Chapter XXXIII: Appendix: NOTE A. p. 3 (5)

Adela then, who was betrothed to Duke Richard, is the same person as Adela, daughter of King Robert, wife of Count Baldwin, and mother of Matilda. Richard’s early death seems to have hindered her actual marriage with him, but it may have been held that she had contracted an affinity with the ducal house of Rouen which made it unlawful for her daughter to marry Duke Richard’s nephew. Either then of these possible grounds of affinity, the marriage of the elder Baldwin with the daughter of Richard the Good or the marriage of the younger Baldwin with the betrothed wife of Richard the Third, seems to me far more probable than Mr. Stapleton’s theory of the divorce. It is also supported by the witness of all those writers who speak of the kindred between the parties. The expressions “cognata,” “consanguineum cubile,” &c., are indeed not strictly accurate, as the connexion was only by affinity; but it is far more likely that the writers who use them should laxly apply to affinity words which strictly refer only to kindred, than that they should speak in this way when the impediment really was that Matilda had a husband living. Mr. Stapleton’s arguments against this view seem singularly inconclusive. “The peculiarity of the birth of William the Conqueror,” he tells us (p. 22), “as being illegitimate, certainly forbids such a conclusion, coupled with the silence of the Pope at the Council of Rheims.” The Pope’s silence surely cuts one way as much as another. As for William’s bastardy, Mr. Stapleton would hardly argue that Duke Robert could have lawfully married Herleva’s mother or sister, or that William, as _nullius filius_, could have lawfully married his own mother or sister. William’s kindred with Eadward is constantly insisted on, notwithstanding his bastardy, and one cannot doubt that a marriage between him and one of the daughters of Emma would have been thought unlawful. Mr. Stapleton presently (p. 24) mentions the foundation of the Abbeys, and adds with some triumph that “no papal bull attests that this penance was enjoined merely for marrying within the degrees of kindred.” Still less does Mr. Stapleton produce any Papal bull attesting that it was enjoined for a shameless and obstinate course of adultery.

There is indeed one other view, that maintained by M. Licquet (ii. 131) and followed by Mrs. Green (English Princesses, i. 4), namely that there was no real impediment to the marriage from either kindred or affinity, but that Pope Leo simply forbade the marriage on political grounds. Leo, the firm friend of the Emperor, did not wish to strengthen so doubtful a vassal of the Empire as Baldwin (see vol. ii. p. 97) by so close a connexion with the Duke of the Normans. This is unlikely in itself and unsupported by evidence. Even Papal authority could hardly go so far as to forbid a marriage to which there was no canonical objection; and if Leo did so, a prohibition arising from a temporary political cause would not have been so rigidly maintained by so many successive Pontiffs. And the place which the prohibition holds among the Acts of the Council distinctly shows that it was aimed against a contemplated breach of the ecclesiastical law of marriage. It comes in the middle of a series of citations and excommunications all aimed at offenders of that class, and among which a merely political prohibition would be strangely out of place. M. Licquet, like Mr. Stapleton, appeals to the silence of the Pope as to the motive of the prohibition. This silence is a difficulty according to any view, but it is a greater difficulty according to M. Licquet’s view than on any other. The actual reason is not minutely specified, but the position of the prohibition in the Acts of the Council is enough to show its general nature.

William then, I hold, married the widow of Gerbod. In choosing a widow for his bride, he only acted like several other great men of his century. Eadmund, Cnut, Harold, all married widows. Cnut and Harold married the widows of Kings whom they had helped to deprive of their Kingdoms. But the case which most exactly forestalled William happened just before the beginning of the century, in the person of Matilda’s maternal grandfather, King Robert. That most devout of Kings uncanonically married his widowed cousin (see vol. i. p. 507), and allowed himself to be worried by ecclesiastical censures out of his wife, and well nigh out of his life also. William characteristically stood his ground, and gained his point in the end in the teeth of Prior, Archbishop, Pope, and Council.

The date of the marriage is not given by any of the Norman writers. They all do their best to slur over the delays and difficulties about the marriage, and they would fain have us believe that Matilda was won as soon as wooed. The date 1053 comes from the Tours Chronicle (Bouquet, xi. 348), and in default of any better authority, I do not see that we can do otherwise than accept it. It also falls in singularly well, as Mr Stapleton suggests, with the date of the captivity of Pope Leo (see above, p. 98). Another date, 1047, is given in the late Chronicle of Saint Bavon (Corp. Chron. Fland. i. 552, “Wilhelmus Dux Normanniæ, uxorem duxit Mathildem filiam Balduini comitis Flandriæ, quæ postea peperit ei Wilhelmum, postmodum Regem Angliæ”). But this date cannot be accepted, as it is clearly inconsistent with the prohibition of the marriage in 1049. It has been sometimes said (see Bouet, p. 8) that Orderic (484 C) fixes the marriage in 1063, and it has thence been inferred that the marriage was repeated after Lanfranc had come back with the dispensation. But the words of Orderic do not really fix the marriage to 1063. He has been speaking of the death of Geoffrey Martel and other matters, and places the death of Geoffrey in 1060 or 1061. He then, in his usual fashion, takes the opportunity to enlarge on the greatness and prosperity of Normandy and its Duke about this time, and goes on to tell us of his wife and children. But there is nothing bearing on the date of the marriage.

I ought to mention that the Chronicle of Tours, the only one which gives the date of the marriage, adds a most strange tale about William’s courtship;

“Tunc Guillelmus Dux Normanniæ Mathildem, filiam Balduini, Comitis Flandriæ, duxit in uxorem, in hunc modum. Quum ipsa a patre suo de sponso recipiendo sæpiùs rogaretur, eique Guillelmus Normanniæ a patre suo, _qui eum longo tempore nutrierat_, præ aliis laudaretur, respondit, numquam nothum recipere se maritum. Quo audito, Guillelmus Dux clam apud Brugis, ubi puella morabatur, cum paucis accelerat, eamque regredientem ab ecclesiâ pugnis, calcibus, et calcaribus verberat et castigat, sicque ascenso equo eum suis in patriam remeat. Quo facto, puella dolens ad lectum decubat, ad quam pater veniens, illam de sponso recipiendo interrogat et requirit, quæ respondens dicit, se nunquam habere maritum nisi Guillelmum Ducem Normanniæ quod et factum est.”—Chron. Turon. Bouquet, xi. 348.

