Chapter III: The First Wars of William Rufus (4)

There was thus peace between Conches and Evreux, a peace which does not seem to have been again broken. Ten years later, in a time of renewed licence, we find the two brothers joining in a private war against Count Robert of Meulan.[751] Eight years later again, when Count William and his Countess were busy building a monastery at Noyon, they fell under the displeasure of King Henry, and died in banishment in the land of Anjou.[752] Ralph of Toesny was succeeded by his son the younger Ralph, and Isabel, after a long widowhood, withdrew as a penitent to atone for the errors of her youth, one would think of her later days also, in a life of religion.[753]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Orderic’s picture of Normandy.]

[Sidenote: His English feelings.]

It is after recording the war of Conches and the sack of Rouen that the monk of Saint Evroul takes up his parable to set forth the general wretchedness of Normandy in the blackest colours with which the pictures of Hebrew prophets and Latin poets could furnish him. And it is Orderic the Englishman[754] that speaks. In his Norman cell he never forgot that he first drew breath by the banks of the Severn. In his eyes the woes of Normandy were the righteous punishment for the wrongs of England. The proud people who had gloried in their conquest, who had slain or driven out the native sons of the land, who had taken to themselves their possessions and commands, were now themselves bowed down with sorrows. The wealth which they had stolen from others served now not to their delight but to their torment.[755] Normandy, like Babylon, had now to drink of the same cup of tribulation, of which she had given others to drink even to drunkenness. A Fury without a curb raged through the land, and smote down its inhabitants. The clergy, the monks, the unarmed people, everywhere wept and groaned. None were glad save thieves and robbers, and they were not long to be glad.[756] And so he follows out the same strain through a crowd of prophetic images, the locust, the mildew, and every other instrument of divine wrath. We admit the aptness of his parallel when he tells us that in those days there was no king nor duke in the Norman Jerusalem; we are less able to follow the analogy when he adds that the rebellious folk sacrificed at Dan and Bethel to the golden calves of Jeroboam.[757] At last, when his stock of metaphors is worn out, he goes back to his story to tell the same tale of crime and sorrow in other parts of the Norman duchy.[758]

§ 3. _Personal Coming of William Rufus._

1091.

[Sidenote: Christmas Gemót at Westminster. 1090.]

[Sidenote: The King crosses to Normandy. February, 1091.]

[Sidenote: Duke Robert helps Robert of Bellême.]

[Sidenote: Hugh of Grantmesnil and Richard of Courcy.]

In a general view of the state of affairs, William Rufus had lost much more by the check of his plans at Rouen than he could gain by any successes of his Norman allies at Conches. The attempt of the Count of Evreux on the castle of his new vassal had been baffled; but his own far greater scheme, the scheme by which he had hoped to win the capital of Normandy, had been baffled also. It may have been this failure which led the King to see that his own presence was needed beyond the sea. The Christmas Gemót of the year was held, not, as usual, at Gloucester, but at Westminster. At Candlemas the King crossed to Normandy with a great fleet.[759] The two things are mentioned together, as if to imply that a further sanction of the assembled Witan was given to this new stage of the war. War indeed between William and Robert there was none. It does not seem that a single blow was struck to withstand the invader. But blows were given and taken in Normandy throughout the winter with as much zeal as ever. And this time Duke Robert himself was helping to give and take them. Stranger than all, he was giving and taking them in the character of an ally of Robert of Bellême against men who seem to have done nothing but defend themselves against the attacks of the last-named common enemy of mankind. Old Hugh of Grantmesnil, once the Conqueror’s lieutenant at Winchester and afterwards his Sheriff of Leicestershire,[760] was connected by family ties with Richard of Courcy,[761] and the spots from which they took their names, in the diocese of Seez, between the Dive and the Oudon, lay at no great distance from one another. They thus lay between Earl Roger’s own Montgomery[762] and a series of new fortresses on the Orne and the neighbouring streams, by which Earl Roger’s son hoped to extend his power over the whole land of Hiesmes.[763] Hugh and Richard strengthened themselves against the tyrant――such is the name which Robert bears――gathering their allies and putting their castles in a state of defence. Their united forces were too much for the lord of Bellême. He sought help from his sovereign, and the Duke, who was not allowed to strike a blow for his own Rouen, appeared as the besieger of Courcy, no less than of Brionne. He who had fought to turn the tyrant out of Ballon and Saint Cenery now fought to put Courcy into the tyrant’s power.

[Sidenote: Siege of Courcy. January, 1091.]

[Sidenote: News of William’s coming. February.]

[Sidenote: The siege raised.]

[Sidenote: Men flock to William from all parts.]

[Sidenote: Treaty of Caen. 1091.]

