THE REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY.
A.D. 1052–1063.
IF William came back from England looking forward to a future crown, the
thought might even then flash across his mind that he was not likely to
win that crown without fighting for it. As yet his business was still to
fight for the duchy of Normandy. But he had now to fight, not to win his
duchy, but only to keep it. For five years he had to strive both against
rebellious subjects and against invading enemies, among whom King Henry
of Paris is again the foremost. Whatever motives had led the French king
to help William at Val-ès-dunes had now passed away. He had fallen back
on his former state of abiding enmity towards Normandy and her duke. But
this short period definitely fixed the position of Normandy and her duke
in Gaul and in Europe. At its beginning William is still the Bastard of
Falaise, who may or may not be able to keep himself in the ducal chair,
his right to which is still disputed. At the end of it, if he is not yet
the Conqueror and the Great, he has shown all the gifts that were needed
to win him either name. He is the greatest vassal of the French crown, a
vassal more powerful than the overlord whose invasions of his duchy he
has had to drive back.
These invasions of Normandy by the King of the French and his allies fall
into two periods. At first Henry appears in Normandy as the supporter of
Normans in open revolt against their duke. But revolts are personal and
local; there is no rebellion like that which was crushed at Val-ès-dunes,
spreading over a large part of the duchy. In the second period, the
invaders have no such starting-point. There are still traitors; there
are still rebels; but all that they can do is to join the invaders after
they have entered the land. William is still only making his way to the
universal good will of his duchy: but he is fast making it.
There is, first of all, an obscure tale of a revolt of an unfixed date,
but which must have happened between 1048 and 1053. The rebel, William
Busac of the house of Eu, is said to have defended the castle of Eu
against the duke and to have gone into banishment in France. But the
year that followed William’s visit to England saw the far more memorable
revolt of William Count of Arques. He had drawn the Duke’s suspicions on
him, and he had to receive a ducal garrison in his great fortress by
Dieppe. But the garrison betrayed the castle to its own master. Open
revolt and havoc followed, in which Count William was supported by the
king and by several other princes. Among them was Ingelram Count of
Ponthieu, husband of the duke’s sister Adelaide. Another enemy was Guy
Count of Gascony, afterwards Duke William the Eighth of Aquitaine. What
quarrel a prince in the furthest corner of Gaul could have with the Duke
of the Normans does not appear; but neither Count William nor his allies
could withstand the loyal Normans and their prince. Count Ingelram was
killed; the other princes withdrew to devise greater efforts against
Normandy. Count William lost his castle and part of his estates, and
left the duchy of his free will. The Duke’s politic forbearance at last
won him the general good will of his subjects. We hear of no more open
revolts till that of William’s own son many years after. But the
assaults of foreign enemies, helped sometimes by Norman traitors, begin
again the next year on a greater scale.
* * * * *
William the ruler and warrior had now a short breathing-space. He had
doubtless come back from England more bent than ever on his marriage with
Matilda of Flanders. Notwithstanding the decree of a Pope and a Council
entitled to special respect, the marriage was celebrated, not very long
after William’s return to Normandy, in the year of the revolt of William
of Arques. In the course of the year 1053 Count Baldwin brought his
daughter to the Norman frontier at Eu, and there she became the bride of
William. We know not what emboldened William to risk so daring a step at
this particular time, or what led Baldwin to consent to it. If it was
suggested by the imprisonment of Pope Leo by William’s countrymen in
Italy, in the hope that a consent to the marriage would be wrung out of
the captive pontiff, that hope was disappointed. The marriage raised
much opposition in Normandy. It was denounced by Archbishop Malger of
Rouen, the brother of the dispossessed Count of Arques. His character
certainly added no weight to his censures; but the same act in a saint
would have been set down as a sign of holy boldness. Presently, whether
for his faults or for his merits, Malger was deposed in a synod of the
Norman Church, and William found him a worthier successor in the learned
and holy Maurilius. But a greater man than Malger also opposed the
marriage, and the controversy thus introduces us to one who fills a place
second only to that of William himself in the Norman and English history
of the time.