This tale is found also in the French rhyming Chronicle of Philip de Mouskes, a writer of the thirteenth century (ii. 174, ed. Brussels, 1838). Matilda is thus described;

“... li Quens de Flandres avoit
Une fille qui moult savoit,
Et moult estoit biele et vallans
Sage courtoise et bien parlans.”

(v. 16902.)

To the first offer of marriage her answer is thus given;

“La demoiselle vint avant
Si leur respondi maintenant
J’aim mious estre nonne velée
Que jou soie à bastart donnée.”

(v. 16932.)

William then goes to Lille;

“Tout droit à Lille vint i jour
U la _puciele_ ert a sejour.”

Matilda is throughout called “puciele” and “demoiselle.” William then kicks and beats her, much as in the story in the Tours Chronicle, and her consent is given in much the same way.

The remarkable thing about this tale is that it is evidently a myth which has fastened itself upon William in several forms, and, I suspect, on Harold also. The story of William beating or kicking his wife is, in two accounts, transferred from the beginning of their married life to the end. William of Malmesbury (iii. 273) tells, without believing it, a tale that William in his later days forsook his old chaste manner of life (“non desint qui ganniant eum _cœlibatui_ antiquo renunciâsse quum regia potestas accrevisset”—the same singular use of the word _cœlebs_ spoken of in vol. ii. pp. 383, 531), and took a concubine, the daughter of a priest. Matilda, in her jealousy, had the girl ham-strung (“per satellitem succiso poplite Matildis sustulerit”), a tale apparently taken from the story of King Eadwig’s wife or mistress—(Osbern or Eadmer, Vit. Od. Ang. Sacr. ii. 84). On this Matilda is beaten to death with a bridle (“illam ad mortem fræno equi cæsam”), whether by her husband’s own hand or not is not distinctly said. Now this story is clearly the same as Snorro’s story (Johnstone, 217; Laing, iii. 94) how, when William was setting out for England, his wife came to speak to him, perhaps to detain him, on which, being mounted, he struck her with his heel, so that the spur ran into her breast, and she died (“Enn er hann sá þat, þá laust hann til hennar med hælinom, oc setti sporan fyri brióst henni, svo at á kaf stód, fell hon vid oc feck bana”). And this again, I cannot help thinking, is the same as William of Jumièges’ story (vii. 35) of Harold kicking his mother when she implored him not to go forth to battle (see p. 436). The tale of a King kicking or beating his wife or mother was afloat, and it was easy to fill the blank with the name of either William or Harold.

One more point is suggested to me by the charge against William’s chastity brought in the last paragraph. Genealogists, local antiquaries, and romance-writers are fond of calling the well-known William Peverel of Domesday a natural son of the Conqueror. For this assertion I know of no authority, except a statement in Dugdale’s Baronage (i. 436) which is said to come “ex Coll. R. Gl. S.”—that is Robert Glover, Somerset Herald. We are there told that Ranulf Peverel “married the daughter of Ingelric, founder of the Collegiate Church of Saint Martin le Grand in the city of London, who had been a concubine to William Duke of Normandy,” and that William Peverel was “begotten on her by the same Duke before the Conquest of this realm.” The uncorroborated assertions of a herald are not materials for history.

The mention of Matilda suggests the name of her supposed sister, Judith, the wife of Tostig. I have all along (see vol. ii. p. 134) doubted whether she really was a daughter of Baldwin the Fifth. She is called his daughter by Florence (1051) and twice by Orderic. In one place (638 C) he reckons the daughters of Baldwin and Adela as “Mathildis Regina Anglorum et Juditha, Tostici Ducis uxor.” Elsewhere (492 D, see p. 303) he says of William and Tostig, “duas sorores, per quas amicitia sæpe recalescebat, in conjugio habebant.” Orderic is followed by Alberic in the thirteenth century, who gives (p. 98) Baldwin and Adela three sons, Baldwin, Robert, and Philip, and two daughters, “Judith, quam nupsit Tosticus Comes Nordanubriorum in Angliâ, et Mathildem prædictam Normannorum Ducissam.” She is also called Baldwin’s daughter by two writers of the fifteenth century, who record her second marriage with Duke Welf of Bavaria. Botho in his Picture Chronicle of Brunswick (Leibnitz, iii. 325) says of Baldwin (whom by the way he confounds with his son, marrying him to Richilda instead of Adela) that he had “eyne dochter de het Jutta, _de nam Konigh Heroden in Engelant_, dar wart se geheten Wichanda, do nam se dar na Hertoghen Wolpy den olden in Beyeren.” The honest Nether-Dutch is pleasant to read, but it is strange to make Judith the wife of Harold—degraded into Herod—instead of Tostig. But Botho repeats the statement in p. 327, nor does he stand alone in it. In Arenpeck’s Bavarian Chronicle (Leibnitz, iii. 661) we read of Welf, how “accepit Reginam Angliæ, tunc viduam, filiam scilicet Balduini nobilissimi Comitis Flandriæ, Juditham, in uxorem.” These accounts are of course simply amusing, but we shall presently see that, as for their chief blunders, they sin in decent company.