The siege of Courcy began in January.[764] At the end of the month or the beginning of the next, a piece of news came which caused the Duke and the other besiegers to cease from their work. Robert himself could see that there was something else to be done besides making war on Hugh of Grantmesnil on behalf of Robert of Bellême, when the King of the English was in his own person on Norman ground. The host before Courcy broke up; some doubtless went to their own homes;[765] but we may suspect that some found their way to Eu. For there it was that King William had fixed his quarters; there the great men of Normandy were gathering around him. They did not come empty-handed. They welcomed the King with royal gifts; but it was to receive far greater gifts in return. Thither too men were flocking to him, not only from Normandy, but from France, Flanders, Britanny, and all the neighbouring lands. And all who came went away saying that the King of the English was a far richer and more bountiful lord than any of their own princes.[766] In such a state of things it was useless for Robert to think of meeting his brother in arms. His only hope was to save some part of his dominions by negotiation before the whole Norman land had passed into the hands of the island king. A treaty of peace was concluded, by which Robert kept his capital and the greater part of his duchy, but by which William was established as a powerful and dangerous continental neighbour, hemming in what was left of Normandy on every side.

[Sidenote: Cession of Norman territory to William.]

[Sidenote: Their geographical aspect.]

[Sidenote: Cession of Fécamp and Cherbourg.]

The treaty was agreed to, seemingly under the mediation of the King of the French, in a meeting of the rival brothers at Caen.[767] The territorial cession made by Robert mainly took the form of recognizing the commendations which so many Norman nobles had made to the Red King. They had sought him to lord, and their lord he was to be. The fiefs held by the lords of Eu, Aumale, Gournay, and Conches, and all others who had submitted to William, passed away from Robert. They were to be held of the King of the English, under what title, if any, does not appear. To hold a fief of William Rufus meant something quite different from holding a fief of Robert. The over-lordship of Robert meant nothing at all; it did not hinder his vassal from making war at pleasure either on his lord or on any fellow-vassal. But the over-lordship of William Rufus, like that of his father, meant real sovereignty; the lords who submitted to him had given themselves a master. If any of them had a mind to live in peace, their chance certainly became greater; in any case the dread of William’s power, combined with the attractions of the rich hoard which was so freely opened, might account for the sacrifice of a wild independence. The territory thus ceded to the east, the lands of Eu, Aumale, and Gournay, involved a complete surrender of the eastern frontier of the duchy. The addition of the lands of Conches formed an outpost to the south. Rouen was thus hemmed in on two sides. But this was not enough, in the ideas of the Red King, to secure a scientific frontier. The lord of the island realm must hold some points to strengthen his approach to the mainland, something better than the single port of Eu in one corner of the duchy. Robert had therefore to surrender two points of coast which had not, as far as we have heard, been occupied by William or by his Norman allies. Rouen was to be further hemmed in to the north-west, by the cession of Fécamp, abbey and palace. The occupation of this point had the further advantage for William that it put a check on the districts which had been kept for Robert by Helias of Saint-Saen. These were now threatened by Fécamp on one side and by Eu and Aumale on the other. And William’s demands on the Duke of the Normans contained one clause which could be carried out only at the cost of the Count of the Côtentin. Henry’s fortress of Cherbourg, not so long before strengthened by him,[768] was also to pass to William. So early was the art known by which a more powerful prince, with no ground to show except his own will, claims the right to shut out a weaker prince or people from the seaboard which nature has designed for them.

[Sidenote: William demands Saint Michael’s Mount.]

[Sidenote: Money paid to Robert.]

[Sidenote: The lost dominions of the Conqueror to be restored to Robert.]

[Sidenote: Projected recovery of Maine.]

Besides Cherbourg, the Red King demanded the island fortress of Saint Michael’s Mount, the abbey in peril of the sea. Otherwise he seems to have claimed nothing in the west of Normandy. Robert might reign, if he could, over the lands which his father had brought into submission on the day of Val-ès-Dunes. Nor were the great cessions which Robert made to be wholly without recompence. It might be taken for granted that the Duke whose territories were thus cut off was to have some compensation in another shape out of the wealth of England. So it was; vast gifts were given by the lord of the hoard at Winchester to the pauper prince at Rouen.[769] But he was not to be left without territorial compensation also. William not only undertook to bring under Robert’s obedience all those who were in arms against him throughout Normandy; he further undertook to win back for him all the dominions which their father had ever held, except those lands which, by the terms of the treaty, were to fall to William himself. This involved a very considerable enlargement of Robert’s dominions, besides turning his nominal rule into a reality in the lands where he was already sovereign in name. It was aimed at lands both within and without the bounds of the Norman duchy. Maine, city and county, was again in revolt against its Norman lords.[770] By this clause of the treaty William bound himself to recover Maine for Robert. This obligation he certainly never even attempted to fulfil. He did not meddle with Maine till the Norman lord and the English King were again one. Then the recovery of Maine, or at least of its capital, became one of the chief objects of his policy.

[Sidenote: Henry to be despoiled of the Côtentin.]

[Sidenote: Character of the agreement.]

[Sidenote: Henry attacked at once.]