This was Lanfranc of Pavia, the lawyer, the scholar, the model monk, the
ecclesiastical statesman, who, as prior of the newly founded abbey of
Bec, was already one of the innermost counsellors of the Duke. As duke
and king, as prior, abbot, and archbishop, William and Lanfranc ruled
side by side, each helping the work of the other till the end of their
joint lives. Once only, at this time, was their friendship broken for a
moment. Lanfranc spoke against the marriage, and ventured to rebuke the
Duke himself. William’s wrath was kindled; he ordered Lanfranc into
banishment and took a baser revenge by laying waste part of the lands of
the abbey. But the quarrel was soon made up. Lanfranc presently left
Normandy, not as a banished man, but as the envoy of its sovereign,
commissioned to work for the confirmation of the marriage at the papal
court. He worked, and his work was crowned with success, but not with
speedy success. It was not till six years after the marriage, not till
the year 1059, that Lanfranc obtained the wished for confirmation, not
from Leo, but from his remote successor Nicolas the Second. The sin of
those who had contracted the unlawful union was purged by various good
works, among which the foundation of the two stately abbeys of Caen was
conspicuous.
This story illustrates many points in the character of William and of his
time. His will is not to be thwarted, whether in a matter of marriage or
of any other. But he does not hurry matters; he waits for a favourable
opportunity. Something, we know not what, must have made the year 1053
more favourable than the year 1049. We mark also William’s relations to
the Church. He is at no time disposed to submit quietly to the bidding
of the spiritual power, when it interferes with his rights or even when
it crosses his will. Yet he is really anxious for ecclesiastical reform;
he promotes men like Maurilius and Lanfranc; perhaps he is not displeased
when the exercise of ecclesiastical discipline, in the case of Malger,
frees him from a troublesome censor. But the worse side of him also
comes out. William could forgive rebels, but he could not bear the
personal rebuke even of his friend. Under this feeling he punishes a
whole body of men for the offence of one. To lay waste the lands of Bec
for the rebuke of Lanfranc was like an ordinary prince of the time; it
was unlike William, if he had not been stirred up by a censure which
touched his wife as well as himself. But above all, the bargain between
William and Lanfranc is characteristic of the man and the age. Lanfranc
goes to Rome to support a marriage which he had censured in Normandy.
But there is no formal inconsistency, no forsaking of any principle.
Lanfranc holds an uncanonical marriage to be a sin, and he denounces it.
He does not withdraw his judgement as to its sinfulness. He simply uses
his influence with a power that can forgive the sin to get it forgiven.
While William’s marriage was debated at Rome, he had to fight hard in
Normandy. His warfare and his negotiations ended about the same time,
and the two things may have had their bearing on one another. William
had now to undergo a new form of trial. The King of the French had never
put forth his full strength when he was simply backing Norman rebels.
William had now, in two successive invasions, to withstand the whole
power of the King, and of as many of his vassals as the King could bring
to his standard. In the first invasion, in 1054, the Norman writers
speak rhetorically of warriors from Burgundy, Auvergne, and Gascony; but
it is hard to see any troops from a greater distance than Bourges. The
princes who followed Henry seem to have been only the nearer vassals of
the Crown. Chief among them are Theobald Count of Chartres, of a house
of old hostile to Normandy, and Guy the new Count of Ponthieu, to be
often heard of again. If not Geoffrey of Anjou himself, his subjects
from Tours were also there. Normandy was to be invaded on two sides, on
both banks of the Seine. The King and his allies sought to wrest from
William the western part of Normandy, the older and the more thoroughly
French part. No attack seems to have been designed on the Bessin or the
Côtentin. William was to be allowed to keep those parts of his duchy,
against which he had to fight when the King was his ally at Val-ès-dunes.
The two armies entered Normandy; that which was to act on the left of the
Seine was led by the King, the other by his brother Odo. Against the
King William made ready to act himself; eastern Normandy was left to its
own loyal nobles. But all Normandy was now loyal; the men of the Saxon
and Danish lands were as ready to fight for their duke against the King
as they had been to fight against King and Duke together. But William
avoided pitched battles; indeed pitched battles are rare in the
continental warfare of the time. War consists largely in surprises, and
still more in the attack and defence of fortified places. The plan of
William’s present campaign was wholly defensive; provisions and cattle
were to be carried out of the French line of march; the Duke on his side,
the other Norman leaders on the other side, were to watch the enemy and
attack them at any favourable moment. The commanders east of the Seine,
Count Robert of Eu, Hugh of Gournay, William Crispin, and Walter Giffard,
found their opportunity when the French had entered the unfortified town
of Mortemer and had given themselves up to revelry. Fire and sword did
the work. The whole French army was slain, scattered, or taken
prisoners. Ode escaped; Guy of Ponthieu was taken. The Duke’s success
was still easier. The tale runs that the news from Mortemer, suddenly
announced to the King’s army in the dead of the night, struck them with
panic, and led to a hasty retreat out of the land.
