat.”
[1118] Ord. Vit. 807 A. “Guillelmum Pantolium, militarem probumque virum, exhæreditaverat, et multa sibi pollicentem servitia in instanti necessitate penitus a se propulsaverat.” Orderic had mentioned him already in 522 B, C, by the name of “Guillelmus Pantulfus,” as one of Earl Roger’s chief followers in Shropshire. His Shropshire holdings fill a large space in Domesday, 257, 257 b, where he appears as Pantulf and Pantul; and the history of one of them has been commented on in N. C. vol. iv. p. 737. Many of them were waste when he received them. His Staffordshire lordship is entered in p. 248, with the addition “in Stadford una vasta masura.” See N. C. vol. iv. p. 281. I do not know why Lappenberg (ii. 234, p. 294 of the translation) makes William Pantulf to have been persecuted (“verfolgt”) by Earl Roger on account of a share in the murder of Mabel. If he had lost his lands then, he would hardly have appeared in Domesday, and, according to Orderic, it was not Earl Roger, but Robert of Bellême himself, who disinherited him.
[1119] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 316. Orderic calls it “Staphordi castrum, quod in vicino erat.”
[1120] Orderic tells us, “Hic super omnes Rodberto nocuit, et usque ad dejectionem consiliis et armis pertinaciter obstitit.”
[1121] The Malvoisin at Bridgenorth comes from Florence; “Machinas ibi construere et castellum firmare cœpit.”
[1122] “Totius Angliæ legiones in autumno adunavit, et in regionem Merciorum minavit, ibique Brugiam tribus septimanis obsedit.” So says Orderic, 807 A. When Florence says, “infra xxx. dies civitate omnibusque castellis redditis,” he must take in Shrewsbury, though he does not mention its name. Bridgenorth could not be called “civitas;” Shrewsbury is so called in Domesday, where the name does not imply a bishop’s see.
[1123] See vol. i. pp. 83, 86.
[1124] Ord. Vit. 807 B. “Consules et primores regni una convenerunt, et de pacificando discorde cum domino suo admodum tractaverunt. Dicebant enim, Si rex magnificum [μεγαλοπράγμονά τε καὶ κακοπράγμονα [megalopragmona te kai kakopragmona]] comitem violenter subegerit, nimiaque pertinacia, ut conatur, eum exhæreditaverit, omnes nos ut imbelles ancillas amodo conculcabit.”
[1125] Ord. Vit. 807 B. “Pacem igitur inter eos obnixi seramus, ut hero comparique nostro legitime proficiamus, et sic utcunque perturbationes sedando debitorem nobis faciamus.”
[1126] See above, p. 151.
[1127] Ord. Vit. 807 B. “Regem omnes simul adierunt, et in medio campo colloquium [see N. C. vol. iv. p. 688] de pace medullitus fecerunt, ac pluribus argumentis regiam austeritatem emollire conati sunt.”
[1128] Ib. “Tunc in quodam proximo colle tria millia pagensium militum stabant, et optimatum molimina satis intelligentes, ad regem vociferando clamabant.” The word “milites” is qualified by “pagenses;” so we are not to conceive three thousand English “chivalers” or “rideras,” least of all in a shire where no King’s thegns were left.
[1129] See N. C. vol. ii. pp. 104, 105, and below, p. 448.
[1130] I have here simply translated Orderic. The words are doubtless his own; but the matter is quite in place.
[1131] See above, p. 430.
[1132] Ord. Vit. 807 B. “His auditis, rex animatus est, eoque mox recedente, conatus factiosorum adnihilatus est.” I do not quite see the force of the words in Italics. Does it mean simply leaving the place of the “colloquium”? It cannot, from what goes before and after, mean changing the quarters of the whole army.
[1133] Ib. B, C. “Præfatos Gualorum reges per Guillelmum Pantolium rex accersiit, eosque datis muneribus et promissis demulcens, hosti caute surripuit suæque parti cum viribus suis associavit.” The detailed narrative comes from the Brut, to whose author the different conduct of the brothers was naturally more interesting than it was to Orderic. He speaks of the message as “sent to the Britons,” and specially to Jorwerth, without mentioning Cadwgan and Meredydd. He is the best authority for what went on among his own people, while we may trust Orderic for the name of the negotiator on the King’s side. Florence speaks quite generally; “Interim Walanos, in quibus fiduciam magnam Rotbertus habuerat, ut juramenta quæ illi juraverant irrita fierent, et ab illo penitus deficerent in illumque consurgerent, donis modicis facile corrupit.” The gifts actually given may have been small, but the promises were certainly large.
[1134] The Brut makes the King “promise him more than he should obtain from the earls, and the portion he ought to have of the land of the Britons.” This is then defined as the districts mentioned in the text.
[1135] “Half of Dyved,” says the Brut, “as the other half had been given to the son of Baldwin.” That Jorwerth’s half was to take in Pembroke Castle appears from the words towards the end of this year’s entry, where the King “took Dyved and the castle from him.” “The castle” in Dyfed can only be Pembroke.
[1136] The Brut tells this at some length, speaking rather pointedly of “the territory of Robert his lord.” See above, pp. 424, 434.
[1137] Ord. Vit. 807 C. “Tres quoque præcipuos municipes mandavit, et coram cunctis juravit quod nisi oppidum in triduo sibi redderent, omnes quoscunque de illis capere posset, suspendio perirent.” These “municipes,” the “oppidani” of the rest of the story, must be the three captains, Roger, Robert, and Wulfgar. Odd as it seems, both “oppidanus” and “municeps” are often used in this sense. See Ducange in Municeps.
[1138] “Guillelmum Pantolium, qui affinis eorum erat.” “Affinis” in the language of Orderic often means simply neighbour, as in 708 A.
[1139] “Facete composita oratione ad reddendam legitimo regi munitionem commonuit, cujus ex parte terra centum librarum fundos eorum augendos jurejurando promisit.”
[1140] “Oppidani, considerata communi commoditate, acquieverunt, et regiæ majestatis voluntati, ne resistendo periclitarentur, obedierunt.”
[1141] “Se non posse ulterius tolerare violentiam invicti principis mandaverunt.”
[1142] So says the Brut, adding, “without knowing anything of what was passing.”
[1143] The embassy at this stage comes only from the Brut, but as the later one (see below, p. 448) is mentioned also, we may accept it. The Welsh writer naturally makes the most of his countrymen, and makes Robert despair on the secession of Jorwerth. “He thought he had no power left since Jorwerth had gone from him, for he was the principal among the Britons, and the greatest in power.” This may not be an exaggeration, as he lost with Jorwerth all power of doing anything in the open field.
[1144] The journey of Arnulf at this particular time comes only from the Brut, but it quite fits in with the rest of the story.
[1145] On the second voyage of Magnus, see Appendix II.
[1146] See Appendix II.
[1147] Ord. Vit. 807 C. “Stipendiarii autem milites pacem nescierunt, quam oppidani omnes et burgenses, perire nolentes, illis inconsultis fecerunt.” The appearance of the “burgenses,” a class who must have grown up speedily, as Bridgenorth is no Domesday borough, mark yet more distinctly the true meaning of “oppidani.”
[1148] “Cum insperatam rem comperissent, indignati sunt, et armis assumptis inchoatum opus impedire nisi sunt.”
[1149] “Oppidanorum violentia in quadam parte munitionis inclusi sunt.”
[1150] “Regii satellites cum regali vexillo, multis gaudentibus, suscepti sunt.”
[1151] “Deinde rex, quia stipendiarii fidem principi suo servabant, ut decuit, eis liberum cum equis et armis exitum annuit. Qui egredientes, inter catervas obsidentium plorabant, seseque fraudulentia castrensium et magistrorum male supplantatos palam plangebant, et coram omni exercitu, ne talis eorum casus aliis opprobrio esset stipendiariis, complicum dolos detegebant.” The use of the words may seem odd; but “magistri” must mean the captains, and “castrenses” the burgesses.
[1152] See N. C. vol. iv. pp. 272, 492. We may here again mark the accuracy of Orderic’s local descriptions in his own shire (807 D); “Scrobesburiam urbem in monte sitam, quæ in ternis lateribus circumluitur Sabrina flumine.”
[1153] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 498.
[1154] Ord. Vit. 807 D. “Robertus de Belismo, ut munitissimum Brugiæ castrum, in quo maxime confidebat, regi subactum audivit, anxius ingemuit, et pene in amentiam versus, quid ageret ignoravit.”
[1155] Ord. Vit. 808 A. “Plus quam lx. milia peditum erant in expeditione.”
[1156] Ib. 807 D. “Rex phalanges suas jussit Huvel-hegem pertransire…. Angli quippe quemdam transitum per silvam huvelge-hem dicunt, quem Latini malum callem vel vicum, nuncupare possunt. Via enim per mille passus erat cava, grandibus saxis aspera, stricta quoque quæ vix duos pariter equitantes capere valebat, cui opacum nemus ex utraque parte obumbrabat, in quo sagittarii delitescebant, et stridulis missilibus vel sagittis prætereuntes subito mulctabant.”
[1157] Ib. 808 A. “Rex jussit silvam securibus præcidere, et amplissimam stratam sibi et cunctis transeuntibus usque in æternum præparare. Regia jussio velociter completa est, saltuque complanato latissimus trames a multitudine adæquatus est.”
[1158] Ord. Vit. 808 A. “Severus rex memor injuriarum, cum pugnaci multitudine decrevit illum impetere nec ei ullatenus nisi victum se redderet parcere.”
[1159] For the date, see above, p. 435.
[1160] Ord. Vit. u. s. “Tristis casus sui angore contabuit, et consultu amicorum regi jam prope urbem venienti obviam processit, et crimen proditionis confessus, claves urbi victori exhibuit.” This time the keys were doubtless not handed on the point of a spear.
[1161] Ord. Vit. 808 A. “Ipsum cum equis et armis incolumem abire permisit, salvumque per Angliam usque ad mare conductum porrexit.”
There is nothing very special in the other accounts. On the story about Bishop Ralph in William of Malmesbury, see above, p. 430. But William adds (v. 396) a remarkable condition to Robert’s banishment; “Angliam perpetuo abjuravit; sed vigorem sacramenti temperavit adjectio, nisi regi placito quandoque satisfecisset obsequio.”
[1162] The native Chronicler alone notices this point. His account of the siege of Bridgenorth――leaving out Shrewsbury――runs thus; “Se cyng … syððan mid ealre his fyrde ferde to Brigge, and þær wunode oððe he þone castel hæfde, and þone eorl Rotbert belænde, and ealles benæmde þæs he on Englalande hæfde, and se eorl swa ofer sǽ gewát, and seo fyrde siððan ham cyrde.” Men might stay at home during the rest of Henry’s days, unless they were called to go beyond sea themselves.
[1163] Numbers, xxi. 29.
[1164] “Omnis Anglia exsulante crudeli tyranno exsultavit, multorumque congratulatio regi Henrico tunc adulando dixit, Gaude, rex Henrice, Dominoque Deo grates age, quia tu libere cœpisti regnare, ex quo Rodbertum de Belismo vicisti, et de finibus regni tui expulisti.”
[1165] Orderic and William of Malmesbury record the banishment of both brothers. Florence mentions Arnulf only. “Germanum illius [Rotberti] Arnoldum paulo post, pro sua perfidia, simili sorte damnavit.” To the author of the Brut the departure of Arnulf was of special importance. The King gives him his choice, “either to quit the kingdom and follow his brother, or else”――I can only follow the translation――“to be at his will with his head in his lap.” “When Ernulf heard that, he was most desirous of going after his brother; so he delivered his castle [of Pembroke] to the King, and the King placed a garrison in it.”
[1166] See N. C. vol. v. pp. 173, 184. See Chron. Petrib. 1105, 1112; Flor. Wig. ib. Cf. Hen. Hunt de Cont. Mundi, II. “Qui cæteros carcere vexaverat, in carcere perenni a rege Henrico positus, longo supplicio sceleratus deperiit. Quam tantopere fama coluerat dum viveret, in carcere utrum viveret vel obisset nescivit, diemque mortis ejus obmutescens ignoravit.”
[1167] See Appendix II.
[1168] See Appendix II.
[1169] The latter is the story in the Brut; the Annales Cambriæ say; “Jorwert filius Bledint Maredut frater suum cepit, regi tradidit;” or, in another reading, “Cepit fratrem suum Mareduch, et eum in carcerem regis trusit.”
[1170] See above, pp. 98, 108.
[1171] Brut, p. 75.
[1172] See N. C. vol. v. p. 160.
[1173] Ib. vol. i. pp. 327, 333.
[1174] The account in the Brut is that in 1101 (that is 1103) he “was cited to Shrewsbury, through the treachery of the King’s council. And his pleadings and claims were arranged; and on his having come, all the pleadings were turned against him, and the pleading continued through the day, and at last he was adjudged to be fineable, and was afterwards cast into the King’s prison, not according to law, but according to power.” Again I should like to be able to judge of the translation. The Annals say in one copy, “Iorward filius Bledint apud Saresberiam a rege Henrico injuste capitur;” in another, “captus est ab hominibus regis apud Slopesburiam.” Shrewsbury is of course the right reading.
[1175] So says the Brut. The Annals also call him “decus et solamen Britanniæ.”
[1176] His story is told among others by William of Malmesbury, v. 397, 398.
[1177] The question of his blinding has a bearing on the question of the blinding of Duke Robert. See N. C. vol. v. p. 849.]
INDEX.
A.
Aaron, the Jew, i. 160 (note).
Abbeys, sale of, by William Rufus, i. 134, 135, 347, 349; vacancies of, prolonged by him, i. 134, 135, 347, 350, ii. 564; Englishmen appointed to by him, i. 352; in what sense the king’s, i. 455.
Aberafan, held by the descendants of Jestin, ii. 87; foundation of the borough, ii. 88.
Aberllech, English defeat at, ii. 107.
Aberlleiniog Castle, ii. 97; destroyed by the Welsh, ii. 101; rebuilt, ii. 129; modern traces of, ii. 130; fleet of Magnus off, ii. 143.
Aberllwehr Castle, ii. 103.
Abingdon Abbey, dealings of Hugh of Dun and Hugh of Buckland with, ii. 665.
Adela, daughter of William the Conqueror, her correspondence with Anselm, i. 374, ii. 571.
Adelaide, wife of Walter Tirel, ii. 322, 673; her tenure of lands in Essex, ii. 674.
Adeliza, Queen, wife of Henry I, ii. 389 (note).
Adeliza (Atheliz), abbess of Wilton, Anselm’s letter to, ii. 578.
Adeliza, wife of Roger of Montgomery, legend of her vow, ii. 154.
Adeliza, wife of William Fitz-Osbern, i. 266.
Advocatio, advowson, right and duty of, i. 420.
Ælfgifu-Emma. See Emma.
Ælfheah, Archbishop of Canterbury, Anselm asserts his right to the title of martyr, i. 377.
Ælfhere, Prior of Saint Eadmund’s, ii. 579.
Ælfred, King, Henry I descended from, ii. 383.
Ælfred of Lincoln, ii. 485.
Ælfsige, Abbot of Bath, his death, i. 136.
Ælwine Retheresgut, ii. 359 (note).
Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, fortifies Bridgenorth, ii. 152, 153 (note).
Æthelflæd, Abbess of Romsey, her alleged outwitting of William Rufus, ii. 32, 600.
Æthelnoth the Good, Archbishop of Canterbury, his gift of a cope to the Archbishop of Beneventum, i. 610.
Æthelred II., compared with William Rufus, ii. 307.
Æthelward, son of Dolfin, ii. 551.
Agnes of Ponthieu, wife of Robert of Bellême, i. 180; his treatment of her, i. 183; escapes from him, i. 183 (note).
Agnes, wife of Helias of Maine, ii. 373.
Agnes, widow of Walter Giffard, said to have poisoned Sibyl of Conversana, ii. 312 (note).
Aiulf, Sheriff of Dorset, ii. 485.
Alan the Black, lord of Richmond, part of Bishop William’s lands granted to, i. 90; his agreement with the Bishop, i. 93; intervenes on his behalf, i. 109, 117, 120; Rufus bids him give the Bishop ships, i. 114; seeks Eadgyth-Matilda in marriage, ii. 602; his death, ib.
Albanians, followers of Magnus so called, ii. 623.
Alberic, Earl of Northumberland, confirms the grant of Tynemouth to Jarrow, ii. 18, 605.
Alberic of Grantmesnil, goes on the first crusade, i. 552; called the “rope-dancer,” i. 565 (note).
Aldric, Saint, Bishop of Le Mans, his buildings, ii. 240, 633.
Alençon, garrison of, driven out by Robert of Bellême, i. 193; surrenders to Duke Robert, i. 218; the army of William Rufus meets at, ii. 228.
Alexander the Great, William Rufus compared to, i. 287.
Alexander II., Pope, his excommunication of Harold, i. 612.
Alexander, King of Scotland, son of Malcolm and Margaret, ii. 22; driven out of Scotland, ii. 30; his accession, ii. 124; marries a daughter of Henry I, ib.; Anselm’s letter to, ii. 581.
Alexios Komnênos, Eastern Emperor, appeals for help to the Council of Piacenza, i. 545; Duke Robert does homage to, i. 564.
Allières, castle of, ii. 216, 217.
Almaric the Young, ii. 251.
Alnwick, history of the castle and lords of, ii. 15, 596; death of Malcolm III. at, ii. 16, 592.
Alton, meeting of Henry I and Robert near, ii. 408.
Alvestone, sickness of William Rufus at, i. 390.
Amalchis, brings news to William Rufus of the victories of Helias, ii. 283, 645-652, 785.
Amalfi, siege of, i. 562.
Amalric of Montfort, gets possession of the county of Evreux, i. 268 (note).
Amercements, provision for, in Henry’s charters, ii. 354.
Amfrida, her correspondence with Anselm, ii. 571.
Anglesey, advance of Hugh of Chester in, ii. 97; deliverance of, ii. 101; war of 1098 in, ii. 127 et seq.; fleet of Magnus off, ii. 143; his designs thereon, ii. 145; subdued by Hugh of Chester, ii. 146; recovered by the Welsh, ii. 301; second visit of Magnus to, ii. 442.
Annales Cambriæ, ii. 3 (note).
Anselm, his biographers, i. 325 (note), 369; his birthplace and parentage, i. 366; compared with Lanfranc, i. 368, 456; his friendship with William the Conqueror, i. 368, 380; not preferred in England by him, i. 368; his character, i. 369; his childhood and youth, i. 370, 371; leaves Aosta, sojourns at Avranches, and becomes a monk at Bec, i. 371; elected prior and abbot, i. 372; his wide-spread fame, i. 373; his correspondence, i. 374, ii. 570 et seq.; his desire to do justice, i. 377; his first visit to England, ib.; asserts Ælfheah’s right to the title of martyr, ib.; his friendship with the monks of Christ Church, i. 378; with Eadmer, i. 369, 378, 460; his popularity in England, i. 378; his preaching and alleged miracles, i. 379; his friendship for Earl Hugh, i. 380; entertained by Walter Tirel, i. 380 (note); regarded as the future Archbishop, i. 381; refuses Earl Hugh’s invitation to Chester, i. 383; yields at last, at the bidding of his monks, i. 384; hailed at Canterbury as the future Archbishop, i. 385; his first interview with William Rufus, ib.; rebukes him, i. 386; goes to Chester, i. 387; the King refuses him leave to go back, i. 388; his form of prayer for the appointment of an archbishop, i. 390; the King’s mocking speech about, ib.; sent for by him, i. 393; named by him to the archbishopric, i. 396, ii. 584; his unwillingness, i. 396; Rufus pleads with him, i. 398; invested by force, i. 399; his first installation, i. 400; his prophecy and parable, i. 401; has no scruple about the royal right of investiture, i. 403; later change in his views, i. 404; stays with Gundulf, i. 406; his interview with William at Rochester, i. 412; conditions of his acceptance, i. 413-416; refuses to confirm William’s grants during the vacancy, i. 418-421; states the case in a letter to Hugh of Lyons, i. 419, ii. 571, 576; receives the archbishopric and does homage, i. 422; his friendship with Abbot Paul of Saint Alban’s, i. 423; the papal question left unsettled, i. 424, 432; his enthronement, i. 427; Flambard’s suit against him, i. 428; his consecration, i. 429-432; professes obedience to the Church of Rome, i. 432; attends the Gemót at Gloucester, i. 434; his unwilling contribution for the war against Robert, i. 437, 438; his gift refused by the King, i. 439; his dispute with the Bishop of London, i. 440; at the consecration of Battle Abbey, i. 444; insists on the profession of Robert Bloet, i. 446; rebukes the courtiers, i. 449; appeals to Rufus for reforms, i. 451; asks leave to hold a synod, ib.; protests against fashionable vices, i. 452; prays the King to fill vacant abbeys, i. 453; his claim to the regency, i. 457; attempts to regain the King’s favour, ib.; refuses to give him money, i. 458-460; leaves Hastings, i. 460; his interview with the King at Gillingham, i. 481; asks leave to go to Urban for the pallium, i. 481-484; argues in favour of Urban, i. 484; asks for an assembly to discuss the question, i. 485; insists on the acknowledgement of Urban, i. 486; states his case at the assembly at Rockingham, i. 492; how regarded by the King’s party, i. 493; advice of the bishops to, i. 494; sets forth his twofold duties, i. 495, 496; compared with William of Saint-Calais, i. 497; not the first to appeal to Rome, ib.; his speech to Rufus, i. 498; sleeps during the debate, ib.; the King’s message and advice of the bishops, ib.; schemes of William of Saint-Calais against, i. 500; speech of Bishop William to him, i. 502; Anselm’s challenge, i. 505; popular feeling with him, i. 507; speech of the knight to, i. 508; renounced by the King and the bishops, i. 512; supported by the lay lords, i. 514; proposes to leave England, i. 516; agrees to an adjournment, i. 518; his friends oppressed by the King, i. 520; summoned to Hayes, i. 530; refuses to pay for the pallium, i. 531; reconciled to Rufus, ib.; refuses to take the pallium from him, i. 532; absolves Bishops Robert and Osmund, i. 533; restores Wilfrith of Saint David’s, i. 534; receives the pallium at Canterbury, ib.; his alleged oath to the Pope, i. 535, ii. 588; his letters to Cardinal Walter, i. 536, 538, ii. 41, 571; entrusted with the defence of Canterbury, i. 537, ii. 44; his canonical position objected to by the bishops, i. 539; his dealings with his monks and tenants, i. 541; attends Bishop William on his deathbed, i. 542, ii. 61; consecrates English and Irish bishops, i. 544; his letters to King Murtagh, i. 545 (note), ii. 581; his contribution to the pledge-money, i. 558; complaints made of his contingent to the Welsh war, i. 572; position of his knights, i. 573; summoned to the King’s court, i. 574; change in his feelings, i. 575; his yearnings towards Rome, i. 575-577; new position taken by, i. 577; determines to demand reform, i. 579, and not to answer the new summons, ib.; favourably received, i. 581; asks leave to go to Rome, i. 582, 583, and is refused, ib.; renews his request, i. 584; again impleaded, ib.; alternative given to by William, ib.; his answer to the bishops and lords, i. 585; to Walkelin, i. 587; charged with breach of promise, i. 589; alternative given to him, ib.; his discourse to the King, i. 589-591; the barons take part against him, i. 591; his answer to Robert of Meulan, i. 592; terms on which he is allowed to go, i. 592, 593; his last interview with Rufus, i. 593; blesses him, i. 594; his departure from Canterbury, ib.; his departure foretold by the comet, ii. 118; William of Warelwast searches his luggage, i. 595; crosses to Whitsand, ib.; his estates seized by the King, ib.; his acts declared null, i. 596; compared with Thomas of London and William of Saint-Calais, i. 598 et seq.; does not strictly appeal to the Pope, i. 598; does not assert clerical privileges, i. 599; effects of his foreign sojourn on, i. 606; writes to Urban from Lyons, i. 612; alleged scheme of Odo Duke of Burgundy against, i. 606, and of Pope Clement, i. 607; his reception by Urban, ib.; known as “the holy man,” i. 608; writes to Rufus, i. 613; his sojourn at Schiavia, i. 615; writes his “Cur Deus Homo,” ib.; plots of William Rufus against, ib.; his reception by Duke Roger, ib.; his kindness to the Saracens, i. 616; forbidden to convert them, i. 617; Urban forbids him to resign his see, ib.; defends the Filioque at Bari, i. 609, 618; pleads for William Rufus, ib.; Urban’s dealings with him, i. 621; made to stay for the Lateran Council, i. 621; special honours paid to, i. 607, 622; goes to Lyons, i. 622; hears of the death of Rufus, ii. 34, 363; the monks of Canterbury beg him to return, ii. 363; Henry’s letter to, ii. 364-366; returns to England, ii. 369; his connexion with Norman history, ib.; his meeting with Henry, ii. 374; his dispute with Henry compared with that with Rufus, ii. 375; his refusal to do homage and receive investiture, ii. 375, 376; the question is adjourned, ii. 377, 378, 399; no personal scruple on his part, ii. 377; provisional restoration of his temporalities, ii. 378; refuses his consent to the appointment of Eadwulf as abbot of Malmesbury, ii. 383 (note); Eadgyth appeals to, concerning her marriage with Henry, ii. 384; holds an assembly on the matter, and pronounces in her favour, ii. 384, 385, 683; other versions of the story, ii. 385, 387; celebrates the marriage, ii. 387; his speech thereat, ii. 388; mediates between Henry and his nobles, ii. 400; his contingent against Robert, ii. 403; his energy on behalf of Henry, ii. 410; threatens Robert with excommunication, ib.; Henry’s compromise with, ii. 455; called Saint before his canonization, ii. 661.