Florence then and Orderic are the only early authorities who call Judith a daughter of Baldwin the Fifth. And the authority of Orderic is lessened by a manifest error which he has fallen into with regard to Baldwin’s family. He makes him (526 C) the father of Udo, Archbishop of Trier, who was really the son of Count Eberhard of Nellenberg (Gest. Trev. ap. Pertz, viii. 183). On the other hand, the local Chronicle of the Counts of Flanders (Corp. Chron. Fland. i. 86) distinctly calls Matilda Baldwin’s only daughter. Baldwin married Adela “genuitque ex eâ duos filios, Balduinum Montensem et Robertum Frisonem, et unam filiam nomine Mathildem.” We now fall back on our own writers and remember that the Worcester Chronicle (1051) called Judith only the “mage” of Baldwin, while Eadward’s Biographer (pp. 404, 424) distinctly called her his “soror.” We now turn to the Saxon Annalist, and, among some wild stories, we find the same relationship distinctly asserted. Judith, as before, is Harold’s widow. Welf of Bavaria (Pertz, vi. 764) “duxit viduam Haroldi _Ducis Anglorum_ [see above, p. 226] Judihtam nomine.” But in an earlier passage we read (vi. 694), “Hujus Haroldi conjux, _amita Rodberti Comitis de Flandriâ_, ex cognatione beati Ethmundi Regis fuit.”

Here, comparing this passage with the Biographer, we may find the key to the whole matter. The Biographer says that Judith was Baldwin’s sister and Eadward’s niece, which last statement greatly puzzled me. The Saxon Annalist, evidently writing quite independently, calls her the aunt of Baldwin’s son Robert, and also calls her a kinswoman of Eadward (we should of course read Eth_war_di for Eth_mun_di). That is, she was a daughter of Count Baldwin the Bearded by his Norman wife, the daughter of Richard the Good. She thus exactly answers all the descriptions. She is sister of Baldwin of Lisle, aunt of Robert the Frisian, and she is, in a vague sense, niece of Eadward, that is, daughter of his first cousin. The pedigree stands thus;

Richard the Fearless.
|
+------+-------+
| |
Æthelred = Emma. Richard the Good = Judith.
| |
Eadward. daughter = Baldwin = Odgiva.
| |
+--------+ |
| |
Tostig = Judith = Welf. Baldwin = Adela.
|
+---------+---------+
| | |
Baldwin. Robert. Matilda.

Judith would thus be, not Matilda’s sister but her aunt, an aunt however possibly younger than herself. Odgiva, the first wife of Baldwin the Bearded, died in 1031. His daughter by the Norman Princess, the child of his old age, could not be born before 1032 or 1033. Matilda, the daughter of parents married in 1027, may well have been older.

We have here, I think, another proof of the accuracy of the Biographer in matters coming within his own province, and that in a case where his statement seemed, at first sight, puzzling and suspicious. I do not however know why he calls her Fausta, or why the Brunswick picture-chronicler calls her Wichanda. Judith was an obvious name for her, being that of her maternal grandmother the wife of Duke Richard. Possibly, as Miss Yonge suggests (Christian Names, ii. 345), this Hebrew name, in its form of Jutta, may have got confounded with the Northern Gytha.

NOTE O. p. 112.

THE CHILDREN OF WILLIAM AND MATILDA.

About the number and order of the sons of William and Matilda there is no doubt. They were Robert, Richard, William, and Henry. There is no doubt that Richard was second in order. He is always put so in the lists, and Orderic (573 C) expressly calls him “Ricardus, filius ejus, qui post Rodbertum natus fuerat.” Sir Francis Palgrave must have been speaking hastily when (iii. 254) he called him “the fourth son.”

But about the daughters, their number, names, and order, the statements are most contradictory. I will first of all set forth the different accounts of the early writers.

All that William of Poitiers tells us (120) is that two brother Kings of Spain sought for a daughter of William in marriage, whose name is not given, and that they greatly disputed about her. Of the promise or offer of a daughter to Harold he says nothing directly, though he alludes to it in a later passage (145).

William of Jumièges (vii. 21) only says that William had four daughters, without giving their names. His continuator (viii. 34) also enumerates four. First (“primogenita”), Cecily, Abbess of Caen. Second, Constance, wife of Alan Fergant of Britanny. Third, Adelaide [Adelidis], who was betrothed to Harold, but died unmarried (“Heraldo proditori ante bellum Anglicum sponsata, sed, illo dignâ morte mulctato, nulli nupta, virgo jam nubilis obiit”). Fourth, Adela, wife of Stephen of Blois.

Orderic gives no less than four lists. The first time (484 D) he simply gives the names of four daughters, Adeliza, Constance, Cecily, and Hadala. The second time (512 D) the number is raised to five, and the names are Agatha, Constance, Adeliza, Adela, and Cecily. The third time (573 C) he gives little biographies of four daughters. 1st, Agatha, betrothed first to Harold, then to Amfurcius [Alfonso] of Gallicia, but who died a virgin. 2nd, Adelaide [Adelidis], who lived, seemingly as a nun, under the care of Roger of Beaumont (“Adelidis pulcherrima virgo jam nubilis devotè Deo se commendavit, et sub tutelâ Rogeri de Bellomonte sancto fine quievit”). 3rd, Constance, wife of Alan Fergant [Fergannus]. 4th, Adela, wife of Stephen. The fourth time (638 D) he gives a mere list, with the same names as in the second but in a different order, Agatha, Adeliza, Constance, Adela, and Cecily. He also (511 A) says that a daughter of William, whose name he does not mention, was promised in marriage to Earl Eadwine.

William of Malmesbury (iii. 276) says expressly that William had five daughters. 1st, Cecily the Abbess, who was living when he wrote—he wrote therefore before 1126. 2nd, Constance. 3rd, Adela. Of two others he did not know the names (“duarum nomina exciderunt”), one betrothed to Harold, the second to Alfonso, but both of whom died unmarried.

Wace (9650) knows only two daughters, “Ele” and Abbess Cecily. Ele is (10821) betrothed to Harold, but afterwards married to Count Stephen.

Lastly, in Domesday (49) we find incidental mention of a daughter Matilda. Her chamberlain Geoffrey (“Goisfridus Camerarius filiæ Regis”) had lands in Hampshire, which he held “de Rege W. pro servitio quod fecit Mathildi ejus filiæ.” She is also mentioned in an Encyclic Letter of the Nuns of the Holy Trinity at Caen (Mabillon, Ann. Ord. Ben. v. 690) along with her mother Matilda and her sisters Adelaide and Constance, as one for whom the prayers of the faithful are asked.