But this clause had also a more remarkable application. Its terms were to be brought to bear on one nearer by blood and neighbourhood to both the contending princes than either Cenomannian counts or Cenomannian citizens. The terms of the treaty amounted to a partition of the dominions of the Count of the Côtentin between his two brothers. Cherbourg and Saint Michael’s Mount were, as we have seen, formally assigned to William, and the remainder of Henry’s principality certainly came under the head of lands which had been held by William the Great and which the treaty did not assign to William the Red. As such they were to be won back for Robert by the help of William. That is to say, William and Robert agreed to divide between themselves the territory which Henry had fairly bought with money from Robert. No agreement could be more unprincipled. As between prince and prince, no title could be better than Henry’s title to his county; while, if the welfare of the people of Coutances and Avranches was to be thought of, the proposed change meant their transfer from a prince who knew the art of ruling to a prince whose nominal rule was everywhere simple anarchy. Neither Robert nor William was likely to be troubled with moral scruples; neither was likely to think much of the terms of a bargain and sale; but one might have expected that Robert would have felt some thankfulness to his youngest brother for his ready help in putting down the rebellious movement at Rouen.[771] William might indeed on that same account look on Henry as an enemy; but such enmity could hardly be decently professed in a treaty of alliance between Robert and William. We may perhaps believe that the chief feeling which the affair of Rouen had awakened in Robert’s mind was rather mortification than gratitude. A brother who had acted so vigorously when he himself was not allowed to act at all was dangerous as a neighbour or as a vassal. The memory of his services was humiliating; it was not well to have a brother so near at hand, and in command of so powerful a force, a brother who, if he had at one moment hastened to his elder brother’s defence, might at some other moment come with equal speed on an opposite errand. But whatever were their motives, King and Duke agreed to rob their youngest brother of his dominions. And the importance which was attached to this part of the treaty is shown by the speed and energy with which it was carried out. While the recovery of Maine was delayed or forgotten, the recovery of the Côtentin was the first act of the contracting princes after the conclusion of the treaty.

[Sidenote: Probable objects of William.]

[Sidenote: Settlement of the English and Norman succession.]

[Sidenote: William and Robert to succeed one another.]

[Sidenote: Constitutional aspect of the agreement.]

[Sidenote: Growth of the hereditary principle,]

[Sidenote: and of the doctrine of legitimacy.]

[Sidenote: The two Æthelings]

[Sidenote: Henry;]

[Sidenote: Eadgar.]

[Sidenote: Eadgar banished from Normandy.]

[Sidenote: William’s policy towards]

[Sidenote: Henry and Eadgar.]

[Sidenote: Eadgar goes to Scotland.]

But, when we look to some other terms of the treaty, it is possible that, in the mind of William at least, the spoliation of Henry had a deeper object. One purpose of the treaty was to settle the succession both to the kingdom of England and to the duchy of Normandy. Neither the imperial crown nor the ducal coronet had at this moment any direct and undoubted heir, according to any doctrine of succession. Both William and Robert were at this time unmarried; Robert had more than one illegitimate child; no children of William Rufus are recorded at any time. The treaty provided that, if either King or Duke died without lawful issue during the lifetime of his brother, the survivor should succeed to his dominions. I have spoken elsewhere of the constitutional aspect of this agreement.[772] It was an attempt to barter away beforehand the right of the Witan of England to bestow the crown of a deceased king on whatever successor they thought good. And, like all such attempts, before and after, till the great act of settlement which put an end to the nineteen years’ anarchy,[773] it came to nothing. But that such an agreement should have been made shows what fresh strength had been given by the Norman Conquest to the whole class of ideas of which the doctrine of hereditary succession to kingdoms forms a part.[774] But, putting this view of the matter aside, the objects of the provision, as a family compact, were obvious. It was William’s manifest interest to shut out Robert’s sons from any share in the inheritance of their father. This was easily done. The stricter doctrine of legitimacy of birth was fast growing.[775] It was but unwillingly that Normandy had, sixty years earlier, acknowledged the bastard of an earlier Robert; it was most unlikely that Normandy would submit to a bastard of the present Robert, while there yet lived lawful sons of him who had made the name of Bastard glorious. Robert, on the other hand, might not be unwilling to give up so faint a chance on the part of his own children, in order to be himself declared presumptive heir to the crown of England. But there were others to be shut out, one of whom at least was far more dangerous than the natural sons of Robert. There were then in Normandy two men who bore the English title of Ætheling, one of the old race, one of the new; one whom Englishmen had once chosen as the last of the old race, another to whom Englishmen looked as the first of the new race who had any claim to the privileges of kingly birth. We must always remember that, in English eyes, Henry, the son of a crowned King of the English, born of his crowned Lady on English ground, had a claim which was not shared by his brothers, foreign born sons of a mere Norman Duke and Duchess.[776] The kingly and native birth of Henry might put his claims at least on a level with those of Eadgar, who, male heir of Ecgberht and Cerdic as he was, was born of uncrowned parents in a foreign land.[777] Indeed it might seem that by this time all thoughts of a restoration of the West-Saxon house had passed out of the range of practical politics, and that the claims of Eadgar were no longer entitled to a thought. The Red King however seems to have deemed otherwise. He was clearly determined to secure himself against the remotest chances of danger. Henry was to be despoiled; Eadgar was to be banished. Eadgar had come back from Apulia;[778] he was now living in Normandy on terms of the closest friendship with the Duke, who had enriched him with grants of land, and, as we have seen, admitted him to his inmost counsels.[779] We know not whether Eadgar had given the Red King any personal offence, or whether William was simply jealous of him as a possible rival for the crown. At any rate, whether by a formal clause of the treaty or not, he called on Robert to confiscate Eadgar’s Norman estates and to make him leave his dominions.[780] Neither towards Henry nor towards Eadgar would the policy of William Rufus seem to have been wise; but sound policy, in any high sense, was not one of the attributes of William Rufus. Whatever may be said of Henry’s relations towards Normandy, he was more likely to plot against his brother of England if he became a landless wanderer than if he remained Count of Coutances and Avranches. As for Eadgar, it might possibly have been a gain if he could have been sent back to Apulia or provided for in his native Hungary. As it was, he straightway betook himself to a land where he was likely to be far more dangerous than he could ever be in Normandy. As in the days of William the Great,[781] he went at once to the court of his brother-in-law of Scotland.[782] It may be that William presently saw that he had taken a false step in the treatment of both the Æthelings. At a later time we shall see both Henry and Eadgar enjoying his full favour and confidence.