Ansfrida, mistress of Henry I, story of, ii. 380; buried at Abingdon, ii. 382.
Anskill of Berkshire, story of, ii. 380; notice of in Domesday, ii. 381 (note).
Anthony, Sub-Prior of Christ Church, appointed Prior of Saint Augustine’s, i. 140.
Antioch, “rope-dancers” at, i. 565; death of Arnulf of Hesdin at, ii. 66.
Aosta, birthplace of Anselm, i. 366.
Aquitaine, Duke William proposes to pledge it to William Rufus, ii.313.
Archard. See Harecher.
Archbishop of Canterbury, special position of, i. 358; the parish priest of the Crown, i. 414 (note).
Archbishopric, meaning of the phrase “receiving” it, ii. 375.
Argentan Castle, held by William Rufus, i. 462; siege of, i. 463; surrenders to Duke Robert, i. 464; granted to Robert of Bellême, ii. 396; held by him against Henry I, ii. 428.
Armethwaite Nunnery, alleged foundation of, by William Rufus, ii. 506.
Arnold, Bishop of Le Mans, his buildings, ii. 240, 634.
Arnold of Saint Evroul, translates Robert of Rhuddlan’s body to Saint Evroul, i. 128.
Arnold of Escalfoy, poisoned by Mabel Talvas, i. 215.
Arnold of Percy, signs the Durham charter, ii. 530.
Arnold, Dr., on chivalry, ii. 508.
Arnulf of Hesdin, his alleged foundation at Ruislip, i. 376 (note); his gifts to Gloucester Abbey, ii. 65; his innocence proved by battle, ib.; goes to the crusade and dies, ii. 66.
Arnulf of Montgomery, son of Earl Roger of Shrewsbury, i. 57 (note); begins Pembroke Castle, ii. 96; plots against Henry, ii. 395; his share in Robert of Bellême’s rebellion, ii. 423; his dealings with King Murtagh, ii. 425, 622, 624; and with King Magnus, ii. 426; harries Staffordshire, ii. 429; goes to Ireland, ii. 442; his banishment, ii. 450.
Arques Castle, held by Helias of Saint-Saens, i. 236.
Arundel, held by Earl Roger, i. 58; position of, ib.; castle of, built T. R. E., ib.; priory founded at, by Earl Roger, i. 59 (note); besieged by Henry I, ii. 428; terms of its surrender, ii. 430; its later fortunes, ib.
Arundel, Earl of, origin of the title, i. 60 (note).
Ascalon, battle of, i. 623.
Ascelin Goel, his war with William of Breteuil, i. 243 (note).
Assemblies, frequency of, under William Rufus, i. 487.
Aumale Castle, surrendered to William Rufus, i. 228; strengthened by him, i. 229.
Auvergne, mention of in the Chronicle, i. 547 (note).
Avesgaud, Bishop of Le Mans, signs the foundation charter of Lonlay Abbey, 539.
Avon, at Bristol, i. 37.
Avranchin, bought by Henry of Robert, i. 196, ii. 510-516.
B.
Baldwin of Boulogne, King of Jerusalem, his dream, i. 269, ii. 122; its fulfilment, i. 270; marries Godehild of Toesny, i. 270 (note); goes on the first crusade, i. 551; besieged in Rama, ii. 122; Anselm’s letters to, ii. 581.
Baldwin, Abbot of Saint Eadmund’s, rebuilds his church, ii. 268; translates Saint Eadmund’s body, ii. 270; his journey to Rome, ib.; his death, ii. 267, 270; his signature to the Durham charter, ii. 536.
Baldwin of Tournay, monk of Bec, his advice to Anselm, i. 399; driven out of England by William Rufus, i. 520; recalled, i. 542; leaves England with Anselm, i. 595.
Ballon, castle of, i. 209; siege and surrender of, i. 209-211; betrayed to William Rufus and occupied by Robert of Bellême, ii. 235; Fulk’s unsuccessful attempt on, ii. 236; William’s treatment of the captive knights, ii. 237, i. 171; strengthened by Robert of Bellême, ii. 282.
Bamburgh Castle, ii. 47, 607; relic of Saint Oswald at, ii. 49; question as to the date of the keep, ib.; held by Robert of Mowbray against William Rufus, ii. 50, 607; effect of the making of the Malvoisin tower, ii. 51, 608; siege abandoned by Rufus, ii. 52, 609; Robert’s escape from, ii. 53, 609; defended by Matilda of Laigle, ii. 54, 610; surrender of, ii. 54.
Bari, Archbishop of, Wulfstan’s correspondence with, i. 479; Council of (1098), i. 608, 618.
Barnacles not to be eaten on fast-days, ii. 93 (note).
Basilia, wife of Hugh of Gournay, her correspondence with Anselm, ii. 571.
Bath, burned by Robert of Mowbray, i. 41; see of Wells moved to, i. 136, ii. 483; temporal lordship of, granted to John of Tours, i. 137, ii. 487; dislike of the monks to Bishop John’s changes, i. 138; buildings of John of Tours at, i. 138, ii. 486; church of, called abbey, i. 139; later charters concerning, ii. 487; sales and manumissions done at, ii. 489.
Battle Abbey, gifts of William Rufus to, i. 18, 168, ii. 504; consecration of the church, i. 443; gifts of Bernard of Newmarch to, ii. 90.
Bayard, Chevalier, at the siege of Padua, i. 173.
Beaumont-le-Roger, i. 185.
Beaumont-le-Vicomte, ii. 229.
Beavers, lawfulness of eating their tails on fast-days, ii. 93 (note).
Bec Abbey, fame of, under Anselm, i. 373; its intercourse and connexion with England, i. 374-376, ii. 572; Gundulf’s letter to the monks, i. 405; monks of, object to Anselm’s accepting the primacy, i. 406.
Belfry, origin of the name, ii. 520.
Bellême, surrenders to Duke Robert, i. 218; site of the old castle, i. 218 (note).
Benefices, vacant, policy of William Rufus with regard to, i. 134, 336, 337, 347, 348, ii. 564; sale of, under Rufus, i. 134, 347, 349; sale of, not systematic before Rufus, i. 348.
Beneventum, Archbishop of, sells the arm of Saint Bartholomew to the Lady Emma, i. 609; Æthelnoth’s gift of a cope to, i. 610.
Benjamin the monk, ii. 579.
Bequest, right of, confirmed by Henry I, i. 338, ii. 354.
Berkeley, harried by William of Eu, i. 44; its position and castle, i. 45.
Berkshire pool, portent of, ii. 258, 316.
Bermondsey Priory, its foundation, ii, 508.
Bernard of Newmarch, rebels against William Rufus, i. 34; his conquest of Brecknock, ii. 89-91; his gifts to Battle Abbey, ii. 90; marries Nest, granddaughter of Gruffydd, ib.
Bertrada of Montfort, brought up by Countess Heloise, ii. 193; sought in marriage by Fulk of Anjou, ii. 192; marries him, ii. 194; her adulterous marriage with Philip of France, i. 548, ii. 171, 172; Bishop Ivo of Chartres protests against, i. 559 (note); denounced by Hugh of Lyons, ii. 173; excommunicated, i. 549, ii. 173; her sons, ii. 174; schemes against Lewis, ib.
Berwick, granted to and withdrawn from the see of Durham, ii. 121.
Bishops, their power in the eleventh century, i. 138; no reference to the Pope in their appointment, i. 425; order of their appointment then and now, i. 425-427; theories of the two systems, i. 426; why the peers’ right of trial does not extend to, i. 604 (note).
Bishoprics, sale of, under William Rufus, i. 134, 347, 349; vacant, his policy with regard to, i. 134, 336, 337, 347, 350, ii. 564.
Blasphemy, frequency of, i. 166.
Blèves, castle of, ii. 216, 217.
Blindness, armies smitten with, ii. 478, 480.
Blyth Priory, founded by Roger of Bully, ii. 161; granted to Saint Katharine’s at Rouen, ii. 162 (note).
Bofig, his lordship of Rockingham, i. 490.
Bohemond, Mark, brother of Roger of Apulia, besieges Amalfi, i. 561; goes on the crusade, i. 562; origin of his name, i. 562 (note).
Boleslaus King of Poland, i. 611.
Bonneville, castle of, ii. 285; early history and legends of, ii. 286.
Boso of Durham, his visions, ii. 59.
Botolph, Abbot of Saint Eadmund’s, ii. 268.
Bourg-le-roi, castle of, ii. 232.
Boury, castle of, ii. 189.
Brecknock, conquest of, ii. 89-91; castle of, ii. 90; revolt of, ii. 106.
Bribery under William Rufus, i. 153, 344.
Bridgenorth, fortified by Æthelflæd, ii. 152, 153 (note); fortress of Robert of Bellême at, ii. 155-158; churches and town of, ii. 157; defence of, against Henry I, ii. 428, 432; siege of, ii. 435 et seq.; dealings of the captains with Henry, ii. 440; divisions in, ii. 442; surrender of, ii. 444.
Brihtric, son of Ælfgar, lands of, held by Robert Fitz-hamon, ii. 83.
Brionne, said to be exchanged for Tunbridge, i. 68 (note); granted to Roger of Beaumont, i. 194; taken by Duke Robert, i. 244.
Bristol, its position in the eleventh century, i. 37; castle of that date, i. 37, 38; later growth of, i. 39; occupied by Bishop Geoffrey, i. 40.
Britain, effects of the reign of William Rufus on its union, ii. 6; causes of the union, ii. 7; English conquest of, compared with Rufus’s conquest of Wales, ii. 72; changes in, in the eleventh century, ii. 303 et seq.; fusion of elements in, ii. 304; ceases to be another world, ii. 305.
Brockenhurst, William Rufus at, ii. 321.
Bromham, grant of, to Battle Abbey, ii. 504.
Brunton, church of, granted to the monks of Durham, ii. 535.
Brut-y-Tywysogion, the two versions of, ii. 3, 4 (note).
Brychan, King, his daughters, ii. 90.
Buckler, Mr., on Ilchester, i. 43 (note).
Bulgaria, use of the name, i. 563.
Bures, castle of, i. 236; taking of, i. 463.
Burf Castle, ii. 158.
Burgundius, brother-in-law of Anselm, ii. 579.
C.
Cadulus, Anselm’s advice to, i. 372.
Cadwgan, son of Bleddyn, drives out Rhys ap Tewdwr, i. 12; harries Dyfed, ii. 92; his revolt, ii. 99; his action in Dyfed, ii. 101; mentioned in the Chronicle, ii. 111; schemes to save Anglesey, ii. 128; flees to Ireland, ii. 131; returns to Wales, ii. 301, 424; his settlement with Robert of Bellême, ii. 424; his action on his behalf, ii. 433, 442; Ceredigion ceded to, by Jorwerth, ii. 451.
Caen, treaty of, i. 275 et seq., ii. 522-528; its short duration, i. 283.
Caerau. See Carew.
Caermarthen, conquest of, ii. 102.
Caerphilly Castle, ii. 87.
Cæsar, C. Julius, his speech compared with that of William Rufus, ii. 497, 647, 652.
Candida Casa. See Whithern.
Canonization, popular, instances of, ii. 339.
Canterbury, citizens of, side with the monks of Saint Augustine’s against Guy, i. 139; monks from Christ Church sent to Saint Augustine’s, i. 140; vengeance of William Rufus on, i. 141; the city granted to the archbishopric, i. 423; Anselm’s enthronement and consecration at, i. 427, 429; his dealings with the monks, i. 540; their rights confirmed by William Rufus, i. 423; rebuilding of the choir, i. 597; its consecration under Henry I, ib.
Canterbury, Archbishopric of, policy of William Rufus in keeping the see vacant, i. 328, 360, ii. 565; Flambard’s action in the matter, i. 363 (note); effects of the vacancy, i. 357, 363-365; its special position as metropolitan, i. 357; no attempt at election, i. 362; feeling as to the vacancy, i. 381; prayers for the appointment of the Archbishop, i. 389; the Archbishop the parish priest of the Crown, i. 414 (note).
Cantire, Magnus at, ii. 141; part of Sigurd’s kingdom, ii. 146; its formal occupation by Magnus, ii. 147.
Capua, siege of, i. 614, ii. 403.
Caradoc, son of Gruffydd, ii. 81, 82.
Cardiff, castle of, ii. 77, 84, 86; Robert Fitz-hamon’s settlement at, ii. 81, 84; borough of, ii. 88.
Careghova Castle, built by Robert of Bellême, ii. 158; history of the site, ii. 159 (note); strengthened by Robert, ii. 428.
Carew Castle, ii. 95.
Carlisle, its cathedral church called abbey, i. 139 (note); history and character of, i. 314, 317; destroyed by Scandinavians, i. 315; conquered by William Rufus, i. 4, 313-315, 318; Saxon colony in, i. 316, ii. 550; earldom of, i. 317, ii. 545-551; its analogy with Edinburgh and Stirling, i. 317; wall and castle of, i. 318; see founded by Henry I, ib.; effects of its restoration on Scotland, ii. 8; not an English earldom under the Conqueror, ii. 546; shire of, ii. 549; its purely British name, ii. 550; entries of, in the Pipe Roll, ii. 551.
Castles, building of, in Normandy, i. 192; garrisoned by William the Conqueror, ib.; building of, in Wales, ii. 70, 76, 77, 93, 108, 112; rarity of, in England, as compared with Maine, ii. 220.
Caux, obtained as dowry by Helias of Saint-Saens, i. 235.
Cedivor, Prince of Dyfed, ii. 78.
Cenred the priest, his mutilation, ii. 132; restoration of his speech, ib.
Ceredigion, conquest of, ii. 92, 93; action of Cadwgan in, ii. 101; recovered by the Welsh, ii. 301; ceded to Cadwgan by Jorwerth, ii. 451.
Charma, M., his Life of Anselm, i. 325 (note).
Château du Loir, ii. 275, 276; Helias flees to, ii. 287.
Château-Gonthier, ii. 428.
Château-Thierry, monks of Saint Cenery flee to, i. 213.
Chaumont-en-Vexin, claimed by William Rufus, ii. 176; castle of, ii. 185; siege of, ii. 248.
Cherbourg, ceded to William Rufus, i. 276.
Chester, Robert of Rhuddlan buried at, i. 127; his gifts, i. 127 (note); Earl Hugh’s reforms at, i. 127 (note), 381, 382; Anselm at, i. 387.
Chivalry, growth of, under William Rufus, i. 169; its true character, ib.; Palgrave and Arnold on, i. 169, ii. 508; its one-sided nature, i. 172; practical working of, ib.; illustrations of, i. 173, 291, ii. 237, 406, 534; tenure in, systematized by Flambard, i. 335; personal character of, ii. 407.
Christina, Abbess of Romsey, her treatment of Eadgyth-Matilda, ii. 31, 32, 599.
Chronicle, the, witness of, to Flambard’s system of feudalism, i. 335.
Church, R. W., his Life of Anselm, i. 326 (note), 370.
Church, Sir Richard, paralleled with Robert son of Godwine, ii. 123.
Church lands, revenues of, appropriated by William Rufus, i. 336, 337, 347, 349; feudalization of, i. 346; nature of Rufus’s grants of, i. 419.
Churches, plundered to raise the pledge-money for Normandy, i. 558.
Clare, Suffolk, priory of, a cell of Bec, i. 376.
Clarendon, news of the loss of Le Mans brought to Rufus at, ii. 283, 645.
Clark, G. T., on Malling tower, i. 70 (note); on Rochester, i. 79 (note); on the site of Careghova Castle, ii. 159 (note); on “The Land of Morgan,” ii. 615.
Clemence, Countess of Boulogne, Anselm’s letters to, ii. 581.
Clement, Anti-Pope, i. 415; his position, i. 488; excommunicated at the Council of Clermont, i. 549; his alleged scheme against Anselm, i. 607.
Clergy, their exemption from temporal jurisdiction asserted by William of Saint-Calais, i. 97; not asserted by Anselm, i. 599; their corruption under William Rufus, i. 363.
Clerks, the king’s, preferments held by, i. 330; their position and power, i. 342, 343.
Clermont, Council of (1095), i. 545; decrees of, i. 548; crusade preached at, i. 549.
Coinage, false, issue of, punished by Henry I, ii. 353.
Coker (Somerset), grant of, to Saint Stephen’s, Caen, ii. 504.
Colchester, story of Eudo’s good rule at, ii. 464.
Coldingham, lands of, granted to Durham, ii. 121.
Comet, foretells the departure of Anselm, ii. 118.
Commons, House of, foreshadowed by the outer council of the Witan, i. 603.
Conan of Rouen, his wealth, i. 246; his treaty with William Rufus, i. 247, 248; exhorts the citizens against Gilbert of Laigle, i. 253; taken prisoner by Henry, i. 256; his death, i. 257-259, ii. 516-518.
Conches, besieged by William of Evreux, i. 261, 266, ii. 627; its position, i. 262, 264; abbey and castle of, i. 265.
Conrad, son of the Emperor Henry the Fourth, i. 522; receives Urban at Cremona, i. 525; his marriage, i. 526.
Constantius I, Emperor, his voyage to Britain, ii. 648.
Corbet, his lands in Shropshire, ii. 433 (note).
Cornelius the monk, i. 545 (note).
Corsham (Wilts), grant of, to Saint Stephen’s, Caen, ii. 504.
Cosan the Turk, joins the crusaders, i. 565.
Côtentin, bought by Henry of Robert, i. 196, ii. 510-516.
Coulaines, William Rufus encamps at, ii. 233; ravaged by him, ii. 234, 625, 627.
Courcy, siege of, i. 274, ii. 519-522; church of, ii. 522.
Cowbridge, ii. 88.
Coyty, held by Pagan of Turberville, ii. 87.
Cricklade, entry of, in Domesday, i. 480 (note).
Croc the huntsman, signs the foundation charter of Salisbury Cathedral, i. 309 (note).
Croset-Mouchet, M., his life of Anselm, i. 325 (note); on Anselm’s parentage, i. 366 (note).
Crusade, the first, its bearing on English history, i. 546; no kings take part in, ib.; a Latin movement, ib.; argument in favour of, ii. 207; success of, ii. 306.
Crusades, Palgrave’s condemnation of, ii. 509.
Cumberland, why not entered in Domesday, i. 313, ii. 547 et seq.; Scandinavians in, i. 315; earldom of, a misnomer, ii. 548; origin of the modern county, ii. 549.
Curia Regis, the, i. 102.
Cuthberht, Saint, appears to Eadgar of Scotland, ii. 119.
D.
Dadesley. See Tickhill.
Danesford, ii. 152, 155.
Dangeuil Castle, strengthened by Helias, ii. 213; site of, ii. 214; effects of his occupation, ib.; Helias taken prisoner near, ii. 223.
David, King of Scots, son of Malcolm and Margaret, ii. 22; driven out of Scotland, ii. 30; divides the kingdom with Alexander, ii. 124; marries Matilda, daughter of Waltheof, ii. 124; effects of his reign on Scottish history, ii. 125; his English position, ib.; invades England on behalf of the Empress Matilda, ib.; his mocking speech to Eadgyth-Matilda, ii. 390; earldom of Carlisle granted to, ii. 549.
Deverel (Wilts), lordship of, held by Bec, i. 375.
Diacus, Bishop of Saint James of Compostella, his correspondence with Anselm, ii. 582.
Dimock, J. F., his defence of Robert Bloet, ii. 585.
Dolfin, son of Gospatric, lord of Carlisle, driven out by William Rufus, i. 315.
Domesday, alleged new version of, by Randolf Flambard, i. 332, ii. 562.
Domfront, enmity of Robert of Bellême to, i. 183, 319; men of, choose Henry to lord, i. 319, ii. 538; position of, i. 319; kept by Henry I, ii. 413, 691.
Donald Bane, King of Scots, i. 475; story of his attempting to disturb Margaret’s burial, ii. 28, 597; his election, ii. 29; drives out the English, ib.; driven out by Duncan, ii. 34; his restoration, ii. 36; dethroned and imprisoned by Eadgar, ii. 119.
Donald, sent by King Murtagh to the Sudereys, ii. 137; driven out, ii. 138.
Dress, new fashions in, i. 158, ii. 500-502.
Drogo of Moncey, marries Eadgyth, widow of Gerard of Gournay, i. 552.
Duncan, King of Scots, son of Malcolm, set free by Robert, i. 13; signs the Durham charter, i. 305, ii. 536; claims the Scottish crown, ii. 33; his Norman education, ii. 34; receives the crown from William Rufus, i. 475, ii. 5, 34; overthrows Donald, ib.; his death, ii. 36; his burial, ii. 36 (note).
Dunfermline, Malcolm translated to, ii. 18; Margaret’s burial at, ii. 28, 597.
Dunstable, Prior of, his alleged warning to William Rufus, ii. 334; minster of, founded by Henry I, ii. 663.
Dunster, church of, granted by William of Moion to the church of Bath, ii. 490.
Durham, cathedral church of, called abbey, i. 139 (note); evidence of, in charters, i. 305, ii. 535; rebuilding of the abbey, ii. 11; Malcolm takes part in laying the foundation, ii. 11, 12; works of Bishop William of Saint-Calais at, ii. 60; gifts of King Eadgar to, ii. 121; works of Randolf Flambard at, ii. 272; monks of, favourably treated by William Rufus, i. 298, ii. 508; building of the refectory, i. 299; Bishop William restored to, ib.
Durham castle, surrendered to William Rufus, i. 114.