Now of all these, Cecily, Constance, and Adela need give us no trouble here. The history of all three is well ascertained, and will come in its proper place. But about the others, the contradictions are great. The names Adelidis and Adeliza are doubtless the same. We have then these statements.

1. Adeliza was betrothed to Harold, but died unmarried. (Cont. Will. Gem.)

2. Adeliza died unmarried under the care of Roger of Beaumont. (Ord. Vit.)

3. Agatha was betrothed, first to Harold and then to Alfonso, but died unmarried. (Ib.)

4. A nameless daughter betrothed to Harold died unmarried. (Will. Malms.)

5. A nameless daughter betrothed to Alfonso died unmarried. (Ib.)

6. A nameless daughter was betrothed to Eadwine. (Ord. Vit.)

7. Matilda appears without a history. (Domesday.)

The first question is whether the daughter betrothed to Harold and the daughter betrothed to Alfonso are the same. Orderic stands alone in identifying them. On the whole, the balance of evidence seems to me to lie the other way. I am inclined to think that it was Adeliza who was betrothed to Harold, and that it was another daughter who was betrothed to the Spanish King. Indeed they cannot be the same, if we accept the statement which William of Malmesbury (iii. 238) puts into Harold’s mouth in the course of the messages which passed between him and William, namely that the maiden to whom he had been betrothed had died before his election to the Crown (“liberatum se sacramento asserens, quod filia ejus quam desponderat citra nubiles annos obierat”). I am sorry nevertheless to give up Orderic’s (573 C, D) very pretty story, which recalls (or reverses) the well-known ballad of the Spanish Lady’s Love. She had seen and loved Harold, and preferred death rather than to give herself to another and an unknown bridegroom. But there is also the difficulty of the extreme youth of any daughter of William at any time to which we can assign Harold’s visit. I cannot think, with Baron Maseres (103), that the betrothed of Harold was Cecily.

According to Wace, the Adeliza or Adelaide betrothed to Harold was the same as Adela, afterwards Countess of Chartres. The two names, both coming from the _adel_ or _æðel_ root, might easily be confounded, and it would not be difficult to suppose that Harold’s betrothed had been on the one hand mistaken for the betrothed of Alfonso, and on the other hand divided into two, Adela and Adeliza. But all the other accounts seem pointedly to distinguish between Adela and the betrothed of Harold, whether she were called Adeliza or not.

I need not discuss the theory according to which Mr. Blaauw and Mr. Thorpe (Lappenberg, Norman Kings, 215) identify the Matilda of Domesday with Gundrada; but a view put forth by Mrs. Green (Princesses, i. 16, 407), who has gone minutely into the matter, is better worth examining. She holds that Matilda and Agatha are the same, that the name of Agatha is a mistake of Orderic, that this is the daughter who was betrothed to Eadwine, and that the story of her attachment to Harold arose from confounding one English lover with another. Again, by gaining the three or four years between the visit of Harold and the betrothal to Eadwine, the difficulty as to age is got over. Mrs. Green’s suggestion is at least ingenious. I have little doubt, as I shall show in my next volume, that the daughter who was betrothed to Eadwine is the same as the daughter who was betrothed to Alfonso. But I do not see the evidence for calling her Matilda.

Abbot Baldric, in his verses addressed to Abbess Cecily (Duchèsne, Rer. Franc, iv. 274), speaks of a sister of the Abbess, who was, in some unexplained way, connected both with Bayeux and with Angers. Mrs. Green identifies her also with Matilda. The lines are,

“Audivi quamdam te detinuisse sororem,
Cujus fama meas aliquando perculit aures.
Nomen it elapsum, vidisse tamen reminiscor.
Baiocensis erat, sed tunc erat Andegavensis,
Quam, tibi si placeat, nostrâ de parte saluta,
Atque mihi nomen rescribe tuumque suumque.”

As both Abbot Baldric and William of Malmesbury found it impossible to remember the names of William’s daughters, I may perhaps be forgiven if I leave the name of the betrothed of Harold undetermined.

NOTE P. p. 116.

THE REVOLT OF WILLIAM BUSAC.

There is a good deal of obscurity about William Busac and his revolt. The story is told by no one except William of Jumièges (vii. 20); and, as he seems to put it instead of the far better known story of the revolt of William of Arques, which he tells out of its place (vii. 7), one is tempted to suppose that he has fallen into some confusion between the two revolts and the two Williams. But he tells his tale so clearly and straightforwardly that it is hardly possible to doubt it, unless it can be shown distinctly to contradict some better ascertained piece of history.

The father and brothers of William Busac, as described by William of Jumièges, are all well ascertained persons. But William expresses himself inaccurately when he says (vii. 20) that Count William of Eu was an “uterinus frater” of Richard the Good. He must here use the word “uterinus” vaguely in the sense of illegitimate; for an “uterinus frater,” strictly speaking, of Richard the Good would mean, not a natural son of Richard the Fearless, but a son of Gunnor by some father other than Richard. The only question is as to the time when Count William obtained the grant of Eu, and whether it was granted by his half-brother Richard the Good or by his great-nephew Duke William. The following passages may be referred to on this point, which does not greatly concern my history. Will. Gem. iv. 18, vii. 2, viii. 37; Stapleton, i. lvi.; Roman de Rou, 6123–6215, where a romantic story is told, which is followed by Le Bœuf, Ville d’Eu, p. 28; and Palgrave, iii. 45.