[Sidenote: The followers of each side to be restored.]

[Sidenote: The rebels of 1088 to be restored.]

The man before whose eyes the crown of England had twice been dangled in mockery, and the man who was hereafter to grasp that crown with a grasp like that of the Conqueror himself, were thus both doomed to be for the moment despoiled of lands and honours. To men of less exalted degree the treaty was more favourable. King and Duke alike, so far to the credit of both of them, stipulated for the safety and restoration of their several partisans in the dominions of the other. All supporters of William in any of those parts of Normandy which were not to be ceded to him were to suffer no harm at the hands of Robert. And, what was much more important, all those who had lost their lands in England three years before on account of their share in the rebellion on behalf of Robert were to have their lands back again. An exception, formal or practical, must have been made in the case of Bishop Odo. He certainly was not restored to his earldom of Kent.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The treaty sworn to.]

[Sidenote: It stands but a little while.]

[Sidenote: William and Robert march against Henry. Lent, 1091.]

[Sidenote: Henry’s position.]

[Sidenote: Earl Hugh of Chester and others betray their castles to William.]

[Sidenote: Henry takes up his quarters at Saint Michael’s Mount.]

[Sidenote: The buildings on the Mount.]

[Sidenote: Abbot Roger. 1085.]

[Sidenote: The monks welcome Henry.]

The treaty was sworn to by twelve chief men on each side.[783] The English Chronicler remarks, with perfect truth, that it stood but a little while.[784] But one part at least was carried out at once and with great vigour. Within less than a month after William had landed in Normandy to dispossess Robert, he and Robert marched together to dispossess Henry. They spent their Lent in besieging him in his last stronghold. When the Count of Coutances heard of the coalition against him, he made ready for a vigorous resistance. He put his two cities of Coutances and Avranches and his other fortresses into a state of defence, and gathered a force, Norman and Breton, to garrison them.[785] Britanny indeed was the only quarter from which he received any help in his struggle.[786] Those who seemed to be his firmest friends turned against him. Even Earl Hugh of Chester, the foremost man in the land from which his father had taken his name,[787] had no mind to jeopard his great English palatinate for the sake of keeping his paternal Avranches in the obedience of the Ætheling. Henry’s other supporters, Richard of Redvers, it is to be supposed, among them, were of the same mind. They saw no hope that Henry could withstand the might, above all the wealth, of Rufus; they accordingly surrendered their fortresses into the King’s hands.[788] One stronghold only was now left to Henry, one of the two which had been specially marked out to be taken from him, the monastic fortress of Saint Michael. The sacred mount was then famous and venerable through all Normandy, and far beyond the bounds of Normandy. Of that vast and wondrous pile of buildings, halls, cloister, church, buildings which elsewhere stand side by side, but which here are heaped one upon another, little could then have been standing. The minster itself, which crowns all, had begun to be rebuilt seventy years before by the Abbot Hildebert,[789] and it may be that some parts of his work have lived through the natural accidents of the next age[790] and the destruction and disfigurement of later times. But the series of pillared halls, knightly and monastic, which give its special character to the abbey of the Mount, are all of far later date than the war of the three brothers. Yet the house of the warrior archangel was already at once knightly and monastic. The reigning abbot Roger was, in strict ecclesiastical eyes, a prelate of doubtful title. He had come in――as countless other bishops and abbots of Normandy and England had come in――less by free election of the monks than by the will of the great Duke and King.[791] What personal share Roger took in the struggle is not recorded; but some at least of his monks, like the monks of Ely in the days of Hereward,[792] welcomed the small body of followers who still clave to Henry, and at whose head he now took up his last position of defence in the island sanctuary.[793]

[Sidenote: Siege of the Mount.]

