"The learned Comnena lays her pen aside,
What time her subject and her father died." [Footnote: [Greek:
Laexen hopou biotoio Alexios d Komnaenos
Entha kalae thygataer laexen Alexiados.]]
These quotations will probably give the readers as much as they wish to
know of the real character of this Imperial historian. Fewer words will
suffice to dispose of the other parties who have been selected from her
pages, as persons in the foregoing drama.
There is very little doubt that the Count Robert of Paris, whose
audacity in seating himself upon the throne of the Emperor gives a
peculiar interest to his character, was in fact a person of the highest
rank; being no other, as has been conjectured by the learned Du Cange,
than an ancestor of the house of Bourbon, which has so long given Kings
to France. He was a successor, it has been conceived, of the Counts of
Paris, by whom the city was valiantly defended against the Normans, and
an ancestor of Hugh Capet. There are several hypotheses upon this
subject, deriving the well-known Hugh Capet, first, from the family of
Saxony; secondly, from St. Arnoul, afterwards Bishop of Altex; third,
from Nibilong; fourth, from the Duke of Bavaria; and fifth, from a
natural son of the Emperor Charlemagne. Variously placed, but in each
of these contested pedigrees, appears this Robert surnamed the
_Strong_, who was Count of that district, of which Paris was the
capital, most peculiarly styled the County, or Isle of France. Anna
Comnena, who has recorded the bold usurpation of the Emperor's seat by
this haughty chieftain, has also acquainted us with his receiving a
severe, if not a mortal wound, at the battle of Dorylseum, owing to his
neglecting the warlike instructions with which her father had favoured
him on the subject of the Turkish wars. The antiquary who is disposed
to investigate this subject, may consult the late Lord Ashburnham's
elaborate Genealogy of the Royal House of France; also a note of Du
Cange's on the Princess's history, p. 362, arguing for the identity of
her "Robert of Paris, a haughty barbarian," with the "Robert called the
Strong," mentioned as an ancestor of Hugh Capet. Gibbon, vol. xi. p.
52, may also be consulted. The French antiquary and the English
historian seem alike disposed to find the church, called in the tale
that of the Lady of the Broken Lances, in that dedicated to St. Drusas,
or Drosin of Soissons, who was supposed to have peculiar influence on
the issue of combats, and to be in the habit of determining them in
favour of such champions as spent the night preceding at his shrine.
In consideration of the sex of one of the parties concerned, the author
has selected our Lady of the Broken Lances as a more appropriate
patroness than St. Drusas himself, for the Amazons, who were not
uncommon in that age. Gaita, for example, the wife of Robert Guiscard,
a redoubted hero, and the parent of a most heroic race of sons, was
herself an Amazon, fought in the foremost ranks of the Normans, and is
repeatedly commemorated by our Imperial historian, Anna Comnena.
The reader can easily conceive to himself that Robert of Paris
distinguished himself among his brethren-at-arms and fellow-crusaders.
His fame resounded from the walls of Antioch; but at the battle of
Dorylaeum, he was so desperately wounded, as to be disabled from taking
a part in the grandest scene of the expedition. His heroic Countess,
however, enjoyed the great satisfaction of mounting the walls of
Jerusalem, and in so far discharging her own vows and those of her
husband. This was the more fortunate, as the sentence of the physicians
pronounced that the wounds of the Count had been inflicted by a
poisoned weapon, and that complete recovery was only to be hoped for by
having recourse to his native air. After some time spent in the vain
hope of averting by patience this unpleasant alternative, Count Robert
subjected himself to necessity, or what was represented as such, and,
with his wife and the faithful Hereward, and all others of his
followers who had been like himself disabled from combat, took the way
to Europe by sea.
A light galley, procured at a high rate, conducted them safely to
Venice, and from that then glorious city, the moderate portion of spoil
which had fallen to the Count's share among the conquerors of
Palestine, served to convey them to his own dominions, which, more
fortunate than those of most of his fellow-pilgrims, had been left
uninjured by their neighbours during the time of their proprietor's
absence on the Crusade. The report that the Count had lost his health,
and the power of continuing his homage to the Lady of the Broken
Lances, brought upon him the hostilities of one or two ambitious or
envious neighbours, whose covetousness was, however, sufficiently
repressed by the brave resistance of the Countess and the resolute
Hereward. Less than a twelvemonth was required to restore the Count of
Paris to his full health, and to render him, as formerly, the assured
protector of his own vassals, and the subject in whom the possessors of
the French throne reposed the utmost confidence. This latter capacity
enabled Count Robert to discharge his debt towards Hereward in a manner
as ample as he could have hoped or expected. Being now respected alike
for his wisdom and his sagacity, as much as he always was for his
intrepidity and his character as a successful crusader, he was
repeatedly employed by the Court of France in settling the troublesome
and intricate affairs in which the Norman possessions of the English
crown involved the rival nations. William Rufus was not insensible to
his merit, nor blind to the importance of gaining his good will; and
finding out his anxiety that Hereward should be restored to the land of
his fathers, he took, or made an opportunity, by the forfeiture of some
rebellious noble, of conferring upon our Varangian a large district
adjacent to the New Forest, being part of the scenes which his father
chiefly frequented, and where it is said the descendants of the valiant
squire and his Bertha have subsisted for many a long year, surviving
turns of time and chance, which are in general fatal to the continuance
of more distinguished families.
[Illustration]
Tales of my Landlord.