The strange thing is that in none of these accounts is there any mention of William Busac as a son of Count William, though there is of his brothers Robert and Hugh. Still it seems hardly possible wholly to reject William’s existence and his investiture with the County of Soissons, which is so clearly asserted by William of Jumièges, and which, from the further details given in the _Art de Vérifier les Dates_, must, I conceive, rest on other authorities which I have not at hand. The chief difficulty in the story itself is that it seems to be implied throughout that the castle of Eu was in the possession of William Busac at the time of his revolt. If William of Jumièges did not so distinctly make William Busac the second brother—“horum medius” between Robert and Hugh—I should have been inclined to think that William Busac was the eldest brother, that he inherited the County, and that Robert succeeded to it on William’s exile. But this view seems forbidden by the words “horum medius;” and we also find Robert’s name with the title of “Comes de Ou” attached to a charter drawn up “tempore quo discordia cœpit inter ipsum [Comitem Willelmum] et Henricum Regem Francorum.” (Cart. de Saint Bertin, Paris, 1840, p. 426. The signature of “Willelmus de Ou,” attached to an earlier charter on the same page, belongs of course to the elder William.) We must suppose then that William Busac contrived to occupy his brother’s castle by some underhand means and to defend it against the Duke.

In accepting the account of this revolt given by William of Jumièges I do not profess to fix its exact date, or to add any details beyond such as are found in his narrative. From the point at which he introduces the story, it would seem to have happened between the affair of William the Warling and the marriage of Duke William, that is, between 1048 and 1053. But, as William of Jumièges puts the courtship and marriage of William together as if there had been no delay between them (see above, p. 85), it is quite possible that he means to fix the revolt to 1049 or thereabouts. At any rate, the place which I have given to it in my narrative seemed to me the natural one for it, as it is the beginning of a series of events which is carried on in the more famous revolt of William of Arques, namely insurrections in Normandy abetted by the King of the French.

The way in which the story of William Busac is treated by modern writers is curious. See Licquet, ii. 126; La Butte, Histoire des Ducs de Normandie, i. 246, 249; and the local historian of Eu, M. Le Bœuf, p. 30. A still more amazing account will be found in Mr. Roscoe’s Life of William the Conqueror, p. 89, for which it would be well to give some more definite authority than “Walsingham; Wace; Chron. Sax.; Chron. de Nor.; W. Malms.; Mazeres.”

But the aberrations of smaller writers will not seem wonderful, when we read the strange and contradictory statements made by Sir Francis Palgrave, which I feel sure would not have been found in any but a posthumous work of that great scholar. He first (p. 50) tells us of Count Robert and his services at Mortemer, and of “Robert’s son William (in France called William Busac) enriched, like his father, by the spoils of the Anglo-Saxon, and, who came to a fearful end.” William Busac is here confounded with his nephew William “de Owe,” son of Count Robert, who was blinded and mutilated by William Rufus in 1096 (see Flor. Wig. in anno, and Palgrave, iv. 420). In a later passage (iii. 224) we read, “William, surnamed Busac, second son of William, Count of Arques, now revolted against the Duke.” If Sir Francis had written or dictated in Latin, I should have thought that “Arcensis” had been substituted for “Aucensis,” by the same editorial process which took “Lagam Regis Eadwardi” to be a misprint for “legem.”

William was succeeded in the County of Soissons by his sons John and Reginald, after whom the County passed to the descendants of his daughter Ramentrude, wife of Ivo of Nesle. Another son, Manasses, was in 1092 chosen Bishop of Cambray by the citizens in opposition to the clergy, and was translated to Soissons in 1103 (see Gest. Epp. Cam. Pertz, vii. 504).

NOTE Q. p. 120.

THE REVOLT OF WILLIAM OF ARQUES.

There is a singular difference among our authorities as to the date of the revolt of Count William of Arques. William of Poitiers, Orderic, and William of Malmesbury put it at the point where I have put it in the text. But in William of Jumièges and Wace it comes much earlier, immediately after Duke William’s recovery of Falaise from Thurstan Goz (see vol. ii. p. 206), some years earlier than the battle of Val-ès-dunes. There is no doubt that the later date is the right one. In the narrative of William of Poitiers, the story comes in in what is evidently its natural order, immediately before the French invasion of 1054. The personal action of the Duke himself, now evidently in full maturity, seems inconsistent with the earlier date, as does also the prominent position of Guy-Geoffrey of Poitiers, who in 1044 (see vol. ii. p. 595) was “parvulus.” The story is also fixed to 1053 by the death of Ingelram of Ponthieu and the succession of his brother Guy. See Art de Vérifier les Dates, ii. 752. At the earlier date the elder Ingelram was reigning.

Besides this difference in date, the narratives of William of Poitiers and of Wace differ a good deal in the order of events, though I do not see any further contradiction between the two versions. I have therefore, while forming my narrative mainly on that of William of Poitiers, not scrupled to bring in some touches of detail from Wace which seemed to bear marks of authenticity.

In the order which I have followed, Duke William requires his uncle to surrender his castle, and he himself puts a garrison in it. The garrison then restore the castle to William of Arques, who openly revolts. Duke William hears the news at Valognes, he hastens to Arques, meets a party of loyalists from Rouen, fights a party of the rebels before the gates of the castle, and then blockades it. He then leaves the blockading force under Walter Giffard. King Henry comes to help William of Arques, and he falls into an ambush, where Count Ingelram is slain and Hugh Bardulf taken prisoner. The King retires; the Duke returns; William of Arques surrenders the castle, and the other posts in Normandy held by the French are surrendered also.

The accounts in William of Jumièges and in Wace leave out the occupation of the castle by the Duke and its betrayal to the Count of Arques. They say that the Duke, suspecting his uncle, summoned him to his presence, which summons he declined to obey, and openly rebelled (“Quem Dux à suâ vesaniâ nitens avellere, ad exhibendum sibi obsequium per legatos jussit eum venire. Sed ille hujusmodi legationem habens contemptui, magnâ cum fiduciâ ad resistendum se munivit et armavit.” Will. Gem. vii. 7). Wace transfers the hasty ride from the Côtentin from the first to the second appearance of Duke William before Arques. William of Poitiers again makes William reach Arques with six followers, all the others who had started from Valognes having failed to keep up with his pace. He there meets the reinforcement of three hundred from Rouen. Wace makes him reach Arques absolutely alone (v. 8699);

“Tute sa gente s’en merveilla
Ke de si luing si tost vint là:
Nuls ne s’en pot à li tenir,
Ne nuls ne pot o li venir,
De cels qui à Valuignes furent
E de Valuignes od li s’esmurent.”