[Sidenote: Lent, 1091.]

[Sidenote: Its position.]

[Sidenote: The inner bay.]

[Sidenote: Later sieges. 1417-1424.]

[Sidenote: No mention of ships.]

[Sidenote: Positions of the besiegers.]

[Sidenote: Character of the siege.]

[Sidenote: Combats]

Here Henry was besieged by his two brothers, Duke and King. Yet we hear of nothing which can in strictness be called a siege. The Mount stands in the mouth of a bay within a bay. At high water it is strictly an island; at low water it is surrounded by a vast wilderness of sand――those treacherous sands from which thirty years before Harold had rescued the soldiers of the elder William[794], and which stretch back as far as the rocks of Cancale on the Breton shore. In this sense the bay of Saint Michael may be counted to stretch from Cancale to the opposite point on the Norman coast, where the land begins to bend inwards to form the narrower bay. This last may be counted to stretch from the mouth of the border stream of Coesnon below Pontorson to Genetz lying on the coast nearly due west from Avranches. The Mount itself and its satellite the smaller rock of Tombelaine lie nearly in a straight line between these two points. Alternately inaccessible by land and by water, accessible by land at any time only by certain known routes at different points, the Mount would seem to be incapable of direct attack by any weapons known in the eleventh century. On the other hand, it would be easy to cut it off from all communication with the outer world by the occupation of the needful points on the shore and by the help of a blockading fleet. And in the great siege three hundred and thirty years later――when Normandy had again a kingly duke of the blood of Rolf and Henry, but when the Mount clave to the King of Paris or of Bourges――we hear both of the blockading fleet of England and of the series of posts with which the shore was lined. Without a fleet the Mount could hardly be said to be besieged; but, on the other hand, its insular position would be of no use to its defenders, unless they had either ships at command or friends beyond sea. In the present case we hear nothing of ships on either side, nor of any help coming to the besieged. Nor do we hear of any systematic occupation of the whole coast. We hear only that the besiegers occupied two points which commanded the two sides of the inner bay, On the north the Duke took up his quarters at Genetz; to the south the besiegers occupied Arderon, not far from the mouth of the Coesnon, while King William of England established himself in the central position of Avranches.[795] The siege thus became an affair of endless small attacks and skirmishes. We hear of the plundering expeditions which Henry was able to make into the lands of Avranches and even of Coutances, lands which had once been his own, but which had now become hostile ground.[796] We hear too how, before each of the extreme points occupied by the besiegers, before Genetz and before Arderon, the knights on both sides met every day in various feats of arms, feats, it would seem, savouring rather of the bravado of the tourney than of any rational military purpose.[797]

[Sidenote: Personal anecdotes.]

[Sidenote: William compared to Alexander.]

[Sidenote: Knight-errantry of William.]

[Sidenote: The King upset.]

[Sidenote: His treatment of the knight who unhorsed him.]

We now get, in the shape of those personal anecdotes in which this reign is so rich, pictures of more than one side of the strangely mixed character of the Red King. At the other end of Normandy William had won lands and castles without dealing a single blow with his own sword, and with a singularly small outlay of blows from the swords of others. At Eu, at Aumale, and at Gournay, the work had been done with gold far more than with steel. Beneath Saint Michael’s Mount steel was to have its turn; and, when steel was the metal to be used, William Rufus was sure to be in his own person the foremost among those who used it. The change of scene seemed to have turned the wary trafficker into the most reckless of knights errant. Amidst such scenes he became, in the eyes of his own age, the peer of the most renowned of those Nine Worthies the tale of whom was made up only in his own day. We shall see at a later stage how the question was raised whether the soul of the Dictator Cæsar had not passed into the body of the Red King; by the sands of Saint Michael’s bay he was held to have placed himself on a level with the Macedonian Alexander. The likeness could hardly be carried on through the general military character of the two princes; for Alexander, when he began an enterprise, commonly carried it on to the end. And it may be doubted whether Alexander ever jeoparded his own life in the senseless way in which Rufus in the tale is made to jeopard his. We must picture to ourselves the royal head-quarters between the height of Avranches and the sands of Saint Michael’s bay. The King goes forth from his tent, and mounts the horse which he had that morning bought for fifteen marks of silver.[798] He sees the enemy at a distance riding proudly towards him. Alone, waiting for no comrade, borne on both by eagerness for the fray and by the belief that no one would dare to withstand a king face to face, he gallops forward and charges the advancing party.[799] The newly bought horse is killed; the King falls under him; he is ignominiously dragged along by the foot, but the strength of his chain-armour saves him from any actual wound.[800] By this time the knight who had unhorsed him has his hand on the hilt of his sword, ready to deal a deadly blow. William, frightened by the extremity of his danger, cries out, “Hold, rascal, I am the King of England.”[801] The words had that kind of magic effect which is so often wrought by the personal presence of royalty. From any rational view of the business in hand, to slay, or better still to capture, the hostile king should have been the first object of every man in Henry’s garrison. To no case better applied the wise order of the Syrian monarch, “Fight neither with small nor great, save only with the King of Israel.”[802] But as soon as a voice which some at least of them knew proclaimed that it was a king who lay helpless among them, every arm was stayed. The soldiers of Henry tremble at the thought of what they were so near doing; with all worship they raise the King from the ground and bring him another horse.[803] William springs unaided on his back; he casts a keen glance on the band around him,[804] and asks, “Who unhorsed me?” As they were muttering one to another, the daring man who had done the deed came forward and said, “I, who took you, not for a king but for a knight.” A bold answer was never displeasing to Rufus; he looked approval, and said, “By the face of Lucca,[805] you shall be mine; your name shall be written in my book,[806] and you shall receive the reward of good service.” Here the story ends; we are to suppose that William, instead of being carried a prisoner to the Mount, rode back free to Avranches, having lessened the small force of Henry by a stout knight and two horses.