Dwyganwy, peninsula and castle of, i. 123, 124; attack made by Gruffydd on, i. 24; meeting of Magnus and the two Earls Hugh at, ii. 143.
Dyfed, harried by Cadwgan, ii. 92; conquest of, ib.; action of Cadwgan in, ii. 101; grant of, by Henry I, ii. 451.
Dyrrhachion, Duke Robert crosses to, i. 563.
E.
Eadgar Ætheling, banished from Normandy, i. 281, ii. 527; policy of William Rufus towards, ib.; goes to Scotland, i. 282; mediates between Rufus and Malcolm, i. 301, ii. 541; reconciled to Rufus, i. 304; signs the Durham charter, i. 305, ii. 536; returns to Normandy with Robert, i. 307; his mission to Malcolm, ii. 9, 10, 590; protects Malcolm’s children, ii. 30, 31; his designs as to the Scottish crown, ii. 114; Ordgar’s charge against, ii. 115, 617; his acquittal by ordeal, ii. 117; estimate of the story, ii. 117, 615; marches to Scotland, ii. 118; and wins the crown for his nephew Eadgar, ii. 120; goes on the crusade, ii. 121; not thought of to succeed William Rufus, ii. 344; his character, ii. 393.
Eadgar, King of Scots, son of Malcolm and Margaret, ii. 22; brings the news of his father’s death, ii. 27; driven out of Scotland, ii. 30; his vision, ii. 119; dethrones and imprisons Donald, ib.; his gifts to Durham and to Robert son of Godwine, ii. 121; his action towards Robert Flambard, ib.; his peaceful reign, ii. 123; his death, ii. 124; bears the sword before William Rufus at his Whitsun feast, ii. 265; results of his succession, ii. 304.
Eadgyth, wife of Henry I See Matilda.
Eadgyth, mistress of Henry I and mother of Matilda Countess of Perche, ii. 379.
Eadgyth, mistress of Henry I and wife of Robert of Ouilly, ii. 379.
Eadgyth, wife of Gerard of Gournay, i. 230; goes on the first crusade, i. 552; her second marriage, i. 552 (note).
Eadmer, his belief in the ordeal, i. 166 (note); his Life of Anselm, i. 325, 369; his friendship with Anselm, i. 369, 378, 460; references to in other writers, i. 370; on the Norman campaign of 1094, i. 474; leaves England with Anselm, i. 595; recognizes the cope of Beneventum at Bari, i. 609, 610; bishop-elect of Saint Andrews, ii. 124.
Eadmund, Saint, king of the East-Angles, his miracles, ii. 268; translation of his body, ii. 270.
Eadmund, son of Malcolm and Margaret, ii. 22; helps Donald against Duncan, ii. 36; becomes a monk at Montacute, ii. 120; his burial in chains, ib.
Eadmund the monk, his vision, ii. 604.
Eadric the Wild, marked as “Edric Salvage,” ii. 433 (note).
Eadric the Provost, ii. 270 (note).
Eadward the Confessor, his law restored by Henry I, ii. 357.
Eadward, son of Malcolm and Margaret, killed at Alnwick, ii. 16, 21, 594.
Eadwine, King of the Northumbrians, builds a church at Tynemouth, ii. 603.
Eadwulf, Abbot of Malmesbury, ii. 383 (note).
Eardington, lordship of, ii. 154.
Earle, John, on Bath, i. 42 (note).
Earthquake of 1089, i. 176.
Edinburgh, Margaret’s death at, ii. 28, 597.
Edward the Black Prince and the massacre of Limoges, i. 173; his twofold character, ib.
Eginulf of Laigle, i. 243 (note).
Eglaf of Bethlington, priest, signs the Durham charter, ii. 536.
Einion, story of him and Jestin, ii. 80; estimate of the story, ii. 81, 614.
Eleanor of Aquitaine, her foundation at Tickhill, ii. 432.
Emma (Ælfgifu), the Lady, buys the arm of Saint Bartholomew of the Archbishop of Beneventum, i. 610; changes her name on her marriage, ii, 305.
Emma, daughter of Count Robert of Sicily, sought in marriage by Philip of France, ii. 171 (note).
Emma, wife of Ralph of Wader, goes on the first crusade, i. 552.
Emmeline, wife of Arnulf of Hesdin, her gifts to Gloucester Abbey, ii. 65.
Empire, Western, advance of, in the eleventh century, ii. 305, 306; alleged designs of William Rufus on, ii. 314.
Empire, Eastern, decline of, ii. 306.
England, extension of, under William Rufus, i. 4; beginning of her rivalry with France, i. 5, 228, 240; her wealth, ib.; her European position, ib.; unity of, i. 81; how indebted to foreigners, i. 365; in what sense feudal, i. 341; compared with Normandy, i. 468; wretchedness of, under Rufus, i. 474; position of, towards the Popes, i. 496; her relations with Sicily, i. 526; Welsh inroad into, ii. 100; rarity of castles in, as compared with Maine, ii. 220; oppression in, during William’s absence in Normandy, ii. 256; various grievances in, ii. 258; changes in, in the eleventh century, ii. 303 et seq.; becomes part of the Latin world, ii. 305; united under Henry I against Norman invasion, ii. 401.
English, accept William Rufus as king, i. 7, 16, 20, 66, 131; their loyalty to him, 18, 64, 65, 130; their hatred of Odo, i. 67, 86; their position under Rufus, i. 133; native, not specially oppressed by him, i. 341; growth of their power and nationality under Rufus, ii. 4.
English and Normans, fusion of, i. 130, 134, ii. 401, 455.
English Conquest, compared with that of Wales, ii. 72.
Englishmen, the fifty charged with eating the king’s deer, i. 155, 614, ii. 494; acquitted by ordeal, i. 156.
Epernon, castle of, ii. 251.
Epitumium, Orderic’s use of the word, ii. 288 (note).
Erling, Earl of Orkney, taken prisoner by Magnus, ii. 140; his death in Norway, ib.
Ermenberga, daughter of Helias, betrothed to Geoffrey of Anjou, ii. 232; married to Fulk of Anjou, ii. 232 (note), 374.
Ermenberga, mother of Anselm, her pedigree, i. 366 (note).
Ermengarde of Bourbon, second wife of Fulk of Anjou, ii. 192.
Ernan, “Biscope sune,” ii. 605.
Erneis of Burun, his action in the case of Bishop William, i. 114.
Ernulf, Bishop of Rochester, his buildings at Christchurch, Canterbury, i. 597.
Ernulf of Hesdin. See Arnulf of Hesdin.
Etard, Abbot of Saint Peter on Dives, his appointment, i. 570.
Eu, castle of, Philip and Robert march against, i. 238.
Eulalia, Abbess, Anselm’s letters to, ii. 578.
Eudo of Rye, story of his share in the accession of William Rufus, ii. 463; how he became dapifer, ib.; his good deeds at Colchester, ii. 464, 465.
Eustace III. Count of Boulogne, sent over to England by Duke Robert, i. 56, ii. 465 et seq.; agrees to surrender Rochester, i. 80; pleading made for, i. 84; goes on the first crusade, i. 551.
Eustace, monk of Bec, i. 399.
Eustace, father of one Geoffrey, Anselm rebukes him for bigamy, ii. 579.
Eustace, son of William of Breteuil, i. 268 (note).
Eva, widow of William Crispin, her correspondence with Anselm, ii. 571.
Everard of Puiset, goes on the first crusade, i. 551.
Evreux Castle, garrisoned by William the Conqueror, i. 192; its position and history, i. 262-264.
Ewenny, priory of, ii. 86, 89.
Exmes, Robert of Bellême driven back from, i. 242.
Eynesham, monks of Stow moved to, ii. 585, 587.
Eystein, brother of Sigurd, does not go on the crusade, ii. 206.
F.
Faricius, Abbot of Abingdon, his appointment, ii. 360; why not appointed to the see of Canterbury, ib.; recovers the manor of Sparsholt, ii. 380 (note).
Farman the monk, ii. 579.
Farn Islands, ii. 50.
Fécamp, ceded to William Rufus, i. 276.
Feudalism, developement of, under Rufus, i. 4; systematized by Randolf Flambard, i. 324, 335 et seq., 341.
Feudal tenures, mainly the work of Flambard, i. 335, 336; abolished in 1660, ib.
Finchampstead, portent at, ii. 258, 316.
Flanders, her share in the first crusade, i. 547.
Flemings, their settlement in Pembrokeshire, ii. 70 (note), 74, 88, 615; whether also in Gower and Glamorgan, ii. 88, 103.
Florus, son of Philip and Bertrada, ii. 174.
Forest laws, become stricter under William Rufus, i. 155; enforced by Henry I, ii. 355.
Forfeiture, provision as to, in Henry’s charter, ii. 354.
Fourches, castle of, ii. 428.
France, beginning of her rivalry with England, i. 5; effects of the war with, i. 7; her rivalry with Normandy, i. 201; her first direct dealings with England, i. 240; her relations with England and Normandy, ib.; designs of William Rufus on, ii. 167; his war with, ii. 167, 171, 175 et seq.; its position compared with that of Maine, ii. 168-170.
Francis I of France, compared with William Rufus, i. 173.
Frank-almoign, tenure of, i. 350.
Franks, Eastern name for Europeans, i. 546.
Fresnay-le-Vicomte, castle and church of, ii. 229.
Freystrop, ii. 95 (note).
Frome (river) at Bristol, i. 38.
Fulcher, brother of Randolf Flambard, ii. 552; receives the see of Lisieux, ii. 416.
Fulchered, Abbot of Shrewsbury, his sermon at Gloucester, ii. 318.
Fulcherius Quarel, i. 215 (note).
Fulk, Abbot of Saint Peter on Dives, his deposition and restoration, i. 570.
Fulk, Bishop of Beauvais, Anselm intercedes for, ii. 582.
Fulk, Rechin, Count of Anjou, Robert does homage to, for Maine, i. 204; patronizes pointed shoes, i. 159, ii. 502; his wives, ii. 172 (note), ii. 192; Robert seeks help from him, ib.; seeks Bertrada of Montfort in marriage, ib.; marries her, ii. 194; garrisons Le Mans, ii. 232, 628; his unsuccessful attempt on Ballon, ii. 236; returns to Le Mans, ii. 237, 628; his convention with William, ii. 238, 628-630; helps Helias to besiege the castle of Le Mans, ii. 370.
Fulk, Count of Anjou, King of Jerusalem, marries Ermenberga daughter of Helias, ii. 374.
Fulk, Dean of Evreux, father of Walter Tirel, ii. 322, 672.
G.
Gaillefontaine, castle of, surrendered to Rufus, i. 230.
Galen, story of, i. 151 (note).
Galloway, dealings of Magnus with, ii. 141.
Gausbert, Abbot of Battle, i. 443.
Gentry, growth of, under Henry I, ii. 356.
Geoffrey, Archbishop of Rouen, his appointment to the deanery of Le Mans, ii. 201; nominated bishop by Helias, ii. 210; set aside by the chapter, ib.; appointed to the see of Rouen, ib.
Geoffrey, Bishop of Coutances, rebels against William Rufus, i. 27, 34, ii. 470; occupies Bristol, i. 40; notices of his estates, ib.; his relation to Bristol, ib.; his speech on behalf of William of Saint-Calais, i. 100; charges the Bishop’s men with robbing his cattle, i. 113; his death, i. 444.
Geoffrey, Bishop of Chichester, his death, i. 135.
Geoffrey, monk of Durham, charge brought against him, i. 116, ii. 60 (note).
Geoffrey of Baynard, his combat with William of Eu, ii. 63.
Geoffrey Martel, son of Fulk Rechin and Ermengarde, ii. 192; betrothed to Ermenberga daughter of Helias, ii. 232; left by his father in command of Le Mans, ib.
Geoffrey, Count of Mayenne, i. 205; submits to Duke Robert, i. 209; founds the castle of Saint Cenery, i. 214; accepts the succession of Hugh, ii. 195, 197; truce granted to him by Rufus, ii. 230; estimate of his conduct, ii. 231; submits to Rufus, ii. 241.
Geoffrey Plantagenet, his parentage, ii. 374.
Geoffrey, Count of Perche, enmity of Robert of Bellême to, i. 183, 242; Orderic’s estimate of, i. 242 (note).
Gerald, Abbot of Tewkesbury, visits Wulfstan, i. 479.
Gerald of Windsor, his wife Nest, ii. 97, 110 (note); builds Pembroke Castle, ii. 96; defends it against the Welsh, ii. 101, 108; his devices against them, ii. 109; his mission to King Murtagh, ii. 425; grant of Henry I to, ii. 451.
Gerald, story of his attempt on Randolf Flambard’s life, ii. 560.
Gerard, Bishop of Hereford and Archbishop of York, his mission to Pope Urban, i. 524, 525; returns with Legate Walter, i. 526; his appointment and consecration, i. 543, 544; present at the consecration of Gloucester Abbey, ii. 317; signs Henry’s letter to Anselm, ii. 366; appointed to the see of York, ii. 392.
Gerard, Bishop of Seez, story of the capture of his clerk by Robert of Bellême, ii. 521; his death, ib.
Gerard of Gournay, submits to William Rufus, i. 229; his castle, i. 230; supports Rufus, i. 472; goes on the first crusade, i. 552; his death, ii. 55.
Germinus. See Jurwine.
Geronto, Abbot of Dijon, his mission to William Rufus, i. 553, ii. 558; rebukes him, i. 554; overreached by him, ib.; Anselm’s letter to, ii. 589.
Geroy, history of his descendants, i. 214.
Gervase, Archbishop of Rheims, ii. 196.
Gervase, nephew of Bishop Gervase of Le Mans, ii. 201 (note).
Gevelton. See Yeovilton.
Giffard, in the fleet of Magnus, ii. 451.
Gilbert, Bishop of Evreux, goes on the first crusade, i. 560; goes to Sicily, i. 562; attends Odo on his deathbed, i. 563; Anselm’s letter to, ii. 575.
Gilbert Maminot, Bishop of Lisieux, his death, ii. 416.
Gilbert of Clare, holds Tunbridge Castle against William Rufus, i. 68; surrenders, i. 69; his gift of the priory of Clare to Bec, i. 376; his confession to Rufus, ii. 45; with him in the New Forest, ii. 321.
Gilbert of Laigle, drives back Robert of Bellême, i. 242; his descent and kindred, i. 243 (note); comes to Robert’s help at Rouen, i. 249, 253; enters Rouen, i. 256; taken prisoner by Lewis, ii. 190; charged with the government of Le Mans, ii. 241; with William Rufus in the New Forest, ii. 321; legend of his share in the burial of Rufus, ii. 338, 676.
Gilbert, nephew of Bishop Walcher, ii. 605.
Gillingham, meeting of Anselm and William Rufus at, i. 477-481; written Illingham by Eadmer, i. 477 (note).
Gilo de Soleio, beholds William’s army on its way to Maine, ii. 228.
Giraldus Cambrensis, born at Manorbeer, ii. 95; his parentage, ii. 97.
Gisa, Bishop of Somerset, his death, i. 136.
Gisors Castle, its first defences by Pagan or Theobald, ii. 186; strengthened by Robert of Bellême, ii. 151, 187; under Henry II., ii. 188; its present appearance, ib.; restored to Pagan by Duke Robert, ii. 396.
Givele. See Yeovil.
Glamorgan, legend of the conquest of, ii. 79-81, 613; estimate of the story, ii. 81; settlement of, by Robert Fitzhamon, ii. 81, 84; distinguished from Morganwg, ii. 85; its extent, ib.; military character of its churches, ii. 88.
Gloucester, sickness of William Rufus at, i. 391; Anselm’s first installation at, i. 400; meetings at, ii. 10, 13, 33.
Gloucester Abbey, gifts of Arnulf and Emmeline of Hesdin to, ii. 65; works of Robert Fitz-hamon at, ii. 84; grant of Welsh churches to, ib.; consecration of, ii. 317; Abbot Fulchered’s sermon there, ii. 318.
Gloucestershire, ravaged by William of Eu, i. 41, 44.
Godehild, daughter of Ralph of Toesny, her marriages, i. 270 (note).
Godgifu, nickname given to Matilda, ii. 389.
Godred Crouan, his dominion, ii. 136; his expulsion and death, ii. 137; his sons, ib.
Godric and Godgifu, nicknames given to Henry I and Matilda, ii. 389.
Godricus unus liber homo, holds Sparsholt, ii. 380 (note).
Godwine, Earl, a benefactor of Christ Church, Twinham, ii. 555.
Godwine of Winchester, story of his duel with Ordgar, ii. 116, 617; notices of him in Domesday, ii. 116, 616; estimate of the story, ii. 117, 615.
Godfrey of Lorraine, goes on the first crusade, i. 552.
Goodeve, surname, a corruption of Godgifu, ii. 389 (note).
Gordon, General, parallelled with Robert son of Godwine, ii. 123.
Gosfridus Mala Terra, ii. 485.
Gospatric, son of Beloch, ii. 551.
Gospatric, son of Mapbennoc, ii. 551.
Gospatric, son of Orm, ii. 551.
Gournay, castle and church of, i. 230.
Gower, no part of Glamorgan, ii. 85; conquest of, ii. 102; castles built in, ii. 103; alleged West-Saxon settlement of, ii. 103, 615; granted to Howel, ii. 451.
Gruffydd, son of Cynan, his Irish allies, i. 122; attacks Rhuddlan, ib.; at Dwyganwy, i. 124; invades England, ii. 100; schemes to save Anglesey, ii. 128; fails to hold it and flees to Ireland, ii. 131; returns to Wales, ii. 301, 424; his settlement with Robert of Bellême, ii. 424.
Gruffydd, grandson of Cadwgan, defeats the English, ii. 107.
Gruffydd, son of Rhydderch, ii. 81.
Gundrada of Gournay, marries Nigel of Albini, ii. 55, 612.
Gundulf, Bishop of Rochester, his buildings at Rochester, i. 54 (note); his tower at Malling, i. 70; sent to punish the monks of Saint Augustine’s, i. 140; his friendship with Anselm, i. 374; his letter to the monks of Bec, i. 405; Anselm’s visit to, i. 406; blasphemous speech of William Rufus to, i. 407; present at the consecration of the church of Battle, i. 444; question as to his action in the council of Rockingham, i. 516 (note); present at the consecration of Gloucester Abbey, ii. 317; his signature to Henry’s charter, ii. 358; expounds William Rufus’s dream to him, ii. 661.
Gundulf, father of Anselm, i. 366.
Guy of Etampes, Bishop of Le Mans, his rebuilding after the fire, ii. 639.
Guy, Abbot of Pershore, his share in the defence of Worcester, ii. 481.
Guy, Abbot of Saint Augustine’s, sent with a summons to Bishop William, i. 90; driven out by the monks and citizens, i. 139; signs the Durham charter, ii. 536.
Guy, monk of Christ Church, i. 140 (note).
Guy, Count of Ponthieu, i. 180.
Guy of the Rock, his fortress of Roche Guyon, ii. 180; submits to William Rufus, ii. 181.
Guy of Vienne, Legate, his pretensions not acknowledged, ii. 391.
Guy the Red Knight, helps to defend Courcy, ii. 519; his daughter betrothed to King Lewis, ib.
Gwenllwg, revolt of, ii. 106.
Gwent, revolt of, ii. 106; English defeat in, ii. 107.
Gwynedd, revolt in, ii. 424.
H.
Haimericus de Moria, his conference with Helias, ii. 371.
Hair, long, fashion of, i. 158, ii. 500.
Hakon, Earl of Orkney, Anselm’s letter to, ii. 581; his murder of Saint Magnus and repentance, ii. 582.
Hallam, held by Roger of Bully, ii. 160.
Hallam, Henry, on Henry VIII., i. 173 (note).
Hamon, Viscount of Thouars, notices of his lands, ii. 83 (note).
Hamon the Dapifer, signs Henry’s letter to Anselm, ii. 366.
Harecher, or Archard, of Domfront, revolts against Robert of Bellême, i. 319, ii. 538; signs the foundation charter of Lonlay Abbey, ii. 539.
Harold, son of Godwine, case of his excommunication, i. 612; his Welsh campaign compared with that of William Rufus, ii. 71, 105.
Harold, son of Harold, with the fleet of Magnus, ii. 134-136, 619.
Harold, son of Godred Crouan, ii. 137.
Harrow, church of, dispute as to its consecration, i. 440.
Hartshorne, Mr., on Rochester, i. 53 (note), 54 (note); on Alnwick, ii. 592.
Hasgard, ii. 95 (note).
Hasse, M., his Life of Anselm, i. 325 (note).
Hastings, castle of, held by Robert of Eu, i. 229; assembly at, i. 441; consecration of Robert Bloet at, i. 445.
Hastings, Frank Abney, paralleled with Robert son of Godwine, ii. 123.
Haverfordwest Castle, ii. 95.
Hebrides. See Sudereys.
Hedenham, grant of, to Rochester, ii. 506.
Helias of La Flèche, contrasted with Rufus, i. 171; enmity of Robert of Bellême to, i. 183; his character and descent, i. 205, ii. 195, 196; submits to Duke Robert, i. 209; his position compared with that of King Philip, ii. 169; his castles, ii. 196; his wife Matilda, ib.; his possible claim on the county of Maine, ii. 195, 197; imprisons and sets free Bishop Howel, ii. 198, 199, 624; buys the county of Hugh, ii. 203; excellence of his reign, ii. 204; his friendship for Bishop Howel, ib.; prepares to go on the crusade, ii. 205; estimate of his action, ii. 206; his interview with Robert and with William Rufus, ii. 207-210; challenges Rufus, ii. 208; makes ready for defence, ii. 210; his action in the appointment to the bishopric, ii. 211, 624; his acceptance of Hildebert the cause of the war, ii. 213, 625; strengthens Dangeul Castle, ii. 213, 214; his guerilla warfare, ii. 215; defeats Robert of Bellême at Saônes, ii. 222; his second victory over him, ii. 223; taken prisoner near Dangeul, ii. 223, 224, 625; surrendered to William Rufus, ii. 225; honourably treated by him, ib.; Hildebert negotiates for his release, ii. 238, 625, 628-630; William agrees to release him, ii. 238, 628; his interview with William at Rouen, ii. 242-245, 640-645; defies him, ii. 243, 641; is set free, ii. 244, 642, 643; his renewed action, ii. 275; marches against Le Mans, ii. 277; his victory at Pontlieue, ii. 278; recovers Le Mans, ib.; besieges the castles in vain, ii. 282; flees to Château-du-Loir, ii. 287; burns two castles, ii. 288; returns to Le Mans, ii. 370; his dealings with the garrison of the castle, ii. 370, 371; called the “White Bachelor,” ii. 371; his conference with Walter of Rouen, ib.; surrender of the castle to, ii. 373; his last reign, ib.; his friendship with Henry I, ii. 373, 413; his second marriage, ib.; descent of the Angevin kings from him, ii. 374; notices of his death, ii. 374 (note); Anselm’s letter to him, ii. 581.
Helias of Saint-Saens, married to Robert’s daughter, i. 235; his descent, ib.; importance of his position, i. 236; his fidelity to Robert, i. 237.
Heloise, Countess of Evreux, her rivalry with Isabel of Conches, i. 231-234, 245; Orderic’s account of her, i. 237 (note); her banishment and death, i. 270; Bertrada of Montfort brought up by, ii. 193.
Henry IV., Emperor, i. 549; excommunicated at the Council of Clermont, i. 549, 611.