This is an evident exaggeration, adapted to the new order of events. Had William reached Arques absolutely alone, in the state of things conceived by William of Poitiers, he must have fallen into the hands of his enemies. But, while Wace transposes the two marches of William, Orderic (657 B) rolls the two into one. In his story William’s first appearance comes after King Henry and Count Ingelram have entered the country. He hears of them at Valognes; he sends on a picked force, and then follows himself with his main army. The former (“præcursores mei”) meet Ingelram, and defeat and kill him before William reaches Arques at all. But though I think that Wace has transposed the order of events, I have not scrupled to draw several details of the ride from him, and to accept Valognes as the starting-point. The other writers only mention the Côtentin generally. It is of course possible that Wace may have been thinking of William’s former ride from Valognes (see vol. ii. p. 247), where also the mention of Valognes is peculiar to himself. But, if William was likely to be there at one time, he was likely to be there at another.

The mention of Saint Aubin as the place of the ambush also comes from William of Jumièges, followed by Wace. (I am sorry that, when I was at Arques, I omitted to explore the spot.) I have ventured to connect this mention of Saint Aubin with that which Orderic gives (606 B, C) of Richard of Hugleville’s resistance at Saint Aubin. This comes in a genealogical passage where the campaign of Arques is spoken of only incidentally, and seems to me to be a case of quite independent testimony coinciding.

NOTE R. p. 217.

THE BEQUEST OF EADWARD TO WILLIAM AND THE OATH OF HAROLD.

The oath which, as William alleged, Harold had sworn to him, and the bequest which, as he also alleged, Eadward had made in his favour, are two subjects every detail of which is enveloped in controversy and contradiction, and two subjects moreover which cannot be kept apart from one another. I have, both in the text and elsewhere, set forth more than once what I believe to be the true history. I will now go more minutely through all the evidence which we have bearing on the matter.

I. As I have already said (see above, p. 219), there are three statements as to the object of Harold’s visit to Normandy. And two out of these statements imply different versions of the alleged bequest of Eadward to William. I have stated their substance in the text; I will now go through the evidence for and against them.

1. The first version is that of William of Poitiers. He mentions the matter twice, first in his narrative of Harold’s visit (107 et seqq.), secondly, in the account of the messages sent by William to Harold (129–30). According to this statement (129), Eadward chose William as his heir, on account of his many excellences (“quoniam omnium qui genus suum attingerent me credebat excellentissimum, qui optimè valerem vel ei, quamdiu viveret, subvenire, vel posteaquam decederet, regnum gubernare”) and as a return for the kindness which he had received from William and his predecessors during his sojourn in Normandy (“ob maximos honores et plurima beneficia quæ illi atque fratri suo, necnon hominibus eorum, ego et majores mei impendimus”). This devise of the Crown was apparently made by a decree of the Witan; at any rate it was made by the advice, and confirmed by the oaths, of Archbishop Stigand and of the three great Earls, Godwine, Leofric, and Siward (“sanè neque id absque suorum optimatum consensu, verùm consilio Stigandi Archiepiscopi, Godwini Comitis, Leurici Comitis, Sigardi Comitis”). These great leaders all agreed to accept William as Eadward’s successor on his death, and meanwhile, as the passage seems to mean, to set up no other candidate against him (“qui etiam jurejurando suis manibus confirmaverunt, quod post Edwardi decessum me reciperent dominum, nec ullatenus peterent in vitâ illius patriam hanc ullo impedimento contra me occupari”). A son and a grandson of Godwine were given by Eadward as hostages for this engagement (“obsides mihi dedit Godwini filium ac nepotem,” 130; so again, 107, “Heraldus ... cujus antea frater et fratuelis obsides fuerant accepti de successione eâdem”—Willelmi sc.). As Eadward found himself near death—it might have been added, now that the three Earls who had confirmed the devise were all dead—the King thought it good to bind Harold by the same oath which had been formerly taken by his father, with the further security that it should be taken in William’s presence, while Godwine and the rest had, on the former occasion, only bound themselves to him in his absence (“ut quod pater ejus atque cæteri supranominati hic [in England] mihi juravere absenti, is ibi [in Normandy] præsens juaret præsenti”). Eadward also, it would seem, wished to give William, before his death, a further confirmation in his own name (“graviore quam fuerat cautum pignore cavit.” 107). The importance of binding Harold to the proposed succession is strongly set forth. He alone could influence or constrain the English people, who, it is implied, were very likely to disturb the arrangement (“et eum [Haraldum] quidem prudentissimè [destinavit], ut ipsius opes et auctoritas totius Anglicæ gentis dissensum coercerent, si rem novare mallent _perfidâ mobilitate, quantâ sese agunt_”). Harold is therefore sent on this errand; he falls into the hands of Guy and is rescued by William, as I have described in the text. He makes his oath to William—its terms I shall discuss at a later stage of this note—and William looks on him as one who will most effectually win over the English to his cause (“quem inter se et Anglos, quibus à Rege secundus erat, mediatorem sperabat fidissimum.” 108).

This is the full account given by the contemporary panegyrist of William. Two things are to be noticed in it, as important admissions made by an enemy. First, the loyalty of Harold to Eadward, and the full friendship and confidence which existed between the King and the Earl, are implied throughout, in distinct contradiction of one form of Norman calumny. Secondly, there is throughout a recognition of the English people as a party likely to claim a voice in the matter, and one whose voice, it is expected, will not be given on behalf of William. The epithets of abuse which the Norman panegyrist hurls at the heads of the English nation are in truth a speaking witness to the popular character of the ancient English government.