[Sidenote: Character of the story.]

[Sidenote: Comparison with Richard the First.]

The tale is told as an example of the magnanimity of the Red King. And there is something which moves a kind of admiration in the picture of a man, helpless among a crowd of enemies, yet bearing himself as if they were his prisoners, instead of his being theirs. The point of the story is that Rufus did no harm, that he felt no ill will, towards the man who had unhorsed, and all but killed him; that he honoured his bold deed and bold bearing, and promised him favour and promotion. But had the soldiers of Henry done their duty, William would have had no opportunity, at least no immediate opportunity, of doing either good or harm to his antagonist. William assumes that the enemy will not dare to withstand him, and his assumption is so far justified that he is withstood only by one who knows not who he is, and whose words imply that, if he had known, he would not have ventured to withstand him. Trusting to this kind of superstitious dread, William is able to speak and act as he might have spoken if the man who unhorsed him had been brought before him in his own tent. Richard of the Lion-heart, when the archer who had given him his death-wound was brought before him, first designed him for a death of torture, and then, on hearing a bold answer, granted him life and freedom.[807] In this, as in some other cases, the Red King, the earliest model of chivalry, certainly does not lose by comparison with the successor who is more commonly looked on as its ideal.[808]

[Sidenote: Contrast between William and Robert.]

[Sidenote: Lack of water on the Mount.]

[Sidenote: Henry asks to be allowed to take water.]

[Sidenote: Answer of Robert and William.]

Another and perhaps better known story which is told of this siege puts the character of William Rufus in another light, while it brings out the character of Robert in a lively form. The Duke, heedless of the consequences of his acts but not cruel in his own person, was, above all men, open to those passing bursts of generosity which are quite consistent with utter weakness and want of principle. William Rufus was always open to an appeal to his knightly generosity, to that higher form of self-assertion which forbade him to harm one who was beneath him, and which taught him to admire a bold deed or word even when directed against himself. But the ties of kindred, still more the ties of common humanity, sat very lightly on him. The gentler soul of Robert was by no means dead to them. He did not shrink from waging an unjust war against his brother and deliverer; he did not shrink from despoiling that brother and deliverer of dominions which he had sold to him by his own act for a fair price; but he did shrink from the thought of letting the brother against whom he warred suffer actual bodily hardships when he could hinder them. The defenders of the Mount had, according to one account, plenty of meat; but all our narratives agree as to the difficulty of providing fresh water for the fortress which twice in the day was surrounded by the waves.[809] Henry sent a message to the Duke, praying that he might be allowed access to fresh water; his brothers might, if they thought good, make war on him by the valour of their soldiers; they should not press the powers of nature into their service, or deprive him of those gifts of Providence which were open to all human beings.[810] Robert was moved; he gave orders to the sentinels at Genetz not to hinder the besieged from coming to the mainland for water.[811] One version even adds that he added the further gift of a tun of the best wine.[812] This kind of generosity, where no appeal was made to his own personal pride, was by no means to the taste of Rufus; as a commander carrying on war, he was ready to press the rights of warfare to the uttermost. When he heard what Robert had done, he mocked at his brother’s weakness; it was a fine way of making war to give the enemy meat and drink.[813] Robert answered, in words which do him honour, but which would have done him more honour if they had been spoken at the beginning as a reason for forbearing an unjust attack on his brother――“Shall we let our brother die of thirst? Where shall we find another, if we lose him?”[814]

[Sidenote: Henry surrenders.]

[Sidenote: William at Eu.]

[Sidenote: He goes back to England. August, 1091.]