Henry I, his familiar knowledge of English, i. viii; the one Ætheling among William’s sons, i. 11, ii. 461; an alleged party favours his immediate succession, i. 11 (note); difficulties in the way of it, i. 20; refuses a loan to Robert, i. 196; buys the Côtentin and Avranchin of him, i. 196, ii. 510-516; his firm rule, i. 197, 221; goes to England and claims his mother’s lands, i. 195, 197; William Rufus promises them to him, i. 197; brings Robert of Bellême back with him, i. 199; imprisoned by Duke Robert, ib.; set free, i. 220; strengthens his castles, i. 221; comes to Robert’s help at Rouen, i. 248; sends him away, i. 254; takes Conan, i. 256; puts him to death with his own hand, i. 257-259, ii. 516-518; policy thereof, i. 260; William and Robert agree together against, i. 278, ii. 527; excluded from the succession by the treaty of Caen, i. 280; his position as Ætheling, i. 281; William’s policy towards, ib.; strengthens himself against his brothers, i. 283; besieged by them at Saint Michael’s Mount, i. 284-292, ii. 528-535; Robert’s generosity to, i. 291, ii. 534; surrenders, i. 293; accompanies William to England, i. 293, 295; his alleged adventures, i. 294, ii. 535-540; signs the Durham charter, i. 305, ii. 536; chosen lord of Domfront, i. 319, ii. 538; restored to William’s favour, i. 321; wars against Robert, ib.; gets back his county, ib.; occupies the castle of Saint James, ib.; grants it to Earl Hugh, i. 323; alleged spoliation of, by Flambard, i. 334, 357; helps Robert, grandson of Geroy, against Robert of Bellême, i. 469; summoned by William to Eu, ib.; goes to England, i. 470; reconciled to William, ib.; returns to Normandy and wars against Robert, ib.; William’s grants to, i. 567; story of him on the day of William’s death, ii. 321, 345, 346; his claims to the throne, ii. 344; his speedy election, ii. 345, 680; William of Breteuil withstands his demand for the treasure, ii. 346, 680; popular feeling for him, ii. 346, 351; his formal election, ii. 347, 348; fills up the see of Winchester, ii. 349; his coronation, ii. 350, 681; goes to London with Robert of Meulan, ii. 350, 680; form of his oath, ii. 350; his charter, i. 336, 338, 342, 344, ii. 352-357; his statute against the mercenaries, i. 154, ii. 498; his policy towards the second order, ii. 356; his alleged laws, ii. 357; his appointments to abbeys, ii. 359; imprisons Randolf Flambard, ii. 361; his inner council, ii. 362; recalls Anselm, ii. 364; Norman intrigues against, ii. 367, 368, 393, 395; his war with Robert, ib.; the garrison of Le Mans send an embassy to, ii. 372; his friendship with Helias, ii. 373, 413; his meeting with Anselm, ii. 374; his dispute with him compared with that of Rufus, i. 605, ii. 374; calls on Anselm to do homage, ii. 375; the question is adjourned, ii. 377, 378, 399; his reformation of the court, ii. 379, 502; his personal character, ii. 379; his mistresses and children, ii. 97, 110 (note), 380, 381, 389, 414; seeks Eadgyth-Matilda in marriage, ii. 382, 684; his descent from Ælfred, ii. 383; objections to the marriage, ii. 384, 683-688; later fables about his marriage, ii. 387, 684, 685; his marriage, ii. 387; his nickname of Godric, ii. 389; his children by Matilda, ib.; appoints Gerard to the see of York, ii. 392; his rule distasteful to the Normans, ii. 395; plots against him, ii. 395, 399; his Whitsun gemót, ii. 399; loyalty of the Church and people to, ii. 401, 410, 411; fusion of Normans and English under, ii. 401, 455; peace of his reign, ii. 402, 454; his levy against Robert’s invasion, ii. 403; desertion of some of his fleet, ii. 404, 686; and of certain of the nobles, ii. 409; his nickname of Hartsfoot, ib.; his trust in Anselm, and promises to him, ii. 410, 411; his exhortation to his army, ii. 411; his negotiations with Robert, ii. 412; their personal meeting and treaty, ii. 412-415, 538, 688-691; his schemes against the great barons, ii. 415; his rewards and punishments, ii. 417; his action against Robert of Bellême, ii. 421, 422; negotiates against him with Duke Robert, ii. 426; besieges Arundel, ii. 428; Arundel and Tickhill surrender to him, ii. 428, 429; his faith pledged for Robert of Bellême’s life, ii. 430, 438; his Shropshire campaign, ii. 432 et seq.; besieges Bridgenorth, ii. 435-444; division of feeling in his army, ii. 437; appeal of his army to, ii. 438; his dealings with the Welsh, ii. 439, 451-453; surrender of Bridgenorth to, ii. 444; his march to Shrewsbury, ii. 446-448; Robert of Bellême submits to, ii. 448; banishes him and his brothers, ii. 449, 450; his later imprisonment of Robert of Bellême, i. 184, ii. 450; banishes William of Mortain, ii. 453; character and effects of his reign, ii. 454, 457; the refounder of the English nation, ii. 455; his compromise with Anselm, ib.; England reconciled to the Conquest under, ii. 456; his correspondence with Anselm, ii. 579; see of Carlisle founded by, i. 318; at the consecration of Canterbury Cathedral, i. 597 (note); his settlement of Flemings in Pembrokeshire, ii. 70 (note); his second marriage, ii. 389 (note); seizes on the treasure left by Magnus at Lincoln, ii. 624.
Henry II., his blasphemy, i. 167; question of the legatine power granted to, i. 526 (note); estimate of his dispute with Thomas, i. 605.
Henry VIII. compared with Francis I, i. 173 (note).
Henry of Beaumont, earldom of Warwick granted to, i. 472; his influence in favour of the election of Henry I, ii. 348, 680; his signature to Henry’s charter, ii. 358; one of his inner council, ii. 362; signs Henry’s letter to Anselm, ii. 366; the owner of a burgess at Gloucester, ii. 564.
Henry of Huntingdon as a contemporary writer, i. 9 (note).
Henry of Port, his signature to the charter of Henry I, ii. 358.
Henry, son of Nest and Henry I, ii. 379.
Henry, son of Swegen, ii. 551.
Heppo the balistarius, given as a surety to Bishop William, i. 114, 120.
Herbert Losinga, Bishop of Thetford, buys the see for himself, i. 354, ii. 568; and the Abbey of New Minster for his father, i. 355; repents, and receives his bishopric from the Pope, i. 355, ii. 568; anger of Rufus thereat, i. 356, ii. 569; not present at Anselm’s consecration, i. 429; deprived by Rufus, i. 448, ii. 569; restored to his see, i. 449, ii. 569; moves the see to Norwich, ib.
Hereditary right, growth of, i. 280.
Hereford, seized by Robert of Lacy, i. 46.
Herfast, Bishop of Thetford, his encounter with Saint Eadmund, ii. 268.
Herlwin, Abbot of Glastonbury, his appointment, ii. 360.
Hervey, Bishop of Bangor, at the consecration of Gloucester Abbey, ii. 317.
Hiesmois, war in, ii. 428.
Hildebert, Bishop of Le Mans, his election accepted by Helias, ii. 211, 625; his character, ii. 212; anger of William Rufus at his election, ii. 213, 625; negotiates for the release of Helias, ii. 238, 625, 628-630; at the head of the municipal council of Le Mans, ii. 226, 238; welcomes William Rufus into Le Mans, ii. 240; reconciled to him, ii. 297, 626; charges brought against, ib.; ordered to pull down the towers of Saint Julian’s, ii. 297, 298, 654; receives the kiss of peace from Rotrou’s mother, ii. 373 (note); translated to the see of Tours, ii. 212; Anselm’s letters to, ii. 580.
Hildebert II., Abbot of Saint Michael’s Mount, his buildings, i. 284.
Hilgot of Le Mans, ii. 201.
Holm Peel, Island of, Magnus at, ii. 141.
Honour, law of, as practised by William Rufus, i. 85, 92, 169, 408, ii. 14, 237, 244; Palgrave on, ii. 508.
Hook. W. F., his estimate of Anselm, i. 326 (note).
Howard, family of, ii. 430 (note).
Howel, Bishop of Le Mans, his loyalty to Duke Robert, i. 205, 208, ii. 198; story of his appointment, i. 205; consecrated at Rouen, i. 207, 208; his conduct during the famine, i. 208; imprisoned by Helias, ii. 198, 624; liberated by him, ii. 199; flees to Robert and is bidden to return, ii. 200; his disputes with Hugh and with his chapter, ii. 201; comes to England, ib.; his reconciliation and return, ii. 202; his friendship with Helias, ii. 204; translates Saint Julian, ib.; his buildings, ii. 205, 634 et seq., 656; entertains Urban, ii. 205; his sickness, ib.; and death, ii. 210; foundation charter of Salisbury Cathedral signed by, i. 309 (note).
Howel, Welsh prince, flees to Ireland, ii. 301.
Howel, son of Goronwy, besieges Pembroke, ii. 108; grants to, by Henry I, ii. 452.
Hubert of Rye, his alleged share in the accession of William the Conqueror, ii. 463.
Hucher, M., on Le Mans, ii. 631.
Hugh, Archbishop of Lyons, denounces Philip’s adulterous marriage, ii. 173; advises Anselm to return after the death of Rufus, ii. 364; Anselm’s letter to, i. 419, ii. 571, 576.
Hugh, Saint, his foreign origin, i. 365.
Hugh of Saint-Calais, Bishop of Le Mans, his buildings at and gifts to Le Mans, ii. 639, 640.
Hugh, Abbot of Clugny, his dream about William Rufus, ii. 341, 666.
Hugh, Abbot of Flavigny, his story of the mission of Abbot Geronto, ii. 588; marvellous tales told by, ii. 589; his chronicle and career, ib.
Hugh or Hugolin with the Beard, ii. 489.
Hugh the Great, brother of King Philip, goes on the first crusade, i. 350.
Hugh of Avranches, Earl of Chester, his loyalty to William Rufus, i. 34, 62; supports Henry, i. 221; surrenders his castle to William, i. 283; his alleged advice to Henry, ii. 530; joins Henry, i. 320; castle of Saint James granted to, i. 323, ii. 540; his friendship with Anselm, i. 380; his changes at Saint Werburh’s at Chester, i. 381, 382; seeks help from Anselm, i. 382; his sickness and messages to Anselm, i. 383; summoned by William Rufus to Eu, i. 469; goes to England, i. 470; his share in the conspiracy of Robert of Mowbray, ii. 38; urges the mutilation of William of Eu, ii. 64; his advance in Anglesey, ii. 97; his last expedition to Anglesey, ii. 129-146, 619; bribes the wikings, ii. 130; his cruelty to the captives, ii. 131, 132; makes peace with Magnus, ii. 145; Anglesey and North Wales subdued by, ii. 146; compared with Robert of Bellême, ii. 150; hastens to acknowledge Henry I as king, ii. 362; one of Henry’s inner council, ib.; his death, ii. 410; his signature to the Durham charter, ii. 536; Anselm’s letter of rebuke to, ii. 580.
Hugh Bardolf, gate of Montfort Castle named after, ii. 254.
Hugh, of Beaumont, reads the charge against Bishop William, i. 98; defies him, i. 101.
Hugh, Earl of Bedford, i. 98 (note), ii. 419 (note).
Hugh of Buckland, Sheriff of Berkshire, his dealings with Abingdon Abbey, ii. 665.
Hugh of Dun, his dealings with Abingdon Abbey, ii. 665.
Hugh of Este, son of Azo, sent for by the men of Maine, ii. 195, 198; his succession accepted by Helias, ii. 197; reaches Le Mans, ii. 200; his dispute with Bishop Howel, ii. 201; reconciled to him, ii. 202; his unpopularity, ib.; puts away his wife and is excommunicated, ib.; bought out by Helias, ii. 203.
Hugh of Evermouth, i. 571.
Hugh of Grantmesnil, rebels against William Rufus, i. 34; his ravages, i. 36; strengthens his castle against Robert of Bellême, i. 274; his death and burial, i. 473.
Hugh of Jaugy, i. 565, ii. 123.
Hugh of Lacy, grant of his brother’s estates to, ii. 63.
Hugh, Count of Meulan, i. 185.
Hugh of Montgomery, Earl of Shrewsbury, rebels against William Rufus, i. 57; succeeds his father in England, i. 473; buys his pardon of Rufus, ii. 62; his expedition into Anglesey, ii. 129-144, 619; bribes the wikings, ii. 130; his cruelty to the captives, ii. 131, 132; his death, ii. 144, 618-621; his burial, ii. 145; effects of his death, ii. 147, 150, 618.
Hugh of Port, i. 117, 120.
Humbald, Archdeacon of Salisbury, ii. 384.
Humbert, Count of Maurienne, Anselm’s letter to, ii. 580.
I.
Ida, Countess of Boulogne, her correspondence with Anselm, i. 374, 384, ii. 571, 581.
Ilchester, description of, i. 43; besieged by Robert of Mowbray, ib.
Ingemund, sent by King Murtagh to the Sudereys, ii. 138; his death, ib.
Ingulf, prior of Norwich, ii. 569.
Investiture, royal right of, i. 345, 346; not questioned by Anselm, i. 403; change in his views in regard to, i. 404; forbidden by the Council of Clermont, i. 548; dispute between Henry I and Anselm, ii. 375 et seq.; Anselm’s letters about, ii. 579, 584.
Iona, isle of, Margaret’s gifts to, ii. 21; Duncan buried at, ii. 36 (note); spared by Magnus, ii. 141.
Ireland, designs of William the Conqueror on, ii. 94; of William Rufus on, ii. 93; of Magnus of Norway on, ii. 136, 141, 620.
Irish, help Rhys and Gruffydd, i. 121, 122.
Isabel or Elizabeth of Vermandois, daughter of Hugh the Great, married to Robert of Meulan, i. 187 (note), 551; her marriage denounced by Bishop Ivo of Chartres, i. 551 (note); her second marriage, i. 187 (note).
Isabel, daughter of Robert of Meulan, mistress of Henry I, i. 187 (note), ii. 380.
Isabel of Montfort, wife of Ralph of Conches, her rivalry with Heloise of Evreux, i. 231-234, 245; her character, i. 233; takes the veil, i. 233 (note), 271.
Isabel, daughter of William of Breteuil, given in marriage to Ascelin Goel, i. 243, 268 (note).
Ivo, Bishop of Chartres, his advice to Anselm, i. 367 (note); denounces the marriage of Isabel and Robert of Meulan, i. 551 (note); protests against the marriage of King Philip and Bertrada, i. 559 (note), ii. 173.
Ivo of Grantmesnil, goes on the first crusade, i. 552; called the “rope-dancer,” i. 565 (note); plots against Henry, ii. 395; harries his neighbours’ lands, ii. 417; his trial and conviction, ib.; his bargain with Robert of Meulan, ii. 418; his relations with Leicester, ib.
Ivo, son of Ivo of Grantmesnil, ii. 418.
Ivo Taillebois, his action in the case of Bishop William, i. 114, 115; holds Kirkby Kendal, ii. 549.
Ivo of Veci, lord of Alnwick, ii. 596.
Ivor, grandson of Cadwgan, defeats the English, ii. 107.
Ivry, granted to William of Breteuil, i. 194; lost by him, i. 243; claimed by Robert of Meulan, ib.
J.
Jarrow, Tynemouth granted to, ii. 18, 605.
Jeronto, Abbot. See Geronto.
Jerusalem, kingdom of, said to have been refused by Duke Robert, i. 566.
Jerusalem, Patriarch of, Wulfstan’s correspondence with, i. 479.
Jestin, son of Gwrgan, story of him and Einion, ii. 80; estimate of the story, ii. 81, 614; his descendants, ii. 81 (note), 82, 87; his alleged long life, ii. 614.
Jews, settle in England, i. 160; their position, ib.; favoured by Rufus, i. 161; compared with the Sicilian Saracens, ib.; dispute between their rabbis and English bishops, ib.; converts forced to apostatize by Rufus, i. 162, 614, ii. 504.
John, King, his devotion to the shrine of Wulfstan, i. 481.
John of Tours, bishopric of Somerset granted to, i. 136, ii. 483; removes the see to Bath, ib.; his doings at Wells and at Bath, i. 138, ii. 486; his architectural works, i. 138; assists Osmund to consecrate Salisbury cathedral, i. 309; at the consecration of the church of Battle, i. 444; Anselm confers with him at Winchester, i. 586; at the deathbed of William of Durham, ii. 61; his signature to the Durham charter, ii. 536.
John, Bishop of Tusculum, ii. 488.
John, Abbot of Telesia, i. 615.
John, Prior of Bath, letter of Anselm to, ii. 490.
John, son of Odo of Bayeux, ii. 488.
John of La Flèche, father of Helias, ii. 196.
Jones, Longueville, on Penmon and Aberlleiniog, ii. 130 (note).
Jorwerth, son of Bleddyn, becomes the man of Robert of Bellême, ii. 424; his action on behalf of Robert, ii. 433; promises of Henry I to, ii. 439; influences the Welsh on his behalf, ii. 440, 442; his war with his brothers, ii. 451; Henry’s want of faith to, ib.; his trial and imprisonment, ii. 452; his later history, ii. 453.
Judith, wife of Tostig, her invention of Saint Oswine’s body, ii. 18, 604.
Julian, Saint, translation of his body, ii. 204.
Juliana, natural daughter of Henry I, i. 201, ii. 380.
Jurwine, son of King Anna of East-Anglia, ii. 268 (note).
Justice, technical use of the word, i. 191 (note).
Justiciarship, growth of the office under Flambard, i. 331.
K.
Kenfig, borough of, ii. 88.
Kidwelly, ii. 86; conquest of, ii. 102; granted to Howell, ii. 451.
Kings, doctrine of their immunity from drowning, ii. 284, 647, 648, 651.
Kirkby Kendal, held by Ivo Taillebois, ii. 549.
Knights, privileges granted to, by Henry I, ii. 355; effect of this grant, ii. 356.
L.
La Chartre, castle of, ii. 275.
La Ferté Saint Samson, castle of, surrendered to Rufus, i. 230.
La Flèche, Helias withdraws to, ii. 275; castle of, ii. 276.
La Houlme, castle of, held by Rufus, i. 462; taken by Robert, i. 465.
La Lude, castle of, ii. 275.
La Roche Guyon, castle of, ii. 180, 181.
Lagman, son of Godred Crouan, ii. 137.
Laigle, town of, i. 73 (note).
Lambert, chaplain to Ida of Boulogne, ii. 581.
Lambeth, grant of, to Rochester, ii. 506; given in exchange to Canterbury, ib.
Land, tenure of, Flambard’s theory of, i. 337.
Lanfranc, his special agency in the accession of William Rufus, i. 10, 12, ii. 459; his grief at the death of William the Conqueror, i. 15; crowns William Rufus, ib.; binds him to follow his counsel, i. 16, ii. 460; attends the Christmas assembly at Westminster, i. 18; Odo’s hatred towards, i. 24, 53 (note); his loyalty to William, i. 63; his part in the meeting at Salisbury, i. 95, 119; his view of vestments, i. 95; his position as regards that of Bishop William, i. 97; his answer to Bishop Geoffrey, i. 100; to Bishop William, i. 105, 110; interposes on his behalf, i. 113; his death, i. 140; its effect on William Rufus, i. 141, 142, 148 (note); his position in England and Normandy, i. 141; buried at Christ Church, i. 142; his relations with William the Conqueror, i. 328; compared with Anselm, i. 368, 456; advises Anselm to become a monk of Bec, i. 371.
Lanfranc, nephew of Archbishop Lanfranc, ii. 575.
Laodikeia, Eadgar and Robert at, i. 564.
Lateran, Council of (1099), i. 607, 621; destruction of the apse, i. 607 (note).
Leckhampsted, lands at, taken from Abingdon Abbey, ii. 665.
Legitimacy, growth of the doctrine of, i. 280.
Le Hardy, M. Gaston, quoted, i. 145 (note); his apology for Duke Robert, i. 175 (note).
Leicester, college at, founded by Robert of Meulan, ii. 420; foundation of the abbey, ib.; churches at, ii. 420 (note).
Leicester, earldom of, its origin, ii. 418.
Le Mans, temporal relations of the bishopric, i. 207; under an interdict, ii. 199; claims of the Norman dukes over the bishopric, ii. 200, 212; Howel’s buildings at, ii. 205; Pope Urban’s visit to, ib.; welcomes Duke Robert’s host, i. 209; new municipality of, ii. 226; garrisoned by Fulk, ii. 232, 628; besieged by Rufus, ii. 233-235; siege of, raised, ii. 235; submits to Rufus, ii. 238, 628; fortresses of, ii. 239, 631; entry of Rufus into the town, ii. 240; description of the church, ib.; recovered by Helias, ii. 278; the castles still held for Rufus, ii. 279; compared with the deliverance of York, ib.; burning of, ii. 280; modern destruction at, ii. 281 (note); William’s march against, ii. 287; flight of the citizens, ii. 288; William’s treatment of, ii. 295, 296; orders the destruction of the towers of Saint Julian’s, ii. 297, 654; description of the towers, ii. 299, 655; return of Helias to, ii. 370; action of the garrison, ii. 370-373; palace of the counts at, ii. 632, 656; dates of the building, ii. 632-639, 656; burning of, ii. 638.
Leofwine, Dean of Durham, ii. 605.
Lewes, held by William of Warren, i. 59; customs of, i. 59 (note); William of Warren’s death and burial at, i. 62 (note), 76.
Lewis VI. of France (the Fat), ii. 170; Bertrada’s schemes against him, ii. 174; grant of the Vexin to, ii. 175; refuses to cede the Vexin to William Rufus, ii. 176; his difficulties in the war with William, ii. 178; betrothed to a daughter of Guy the Red Knight, ii. 519; his letter to Anselm, ii. 580.
Lewis IX. of France (Saint Lewis), his ordinance against blasphemy, i. 167; his walls at Rouen, i. 252.
Ligulf, father of Morkere, ii. 605.
Limoges, massacre of, i. 173 (note).
Lincoln, its connexion with Norway, ii. 134; Jews at, i. 160 (note); prevalence of the slave-trade at, i. 310; completion of the minster, ib.; Thomas of York claims jurisdiction over, i. 311, 433; consecration delayed by the death of Remigius, i. 312; see kept vacant by Rufus, i. 356, 381; jurisdiction over again claimed by Thomas of York, i. 433; compromise concerning, i. 447.
Lindesey, jurisdiction of, claimed by Thomas of York, i. 311.
Lindisfarn, Isle of, ii. 50 (note).
Llancarfan, church of, granted to Gloucester abbey, ii. 84.
Llandaff, see of, ii. 86, 89.
Llanrhidian Castle, ii. 103.
Llantrissant, ii. 88.
Llantwit, church of, granted to Tewkesbury, ii. 84.
Llywelyn, son of Cadwgan, his death, ii. 301.
Loir, Castle of the. See Château-du-Loir.
London, Jews settle in, i. 160; great wind and fire in, i. 308; buildings of William Rufus in, ii. 258, 261; growth of its greatness, ii. 261; dogs of, mentioned by Hugh of Flavigny, ii. 589.
London Bridge, ii. 259, 260, 261.
London, Tower of. See Tower of London.
Longueville, castle of, surrendered to Rufus, i. 231.
Lonlay Abbey, foundation charter of, ii. 539.
Lords, House of, foreshadowed by the inner Council of the Witan, i. 603; gradual developement of, ii. 58.
Losinga, origin of the name, ii. 570.
Lothian, question as to the homage of Malcolm for, i. 303, ii. 541 et seq.