William of Jumièges (vii. 31) tells essentially the same story. He says nothing about the counsel and the oaths of Stigand and the three Earls, but he tells us that Eadward, finding himself childless (“_disponente Deo_ successione prolis carens”), sent Archbishop Robert to announce to William his intention of making him his heir (“olim miserat Willelmo Duci Rodbertum Cantuariorum Archipræsulem, ex regno a Deo sibi attributo illum statuens hæredem”). Afterwards he sends Harold, the most powerful Earl in his Kingdom, to confirm the bequest by oath, and to plight his own faith to the Duke (“deinde Heraldum cunctorum suæ dominationis Comitem divitiis et honore ac potentiâ maximum Duci destinavit, ut ei de coronâ suâ fidelitatem faceret, ac Christiano more sacramentis firmaret”). The story then goes on as before.

Orderic (492 A) tells the same story as William of Jumièges, with the addition that the devise in favour of Duke William was made with the consent of the English nation. “Eduardus nimirùm propinquo suo Willelmo Duci Normannorum, primò per Rodbertum Cantuariorum summum Pontificem, postea per eumdem Heraldum, integram Anglici regni mandaverat concessionem, ipsumque, _concedentibus Anglis_, fecerat totius juris sui hæredem.”

Benoît (36498 et seqq.) follows William of Jumièges, except that he does not give the name of the Archbishop, and that he seems to imply that the mission of the Archbishop and the mission of Harold happened in two consecutive years.

“L’arcevesque de Cantorbire,
Li plus hauz hom de son empire,
Out en Normendie tramis,
_Les anz avant_, si cum je vus dis,
Por afermer ce qu’il li done
Tot le reaume e la corone.”

(vv. 36508–36513.)

It is really needless to refute this story. Some remarks on the tale will be found in Lord Lyttelton (Henry the Second, i. 351 et seqq.) and Baron Maseres (pp. 74 et seqq., 113 et seqq.) which are far above the average criticism of their age. Both writers are hampered throughout by the supposed necessity of accepting, or at least of attaching some weight to, the accounts of the false Ingulf; otherwise their line of argument is of a high order. There are also some good remarks of Lord Lytton’s in a note to his “Harold” (iii. 385), though I cannot conceive what he means by saying (iii. 386) that “the Saxon chroniclers ... unite in relating Edward’s warnings to Harold against his visit to the Norman court.” The “Saxon” Chronicles, I need hardly repeat, are altogether silent on the matter.

No one, I think, who goes carefully through the whole circumstances of the tale as told by William of Poitiers, will hesitate to say, with Baron Maseres, “there is reason to think it is absolutely false,” or, with Lord Lytton, “this appears a fable wholly without foundation.” Here is a purely English matter, an act of the English Witan, a deed confirmed by the greatest men of the Church and State of England, which rests solely on the assertion of an interested Norman writer, and of which no English Chronicle or cartulary has preserved the slightest trace. To make us believe that Leofric, that Siward, that Stigand, that Godwine, that the whole English people, agreed to the succession of William, we should need no evidence short of the document bearing their signatures, strengthened by an entry in the Chronicles to show that the document might possibly be genuine. No statement was ever weighed down by a heavier burthen of internal improbability. An act done when Stigand was Archbishop and when Godwine and the other Earls were still living, must belong to the few months between the appointment of Stigand to the Archbishopric at the Mickle Gemót of September, 1052 and the death of Godwine at Easter, 1053. It will not do to say that the title “Archiepiscopi” is simply descriptive of the person, and that the act might have been done at a time when Stigand had not yet reached the archiepiscopal rank (cf. vol. ii. p. 420). For Stigand and the three Earls are clearly mentioned as being the four greatest men in the Kingdom, which of course would not be the case at a time when Stigand was only a presbyter, or even the Bishop of an inferior see. The devise then, if it was ever made at all, could have been made only within those few months. And, except in those later years when Harold’s succession seems to have been looked upon as a settled thing (see vol. ii. p. 634), no time can be found so unlikely as those few months for any act in favour of William. No wilder assertion was ever made than that which represents the Witan of England, with Godwine at their head, as agreeing to, and even advising, the succession of the Norman Duke to the English Crown at the very moment of their great triumph over Norman favourites and Norman influence in England.

So much for William of Poitiers. William of Jumièges and Orderic, who evidently follows him, do not greatly mend matters by leaving out Stigand and the Earls, and seemingly putting Stigand’s predecessor Robert in his stead. Archbishop Robert is made to cross from England into Normandy. They doubtless had in their minds the time when Robert really did cross from England into Normandy. But that perilous passage was not made on the King’s errand or on any errand at all; it was the hurried flight of a public enemy, hastening to save himself from the vengeance of the English people (see vol. ii. p. 331). The story as regards Stigand, Godwine, Leofric, and Siward is manifestly impossible; it is no less impossible as regards Harold. We have already seen that during the whole time that Harold answered the description given of him by the Norman writers as the richest and most powerful Earl in England, the succession was, practically if not formally, determined in favour, first of the Ætheling Eadward and then of Harold himself. The tale that Eadward sent Harold, or that Harold consented to go, on an errand which shut out himself and every other Englishman from all hope of succession to the Crown, is simply absurd and impossible.

