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: Fusion of Normans and English under Henry.]
[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.
APPENDIX.
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;