Luca, per vultum de, favourite oath of William Rufus, i. 108, 112, 164, 289, 391, 511 (note), ii. 61 (note), 503, 650; meaning of the phrase, ii. 503.
Lucan, whether quoted by Rufus, ii. 642, 647.
Lugubalia. See Carlisle.
Lund, archbishopric of, ii. 582.
Lurçon, castle of, ii. 216.
M.
Mabel, wife of Earl Roger, poisons Arnold of Escalfoi and seizes on Saint Cenery, i. 215.
Mabel, daughter of Robert Fitz-hamon, marries Robert of Gloucester, ii. 83.
Maelgwyn, i. 124.
Magnus Barefoot, king of Norway, his expedition into Britain, ii. 133 et seq., 617-624; character of his reign, ii. 133; his surnames, ib.; professes friendship for England, ib.; his sons, ib.; his treasure at Lincoln, ii. 134, 624; his designs on Ireland, ii. 136, 141, 620; his alleged Irish marriage, ii. 136, 622; his voyage among the islands, ii. 136, 140-142; legend of him and Saint Olaf, ii. 139; seizes the Earls of Orkney, ii. 140; grants the earldom to Sigurd, ib.; his dealings with Galloway, ii. 141; occupies Man, ib.; approaches Anglesey, ii. 143, 619, 621; kills Hugh of Shrewsbury, ii. 144, 620, 621; makes peace with Hugh of Chester, ii. 145; his designs on Anglesey, ib.; his dealings with King Murtagh, ii. 146, 622; and with Scotland, ii. 147; Arnulf of Montgomery negotiates with, ii. 426; his second voyage round Britain, ii. 442; his castle-building in Man, ib.; refuses help to Robert of Bellême, ii. 443, 623, 624; his death, ii. 451; described as “rex Germaniæ,” ii. 619, 620.
Magnus, Saint, murdered by Hakon, ii. 582.
Maine, history of, under the Conqueror, i. 203; dissatisfaction in, under Robert, i. 204; alleged derivation of its name, i. 205; submits to Robert, i. 209; stipulation about, in the treaty of Caen, i. 277, ii. 524; men of, send for Hugh son of Azo as their ruler, ii. 195; revolts against Robert, ii. 197; peace of, under Helias, ii. 204; cession of, demanded by William Rufus, ii. 208; his designs on, ii. 213; attacked by Robert of Bellême, ib.; geographical character of the war, ii. 214; beginning of the war of William Rufus in, ii. 167, 215; castles of Robert of Bellême in, ii. 216; teaching of its landscapes, ii. 219; castles of, ii. 219-221; contrasted with England, ii. 220; general submission of, to William Rufus, ii. 241; extent of his conquests in, ii. 245; southern part harried by Rufus, ii. 288; no bribery in, ii. 290; later fortune of, ii. 374.
Malchus, Bishop of Waterford, consecrated by Anselm, i. 544.
Malcolm III., King of Scots, invades Northumberland, i. 295; driven back, i. 296; his relations with Robert, i. 297; meets William Rufus at Scots’ Water, i. 301; negotiates with him through Robert, i. 302; two versions of the negotiations, i. 302-304, ii. 540-545; his alleged homage to Robert, i. 302, ii. 542; question as to his earlier betrothal to Margaret, i. 303, ii. 542; as to the homage for Lothian, i. 303, ii. 541 et seq.; does homage to Rufus, i. 304, ii. 541; his correspondence with Wulfstan, i. 479; his complaints against Rufus, ii. 8; summoned to Gloucester, ii. 9, 590; lays one of the foundation-stones of Durham Abbey, ii. 11; much of his dominions in Durham diocese, ii. 12; Rufus refuses to see him at Gloucester, i. 410, ii. 13, 590; dispute between them, ii. 13; returns to Scotland, ii. 14; invades England, ii. 15, 592; English feeling towards, ii. 16, 595; slain at Alnwick, i. 410, ii. 5, 16, 592; alleged treachery towards him, ii. 16, 592 et seq.; his burial at Tynemouth, ii. 17; translated to Dunfermline, ii. 18; local estimate of his death, ii. 19; his devotion to Margaret, ii. 20; acts as her interpreter, ii. 23; his visit to Romsey, ii. 31, 600; what languages he spoke, ii. 591.
Malling, Gundulf’s tower at, i. 70.
Malpeter, Mormaor of Mærne, ii. 36.
Malvoisin, towers so called, use of, ii. 51, 435, 520, 608.
Mamers, castle of, ii. 216, 217.
Man, the centre of Godred Crouan’s dominion, ii. 136; civil war in, ii. 138; occupied by Magnus, ii. 141, 619; his designs with regard to, ii. 142, 620; his castle-building in, ii. 442.
Manorbeer Castle, birthplace of Giraldus, ii. 95.
Mantes, granted to Lewis by Philip, ii. 175; claimed by William Rufus, ii. 176.
Margam Abbey, ii. 89.
Margaret, daughter of Eadward, question as to her earlier betrothal to Malcolm, i. 303, ii. 542; her correspondence with Wulfstan, i. 479; her character, ii. 20; her influence on Malcolm, ii. 20, 23; her education of their children, ii. 21; her reforms, ii. 22; increases the pomp of the Scottish court, ii. 23; Scottish feeling towards, ii. 25, 28, 597; hears of her husband’s death, ii. 26, 592, 594; versions of her death, ii. 26-28; her burial at Dunfermline, ii. 28, 597.
Margaret of Mortagne, wife of Henry of Warwick, ii. 348.
Marriage, lord’s right of, growth of, under Rufus, i. 336; peculiar to England and Normandy, i. 340; restrained by the charter of Henry I, ii. 353.
Mary, daughter of Malcolm, brought up in Romsey Abbey, ii. 31, 598; marries Eustace of Boulogne, ii. 31.
Matilda of Flanders, Queen, lands of, claimed by Henry, i. 195, 197; they are granted to Robert Fitz-hamon, i. 198.
Matilda, or Eadgyth, Queen, wife of Henry I, her sojourn at Romsey, ii. 31, 599; her relations with Henry, ib.; tale of her and William Rufus, ii. 32, 600; sought in marriage by Alan of Richmond, ii. 602; sought in marriage by Henry, ii. 31, 382; her beauty and learning, ii. 382; policy of the marriage, ii. 383; wishes to appoint Eadwulf abbot of Malmesbury, ii. 383 (note); objections to the marriage, ii. 384, 683; appeals to Anselm, ib.; declared free to marry, ii. 385; other versions of the story, ii. 385-387, 683 et seq.; later fables about her marriage, ii. 387, 684, 685; her marriage and coronation, ii. 387, 388; takes the name of Matilda, ii. 305, 388; her nickname of Godgifu, ii. 389; her children, ib.; her character, ii. 390; known as “good Queen Mold,” ii. 391; Robert’s generosity to her, ii. 406; baptized by the name of Eadgyth, ii. 598; god-daughter of Duke Robert, ii. 602.
Matilda, Empress, daughter of Henry I and Matilda, ii. 389.
Matilda, wife of Stephen, and granddaughter of Malcolm, ii. 31.
Matilda, Abbess of Caen, Anselm’s letter to, ii. 579.
Matilda, Countess of Perche, natural daughter of Henry the First, ii. 379.
Matilda, wife of Helias of La Flèche, ii. 196.
Matilda of Laigle, marries Robert of Mowbray, i. 243 (note), ii. 38; holds out at Bamburgh, ii. 54, 609; yields to save her husband’s eyes, ii. 54; her second marriage and divorce, ii. 55, 612.
Matilda, wife of William of Bellême, signs the foundation-charter of Lonlay Abbey, ii. 539.
Matilda, daughter of Waltheof, marries David of Scotland, ii. 124.
Matilda of Wallingford, her foundation at Oakburn, i. 376 (note).
Matthew, Count of Beaumont, helps to defend Courcy, ii. 519.
Matthew Paris, his version of the accession of William Rufus, ii. 461.
Maule, fortress of, ii. 251, 253.
Maurice, Bishop of London, his dispute with Anselm, i. 440; crowns Henry I, ii. 350, 681; his signature to Henry’s charter, ii. 358; false story of his approaching death brought to Flambard, ii. 560.
Mayet Castle, ii. 196; strengthened by Helias, ii. 275; siege of, ii. 289-294, 652; raising of the siege, ii. 294, 653; description of, ii. 652.
Mediolanum. See Evreux.
Mercenaries, employment of under William Rufus, i. 134, 153, 226, ii. 496; their presence tends to promote the fusion of English and Normans, i. 134; their wrong-doings, i. 154, ii. 498; statute of Henry I against, ib.
Meredydd, son of Bleddyn, becomes the man of Robert of Bellême, ii. 424; his action on his behalf, ii. 442.
Merewine of Chester-le-Street, signs the Durham charter, ii. 536.
Meulan, importance of its position, ii. 183.
Mevania. See Anglesey.
Milford Haven, ii. 95.
Mona. See Anglesey.
Monacledin, Duncan slain at, ii. 36 (note).
Monarches, use of the title, ii. 484.
Montacute (near Saint Cenery), castle of, besieged by Duke Robert and destroyed, i. 469 (note).
Montacute Priory, ii. 120.
Mont Barbé, castle of, at Le Mans, i. 239, 361.
Montbizot, ii. 232.
Mont-de-la-Nue, castle of, ii. 216.
Montfort l’Amaury, fortress of, ii. 251, 253; church of, ii. 254; defended by the younger Simon, ib.
Montgomery (in Wales), castle of, ii. 77; taken by the Welsh, ii. 104.
Morel, slays Malcolm, ii. 16, 593; plunders Norwegian ships, ii. 40; holds out at Bamburgh, ii. 54, 610; turns king’s-evidence, ii. 55; his end, ii. 69; his signature to the Durham charter, ii. 536.
Moreldene, ii. 17.
Morgan, son of Jestin, ii. 81 (note).
Morganwg, distinguished from Glamorgan, ii. 85; conquest of, see Glamorgan.
Morkere, son of Ælfgar, re-imprisoned by William, i. 13, 14; his signature to a charter of William of Saint-Calais, i. 14 (note).
Moses of Canterbury, ii. 573.
Motte de Gauthier-le-Clincamp, castle of, ii. 216.
Mowbray Castle, granted to Nigel of Albini, ii. 612.
Murtagh, Muirchertach, or Murchard, calls himself king of Ireland, i. 544; Anselm’s letters to, i. 545 (note), ii. 581; his answer to the threat of William Rufus, ii. 94; drives Godred Crouan out of Dublin, ii. 137; sends Donald to the Sudereys, ib.; his dealings with Magnus of Norway, ii. 146, 622, 624; marries his daughter to Sigurd, ii. 136, 146, 443, 622; Arnulf of Montgomery’s dealings with, ii. 425, 426, 442.
Mutilation, feeling with regard to, i. 548 (note), ii. 64.
N.
Neath, borough and abbey of, ii. 88, 89.
Neauphlé-le-Château, ii. 251; defended by the elder Simon of Montfort, ii. 253.
Nest, wife of Bernard of Newmarch, her descent, ii. 90; her faithlessness to her husband, ii. 91; her grant to Battle Abbey, ii. 91 (note).
Nest, wife of Gerald of Windsor, ii. 97, 110 (note); her relations with Henry I, ii. 97, 110 (note), 379.
Nest, daughter of Jestin, marries Einion, ii. 80.
Neufchâtel-en-Bray, i. 236 (note).
Neuilly, Robert of Bellême imprisoned at, i. 199.
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, defended by Robert of Mowbray, ii. 46; taken by William Rufus, ii. 47, 607.
New Forest, its supposed connexion with the Saxon colony at Carlisle, i. 316, ii. 550; death of Richard son of Duke Robert there, ii. 316; various versions of the death of William Rufus in, ii. 325 et seq.
Nicolas, Bishop of Llandaff, his charter, ii. 84 (note).
Nidaros. See Trondhjem.
Nigel of Albini, his marriages, ii. 55, 612; Mowbray Castle granted to, ii. 612.
Nithing Proclamation of William, i. 78.
Nivard of Septeuil, ii. 252.
Nomenclature of Wales compared with that of England, ii. 75.
Nomenclature, personal, illustrations of, ii. 489, 551, 577.
Norham Castle, founded by Flambard, ii. 272.
Norman Conquest, at once completed and undone under Rufus and under Henry I, i. 3, 7, 130, ii. 456; England reconciled to it by Henry I, ii. 456; compared with that of Wales, ii. 72.
Norman nobles, revolt against William Rufus, i. 22 et seq., ii. 465 et seq.; refuse to attend the Easter Gemôt, i. 32; amnesty granted to, by Rufus, i. 88; accepted as Englishmen, i. 132; some loyal to Rufus, i. 62; second revolt of, ii. 37.
Normandy, chief seat of warfare in the reign of Rufus, i. 178; contrasted with England, ib.; temptations for the invasion of Rufus, i. 188; under Robert, i. 189, 190; spread of vice in, i. 192; building of castles in, ib.; its rivalry with France, i. 201; Rufus’s invasion of, agreed to by the Witan, i. 222-224; its relations with England and France, i. 240; private wars in, i. 241-244; Orderic’s picture of, i. 271; Rufus crosses over to, i. 273; compared with England, i. 468; her share in the first crusade, i. 547; pledged to Rufus by Robert, i. 555; Rufus takes possession of, i. 566; his rule in, i. 567, 569, 570; renewed anarchy in, on his death, ii. 366.
Normannus. See Northman.
Normans and English, fusion of, i. 130, 134, ii. 401, 455; use of the words, ii. 649.
Northallerton, church of, granted to the monks of Durham, i. 535.
Northampton, architectural arrangements of the castle, i. 601; constitution of the Council of 1164, i. 602.
Northman, monk of Christ Church, i. 140 (note).
Northumberland, invaded by Malcolm, i. 296.
Norwich, see of Thetford moved to, i. 449; ii. 569.
O.
Oakburn, a cell of Bec, i. 376 (note).
Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, restored to his earldom, i. 19, ii. 467; his discontent and intrigues, i. 23, 24, ii. 465; his hatred towards Lanfranc, i. 24, 53 (note); his harangue against William Rufus, i. 26, ii. 466; his ravages in Kent, i. 52; occupies Rochester Castle, i. 55; invites Robert over, i. 56; hated by the English, i. 67, 86; moves to Pevensey, i. 70; besieged therein by Rufus, i. 72-76; surrenders on favourable terms, i. 76; his treachery at Rochester, i. 77; besieged therein, i. 79; agrees to surrender, i. 80; Rufus refuses his terms, i. 81; pleadings made for, i. 83; terms granted to, by Rufus, i. 85; his humiliation and banishment, i. 85-87; his influence with Duke Robert, i. 199; his exhortation to him, i. 200; marches with him into Maine, i. 208; his further schemes, i. 211; goes on the first crusade, i. 560; his death and tomb at Palermo, i. 563, 571, ii. 307; said to have married Philip and Bertrada, ii. 172.
Odo, Abbot of Chertsey, resigns his abbey, i. 350; restored by Henry, ib.
Odo of Champagne, lord of Holderness, part of the lands of the see of Durham granted to, i. 90; his agreement with the Bishop, i. 93; intervenes on his behalf, i. 109, 117, 120; confiscation of his lands, ii. 66.
Odo, Duke of Burgundy, his alleged scheme against Anselm, i. 606.
Ogmore Castle, ii. 86.
Olaf, Saint, legend of him and Magnus, ii. 139.
Olaf, son of Godred Crouan, ii. 137, 623.
Oldbury, ii. 155.
Omens, William Rufus sneers at the English regard for, ii. 330.
Ordeal, contempt of William Rufus for, i. 157, 165; Eadmer’s belief in, i. 166 (note).
Orderic, writes Robert of Rhuddlan’s epitaph, i. 128; his picture of Normandy, i. 271; dictates his writings, i. 272 (note); his account of the expedition of Magnus, ii. 142; the only writer who mentions Eadgyth-Matilda’s change of name, ii. 687.
Ordgar, his charge against Eadgar Ætheling, ii. 115, 617; story of his duel with Godwine, ii. 115-117, 617; estimate of the story, ii. 117, 615; notices of, in Domesday, ii. 616.
Ordwine, monk, Anselm’s letters to, ii. 579.
Orkneys, invaded by Magnus, ii. 140.
Orm, priest, signs the Durham charter, ii. 536.
Orm’s Head, the, origin of the name, i. 123 (note).
Orricus de Stanton, ii. 555.
Osbern, monk of Bec, various bearers of the name, i. 374 (note).
Osbern, brother of Flambard, ii. 551.
Osbern of Orgères, companion of Robert of Rhuddlan, i. 126.
Osbern of Richard’s Castle, rebels against William Rufus, i. 33.
Osgod Clapa, his irreverence towards Saint Eadmund, ii. 268.
Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury, sent with a summons to Bishop William, i. 116; consecrates his cathedral, i. 309; helps at the consecration of the church of Battle, i. 444; absolved by Anselm for his conduct at Rockingham, i. 533; Anselm confers with him at Winchester, i. 586; receives William of Alderi’s confession, ii. 68; not present at his hanging, ib.; his death, i. 351, ii. 302; his signature to the Durham charter, ii. 536.
Oswald, Saint, King of the Northumbrians, rebuilds the church of Tynemouth, ii. 17, 604; his relic at Bamburgh, ii. 49, 608.
Oswine, King of Deira, his martyrdom, ii. 17; invention of his relics, ii. 18, 603; his translation, ii. 18, 606.
Outillé Castle, strengthened by Helias, ii. 275; burned by him, ii. 288.
Owen, son of Edwin, ii. 424.
Oystermouth Castle, ii. 103.
P.
Padua, siege of, i. 173 (note).
Pagan or Theobald, fortifies Gisors, ii. 186; taken prisoner by Lewis, ii. 186 (note), 190; Gisors restored to, ii. 396.
Pagan of Montdoubleau, holds Ballon against Duke Robert, i. 209; Orderic’s tale of his forsaking Saint Cenery, i. 469 (note); betrays Ballon to William Rufus, ii. 235.
Pagan of Turberville, holds Coyty, ii. 87; joins the Welsh, ii. 104.
Palermo, death and tomb of Odo of Bayeux at, i. 563, 571, ii. 307.
Palgrave, Sir F., on chivalry, ii. 508; his condemnation of the crusades, ii. 509; on the alleged Domesday of Randolf Flambard, ii. 562-564; his belief in the legend about Purkis, ii. 679.
Pallium, elder usage as to, i. 482; not needful for the validity of archiepiscopal acts, i. 483.
Papacy, English feeling as to the schism in, i. 415.
Paschal II., Pope, speech of William Rufus on his election, i. 623; Anselm’s letters to, ii. 582.
Paul, Abbot of Saint Alban’s, Anselm’s friendship with, i. 424; his death, i. 424, ii. 18.
Paul, Earl of Orkney, taken prisoner by Magnus, ii. 140; his death in Norway, ii. 140, 581.
Paula, mother of Helias of La Flèche, ii. 196.
Peckham manor, mortgaged by Anselm to the monks of Christ Church, i. 559; kept by the monks, i. 596.
Peers, their right of trial, i. 604 (note).
Pembroke Castle, description of, ii. 96; begun by Arnulf of Montgomery, ib.; later castle, ib.; defended by Gerald of Windsor, ii. 101, 108; surrendered to Henry I by Arnulf, ii. 450 (note); grant of, by Henry I, ii. 451.
Pembrokeshire, Flemish settlement in, ii. 70 (note), 74, 88, 615; building of castles in, ii. 93; military character of its buildings, ii. 96.
Penmon Priory, ii. 129, 130 (note).
Penrice Castle, ii. 103.
Percy, house of, beginning of its connexion with Alnwick, ii. 15, 596.
Perray, castle of, ii. 216.
Peter of Maule, ii. 252.
Peterborough, monks of, buy a congé d’élire of Rufus, i. 352.
Pevensey, held by Robert of Mortain, i. 53, 62; Odo moves to, i. 70; castle of, i. 72; besieged by William Rufus, i. 73-76; attempted landing of the Normans at, i. 74, ii. 468, 481; surrenders, i. 76; Henry I gathers his fleet at, ii. 404.
Philip I of France, marches with Robert against Eu, i. 238; bought off by William Rufus, i. 239; historical importance of this bribe, ib.; mediates between William Rufus and Robert, i. 275, ii. 522; helps Robert against William, i. 463; returns to France, i. 464; bought off by William, i. 466; his position compared with that of Helias of Maine, ii. 169; rebuked by Bishop Ivo of Chartres, i. 559 (note); puts away his first wife, ii. 171; seeks Emma of Sicily in marriage, ii. 171 (note); his adulterous marriage with Bertrada of Montfort, i. 548, ii. 171, 172; denounced by Hugh of Lyons, ii. 173; his excommunication, i. 549, ii. 173; his pretended divorce, ii. 173 (note); his sons by Bertrada, ii. 174; grants the Vexin to Lewis, ii. 175; his letter to Anselm, ii. 580.
Philip, son of Philip and Bertrada, ii. 174.
Philip of Braose, supports William Rufus, i. 472.
Philip, son of Roger of Montgomery, goes on the first crusade, i. 552; conspires against William Rufus, ii. 38; signs the Durham charter, ii. 536.
Piacenza, Council of, i. 522, 545; no mention of English affairs at, i. 522.
Pipe Rolls, notices of nomenclature in, ii. 551.
Poix, lordship of Walter Tirel, ii. 673.
Ponthieu, acquired by Robert of Bellême, ii. 423.
Pontlieue, victory of Helias at, ii. 278.
Pontoise, granted to Lewis by Philip, ii. 175; claimed by William Rufus, ii. 176; withstands William Rufus, ii. 185; castle and town of, ii. 247; the furthest point in the French campaign of William Rufus, ii. 248.
Pope, William of Saint-Calais appeals to, i. 103, 109; first appeal made to, i. 119; not to be acknowledged without the king’s consent, i. 414; Anselm insists on the acknowledgement, i. 416; question left unsettled, i. 424; no reference to, in the case of English episcopal appointments, i. 425; position of England towards, i. 496.
Porchester, Duke Robert lands at, ii. 405; church and castle of, ii. 406 (note).
Powys, advance of Earl Roger in, ii. 97.
Prisoners, ransom of, i. 464.
Purkis, the charcoal-burner, legend of, ii. 679.
Q.
Quatford, Danish fortification at, ii. 152; castle of, ii. 153; Earl Roger’s buildings at, ii. 154; legend of the foundation of the church, ii. 154 (note).
R.
Radegund, wife of Robert of Geroy, i. 469 (note).
Radnor, ii. 77.
Ralph Luffa, Bishop of Chichester, i. 353; at the consecration of the church of Battle, i. 444; whether a mediator between Henry I and the garrison of Arundel, ii. 430 (note).
Ralph, Bishop of Coutances, at the consecration of the church of Battle, i. 444.
Ralph, Abbot of Seez, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, driven out by Robert of Bellême, i. 184, 242; his alleged share in the surrender of Arundel, ii. 430 (note).
Ralph of Aix, death of William Rufus attributed to, ii. 325, 334, 663.
Ralph of Fresnay and Beaumont, truce granted to, by William Rufus, ii. 230; estimate of his conduct, ii. 231; submits to William Rufus, ii. 241.
Ralph of Mortemer, rebels against William Rufus, i. 34; submits to him, i. 231.
Ralph Paganel, Sheriff of Yorkshire, his treatment of William of Saint-Calais, i. 31; founds Holy Trinity Priory, York, ib.; his action in regard to Bishop William’s lands, i. 90; at the meeting at Salisbury, i. 111.