2. The second version, that in which Harold goes, not to guarantee the succession to William, but to bring back the supposed hostages, his brother and nephew, involves quite another view of the alleged bequest to William. In this account, there is no mention of any formal act of the Witan, none of any oaths of Bishops and Earls, none even of any act of the King himself, after he became King. It comes out incidentally that Eadward is said to have, years before, privately promised the Crown to William. And the only evidence for this private conversation between Eadward and William is another alleged private conversation between William and Harold. Yet this story is, as I have before said (see vol. ii. p. 302), less grotesquely absurd than the former one, and it rests on better authority. It is the version followed by two most valuable English writers of the next generation, namely Eadmer and Simeon of Durham. The narrative of Simeon, we cannot doubt, was borrowed from the narrative of Eadmer, whose exact words he follows through a great part of the story. And the appearance of the story at all in Simeon’s History is remarkable. Simeon had copied from Florence, with the change or addition of two or three words only, the narrative of the election of Harold, of the two invasions, of the two battles, of the death of Harold and the coronation of William. It then perhaps occurred to him that Florence’s narrative contained no statement whatever of any motive for William’s invasion. Simeon therefore (1066) starts as it were afresh, with the introduction, “Ut autem sciatur origo caussae quâ Willelmus Angliam bello appetiit, breviter quæ paullò ante gesta sunt repetantur.” He then goes on to the same effect as Eadmer. The hostages, Wulfnoth and Hakon (“Wlnothus filius Godwini et Hacun filius Suani filii sui”), are given by Godwine to Eadward at their reconciliation, and they are given by Eadward to Duke William for safe-keeping. Some time after Godwine’s death, Harold, now in possession of his father’s Earldom (“Godwinus ... malâ morte”—Eadmer, 4. Simeon says only “quum esset mortuus”—“post breve tempus interiit, et Haraldus filius ejus comitatum _Cantiæ_ patri succedens obtinuit. Is, elapso modico tempore,” &c.), asks leave of the King to go over to Normandy and bring back the hostages. Eadward says that he may go, but warns him against going. He is sure that, if he goes, some harm and shame will happen to him and to England. He knows Duke William well enough to be sure that he will never let the hostages go, unless he can get some gain by so doing (“Hoc non fiet per me; verumtamen ne videar te velle impedire, permitto ut eas quo vis ac experiare quid possis. Præsentio tamen te in nihil aliud tendere nisi in detrimentum totius Anglici regni et opprobrium tui. Nec enim ita novi Comitem mentis expertem ut eos aliquatenus velit concedere tibi si non præscierit in hoc magnum proficuum sui”). Harold however thinks himself wiser than the King (“suo quam Regis consilio credens”), and sets out. He is shipwrecked, imprisoned by Guy (“pro ritu loci, captivitati addicitur”), and delivered and honourably received by William. He presently sets forth to the Duke the cause of his journey. William tells him that it will be his own fault if the matter does not turn out well (“bene quidem rem processuram si in ipso non remaneret”). After a few days, the Duke sets forth his own mind to the Englishman. When he and Eadward were living together as youths in Normandy, Eadward promised him that, if he should ever obtain the Crown of England, he would make it over to him as his heir (“Regem Edwardum, quando secum juvene olim juvenis in Normanniâ demoraretur, sibi, interpositâ fide suâ pollicitum fuisse, quia, si Rex Angliæ foret, jus regni in illum jure hæreditario post se transferret”). If Harold would swear to support this disposal of the Crown, and would bind himself by other engagements which I shall presently discuss, Hakon should be released at once and Wulfnoth as soon as William had mounted the English throne (“tunc et modò nepotem tuum, et quum in Angliam regnaturus venero, fratrem tuum incolumem recipies”). Harold, feeling himself in a strait from which he knows not how to escape, swears to all that was required of him (“sensit Haraldus in his periculum undique, nec intellexit quà evaderet, nisi in omnibus istis voluntati Willelmi adquiesceret. Adquievit itaque” &c.). He returns to England with Hakon, and tells the whole story to Eadward, who reminds him of his own warning (“nonne dixi tibi, ait, me Willelmum nôsse, et in illo itinere tuo plurima mala huic regno contingere posse”). Eadward soon afterwards dies, and Harold, according to Eadward’s own wishes, succeeds him. See above, p. 586.

I have already (see above, p. 219, and vol. ii. p. 302) made some remarks on this story, a story which is plainly of English invention. Eadward’s intentions in favour of William are cut down to a rash promise in his youth, of which no one seems to know anything except Eadward and William themselves. Eadward’s present intentions are plainly in favour of Harold, and perfect confidence and cordiality are implied as reigning between the King and the Earl. But, as I have already said, this view of Eadward’s promise will not stand the test of chronology. There was no time when Eadward and William lived together as youths of equal age. When Eadward left Normandy in 1041, William was thirteen or fourteen years old, Eadward perhaps thirty-eight. A private promise of this kind seems most unlikely to have happened between them, though, as I have already said (see vol. ii. p. 523), William’s counsellors may have been already reckoning the chances of William’s succession. The story of Wulfnoth and Hakon being given as hostages for Godwine’s good behaviour on Godwine’s triumphant return is quite inconsistent (see above, p. 221) with the true narrative of that return. Still less can we accept the story of William of Poitiers (see above, p. 668) that Wulfnoth and Hakon were given as hostages, not for Godwine’s good behaviour towards Eadward, but for the carrying out of the imaginary act of the English Witan in favour of William. My own belief is that there were no English hostages at all in the hands of William at the time when Harold came into Normandy. But I think it is not hard to see how the story of the hostages arose. It is certain that Wulfnoth was kept as a prisoner by William, and that his imprisonment began early in life. William, on his death-bed (see Florence, 1087), set free various prisoners, both English and Norman, and among them “Wlnothum Regis Haroldi germanum, quern a pueritiâ tenuerat in custodiâ.” This of course might only mean that Wulfnoth was imprisoned after William’s coming to England, as must have been the case with Harold’s son Wulf, whom Florence speaks of directly after. But it is also quite consistent with the statement that he was left behind as a hostage by Harold. That he was so left is affirmed by Eadmer and Simeon in the passage just quoted. It is also implied by William of Poitiers, when he says (111) that, of his two supposed hostages, one, namely Hakon, was allowed to return with his uncle (“quinetiam fratruelis ejus, alter obses, cum ipso redux propter ipsum redditus est”). But moreover William of Jumièges, who says nothing about Hakon or about any earlier giving of hostages, says (vii. 31) that Wulfnoth was left as a hostage; “Postremò ipsum [Heraldum] cum multis muneribus Regi remisit [Willelmus], et pulcrum adolescentem Wlnotum fratrem ejus obsidem retinuit.” In this he is followed by Benoît (36640);

“Heraut out un frere danzel,
Que n’estoveit querre plus bel;
Vuilnoth out non, corteis e sage;
Cel laissa au Duc en ostage.”