Such are these two famous stories of the war waged beneath the mount of the Archangel. Both are eminently characteristic; there is no reason why both may not be true. But we must withhold our belief when one of our tale-tellers adds that William turned away from the siege in contempt for Robert’s weakness.[815] A more sober guide tells us that when, for fifteen days, Henry and his followers had held up against lack of water and threatening lack of food,[816] the wary youth saw the hopelessness of further resistance, and offered to surrender the Mount on honourable terms. He demanded a free passage for himself and his garrison. William, already tired of a siege in which he had made little progress and which had cost him many men and horses,[817] gladly accepted the terms. Henry, still Ætheling, though no longer Count, marched forth from his island stronghold with all the honours of war.[818] We are to suppose that, according to the terms of the treaty, the King took possession of the Mount itself, and the Duke of the rest of Henry’s former county. William stayed on the mainland, in the parts of Normandy which had been ceded to him, for full six months, having his head-quarters at Eu.[819] In August the affairs of his island kingdom called him back again; and, strange to say, both his brothers went with him as his guests and allies.[820]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Fortunes of Henry.]

[Sidenote: His presence in England in 1091.]

[Sidenote: Story of Henry’s adventures.]

[Sidenote: His alleged wanderings.]

[Sidenote: Robert and Henry accompany William to England.]

At this moment the past and the future alike lead us to look with more interest on the fates of the dispossessed Ætheling than on those of any other of the actors in our story. But there is at first sight some little difficulty in finding out what those fates were. From our English authorities we could only gather that Henry was in England before the end of the year in which the siege took place, and that three years later he was again beyond sea, in favour with William and at enmity with Robert. From other writers we get a version, which takes no notice of any visit to England, but which gives us a moving tale of Henry’s experiences in Normandy and the neighbouring lands. It is one of those cases where a writer, telling his own part of the story, altogether forgets, perhaps without formally contradicting, other parts. In such a case he is likely to stumble in some of his dates and details; but this need not lead us altogether to cast aside the main features of his story. It is plain that, for some time after the surrender of the Mount, Henry was, to say the least, landless. In the pictures of his actual distress and adversity there may well be somewhat of exaggeration; but they draw from one who is not a flatterer the important remark that, having known adversity himself, he learned to be gracious in after years to the sufferings of others.[821] We are perhaps startled by such a saying when we think of some particular acts of Henry; but this witness does not stand alone; and, among the contradictions of human nature, there is nothing impossible in the belief that such a spirit may have existed alongside of many particular acts of cruelty.[822] But it is certain that Henry’s season of adversity must have been shorter than it appears in the picture of it which is given to us. We are told that, soon after he left the Mount, he found himself very nearly a solitary wanderer. He first went into Britanny, the only land from which he had received any help, and thanked his friends there for their services. Thence he betook himself to France, and spent, we are told, nearly two years in the borderland of the Vexin, the land which had been the scene of his father’s last and fatal warfare, and which was again to be the scene of warfare before his brother’s reign was ended. There, with a train cut down to one knight, one clerk, and three esquires, Henry wandered to and fro, seeking shelter where he could.[823] Whatever truth there may be in these details, the time of Henry’s probation could not have been spread over anything like a period of two years. He may have been a wanderer during the few months which immediately followed the surrender of the Mount; but, if so, he was reconciled to both his brothers long before the end of the year. Or he may, from some unexplained reason, have again become a wanderer during some months of the following year. There is nothing in any way impossible or unlikely in either story. What is certain is that, before the end of the next year, Henry had again an establishment on Gaulish ground, and one gained in the most honourable way. And it is equally certain that when King William went back to England in the month of August in the present year he took both of his brothers with him.[824]

§ 4. _The Scottish Expedition of William Rufus._

_August-October, 1091._

[Sidenote: Affairs of Scotland.]

[Sidenote: Malcolm’s invasion of Northumberland. May, 1091.]

[Sidenote: He is driven back.]

[Sidenote: The “good men.”]

The business which called William back to his kingdom was a serious one; it was no other than to drive back or to avenge a Scottish invasion. King Malcolm, who seems to have stayed quiet during the rebellion three years before, now took up arms. We cannot help connecting this step with the visit of his brother-in-law, and the words of the Chronicler seem directly to imply that Malcolm’s invasion was the consequence of Eadgar’s coming.[825] From one version we might almost think that Malcolm had been called on to do homage and had refused.[826] This is perfectly possible in itself; but the time of William’s special occupation with Norman affairs seems oddly chosen for such a summons. An earlier time, some point in the blank period between the rebellion and the Norman campaign, would have seemed more natural for such a purpose. However this may be, now, in the month of May, Malcolm took advantage of William’s absence in Normandy to invade Northumberland for the fourth time. He designed, we are told, to go much further and do much more, words which might almost suggest a purpose of asserting the claims of Eadgar to the English crown. Whatever were his objects, they were not carried out, save one which was doubtless not the least among them, that of carrying off great spoil from Northumberland.[827] The furthest point that Malcolm reached was Chester-le-Street, a point unpleasantly near to the bishopless monks of Durham.[828] There the men in local command went against him and drove him back. In the national Chronicle they appear as “the good men who guarded this land.”[829] In this way of speaking, as in many other phrases in our own and other tongues, the word “good” means rank and office rather than moral goodness. Yet the latter idea is not wholly absent; the name would hardly be given to men who were engaged in a cause which the writer wholly condemned. The “good men” here spoken of must have been mainly Normans, with Earl Robert of Mowbray at their head. Earl Robert was not likely to have won much love from the English people. Yet he passed for a “good man,” when he did his duty for England, when he guarded the land and drove back the Scottish invader. Of any wish to put Malcolm in the place of either the elder or the younger William we see no trace at any stage of our story. Beyond this emphatic sentence, we get no details. As in so many other cases, if conquest was the object of Malcolm’s expedition, plunder was the only result.