Ralph of Toesny, or Conches, drives out the ducal forces, i. 193; joins Robert’s expedition into Maine, i. 209; his feud with William of Evreux, i. 231, 233, 245; asks help in vain from Duke Robert, i. 234; submits to Rufus, ib.; his treaties with William of Evreux, i. 267, 270; wars against Robert of Meulan, i. 270; supports William Rufus in his second invasion, i. 472; his death, i. 270; entertains William Rufus, ii. 246.
Ralph of Toesny, the younger, i. 233, 271.
Ralph of Wacey, his nickname, ii. 193.
Ralph of Wader, goes on the first crusade, i. 552.
Rama, siege of, ii. 117 (note), 122.
Randolf Flambard, Bishop of Durham, feudal developement under, i. 4; his early history, i. 329, ii. 551; said to have been Dean of Twinham, i. 330, ii. 553; his parents, i. 331; origin of his surname, i. 331, ii. 555; his financial skill, i. 331; his probable share in Domesday, i. 331, ii. 552; his alleged new Domesday, i. 332, ii. 562; Justiciar, i. 333, ii. 557; his loss of land for the New Forest, i. 333; his systematic changes and exactions, i. 333, 339, 346, 348; his alleged spoliation of the rich, i. 334, 341; systematizes the feudal tenures, i. 336 et seq.; his theory of land tenure, i. 337; extent of his changes, i. 340; the law-giver of English feudalism, i. 341; suggests the holding of the revenues of vacant sees, i. 345 et seq., ii. 564; his action in keeping the see of Canterbury vacant, i. 363 (note); his suit against Anselm, i. 428; attacks and imprisons Robert son of Godwine, ii. 121; King Eadgar’s action towards, ib.; his exactions, ii. 256; joint regent with Bishop Walkelin, ii. 266; see of Durham granted to, ii. 271; his consecration, ib.; character of the appointment, ii. 272; his buildings at Durham, ii. 60, 272; founds Norham Castle, ib.; his personal character, ii. 273; his penitent end, ii. 274; his dealings with Saint Alban’s Abbey, ii. 359 (note); imprisoned by Henry, ii. 361; his escape, ii. 397; adventures of his mother, ii. 398; stirs Duke Robert up against Henry, ib.; said to have brought about desertions to Duke Robert, ii. 404; receives the revenues of the see of Lisieux under cover of his son, ii. 416; his signature to the Durham charter, ii. 536; entries about, in Domesday, ii. 553; his official position, ii. 557; story of the attempt on his life, ii. 560; his measurement by the rope, ii. 563.
Randolf Meschines, Earl of Chester, grant of the earldom of Carlisle to, ii. 549.
Randolf Peverel, ii. 485.
Randolf, his encounter with Saint Eadmund, ii. 269.
Ransom, growth of the custom, i. 464.
Rapes, in Sussex, origin of the name, ii. 564.
Raymond, Count of Toulouse, refuses to do homage to Alexios, i. 564 (note).
Redemption of land, as devised by Flambard, i. 337; as reformed by Henry I, i. 338, 353.
Reginald, Abbot of Abingdon, said to have helped in distributing the Conqueror’s treasure, ii. 265 (note); his death, ii. 265 (note), 381 (note).
Reginald of Saint Evroul, adorns Robert of Rhuddlan’s tomb, i. 128.
Reginald of Warren, comes to Robert’s help at Rouen, i. 249, 253.
Reingar, Bishop of Lucca, his protest in favour of Anselm, i. 622.
Relief, Flambard’s theory as to, i. 337, 338; enforced by Henry’s charter, i. 338, ii. 353.
Remigius, Bishop of Lincoln, denounces the slave trade, i. 310; completes the minster, ib.; his dispute with Thomas of York, i. 311; wins over William Rufus, ib.; his death, i. 312; alleged miracles at his tomb, i. 312 (note); his signature to the Durham charter, ii. 536.
Rémusat, Charles de, his Life of Anselm, i. 325 (note).
Rhuddlan, attacked by Gruffydd, i. 122; castle of, ii. 77.
Rhyd-y-gors Castle, built by William Rufus, ii. 97; defence of, ii. 101; gained by the Welsh, ii. 106.
Rhys ap Tewdwr, King of Deheubarth, driven from and restored to his kingdom, i. 121; his attack on Rhuddlan Castle, i. 122, ii. 78; his defeat and death at Brecknock, ii. 91; effect of his death, ii. 92.
Rhys ap Thomas, Sir, ii. 95 (note).
Richard I, compared with William Rufus, i. 290.
Richard II., recasts Westminster Hall, ii. 262.
Richard the Good, Duke of the Normans, i. 169.
Richard, son of Duke Robert, his death, ii. 316.
Richard, son of Henry I and Ansfrida, ii. 314, 380; dies in the White Ship, ii. 381.
Richard, Abbot of Saint Alban’s, ii. 166.
Richard, Abbot of Ely, his appointment, ii. 360; removed by Anselm, ib.
Richard of Courcy, besieged by Duke Robert and Robert of Bellême, i. 274; supports William Rufus, i. 472.
Richard of Montfort, his death before Conches, i. 266.
Richard of Redvers, supports Henry, i. 221; surrenders to William Rufus, i. 283; joins Henry, i. 320; one of Henry’s inner council, ii. 362; his loyalty to Henry, ii. 399; granted to Henry by Robert, ii. 513.
Richard Siward, ii. 86.
Richard Tisone, ii. 596.
Richer of Laigle, i. 243 (note).
Richera (Richesa), sister of Anselm, his letters to, ii. 579.
Robert, Duke of the Normans, assertion of his hereditary right, i. 11 (note), ii. 460; releases Duncan and Wulf, i. 14; his gifts for his father’s soul, i. 18; compared with William Rufus, i. 20, 226; arguments of the rebels in his favour, i. 24 et seq.; invited to England by Odo, i. 56; sends over Robert of Bellême and others, ib.; delays his coming, i. 71, 74; his childish boasting, i. 71; his promises to Odo, i. 72; welcomes Bishop William, i. 117; M. le Hardy’s apology for him, i. 175 (note); William of Malmesbury’s estimate of him, ib.; character of his reign foretold by his father, i. 189; anarchy under him, i. 190, 191; his character, i. 190, 298, ii. 393; spread of vice under him, i. 192; his lavish waste, i. 195; sells the Côtentin and Avranchin to Henry, i. 196, ii. 510-516; imprisons Henry and Robert of Bellême, i. 199; Earl Roger makes war on him, ib.; Odo’s exhortation to him, i. 200; does homage to Fulk of Anjou for Maine, i. 204; Maine submits to him, i. 209; Ballon surrenders to him, i. 210; besieges Saint Cenery, i. 211; blinds Robert Carrel, i. 216; grants Saint Cenery to Robert, grandson of Geroy, i. 217; Alençon and Bellême surrender to him, i. 218; frees Robert of Bellême and Henry, i. 220; asks King Philip to help him against William, i. 237; suspects the loyalty of Maine, ii. 191; asks help of Fulk of Anjou, ii. 192; bargains for the marriage of Fulk and Bertrada, ii. 193, 194; Maine revolts again, ii. 197; his carelessness as to his loss, ii. 200; cleaves to his rights over the bishopric, ib.; marches on Eu, i. 238; a party in Rouen in his favour, i. 248; Henry and Robert of Bellême come to his help, ib.; sent away from Rouen by Henry, i. 255; is brought back, i. 260; his treatment of the citizens, ib.; helps Robert of Bellême in his private wars, i. 273; his treaty with William, i. 275-281, ii. 522, 528; marches against Henry, i. 283; besieges Saint Michael’s Mount, i. 285-292, ii. 528-535; story of his clemency towards Henry, i. 291, ii. 534; accompanies William to England, i. 295, 297; his relations with Malcolm, i. 297, ii. 541 et seq.; mediates between William and Malcolm, i. 301; former homage of Malcolm to him, i. 302, ii. 542; signs the Durham charter, i. 305, ii. 536; his fresh dispute with William, i. 306; leaves England, i. 307; Henry wars against him, i. 321; consents to Anselm’s acceptance of the primacy, i. 406; his challenges to William, i. 435, 436; his meeting with him, i. 461; calls on Philip for help, i. 463; takes La Houlme, i. 465; besieges Montacute, i. 469 (note); Henry again wars against him, i. 470; his eagerness to go on the crusade, i. 552; forced to apply to William for help, i. 553; Abbot Geronto mediates between them, i. 553-555; pledges Normandy to William, i. 555, ii. 506; his conference with William, i. 559; sets forth, i. 560; his conduct as a crusader, i. 560, 564, 565, 566, ii. 394; blessed by Urban at Lucca, i. 561; goes to Rome, ib.; welcomed by Roger of Apulia, ib.; crosses to Dyrrhachion, i. 563; does homage to Alexios at Constantinople, i. 564; his presence at Laodikeia and Jerusalem, i. 564, 565, ii. 300; said to have refused the crown of Jerusalem, i. 566; marries Sibyl of Conversana, ii. 312; his reception in Southern Italy, ib.; returns to Normandy, i. 566, ii. 311, 367; gives thanks at Saint Michael’s for his safe return, ii. 367; his renewed misgovernment, ii. 367, 394; his claims to the English throne, ii. 343, 344, 346; supported by William of Breteuil and other Normans, ii. 346, 347; Norman nobles intrigue with, against Henry I, ii. 366, 368; beginning of his war with Henry, ii. 368; his reply to the garrison of Le Mans, ii. 372; plots on his behalf, ii. 395; his grants and promises, ib.; his fleet, ii. 402; desertions to, ii. 404, 409, 686; lands at Portchester, ii. 405; estimate of his conduct in not besieging Winchester, ii. 406; meets Henry near Alton, ii. 409; threatened with excommunication by Anselm, ii. 410; negotiates with him, ii. 412; personal meeting and treaty between the brothers, ii. 412-415, 538, 688-691; returns to Normandy, ii. 414; Henry negotiates with him, against Robert of Bellême, ii. 426; besieges Vignats, ib.; said to have stood godfather to Eadgyth-Matilda, ii. 602.
Robert, Bishop of Hereford, foretells the death of Remigius, i. 312; receives Wulfstan’s confession, i. 479; Wulfstan appears to him, i. 480; absolved by Anselm for his conduct at Rockingham, i. 533; Wulfstan appears to him again, ib. and note; his death, i. 535.
Robert Bloet, Bishop of Lincoln, accompanies William Rufus to England, i. 13; his appointment, i. 395, ii. 584; his character and offices, i. 395, 447, ii. 584 et seq.; Thomas of York claims the right to consecrate him, i. 433; consecrated by Anselm, i. 445-447; bribes Rufus, i. 446; his death, i. 448, ii. 587; local legends about, i. 448, ii. 586; said to have besieged Tickhill, ii. 431; signs the Durham charter, ii. 536; not in good favour with monks, ii. 585; his son Simon, ii. 586; meaning of his name, ii. 588.
Robert, Bishop of Bath, restores the canons of Wells, ii. 487.
Robert Losinga, Abbot of New Minster, the abbey bought for him by his son, i. 355; his death, ii. 265 (note), 267.
Robert, Abbot of Saint Eadmund’s, his appointment, ii. 359; removed by Anselm, ii. 360.
Robert of Bellême, sent over to England by Duke Robert, i. 57, ii. 465 et seq.; agrees to surrender Rochester, i. 80; pleadings made for him, i. 84; his history and greatness, i. 179, 180; his character, i. 181; his cruelty and enmities, i. 182-184, ii. 151, 222; drives out the ducal garrisons, i. 193, 201; sent against Rufus by Robert, i. 57; returns to Normandy and is imprisoned, i. 199, 219; exhortation of Odo against him, i. 201; released at his father’s prayer, i. 219, 220; his subsequent action, i. 242; drives away Abbot Ralph of Seez, i. 184, 242; comes to the help of Duke Robert, i. 248; helped by Robert against his neighbours, i. 273, 274; his oppression at Domfront, i. 319; succeeds to the Norman estates of his father, i. 180, 473; to his English estates, i. 180, ii. 148; men of Domfront revolt against, i. 319; his action in Wales, ii. 113; extent of his estates, ii. 148, 163; his position on the continent and in England, ii. 149, 150; compared with the Counts of Mortain, ii. 149, and with Hugh of Chester, ii. 150; his oppression, ii. 151; his skill in castle-building, ib.; his defences in Shropshire, ii. 152; removes from Quatford to Bridgenorth, ii. 155; builds Careghova Castle, ii. 158; his Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire estates, ii. 159; lands of Roger of Bully granted to, ii. 162; strengthens Gisors Castle, ii. 187; attacks Maine, ii. 213; stirs up William Rufus to war, ii. 215; carries it on, ii. 216; his nickname of “Robert the Devil,” ii. 216, 219; his castles in Maine, ii. 216; wrong and sacrilege done by him, ii. 221, 222; defeated by Helias, ii. 222, 223; takes Helias prisoner, ii. 224; contrasted with William Rufus, ib.; occupies and strengthens Ballon Castle, ii. 235, 282; story of him at the siege of Mayet, ii. 291; hastens to acknowledge Henry I as king, ii. 362; calls himself the “man” of Helias, ii. 373 (note); plots against Henry, ii. 395; Duke Robert’s grants to, ib.; deserts from Henry, ii. 409; said to have negotiated between Henry and Robert, ii. 412; charges brought against, ii. 421; does not appear before the assembly, ib.; proclamation against, ii. 442; again summoned, but refuses to come, ib.; greatness of his possessions, ii. 423; his acquisition of Ponthieu, ib.; his Welsh and Irish allies, ii. 423-426; strengthens his castles, ii. 428; harries Staffordshire, ii. 429; Henry’s faith pledged for his life, ii. 430, 438; seizes the land of William Pantulf, ii. 434; feeling in the army on his behalf, ii. 436; his dealings wth Murtagh and with Magnus, ii. 442; holds out at Shrewsbury, ii. 445; his despair, ii. 446; sues for peace, and submits, ii. 448; his banishment, ii. 449; joy at his overthrow, ib.; his later history, i. 184, ii. 450.
Robert Carrel, holds Saint Cenery against Duke Robert, i. 215; blinded by him, i. 216.
Robert of Conteville, i. 115.
Robert the Cornard, his device of pointed shoes, i. 159, ii. 502.
Robert of Courcy, marries Rohesia of Grantmesnil, i. 273 (note); wounded at Saônes, ii. 222.
Robert of Curzon, Saint Eadmund’s dealings with, ii. 269.
Robert the Dispenser, signs the foundation charter of Salisbury Cathedral, i. 309 (note); invents the surname Flambard, i. 309 (note), 331.
Robert Count of Eu, submits to Rufus, i. 229.
Robert Fitz-hamon, his loyalty to William Rufus, i. 62; Matilda’s lands granted to, by Rufus, i. 198; his foundation at Tewkesbury, i. 479; story of him and Jestin, ii. 80; estimate of the story, ii. 81, 614; his conquest of Glamorgan and settlement at Cardiff, ii. 81, 84; other notices of, ii. 82; marries Earl Roger’s daughter, ii. 83; his works at Gloucester and Tewkesbury, ii. 84; said to have taken part against Rhys, ii. 91; tells the monk’s dream to William Rufus, ii. 328; legend of his share in the burial of Rufus, ii. 338, 676; signs Henry’s letter to Anselm, ii. 366; his loyalty to him, ii. 399; said to have negotiated between Henry and Robert, ii. 412.
Robert Fitzharding, his probable origin, i. 46 (note).
Robert the Frisian, Count of Flanders, his interview with William Rufus, i. 411; his expedition to the East, ib.; his help to the Emperor Alexios, ib.; his death, ib.
Robert of Jerusalem, Count of Flanders, succeeds his father, i. 412; goes on the first crusade, i. 551, 560; Anselm’s letter to, ii. 581.
Robert, Earl of Gloucester, natural son of Henry I, ii. 379, 414; marries Mabel, daughter of Robert Fitz-hamon, ii. 83.
Robert, natural son of Henry I and Nest, ii. 379.
Robert Malet, his banishment, ii. 417.
Robert, Count of Meulan, son of Roger of Beaumont, i. 184; his possessions, i. 185; his exploits at Senlac, ib.; his fame for wisdom, ib.; claims Ivry, i. 243; his imprisonment and release, ib.; advises Rufus as to Anselm’s conditions, i. 417; supports William Rufus, i. 472; his description of Anselm, i. 511; marries Isabel of Vermandois, i. 187 (note), 551; his marriage denounced by Bishop Ivo of Chartres, i. 551 (note); his answer to Anselm’s discourse, i. 591; his policy towards William Rufus, ii. 182, 184; receives his troops, ii. 182; counsels William Rufus to reject Helias’s offer of service, ii. 243, 641; accompanies Henry to London, ii. 350, 680; one of his councillors, i. 186, ii. 350, 362, 420; does not sign Henry’s charter or letter to Anselm, ii. 366; Norman raid against his lands, ii. 367; his advice to Henry I, ii. 400; his bargain with Ivo of Grantmesnil, ii. 418; becomes Earl of Leicester, ii. 419; his death, i. 187, 419; his sons, ib.; his college at Leicester, ii. 420; Anselm’s letters to him, ii. 580.
Robert, Earl of Leicester, son of Robert of Meulan, i. 187, ii. 419; founds Leicester Abbey, ii. 420.
Robert of Montfort, repairs and holds Vaux-en-Belin for William Rufus, ii. 289; his signature to Henry’s charter, ii. 358; his treason to Duke Robert, ii. 427.
Robert, Count of Mortain, rebels against William Rufus, i. 33, ii. 470; holds Pevensey against him, i. 53, 62; exhorted by Odo to hold out, i. 70; besieged by William Rufus in Pevensey, i. 73, 76; surrenders, i. 76.
Robert of Mowbray, Earl of Northumberland, rebels against William Rufus, i. 35; burns Bath, i. 41; besieges Ilchester without success, i. 42, 44; drives back Malcolm, i. 297; his expedition against him, ii. 16, 592; grants Tynemouth to Saint Alban’s, ii. 19, 605; grounds for his conspiracy, ii. 37, 40; marries Matilda of Laigle, ii. 38; his second revolt against William Rufus, ii. 38, 43; plunders Norwegian ships, ii. 40; refuses redress, ii. 41; summoned to the king’s court, ib.; demands a safe-conduct, ii. 42; his open rebellion, ii. 42, 43; defence and sieges of his fortresses, ii. 46; holds Bamburgh against Rufus, ii. 50, 607; his alleged despair, ii. 51; his escape from Bamburgh, ii. 52, 609; said to have been taken at Tynemouth, ii. 53, 610; threatened with blinding, ii. 54, 610; versions of his later history, ii. 54, 611.
Robert of Neville, one of the defenders of Bridgenorth, ii. 433; his negotiations with Henry I, ii. 440, 443.
Robert of Pontefract, plots against Henry I, ii. 395; his banishment, ii. 417.
Robert, Marquess of Rhuddlan, rebels against William Rufus, i. 34; attack made on his lands by Gruffydd, i. 122, 124; his probable change of party, i. 123; returns to North Wales, ib.; his death at Dwyganwy, i. 126; buried at Chester, i. 127; his gifts to Chester, i. 127 (note); his connexion with Saint Evroul, ib.; translated thither, i. 128; Orderic’s epitaph on, ib.; his lands in North Wales, ii. 77; extension of his possessions, ii. 78.
Robert of Saint Alban’s, his apostasy, ii. 123.
Robert of Torigny, his Chronicle, i. 9 (note).
Robert of Veci, first lord of Alnwick, ii. 596.
Robert, son of Corbet, one of the defenders of Bridgenorth, ii. 432; notices of his estates in Domesday, ii. 433 (note); his negotiations with Henry I, ii. 440, 443.
Robert, son of Godwine, ii. 117 (note), 118; his exploits in Scotland, ii. 118, 617; King Eadgar’s gifts to, ii. 121; attacked and imprisoned by Randolf Flambard, ib.; goes on the crusade, ii. 122, 617; his exploits and martyrdom, ib.; modern parallels and contrasts with, ii. 123; notices of, in Fordun and William of Malmesbury, ii. 616, 617.
Robert, son of Harding, i. 45 (note).
Robert, son of Hugh of Montfort, sent to occupy the fortresses of Le Mans, ii. 239.
Robert, son of Nigel and Gundrada, founder of Byland Abbey, ii. 612.
Robert, son of Geroy, his rebellion and death, i. 214.
Robert, grandson of Geroy, Saint Cenery granted to, i. 217; loses the castle, i. 469; Henry Ætheling comes to his help against Robert of Bellême, ib.
Robertson, E. W., on Malcolm’s homage to William Rufus, ii. 540.
Roche Guyon, La, castle of, ii. 180, 181.
Rochester, its early history and position, i. 53, 54; later sieges of, i. 53; occupied by Odo, i. 55; the garrison refuse to surrender to William Rufus, i. 77; siege of, i. 79-85; surrenders, i. 85; benefactions of Rufus to the church, ii. 506.
Rockingham, Council of (1095), i. 487 et seq.; position and history of the place, i. 489, 490; the castle, i. 490; importance of the council, i. 519; its constitution, i. 602.
Roger, Count of Sicily, legatine power granted to, i. 525 (note); marriage of his daughter, i. 526; besieges Amalfi, i. 561, and Capua, i. 614; forbids conversions of the Saracens, i. 161, 617; contrasted with Henry I, ii. 454.
Roger, Duke of Apulia, welcomes Duke Robert, i. 561; besieges Amalfi, i. 562; besieges Capua, i. 614; receives Urban and Anselm in his camp, i. 615.
Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, possibly one of Henry’s inner council, ii. 363.
Roger, Abbot of Saint Michael’s Mount, i. 284.
Roger of Beaumont, father of Robert of Meulan, i. 184; Brionne granted to, by Duke Robert, i. 194; obtains the release of his son, i. 243; his death, i. 472.
Roger Bigod, rebels against William Rufus, i. 34; his ravages, i. 36; his action at the meeting at Salisbury, i. 98; signs Henry’s charter, ii. 358; his loyalty to Henry, ii. 399; his signature to the Durham charter, ii. 536.
Roger of Bully, greatness of his estates, ii. 159, 161; founds the priory of Blyth, ii. 161; his death, ii. 162; his lands granted to Robert of Bellême, ib.
Roger of Clare, with William Rufus in the New Forest, ii. 321.
Roger of Lacy, rebels against William Rufus, i. 33; seizes on Hereford, i. 46; his second rebellion, ii. 39; his trial and sentence, ii. 63.
Roger of Montgomery, Earl of Shrewsbury, rebels against William Rufus, i. 33, ii. 470; his action in the rebellion, i. 47, 57; his alleged presence before Worcester, ii. 481; at Arundel, i. 58; founds the priory of Saint Nicolas at Arundel, i. 59 (note); won over by William, i. 61, ii. 462; his action at the siege of Rochester, i. 80; makes war on Duke Robert, i. 199; his fortresses, i. 200; obtains his son’s release, i. 219; his advance in Powys, ii. 97; his death, i. 473; his buildings at Quatford, ii. 154; his foundation at Wenlock, ib.; his signature to the Durham charter, ii. 536.
Roger of Mowbray, son of Nigel and Gundrada, ii. 612.
Roger of Poitou, son of Earl Roger, rebels against William Rufus, i. 57; his agreement with Bishop William, i. 93; intervenes on his behalf, i. 109, 117, 120; holds Argentan for William Rufus, i. 463; surrenders to Robert, i. 464; plots against Henry I, ii. 395; his share in the rebellion of Robert of Bellême, ii. 423; his banishment, ii. 450.