This campaign is truly Norman; it is wholly unlike the simple warfare of
England. A traitorous Englishman did nothing or helped the enemy; a
patriotic Englishman gave battle to the enemy the first time he had a
chance. But no English commander of the eleventh century was likely to
lay so subtle a plan as this, and, if he had laid such a plan, he would
hardly have found an English army able to carry it out. Harold, who
refused to lay waste a rood of English ground, would hardly have looked
quietly on while many roods of English ground were wasted by the enemy.
With all the valour of the Normans, what before all things distinguished
them from other nations was their craft. William could indeed fight a
pitched battle when a pitched battle served his purpose; but he could
control himself, he could control his followers, even to the point of
enduring to look quietly on the havoc of their own land till the right
moment. He who could do this was indeed practising for his calling as
Conqueror. And if the details of the story, details specially
characteristic, are to be believed, William showed something also of that
grim pleasantry which was another marked feature in the Norman character.
The startling message which struck the French army with panic was
deliberately sent with that end. The messenger sent climbs a tree or a
rock, and, with a voice as from another world, bids the French awake;
they are sleeping too long; let them go and bury their friends who are
lying dead at Mortemer. These touches bring home to us the character of
the man and the people with whom our forefathers had presently to deal.
William was the greatest of his race, but he was essentially of his race;
he was Norman to the backbone.
Of the French army one division had been surprised and cut to pieces, the
other had left Normandy without striking a blow. The war was not yet
quite over; the French still kept Tillières; William accordingly
fortified the stronghold of Breteuil as a cheek upon it. And he
entrusted the command to a man who will soon be memorable, his personal
friend William, son of his old guardian Osbern. King Henry was now glad
to conclude a peace on somewhat remarkable terms. William had the king’s
leave to take what he could from Count Geoffrey of Anjou. He now annexed
Cenomannian—that is just now Angevin—territory at more points than one,
but chiefly on the line of his earlier advances to Domfront and
Ambrières. Ambrières had perhaps been lost; for William now sent
Geoffrey a challenge to come on the fortieth day. He came on the
fortieth day, and found Ambrières strongly fortified and occupied by a
Norman garrison. With Geoffrey came the Breton prince Ode, and William
or Peter Duke of Aquitaine. They besieged the castle; but Norman
accounts add that they all fled on William’s approach to relieve it.
* * * * *
Three years of peace now followed, but in 1058 King Henry, this time in
partnership with Geoffrey of Anjou, ventured another invasion of
Normandy. He might say that he had never been fairly beaten in his
former campaign, but that he had been simply cheated out of the land by
Norman wiles. This time he had a second experience of Norman wiles and
of Norman strength too. King and Count entered the land and ravaged far
and wide. William, as before, allowed the enemy to waste the land. He
watched and followed them till he found a favourable moment for attack.
The people in general zealously helped the Duke’s schemes, but some
traitors of rank were still leagued with the Count of Anjou. While
William bided his time, the invaders burned Caen. This place, so famous
in Norman history, was not one of the ancient cities of the land. It was
now merely growing into importance, and it was as yet undefended by walls
or castle. But when the ravagers turned eastward, William found the
opportunity that he had waited for. As the French were crossing the ford
of Varaville on the Dive, near the mouth of that river, he came suddenly
on them, and slaughtered a large part of the army under the eyes of the
king who had already crossed. The remnant marched out of Normandy.
Henry now made peace, and restored Tillières. Not long after, in 1060,
the King died, leaving his young son Philip, who had been already
crowned, as his successor, under the guardianship of William’s
father-in-law Baldwin. Geoffrey of Anjou and William of Aquitaine also
died, and the Angevin power was weakened by the division of Geoffrey’s
dominions between his nephews. William’s position was greatly
strengthened, now that France, under the new regent, had become friendly,
while Anjou was no longer able to do mischief. William had now nothing
to fear from his neighbours, and the way was soon opened for his great
continental conquest. But what effect had these events on William’s
views on England? About the time of the second French invasion of
Normandy Earl Harold became beyond doubt the first man in England, and
for the first time a chance of the royal succession was opened to him.