[Sidenote: William and Robert in England. August, 1091.]

[Sidenote: Relations between Robert and Malcolm.]

[Sidenote: Stronger side of Robert and Eadgar.]

The news of this harrying of the northern part of his kingdom brought King William back from Normandy in the course of August. With him, as we have said, came Robert and Henry. Why was the Duke’s presence needed? One account hints that his coming had some reference to the actors in the late rebellion, some of whom at least were now restored to their estates.[830] Another version speaks of an old friendship between Robert and Malcolm;[831] and there was a tie of spiritual affinity between them arising out of Robert’s relation as godfather to a child of Malcolm.[832] It was perhaps in this character that Robert came to act, if need should be, as a welcome negotiator with his Scottish gossip. One strange thing is that, on more than one occasion in our story, both Robert and Eadgar, two men who seem so incapable of vigorous or rational action on behalf of themselves, play a distinctly creditable part when acting on behalf of others. But this is really no uncommon inconsistency of human nature; men are often found who are good advisers in the affairs of others, while they are by no means wise managers of their own. Robert in truth appears to most advantage anywhere out of his own duchy. Neither the warrior of the crusade nor the negotiator with the Scot seems to be the same man as the Duke who could not be trusted to defend his own palace.

[Sidenote: William sets forth.]

[Sidenote: Durham in the absence of Bishop William.]

[Sidenote: The King’s favourable treatment of the monks.]

[Sidenote: Works at Durham.]

[Sidenote: Reconciliation of Bishop William with the King.]

[Sidenote: He is restored to his bishopric. September 3, 1091.]

[Sidenote: His renewed influence with the King.]

In the present case there was more of negotiation than of warfare. Of actual fighting there seems to have been none. William got together, as his father had done in the like case,[833] a great force by land and sea for the invasion of Scotland. With the land force the King and the Duke set forth; but seemingly with no haste, as time was found for a great ecclesiastical ceremony on the way. For three years the church of Durham had been without a shepherd, and the castle of Durham had been in the hands of the King. The monks of Saint Cuthberht’s abbey had feared that this irregular time would be an evil time for them. But they put their trust in God and their patron saint, and went to the King to ask his favour. Rufus was specially gracious and merciful; he rose up to greet Prior Turgot, the head of the embassy, and he gave orders that the monks of Durham should be in no way disturbed, but should keep full possession of their rights and property, exactly as if the Bishop had remained in occupation of his see.[834] We may even venture to guess that they had a somewhat fuller possession of them during the Bishop’s absence. We are expressly told by the local historian that the Red King did not deal with Durham as he dealt with other churches; he took nothing from the monks, and even gave them something of his own.[835] The new society――for it must be remembered that the monks of Durham were a body of Bishop William’s own bringing in[836]――flourished so greatly during this irregular state of things that it was now that they built their refectory.[837] But a time of more settled order was now to come. Bishop William of Saint-Calais, whatever had been his crimes three years back, was among those whom King William had engaged by his treaty with his brother to restore to their lands and honours. Besides this general claim, it was believed, at Durham at least, that the banished prelate had earned his restoration by a signal service done to the King. In the third year of his banishment an unnamed Norman fortress was holding out for the King; but its garrison was sore pressed, and its capture by the enemy seemed imminent. The Bishop, by what means of persuasion we are not told, but it does not seem to have been by force, caused the besiegers to raise the siege.[838] This service won the King’s thorough good will, and William, on his march to Scotland, personally put the Bishop once more in possession of his see and of all its rights and belongings, temporal and spiritual.[839] Bishop William did not come back empty-handed; he brought with him costly gifts for his church, ornaments, gold and silver vessels, and, above all, many books.[840] And, at some time before the year was out, we find him confirming with great solemnity, with the witness of the great men of the realm, certain grants of the Conqueror to the monks of his church.[841] The return of the Bishop was an event not only of local but of national importance. He was restored by the King, not only to his formal favour, but to a high place in his innermost counsels. Bishop William was not one of those who come back from banishment having learned nothing and forgotten nothing. He had, in his sojourn beyond the sea, learned an altogether new doctrine as to the relations between bishops and kings.

[Sidenote: Loss of the ships. Michaelmas, 1091.]

[Sidenote: William and Malcolm by the _Scots’ Water_.]

[Sidenote: Mediation of Robert and Eadgar.]

[Sidenote: Conference of Robert and Malcolm.]

[Sidenote: Malcolm’s homage to Robert.]

[Sidenote: He submits to William.]