Chapter VII (4)

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.]