Roger of Toesny, son of Ralph and Isabel, county of Evreux settled on, i. 268; his character, ib.; his dream, i. 269; his death, i. 270.
Roger, son of Corbet, notices of, in Domesday, ii. 433 (note).
Rohais, wife of Richard of Clare, ii. 572.
Rohesia, daughter of Hugh of Grantmesnil, marries Robert of Courcy, i. 273 (note).
Romania, use of the word, i. 564 (note).
Rome, Pope Urban on the unhealthiness of, i. 367 (note); treatment of Duke Robert at, i. 561.
Rope, measurement by, i. 68 (note), ii. 562, 564.
Rosella, daughter of Eadwine, ii. 603.
Rotrou of Montfort, Orderic’s tale of his forsaking Saint Cenery, i. 469 (note); truce granted to, by Rufus, ii. 230; estimate of his conduct, ii. 231.
Rotrou, Count of Perche, goes on the first crusade, i. 551; imprisoned in the castle of Le Mans, ii. 373; his mother gives the kiss of peace to Bishop Hildebert, ii. 373 (note).
Rouen, municipal spirit in, i. 246; the citizens favour William Rufus, i. 247; Henry comes to Robert’s help at, i. 248; its position in the eleventh century, i. 250; ducal castles at, ib.; cathedral and other churches of, i. 252; its gates and suburbs, i. 252, 253; Robert sent away from, i. 255; taken by Henry, i. 256; treatment of the citizens, i. 260; council held by William Rufus at, ii. 226.
Rouen, synod of, i. 568; small results of, i. 569.
Rualedus, story of his treatment by Henry, ii. 540.
Ruislip, Middlesex, said to have been a cell of Bec, i. 376 (note).
S.
Saer, holds Pembroke Castle, ii. 451.
Saint Alban’s, Jews at, i. 160 (note); the abbey granted to the see of Canterbury, i. 423; four years’ vacancy of, i. 424; grant of Tynemouth to, ii. 18, 605; Flambard’s dealings with, ii. 359 (note).
Saint Augustine’s, Canterbury, disturbances at, on Guy’s appointment, i. 139; vengeance of William Rufus on, i. 140.
Saint Cenery, his relics, i. 213 (note).
Saint Cenery-le-Gerey, castle besieged by Duke Robert, i. 211, 215; the former monastery, i. 212; foundation of the castle, i. 214; seized by Mabel, i. 215; surrenders to Robert, ib.; mutilation of its defenders, i. 216; granted to Robert, grandson of Geroy, i. 217; taken by Robert of Bellême, i. 469.
Saint David’s, robbed by pirates, ii. 78; tale of William Rufus’s visit to, ii. 93.
Saint Eadmundsbury, Jews at, i. 160 (note); church of, rebuilt by Abbot Baldwin, ii. 268; William Rufus forbids the dedication, ii. 269.
Saint Evroul, connexion of Robert of Rhuddlan with, i. 127; his translation to, i. 128; burial of Hugh of Grantmesnil at, i. 473.
Saint Gervase, Rouen, priory of, i. 252.
Saint James, castle of, occupied by Henry, i. 321; position and remains of, i. 321, 322; granted to Earl Hugh, i. 323, ii. 540.
Saint Julian, translation of his body, ii. 204.
Saint Mary-le-bow, roof of the church blown down, i. 308, ii. 589.
Saint Michael’s Mount, bought of Robert by Henry, i. 196; cession of, demanded by William Rufus, i. 277, ii. 524; buildings on, i. 284; Henry besieged at, i. 284-292, ii. 528-535; its position, i. 285; later sieges of, i. 286; surrenders to William, i. 292.
Saint Oswald’s, Worcester, granted to the see of York, i. 447.
Saint Ouen, Rouen, abbey of, i. 252.
Saint Remy-du-plain, castle of, ii. 216, 218.
Saint Saens, its position, i. 235.
Saint Stephen’s, Caen, gifts of Rufus to, i. 168, ii. 504-506.
Saint Tyfrydog, desecration of the church, ii. 131.
Saint Valery, submits to Rufus, i. 227; historical importance of the fact, i. 228.
Salisbury, assembly at (1096), case of William of Saint-Calais heard at, i. 94 et seq.; constitutional importance of, ii. 56, 57; compared with that of 1086, ii. 58; sentences passed at, ii. 62.
Salisbury Cathedral, consecration of, i. 308; fall of the tower roof, i. 309; signatures to the foundation charter, i. 309 (note)
Samson, canon of Bayeux, his appointment and consecration to the see of Worcester, i. 542-544; his great appetite, i. 543 (note); consecrates Gloucester Abbey, ii. 317.
Samson, chaplain to the Conqueror, story of his refusing the bishopric of Le Mans, i. 206.
Samuel, Bishop of Dublin, consecrated by Anselm, i. 544.
Sanctuary, right of, decree of the council of Clermont as to, i. 548 (note).
Sanford (Devonshire), held by Roger of Bully, ii. 160 (note).
Saônes, castle of, ii. 216, 218; Helias defeats Robert of Bellême at, ii. 222.
Saracens in Sicily, compared with the Jews, i. 161; Anselm’s dealings with, i. 616; conversion of, forbidden by Duke Roger, i. 617; in Spain, mentioned in the Chronicle, ii. 306.
Scandinavians, in Cumberland, i. 315; destroy Carlisle, ib.
Schiavia, Anselm retires to, i. 615.
Scotland, kingdom of, becomes English, ii. 5; compared with Wales, ii. 6; effects of the Cumbrian conquest on, ii. 8; Margaret’s reforms in, ii. 23; growth of English influence in, ii. 24-26; party feeling in, on Malcolm’s death, ii. 28; dealings of Magnus with, ii. 147; English influence in, under David, ii. 125; results of Eadgar’s succession, ii. 304.
Scotland, Abbot of Saint Augustine’s, his death, i. 136; disturbances consequent on, i. 139.
Seez, enmity of Robert of Bellême to its bishops and abbots, i. 183.
Seit, and others, letter of Anselm to, ii. 577.
Selby Abbey, granted to the see of York, i. 447.
Serlo, Bishop of Seez, ii. 521; excommunicates Robert of Bellême, i. 184.
Serlo, Abbot of Gloucester, visits Wulfstan, i. 479; his warning to William Rufus, ii. 318, 329.
Shoes, pointed, i. 158, ii. 502.
Shrewsbury, burial of Earl Hugh at, ii. 145; Robert of Bellême holds out in, ii. 445; castle of, ii. 446; Henry I marches against, ii. 446, 447; surrender of, ii. 448, 457; Gemóts held at, ii. 452; earldom of, ib.
Shropshire, defences of, strengthened by Robert of Bellême, ii. 152; early history of its fortresses, ib.
Sibyl of Conversana, marries Duke Robert of Normandy, ii. 312; her character, ib.; tales of her death, ii. 312 (note); called Edith, ii. 687.
Sibyl, daughter of Henry I, marries Alexander of Scotland, ii. 124.
Sibyl, daughter of Earl Roger, marries Robert Fitz-hamon, ii. 83.
Sicilian monarchy, the, i. 525.
Sicily, its relations with England, i. 526; under the Normans, ii. 306.
Siegfried, Bishop of Seez, signs the foundation charter of Lonlay Abbey, ii. 539.
Signs and wonders, i. 176, ii. 246, 258, 302, 316.
Sigston, church of, granted to the monks of Durham, ii. 535.
Sigurd, son of Magnus and Thora, ii. 133; earldom of Orkney granted to, ii. 140; his kingdom, ii. 146; his Irish marriage, ii. 136, 146, 443, 622; goes on the crusade, ii. 206.
Sillé, siege of, compared with the deliverance of Worcester, ii. 480.
Simeon, Abbot of Ely, ii. 359.
Simon, son of Robert Bloet, Dean of Lincoln, i. 448, ii. 586.
Simon of Montfort, the elder and the younger, ii. 190, 253, 254.
Simon of Montfort, Earl of Leicester, his siege of Rochester, i. 53 (note); his ancestry, ii. 253.
Simon of Senlis, Earl of Northampton, taken prisoner by Lewis, ii. 190 (note); his signature to Henry’s charter, ii. 358.
Simony, not systematic before Rufus, i. 348.
Siward Barn, signs the Durham charters, i. 305, ii. 536.
Siward the priest, ii. 270 (note).
Slave trade, denounced by Remigius, i. 310.
Solêmes, priory of, ii. 202.
Somerset, ravaged by Robert of Mowbray, i. 41, 42; bishopric of, removed to Bath, i. 136, ii. 483 et seq.; use of the name, ii. 488.
Spain, Saracens in, mentioned in the Chronicle, ii. 306.
Sparsholt, manor of, seized by William Rufus, ii. 380; recovered by Abbot Faricius, ii. 380 (note); notices of, in Domesday, ii. 381 (note).
Stafford, commanded by William Pantulf, ii. 434.
Stars, shooting, notices of, i. 478 (note), ii. 41, 118.
Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, appeals to the charter of Henry I, ii. 358.
Stephen, Abbot of Saint Mary’s, York, signs the Durham charter, ii. 536.
Stephen, Archdeacon of Romsey, Anselm’s letter to, ii. 578.
Stephen of Aumale, submits to Rufus, i. 228; one of his Norman supporters, i. 472; conspiracy in his favour, ii. 39, 63; no ground for his claim, ii. 39.
Stephen of Chartres and Blois, goes on the first crusade, i. 551, 560; decamps for awhile, i. 566 (note).
Stephen, the Jewish convert, story of, i. 163-165.
Stigand, Bishop of Chichester, his death, i. 135.
Stoke, priory of Clare moved to, i. 376.
Stone, manor of, ii. 507.
Stoppele, church of, granted to Twinham, ii. 555.
Stow, monks of, moved by Robert Bloet to Eynesham, ii. 585, 587.
Streatham, lands of Bec at, i. 376.
Stubbs, William, on the alleged Domesday of Flambard, ii. 562.
Sudereys, disturbances in, on the death of Godred Crouan, ii. 137, 138; invaded by Magnus, ii. 140.
Sulien, Bishop of Saint David’s, his death, ii. 78.
Summons, effect of the practice of, ii. 58.
Sussex, Earls of, i. 60 (note).
Sutton, church at, granted to Abingdon Abbey, ii. 506.
Swansea Castle, ii. 103.
Swegen, son of Æthelric, ii. 551.
Swegen, King, his overthrow at Gainsburgh compared with the deliverance of Worcester, ii. 480.
Swinecombe, held by Bec, i. 375.
T.
Tancard, Abbot of Jumièges, his appointment, i. 570.
Tenby Castle, ii. 95.
Tewkesbury Abbey, founded by Robert Fitz-hamon, i. 479, ii. 84; grant of Welsh churches to, ib.
Thames, great tide in the, ii. 302.
Theningmannagemót, the, i. 604.
Theobald of Gisors. See Pagan.
Theobald, the White Knight, helps to defend Courcy, ii. 519.
Thetford, hospital at, founded by William Rufus, ii. 506; the see moved to Norwich, i. 449, ii. 569.
Thierry, Augustin, on the punishment of the monks of Saint Augustine’s, i. 140 (note).
Thomas of London, Archbishop of Canterbury, case of, at Northampton, i. 95; general surprise at his appointment, i. 359; his case compared with those of Anselm and of William of Saint-Calais, i. 597 et seq.
Thomas of Bayeux, Archbishop of York, at the meeting at Salisbury, i. 95, 102; claims jurisdiction over Lindesey, i. 311, 433; present at Anselm’s consecration, i. 429; asserts his metropolitan rights, i. 431; compromise agreed to, i. 447; at the deathbed of William of Durham, ii. 61; not present at the coronation of Henry I, ii. 350 (note), 681; his death, ii. 391; his signature to the Durham charter, ii. 536; his alleged coronation of Henry, ii. 682.
Thomas, son of Flambard, ii. 552; his appointment to the see of Lisieux, ii. 416.
Thora, mother of Sigurd, ii. 133.
Thurstan, Abbot of Glastonbury, restored by William Rufus, i. 135.
Tiberius, Emperor, William Rufus compared to, i. 148.
Tiberius, Legate, ii. 488.
Tickhill (Dadesley) Castle, ii. 160; name used indiscriminately with Blyth, ii. 162; surrenders to Henry I, ii. 431; its later history, ii. 432.
Tinchebrai, English feeling about the battle, ii. 402.
Toledo, taking of, ii. 306.
Tooting, lands of Bec at, i. 376.
Tostig, his works at Tynemouth, ii. 18, 604.
Touques, William Rufus sets sail from, i. 13; his voyage to, ii. 284; its present appearance, ib.
Toustain, manor of Sparsholt granted to, ii. 380.
Tower of London, surrounded by a wall, i. 261; first recorded case of its use as a state prison, ii. 361.
Tréport, Robert’s fleet at, ii. 402.
Trondhjem, Saint Olaf’s body translated to, ii. 139.
Truce of God, confirmed by the synod of Rouen, i. 568; observed by William Rufus, ii. 290.
Trye, castle of, ii. 188.
Tunbridge Castle, holds out against William Rufus, i. 53; its position, i. 68; not in Domesday, i. 68 (note); granted to Richard of Clare in exchange for Brionne, ib.; taken by William Rufus, i. 69.
Turgot, Prior of Durham and Bishop of Saint Andrews, favourably received by William Rufus, i. 298; joins in laying the foundation stone of Durham Abbey, ii. 11; appointed to the see of Saint Andrews, ii. 124; as to the writings attributed to him, ii. 596.
Turold, Bishop of Bayeux, his appointment, i. 571.
Turold, Abbot of Peterborough, his death, ii. 267.
Twinham, connexion of Randolf Flambard with, ii. 553; church of, ii. 554; Earl Godwine a benefactor of, ii. 555.
Tynemouth, Malcolm’s burial at, ii. 17; history of, ii. 17-19, 602 et seq.; besieged by William Rufus, ii. 47, 606; description of, ii. 48, 606; taking of, ii. 48, 607; alleged escape of Robert of Mowbray to, ii. 53, 609.
U.
Uhtred, brother of Morkere, ii. 605.
Uhtred, son of Edwin, besieges Pembroke, ii. 108.
Uhtred, son of Fergus, ii. 551.
Ulf, son of Harold and Eadgyth, ii. 134, 135.
Urban II., Pope, advises Anselm against going to Rome, i. 367 (note); English feeling as to his claim to the papacy, i. 415; Anselm claims to acknowledge him, i. 416; the question left unsettled, i. 424; his correspondence with Wulfstan, i. 479; his acknowledgement insisted on by Anselm, i. 486; position of the rival Popes, i. 488; no real objection on William’s part to acknowledge him, i. 489; holds a Council at Piacenza, i. 522, 545; mission of William Rufus to him, i. 524; received at Cremona by Conrad, i. 525; acknowledged by Rufus, i. 528; holds the Council of Clermont, i. 545-547; preaches the crusades, i. 549; sends Abbot Jeronto on a mission to William Rufus, i. 553, ii. 588; bribed by William, i. 554; sends his nephew, ib.; blesses Duke Robert and his companions, i. 561; his reception and treatment of Anselm, i. 607, 608, 621; in Roger’s camp at Capua, i. 615; Eadmer’s way of speaking of him, i. 616 (note); forbids Anselm to resign, i. 617; holds the Council of Bari, i. 608, 618; his dealings with William of Warelwast, i. 619, 620; threatens William Rufus with excommunication, i. 619; is bribed to give him a respite, i. 620; his treatment of Anselm, i. 621; holds the Lateran Council, i. 607, 621; his death, i. 622, ii. 300, 311; Anselm’s letters to him, i. 612, ii. 582.
Urse of Abetot, Sheriff of Gloucester and Worcester, at the trial of William of Saint-Calais, i. 94.
V.
Vacancies, ecclesiastical, policy of William Rufus with regard to, i. 135, 336, 337, 347, 348, ii. 564; older practice as to, i. 350; later instances, i. 351 (note); provision of Henry’s charter with regard to, ii. 353.
Vaux-en-Belin, castle of, ii. 277 (note); burnt by Helias, ii. 288; repaired and held by Robert of Montfort, ii. 289.
Vescy, house of, ii. 15.
Vestments, Lanfranc’s view of, i. 95.
Vetheuil, fortress of, ii. 181.
Vexin, the French, granted to Lewis by Philip, ii. 175; its cession demanded by William Rufus, ib.; national feeling in, ii. 189.
Victor III., Pope, i. 415.
Vignats, siege of, ii. 426; foundation of the abbey, ii. 427.
Vulgrin, Bishop of Le Mans, his buildings, ii. 634.
W.
Wace, his use of the words “Normans and English,” ii. 649.
Walchelm, priest, his vision, ii. 521.
Waleran, Count of Meulan, i. 186, ii. 419.
Wales, civil wars in, i. 121; alleged campaign of William Rufus in (1094-1095), i. 476; type of conquest in, ii. 6; disunion in, ii. 6, 99; nature of Rufus’s wars in, ii. 69 et seq.; effect of castle-building in, ii. 70, 76, 77, 108; campaigns of Harold compared with those of Rufus, ii. 71; its conquest compared with the English and Norman Conquests, ii. 72; various elements in, ii. 74; local nomenclature of, ii. 75; earlier wars in, ii. 77-79; beginning of the conquest, ii. 79; revolt in, ii. 99, 100; general deliverance of, ii. 101; first campaign of William Rufus in, ii. 105; English feeling as to the war, ii. 106; his second and third campaigns, i. 572, 583, ii. 110, 111.
Wales, North, subdued by Hugh of Chester, ii. 146.
Wales, South, Saxon settlements in, ii. 88.
Walkelin, Bishop of Winchester, sent with a summons to William of Saint-Calais, i. 117; sent to punish the monks of Saint Augustine’s, i. 139; assists Osmund to consecrate Salisbury cathedral, i. 309; at the consecration of the church of Battle, i. 444; his speech to Anselm at the Winchester assembly, i. 586; at the death-bed of William of Saint-Calais, ii. 61; his character and acts, ii. 266; joint regent with Flambard, ib.; William Rufus demands money of, ii. 267; his death, i. 351, ii. 265, 267; legend of his share in the burial of Rufus, ii. 338.
Wall, Roman, traces of the name, ii. 47.
Walker (Wallcar), ii. 47 (note).
Wallknoll, ii. 47, 613.
Wallsend, i. 47.
Walter of Corbeuil, Archbishop of Canterbury, his works at Rochester, i. 53, 54 (note).
Walter, Bishop of Albano, received by William Rufus as Papal Legate, i. 527, ii. 391; brings the pallium, i. 527; refuses to depose Anselm, i. 528; gives the pallium to Anselm, i. 534; stays in England, i. 535; objects of his mission, i. 536; his letters to Anselm, i. 536, 538, ii. 41, 571; accompanies William Rufus to Nottingham, ii. 44.
Walter of Eyncourt, i. 113.
Walter Giffard, Earl of Buckingham, submits to Rufus, i. 231; supports Rufus against Robert, i. 472; signs Henry’s charter, ii. 358; plots against him, ii. 395; his death, i. 473.
Walter Tirel, entertains Anselm, i. 380 (note), ii. 322; his friendship with William Rufus, ii. 321, 322; his parentage, ii. 322, 672; his lordships and marriage, ii. 321, 322, 673; his alleged share in the making of the New Forest, ii. 322, 674; his discourse with the King, ii. 322-325, 661; mentioned in most versions as his slayer, ii. 325; his solemn denial of the charge, ii. 326, 674; no ground for the charge, ii. 657; whether the Walter Tirel of Domesday, ii. 673; legend about the shoeing of his horse, ii. 676.
Walter of Saint Valery, i. 228 (note); goes on the first crusade, i. 551.
Walter, son of Ansgar, in command at Le Mans, ii. 241, 370; sets fire to Le Mans, ii. 280; confers with Helias, ii. 371.
Waltham, church of, plundered by Rufus, i. 168, ii. 505, 506.
Waltheof, Earl of Northampton and Huntingdonshire, grants Tynemouth to Jarrow, ii. 18, 604.
War, private, unlawful in England, ii. 417.
Wardship, the lord’s right of, established by Flambard, i. 336, 339; oppressive working of, i. 338; peculiar to England and Normandy, i. 340; provision for, in Henry’s charter, ii. 353.
Weedon Beck, Northamptonshire, said to have been a cell of Bec, i. 376 (note).
Wells (Norfolk), grant of, to Saint Stephen’s, Caen, ii. 504.
Wells (Somerset), see of, moved to Bath, i. 136, ii. 483; dislike of the canons to Bishop John’s changes, i. 138, ii. 486; they recover their property under Bishop Robert, ii. 486; charter of William Rufus preserved at, ii. 483.
Welsh language, endurance of, ii. 75.
Wenlock, Earl Roger’s foundation at, ii. 154.
Westminster Hall, its foundation by William Rufus, ii. 259, 262; he holds his Whitsun feast there, ii. 257, 264, 271; recast by Richard II., ii. 262.
Westmoreland, why not entered in Domesday, i. 313, ii. 547 et seq.; entries of, in the Pipe Rolls, ii. 551.
Whithern, see of, ii. 551.
Wido. See Guy.
Wilfrith, Bishop of Saint David’s, suspended and restored, i. 534; sides with William Rufus, ii. 94; Gerald of Windsor’s dealings with, ii. 109.
William the Conqueror, his informal nomination of William Rufus, i. 9, 11; his advice to him, ii. 461; distribution of his treasures, i. 17, 18; compared with Rufus by Odo, i. 26; his ecclesiastical supremacy, i. 105; compared with Rufus, i. 158, 456; foretells the character of Robert’s reign, i. 189; garrisons the castles of the nobles, i. 192; his ecclesiastical position, i. 328; his relations with Lanfranc, ib.; his friendship with Anselm, i. 380; use of his “days” as a note of time, i. 569; his visit to Saint David’s and his designs on Ireland, ii. 94.