In 1057, the year before Varaville, the Ætheling Edward, the King’s
selected successor, died soon after his coming to England; in the same
year died the King’s nephew Earl Ralph and Leofric Earl of the Mercians,
the only Englishmen whose influence could at all compare with that of
Harold. Harold’s succession now became possible; it became even likely,
if Edward should die while Edgar the son of the Ætheling was still under
age. William had no shadow of excuse for interfering, but he doubtless
was watching the internal affairs of England. Harold was certainly
watching the affairs of Gaul. About this time, most likely in the year
1058, he made a pilgrimage to Rome, and on his way back he looked
diligently into the state of things among the various vassals of the
French crown. His exact purpose is veiled in ambiguous language; but we
can hardly doubt that his object was to contract alliances with the
continental enemies of Normandy. Such views looked to the distant
future, as William had as yet been guilty of no unfriendly act towards
England. But it was well to come to an understanding with King Henry,
Count Geoffrey, and Duke William of Aquitaine, in case a time should come
when their interests and those of England would be the same. But the
deaths of all those princes must have put an end to all hopes of common
action between England and any Gaulish power. The Emperor Henry also,
the firm ally of England, was dead. It was now clear that, if England
should ever have to withstand a Norman attack, she would have to
withstand it wholly by her own strength, or with such help as she might
find among the kindred powers of the North.
* * * * *
William’s great continental conquest is drawing nigh; but between the
campaign of Varaville and the campaign of Le Mans came the tardy papal
confirmation of William’s marriage. The Duke and Duchess, now at last
man and wife in the eye of the Church, began to carry out the works of
penance which were allotted to them. The abbeys of Caen, William’s Saint
Stephen’s, Matilda’s Holy Trinity, now began to arise. Yet, at this
moment of reparation, one or two facts seem to place William’s government
of his duchy in a less favourable light than usual. The last French
invasion was followed by confiscations and banishments among the chief
men of Normandy. Roger of Montgomery and his wife Mabel, who certainly
was capable of any deed of blood or treachery, are charged with acting as
false accusers. We see also that, as late as the day of Varaville, there
were Norman traitors. Robert of Escalfoy had taken the Angevin side, and
had defended his castle against the Duke. He died in a strange way,
after snatching an apple from the hand of his own wife. His nephew
Arnold remained in rebellion three years, and was simply required to go
to the wars in Apulia. It is hard to believe that the Duke had poisoned
the apple, if poisoned it was; but finding treason still at work among
his nobles, he may have too hastily listened to charges against men who
had done him good service, and who were to do him good service again.
Five years after the combat at Varaville, William really began to
deserve, though not as yet to receive, the name of Conqueror. For he now
did a work second only to the conquest of England. He won the city of Le
Mans and the whole land of Maine. Between the tale of Maine and the tale
of England there is much of direct likeness. Both lands were won against
the will of their inhabitants; but both conquests were made with an
elaborate show of legal right. William’s earlier conquests in Maine had
been won, not from any count of Maine, but from Geoffrey of Anjou, who
had occupied the country to the prejudice of two successive counts, Hugh
and Herbert. He had further imprisoned the Bishop of Le Mans, Gervase of
the house of Bellême, though the King of the French had at his request
granted to the Count of Anjou for life royal rights over the bishopric of
Le Mans. The bishops of Le Mans, who thus, unlike the bishops of
Normandy, held their temporalities of the distant king and not of the
local count, held a very independent position. The citizens of Le Mans
too had large privileges and a high spirit to defend them; the city was
in a marked way the head of the district. Thus it commonly carried with
it the action of the whole country. In Maine there were three rival
powers, the prince, the Church, and the people. The position of the
counts was further weakened by the claims to their homage made by the
princes on either side of them in Normandy and Anjou; the position of the
Bishop, vassal, till Gervase’s late act, of the King only, was really a
higher one. Geoffrey had been received at Le Mans with the good will of
the citizens, and both Bishop and Count sought shelter with William.
Gervase was removed from the strife by promotion to the highest place in
the French kingdom, the archbishopric of Rheims. The young Count
Herbert, driven from his county, commended himself to William. He became
his man; he agreed to hold his dominions of him, and to marry one of his
daughters. If he died childless, his father-in-law was to take the fief
into his own hands. But to unite the old and new dynasties, Herbert’s
youngest sister Margaret was to marry William’s eldest son Robert. If
female descent went for anything, it is not clear why Herbert passed by
the rights of his two elder sisters, Gersendis, wife of Azo Marquess of
Liguria, and Paula, wife of John of La Flèche on the borders of Maine and
Anjou. And sons both of Gersendis and of Paula did actually reign at Le
Mans, while no child either of Herbert or of Margaret ever came into
being.