William Rufus, character of his reign, i. 3; feudal developement under him, i. 4; character of his accession, i. 9-11, 19-21, ii. 459-465; his informal nomination by his father, i. 9, 11, ii. 461; not formally elected, i. 9, ii. 459; sets sail from Touques, i. 13; re-imprisons Morkere and Wulfnoth, i. 14; his meeting with Lanfranc, i. 15; his coronation, ib.; his special oath, i. 16, ii. 460; his coronation rites said to have been imperfect, ii. 461; his distribution of gifts, i. 17; restores Odo to his earldom, i. 19; revolt of the Norman nobles against, i. 22 et seq., ii. 465 et seq.; compared with his father by Odo, i. 26; seizes the temporalities of William of Saint-Calais, i. 30; summons him to his court, i. 31; lays waste his land, i. 32; wins over Earl Roger, i. 61, ii. 462; loyalty of the bishops towards him, i. 63; his appeal and promises to the English, i. 63, 64; their loyalty to him, i. 64, 65, 66; their motives for supporting him, i. 65; accepted as their king, i. 66, 131; marches against the rebels, i. 67; takes Tunbridge Castle, i. 69; marches on Pevensey, i. 72, and takes it, i. 76; his Niðing Proclamation, i. 78; besieges Rochester, i. 79; Odo surrenders to him, i. 80; at first refuses terms to the besieged, i. 81; his answer to the pleadings for them, i. 83; grants terms, i. 85; his confiscations and grants, i. 88; his amnesty to the chief rebels, ib.; again summons William of Saint-Calais, i. 89; grants him a safe-conduct, i. 91; refuses him the privileges of his order, i. 92; holds a meeting at Salisbury, i. 94; his speeches thereat, i. 98, 107, 110; his offers to Bishop William, i. 111, 114; his answer to Ralph Paganel, i. 112; Durham castle surrendered to, i. 114; summons Bishop William again, i. 116; grants him leave to depart, i. 117; estimate of his behaviour in the case, i. 119, 605; his breach of his promises, i. 132; position of the English under, i. 133; mocks at omens, i. 133 (note); his employment of mercenaries, i. 134, 153, 226, ii. 496, 498; early charge of simony against, i. 135; his charter to John of Tours, i. 138; suppresses the disturbances at Saint Augustine’s, i. 139; effects of Lanfranc’s death on him, i. 142, 148, 343; description and character of, i. 5, 143 et seq., ii. 244, 256, 337, 490 et seq.; his surname of Rufus, i. 144; his filial zeal, i. 145; general charges against him, i. 147; his lack of steadfastness, i. 149; his unfinished campaigns, ib.; his “magnanimity,” i. 149, ii. 497; trick played on, by his chamberlain, i. 150; his “liberality,” i. 151, ii. 492; his extortions, i. 153, ii. 498; his strict government, i. 153, ii. 496; his stricter forest laws, i. 155; dress and manners at his court, i. 158, ii. 500-502; his special vices, i. 157, 159, ii. 497, 502; contrasted with his father, i. 158, 456; his irreligion, i. 159; favours the Jews, i. 161; question as to his scepticism, ib.; makes the Jewish converts apostatize, i. 162, 614, ii. 504; his dispute with Stephen the convert, i. 163-165, ii. 504; his blasphemies, i. 165-167, ii. 503; his favourite oath, i. 108, 112, 164, 289, 391, 511 (note), ii. 61 (note), 503, 650; redeeming features in his character, i. 168; his respect for his father’s memory, i. 168, ii. 505; his ecclesiastical benefactions, ib.; his chivalry, i. 169-171; law of honour as practised by, i. 85, 92, 169, 408, ii. 14, 237, 244; his schemes against Duke Robert, i. 221; obtains the consent of the Witan to an invasion of Normandy, i. 222-224; his constitutional language, i. 223; his policy against Normandy, i. 224; his position compared with that of Robert, i. 226; his employment of money, i. 226, 227; joined by the Norman nobles, i. 228 et seq.; bribes Philip of France, i. 237, 239; his position compared with that of his father, i. 240; result of his dealings with Philip, i. 241; his treaty with Conan of Rouen, i. 247; crosses to Normandy, i. 273; his treaty with Robert, i. 275-279, ii. 522-528; his probable object in the spoliation of Henry, i. 279; his policy towards Henry and Eadgar, i. 281; joins Robert against Henry, i. 283; besieges Saint Michael’s Mount, i. 285-292, ii. 528-535; personal anecdotes of, i. 287-292, ii. 497, 532; compared to Alexander the Great, i. 287; contrasted with Robert, i. 290; returns to England, i. 293, 295; sets forth against Malcolm, i. 298; his favourable treatment of the monks of Durham, i. 298, ii. 508; Bishop William reconciled to, i. 299; meets Malcolm at the Scots’ Water, i. 301; his treaty with Malcolm, i. 304; receives the homage of Malcolm, i. 304, ii. 541; signs the Durham charter, i. 305, ii. 536; his fresh dispute with Robert, i. 306; orders the consecration of Lincoln minster, i. 312; his conquest and colonization of Carlisle, i. 313-318; character of the early years of his reign, i. 325; his relations with Anselm, i. 328; his policy in keeping the see of Canterbury vacant, i. 328, 359, 360; influence of Randolf Flambard on him, i. 329, 332 et seq.; his dealings with vacant bishoprics and abbeys, i. 336, 347, 350, ii. 565; his dealings with church lands, i. 345 et seq.; charges of simony brought against, i. 348; story of his appointment to a vacant abbey, i. 352; his first interview with Anselm, i. 385; rebuked by him, i. 386; refuses him leave to return to Normandy, i. 388; petitioned by the Witan to appoint an archbishop, i. 389; his mocking speech about Anselm, i. 390; his sickness, i. 391; repents and sends for Anselm, i. 392, 393; his proclamation of reforms, i. 393; names Anselm archbishop, i. 396; prays him to accept the see, i. 398; invests him by force, i. 400; orders the restitution of the temporalities, i. 403; his recovery and relapse, i. 407; keeps his engagement to Anselm, i. 408; his interview with Robert of Flanders, i. 411; with Anselm at Rochester, i. 412 et seq.; his answer to Anselm’s conditions, i. 417; asks Anselm to confirm his grants of church lands, i. 418; renews his promises and receives Anselm’s homage as archbishop, i. 422; his writ, ib.; receives Anselm at Gloucester, i. 434; challenged by Robert, i. 435; his dealings with the contributions offered for the war, i. 437; refuses Anselm’s gift, i. 438; gathers his forces at Hastings, i. 441; present at the consecration of Battle Abbey, i. 443, 444; upholds Anselm against Robert Bloet, i. 446; deprives Herbert Bishop of Thetford, i. 448, ii. 569; his interview with Anselm at Hastings, i. 450 et seq.; no synod held under him, i. 452; his answer to Anselm’s prayer to fill the vacant abbeys, i. 455; attempts to get more money out of Anselm, i. 458-460; sets sail for Normandy, i. 460; vain attempts to settle the dispute between him and Robert, i. 461; castles held by him, i. 462; his levy of English soldiers, i. 465; trick played on them, i. 466; buys off Philip, ib.; summons Henry and Earl Hugh to Eu, i. 469; returns to England and is reconciled to Henry, i. 470; his Norman supporters, i. 471-474; causes for his return, i. 474; his alleged Welsh campaign in 1094-1095, i. 476; refuses Anselm leave to go for the pallium, i. 483, 484; will acknowledge no Pope, i. 484; frequency of assemblies under him, i. 487; summons an assembly at Rockingham, i. 487-519; estimate of his conduct in this dispute, i. 488; his Imperial claims, i. 503; bids the bishops renounce Anselm, i. 512; withdraws his protection from him, ib.; his appeal to the lay lords, i. 513; his examination and treatment of the bishops, i. 515, 516; summons Anselm before him, i. 517; adjourns the assembly, i. 518; oppresses Anselm’s friends, i. 520; his fresh schemes against him, i. 523; his mission to Urban, i. 524-526; Walter of Albano’s mission to, i. 527; acknowledges Urban, i. 528; forced to be reconciled to Anselm, i. 529, 531; Anselm refuses the pallium at his hands, i. 532; his position as regards the crusade, i. 553; Abbot Jeronto’s mission to him, ib.; Normandy pledged to him, by Robert, i. 555; his taxation for the pledge-money, i. 556-559, ii. 506; his conference with Robert, i. 559, ii. 207; takes possession of Normandy, i. 566, ii. 207; his grants to Henry, i. 567; his rule in Normandy, i. 567-570; his appointments to Norman prelacies, i. 570; returns to England, i. 571; his expeditions against Wales, i. 572, 583, ii. 69 et seq.; complains of Anselm’s contingent, i. 572; summons him to his court, i. 574; refuses him leave to go to Rome, i. 582, 583, 584; holds an assembly at Winchester, i. 584 et seq.; his conditional leave to Anselm, i. 592; his last interview with Anselm, i. 593; blessed by him, i. 594; seizes on the estates of his see, i. 595; estimate of his behaviour towards William of Saint-Calais and towards Anselm, i. 605; Anselm pleads against his excommunication, i. 611, 618; probable effect of an excommunication, i. 611, 612; Anselm’s and Urban’s letters to, i. 613; his mission to Urban, i. 613, 619; threatened with excommunication, i. 619; bribes Urban, i. 620; his words on Urban’s death and Paschal’s election, i. 623, ii. 311; growth of the English power and nation under, ii. 4; effects of his reign on the union of Britain, ii. 6; complaints made against, by Malcolm, ii. 8; sends Eadgar to invite him to Gloucester, ii. 9, 590; refuses to see him, ii. 13, 590; dispute between them, ib.; his probable pretensions, ib.; observes his safe-conduct, ii. 14, 591; story of him and Eadgyth-Matilda, ii. 31, 600; grants the Scottish crown to Duncan, ii. 34; revolt of Robert of Mowbray against him, ii. 37 et seq.; orders Robert to make good his plunder of the merchants, ii. 41; summons him to his court, ib.; refuses him a safe-conduct, i. 42; marches against him, i. 537, ii. 43; takes Newcastle, ii. 47, and Tynemouth, ii. 48, 606; besieges Bamburgh, ii. 50, 607; makes the Malvoisin tower, ii. 51, 608; leaves Bamburgh, ii. 52, 609; holds an assembly at Salisbury, ii. 56; refuses to spare William of Alderi, ii. 67; nature of his Welsh wars, ii. 69 et seq.; builds castles in Wales, ii. 70, 112; his campaign compared with that of Harold, ii. 71, 105; his alleged designs on Ireland, ii. 93; his first Welsh campaign, ii. 105; his second and third campaigns, i. 572, 583, ii. 110, 111; his relations with Eadgar Ætheling, ii. 114; doubtful policy of his grant to Robert of Bellême, ii. 148, 162; character of his last years, ii. 163; his designs on France, ii. 167; demands the cession of the Vexin, ii. 175; crosses to Normandy, ii. 167, 176; excesses of his followers in England, ii. 176; chief men on his side, ii. 178; his treatment of his prisoners, ii. 179, 190; his prospects, ii. 184; failure of his plans, ii. 185; befriends Bishop Howel of Le Mans, ii. 201; his interview with Helias, ii. 208-210; delays his attack on him, ii. 210; his anger at the election of Hildebert, ii. 213, 625; his designs on Maine, ii. 613; stirred up to war by Robert of Bellême, ii. 215; contrasted with him, ii. 224; his treatment of Helias, ii. 225; his speech at the council of Rouen, ii. 226; levies an army, ii. 227; invades Maine, ii. 229; grants a truce to Ralph of Fresnay, ii. 230; his march onwards, ii. 232; arrives at Le Mans, ii. 233; ravages Coulaine, ii. 234, 625, 627; raises the siege of Le Mans, ii. 234; his treatment of the knight at Ballon, ii. 237; Le Mans submits to, ii. 239; his entry, ii. 240; receives the general submission of Maine, ib.; his interview with Helias, ii. 242-245, 640-645; his seeming quotation from Lucan, ii. 642; sets Helias free, ii. 244, 628, 642, 643; extent of his conquests in Maine, ii. 245; invades the Vexin, ii. 246; besieges Chaumont, ii. 248; agrees to a truce, ii. 255; ill-success of his French war, ib.; his gemóts in 1099, ii. 257; his architectural works a national grievance, ii. 257-260; legal position of his reign, ii. 263; his object in building Westminster Hall, ib.; holds his Whitsun feast there, ii. 257, 264; demands money of Bishop Walkelin, ii. 267; forbids the dedication of Saint Eadmund’s, ii. 269; hears of the recovery of Le Mans by Helias, ii. 283, 645; his ride to the coast, ii. 283; his voyage to Touques, ii. 284, 645-652; his speech to the sailors compared with that of Julius Cæsar, ii. 497, 647; his ride to Bonneville, ii. 285, 646; marches against Le Mans, ii. 287; passes through it and harries southern Maine, ii. 288; besieges Mayet, ii. 289-294, 653; observes the Truce of God, ii. 290; his narrow escape at Mayet, ii. 293; raises the siege, ii. 294, 653; failure of the campaign, ib.; his treatment of Le Mans, ii. 295; leaves garrisons and returns to England, ii. 296; Hildebert reconciled to, ii. 297, 626; bids Hildebert pull down the towers of Saint Julian’s, ii. 297, 654; compared with Æthelred, ii. 307; his schemes of conquest, ii. 307, 311; contradiction in his character, ii. 308; his chivalrous feelings, ii. 237; illustrations of his character, ii. 244, 256; his dealings with William of Aquitaine, ii. 313; prepares to occupy Aquitaine, ii. 314; his alleged designs on the Empire, i. 7, ii. 314; Abbot Serlo’s warning to, ii. 318, 329; his alleged dream, ii. 319-321; his discourse with Walter Tirel, ii. 322-325; his death, ii. 325; whether accidental, ii. 325, 657; various versions thereof, ii. 327, 657-676; its immediate impression and abiding memory, ii. 335, 336, 663; his death looked on as a judgement, ii. 665; contrasted with that of Charles I, ii. 337; his end and character, ib.; his alleged penitence, ii. 331, 332, 337; accounts of his burial, ii. 338-340, 676-680; his popular excommunication, ii. 340; portents at his death, ii. 341; advantage given to the Popes by his reign, ii. 377; effect of his reign on the fusion of races, ii. 456.
William III., his fearlessness in danger compared with that of William Rufus, ii. 652.
William Ætheling, son of Henry I and Matilda, ii. 389.
William Clito, son of Robert and Sibyl, ii. 312 (note).
William, natural son of Robert, ii. 316.
William Bona Anima, Archbishop of Rouen, consecrates Bishop Howel, i. 208; consents to Anselm’s acceptance of the primacy, i. 406; said to have married Philip and Bertrada, ii. 172 (note).
William of Saint-Calais, Bishop of Durham, his influence with William Rufus, i. 23; his treason against him, i. 28, 30; different statements of his conduct, i. 28, ii. 469-474; his alleged services to William, i. 29, 111, ii. 473; his temporalities seized, i. 30, ii. 470; his letter to the King, i. 30; summoned before him, i. 31; treatment of, by Ralph Paganel, ib.; evidence against him, i. 35, ii. 470; again summoned by William, i. 89; complains of Ralph Paganel, i. 90; comes with a safe-conduct, i. 91; asserts his ecclesiastical claims, ib.; goes back to Durham, i. 92; further ravaging of his lands, ib.; his agreement with the Counts Alan and Odo, i. 93; his conduct at the meeting at Salisbury, i. 95; denies the authority of the court, i. 96, 97; formal charge against him, i. 98, ii. 473; his answer, i. 99; debates on the charge, i. 101-103; appeals to Rome, i. 103, 109; sentence pronounced against him, i. 106; renews his appeal, ib.; William demands the surrender of Durham castle, i. 107; appeals to Alan and Odo, i. 108; final sentence against, i. 110; asks for an allowance, ib.; surety for the ships demanded of him, i. 111; new charges against, i. 113, 116; Lanfranc interferes on his behalf, i. 113; conditions and difficulties about his sailing, i. 114-116; surrender of Durham castle, i. 114, ii. 472; Odo and Alan interfere on his behalf, i. 117; allowed to depart to Normandy, ib.; importance of the story, i. 117-120; scarcely noticed by modern historians, ii. 474; restored to his bishopric, i. 299; his renewed influence with William, i. 300; his grant to the church of Durham, i. 305, ii. 535; advises Rufus as to Anselm’s conditions, i. 417; at the consecration of the church of Battle, i. 444; assists in the consecration of Robert Bloet, i. 445; plots against Anselm, i. 497, 500; aspires to the primacy, i. 501; his promises to William and speech to Anselm, i. 502; recommends force, i. 510; his case compared with those of Anselm and Thomas, i. 597 et seq.; his rebuilding of his church, ii. 11, 60; invites Malcolm to the foundation ceremony, ib.; probably concerned in Robert of Mowbray’s rebellion, ii. 38; portents foretelling his death, ii. 59; summoned to take his trial, ii. 60; his death, i. 478 (note), 542, ii. 61; debate as to his burying-place, ii. 61; substitutes monks for canons, ii. 60.
William of Warelwast, Bishop of Exeter, his first mission to Urban, i. 524, 525; returns with the Legate Walter, i. 526; searches Anselm’s luggage at Dover, i. 595; his second mission to Urban, i. 613, 619; his secret dealings with him, i. 620; signs Henry’s letter to Anselm, ii. 366.
William of Passavant, Bishop of Le Mans, his buildings, ii. 636, 640, 656.
William, Bishop of Thetford, his death, i. 354.
William Giffard, Bishop of Winchester, his appointment to the see, ii. 349; later notices of, ii. 349, 578; his signature to Henry’s charter, ii. 358; probably one of Henry’s inner council, ii. 362; signs Henry’s letter to Anselm, ii. 366.
William, Archdeacon of Canterbury, sent to inquire into the matter of Eadgyth-Matilda, ii. 384.
William of Alderi, his sentence and death, ii. 66-68.
William of Albini, defends Rochester, i. 53 (note).
William, Duke of Aquitaine, helps William Rufus against Lewis, ii. 250, 251; seat of war affected by his coming, ii. 250, 252; his crusade, ii. 313; proposes to pledge his duchy to Rufus, ib.
William of Arques, monk of Molesme, i. 220 (note), 256.
William of Bellême, founds Lonlay Abbey, ii. 539.
William of Breteuil, son of Earl William Fitz-Osbern, drives out the ducal forces, i. 193; Ivry granted to, by Duke Robert, i. 194; joins Robert’s expedition into Maine, i. 209; his war with Ascelin Goel, i. 243; comes to Robert’s help at Rouen, i. 249; imprisons William son of Ansgar, i. 261; marches against Conches, i. 261, 266; his imprisonment and ransom, i. 267; settles his estates on Roger of Toesny, i. 268; his natural children, i. 268 (note); maintains Robert’s claim to the throne, ii. 346, 680.
William Capra, ii. 508.
William, son of Robert Count of Eu, rebels against William Rufus, i. 33; his ravages in Gloucestershire, i. 41, 44; submits to William, i. 229; suggests an invasion of Normandy, i. 411; supports William Rufus, i. 472; conspires against him, ii. 39, 44; his combat with Geoffrey of Baynard and defeat, ii. 63; sentenced to mutilation, ii. 64, 65, 68; his faithlessness to his wife, ii. 64.
William, Count of Evreux, drives out the ducal forces, i. 193; his feud with Ralph of Toesny, i. 231, 233, 245; comes to Robert’s help at Rouen, i. 249; marches against Conches, i. 261, 266; makes Roger of Toesny his heir, i. 268; his later treaty with Ralph of Toesny, i. 270; wars against Robert of Meulan, ib.; his bargain about Bertrada’s marriage, ii. 193; charged with the government of Le Mans, ii. 241; granted to Henry by Robert, ii. 514; his banishment and death, i. 270.
William Fitz-Osbern, story of him and Eudo of Rye, ii. 463.
William of London or Londres, his settlement at Kidwelly, ii. 86, 102.
William of Malmesbury, his Gesta Regum and Gesta Pontificum, ii. 492.
William of Mandeville, ii. 397.
William of Moion, his grant of Dunster church, ii. 489.
William of Montfichet, legend of his share in the burial of Rufus, ii. 338, 676.
William of Montfort, recommended by Anselm as his successor at Bec, ii. 575.
William, Count of Mortain, founds Montacute priory, ii. 120; his vision of William Rufus, ii. 342; doubts as to his loyalty to Henry I, ii. 404; his banishment, ii. 453; his imprisonment and alleged blinding, ib.
William Pantulf, Robert of Bellême’s dealings with, ii. 434; joins Henry, ib.; commands at Stafford, ib.; notices of, in Domesday, ii. 434 (note); negotiates with Jorwerth, ii. 439; mediates at Bridgenorth, ii. 441.
William Peverel, holds La Houlme for William Rufus, i. 463; surrenders to Robert, i. 465; signs the Durham charter, ii. 536.
William of Pont de l’Arche, ii. 464.
William Talvas, his capture of Geoffrey of Mayenne, i. 214.
William Tisonne, ii. 596.
William of Wacey, taken prisoner by Helias, ii. 222.
William of Warren, Earl of Surrey, his loyalty to William Rufus, i. 59; receives the earldom of Surrey, i. 60, 62 (note); his death and burial at Lewes, i. 62 (note), 76.
William of Warren the younger, Earl of Surrey, helps to defend Courcy, ii. 519; deserts from Henry I, ii. 409; his enmity towards him, ib.; his banishment, ii. 416, and restoration, ii. 417.
William, son of Ansgar, i. 247; his imprisonment and ransom, i. 261.
William, son of Anskill, his estates seized by William Rufus, ii. 380; his marriage, ii. 381 (note).
William, son of Baldwin, builds Rhyd-y-gors castle, ii. 97; defends it, ii. 101; his death, ii. 106.
William, son of Geroy, rescues Geoffrey of Mayenne from William Talvas, i. 214.
William, grandson of Geroy, poisoned, i. 469 (note).
William, son of Holdegar, ii. 551.
Williams, John, on Jestin ap Gwrgan, ii. 614.
Wills. See Bequest.
Winchcombe, fall of the tower, i. 307.
Winchester, wealth of the treasury at, i. 17; Jews at, i. 160 (note); special gemót at (1093), i. 422; its position under the Norman kings, ii. 261; burial of Rufus at, ii. 340; fall of the minster tower, ii. 341; Duke Robert declines to besiege it, ii. 406.
Witenagemót, held three times a year, i. 222 (note); gradually becomes less popular, i. 602; lessened freedom of speech in, i. 603; inner and outer council of, ib.
Witsand, William Rufus said to have set sail from, i. 13 (note).
Wlurintun, grant of the manor, ii. 507.
Worcester, rebel nobles march against, i. 47; its position, i. 48; its deliverance by Wulfstan, i. 48-51, ii. 475-481.
Worm’s Head, name of, ii. 615.
Wulf, son of Harold, set free by Robert, i. 14.
Wulfgar the huntsman, one of the defenders of Bridgenorth, ii. 433; his negotiations with Henry I, ii. 440, 443.
Wulfgeat the huntsman, ii. 433 (note).
Wulfnoth, son of Godwine, reimprisoned by William Rufus, i. 13, 14; signs a charter of William of Saint-Calais, i. 14 (note); signs the foundation charter of Salisbury Cathedral, i. 309 (note).
Wulfric the huntsman, ii. 433 (note).
Wulfstan, Saint, Bishop of Worcester, attends the Christmas assembly at Westminster, i. 18, 19 (note); defends Worcester against the rebels, i. 48-51, ii. 475-481; excommunicates them, i. 51; legendary growth of the story, ii. 477; decides between Anselm and Bishop Maurice, i. 440; his sickness, i. 478; his dinner with “good men,” ib.; his correspondence, i. 479; confesses to Robert of Hereford, ib.; his death, i. 477, 480; entry as to his death, i. 478 (note); appears to Bishop Robert of Hereford, i. 480, 533 (note); his burial, i. 480; honour paid to him by King John, i. 481; his action against the fashion of wearing long hair, ii. 501.
Y.
Yeovil, i. 43 (note).
Yeovilton, i. 43 (note).
York, Priory of Holy Trinity at, founded by Ralph Paganel, i. 31; massacre of Jews at, i. 160 (note); Saint Peter’s Hospital at, gifts of Rufus to, i. 168, ii. 506; its deliverance in 1069 compared with that of Le Mans, ii. 279.
END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.
Transcriber’s Note:
Footnotes were renumbered sequentially and were moved to the end of the book.
Obvious printing errors, such as backwards, upside down, or partially printed letters and punctuation, were corrected. Final stops missing at the end of sentences and abbreviations were added. Duplicate letters at line endings or page breaks were removed. Letters with diacriticals not available in UTF-8 are displayed within brackets, like this: [~c]. Elipses were standardized. Descriptive text contained within maps was added as a caption to illustrations.
Duplicate sidenotes, repeated over page breaks, were removed. Transliteration of words in Greek are presented within brackets following the Greek. Use of punctuation in the index was made consistent.
Obsolete words, spelling variations, inconsistent hyphenation, and misspelled words were not changed.
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