If Herbert ever actually got possession of his country, his possession of
it was short. He died in 1063 before either of the contemplated
marriages had been carried out. William therefore stood towards Maine as
he expected to stand with regard to England. The sovereign of each
country had made a formal settlement of his dominions in his favour. It
was to be seen whether those who were most immediately concerned would
accept that settlement. Was the rule either of Maine or of England to be
handed over in this way, like a mere property, without the people who
were to be ruled speaking their minds on the matter? What the people of
England said to this question in 1066 we shall hear presently; what the
people of Maine said in 1063 we hear now. We know not why they had
submitted to the Angevin count; they had now no mind to merge their
country in the dominions of the Norman duke. The Bishop was neutral; but
the nobles and the citizens of Le Mans were of one mind in refusing
William’s demand to be received as count by virtue of the agreement with
Herbert. They chose rulers for themselves. Passing by Gersendis and
Paula and their sons, they sent for Herbert’s aunt Biota and her husband
Walter Count of Mantes. Strangely enough, Walter, son of Godgifu
daughter of Æthelred, was a possible, though not a likely, candidate for
the rule of England as well as of Maine. The people of Maine are not
likely to have thought of this bit of genealogy. But it was doubtless
present to the minds alike of William and of Harold.
William thus, for the first but not for the last time, claimed the rule
of a people who had no mind to have him as their ruler. Yet, morally
worthless as were his claims over Maine, in the merely technical way of
looking at things, he had more to say than most princes have who annex
the lands of their neighbours. He had a perfectly good right by the
terms of the agreement with Herbert. And it might be argued by any who
admitted the Norman claim to the homage of Maine, that on the failure of
male heirs the country reverted to the overlord. Yet female succession
was now coming in. Anjou had passed to the sons of Geoffrey’s sister; it
had not fallen back to the French king. There was thus a twofold answer
to William’s claim, that Herbert could not grant away even the rights of
his sisters, still less the rights of his people. Still it was
characteristic of William that he had a case that might be plausibly
argued. The people of Maine had fallen back on the old Teutonic right.
They had chosen a prince connected with the old stock, but who was not
the next heir according to any rule of succession. Walter was hardly
worthy of such an exceptional honour; he showed no more energy in Maine
than his brother Ralph had shown in England. The city was defended by
Geoffrey, lord of Mayenne, a valiant man who fills a large place in the
local history. But no valour or skill could withstand William’s plan of
warfare. He invaded Maine in much the same sort in which he had defended
Normandy. He gave out that he wished to win Maine without shedding man’s
blood. He fought no battles; he did not attack the city, which he left
to be the last spot that should be devoured. He harried the open
country, he occupied the smaller posts, till the citizens were driven,
against Geoffrey’s will, to surrender. William entered Le Mans; he was
received, we are told, with joy. When men make the best of a bad
bargain, they sometimes persuade themselves that they are really pleased.
William, as ever, shed no blood; he harmed none of the men who had become
his subjects; but Le Mans was to be bridled; its citizens needed a castle
and a Norman garrison to keep them in their new allegiance. Walter and
Biota surrendered their claims on Maine and became William’s guests at
Falaise. Meanwhile Geoffrey of Mayenne refused to submit, and withstood
the new Count of Maine in his stronghold. William laid siege to Mayenne,
and took it by the favoured Norman argument of fire. All Maine was now
in the hands of the Conqueror.
William had now made a greater conquest than any Norman duke had made
before him. He had won a county and a noble city, and he had won them,
in the ideas of his own age, with honour. Are we to believe that he
sullied his conquest by putting his late competitors, his present guests,
to death by poison? They died conveniently for him, and they died in his
own house. Such a death was strange; but strange things do happen.
William gradually came to shrink from no crime for which he could find a
technical defence; but no advocate could have said anything on behalf of
the poisoning of Walter and Biota. Another member of the house of Maine,
Margaret the betrothed of his son Robert, died about the same time; and
her at least William had every motive to keep alive. One who was more
dangerous than Walter, if he suffered anything, only suffered banishment.
Of Geoffrey of Mayenne we hear no more till William had again to fight
for the possession of Maine.
* * * * *
William had thus, in the year 1063, reached the height of his power and
fame as a continental prince. In a conquest on Gaulish soil he had
rehearsed the greater conquest which he was before long to make beyond
sea. Three years, eventful in England, outwardly uneventful in Normandy,
still part us from William’s second visit to our shores. But in the
course of these three years one event must have happened, which, without
a blow being struck or a treaty being signed, did more for his hopes than
any battle or any treaty. At some unrecorded time, but at a time which
must come within these years, Harold Earl of the West-Saxons became the
guest and the man of William Duke of the Normans.