Chapter VI: The Last Wars of William Rufus.429 (3)

One element of the Cenomannian state, and that the highest, was thus lost to it. But at Le Mans the prince was only one element in the state; the ecclesiastical and the civic powers appear alongside of him at every stage. As soon as the Count was in the hands of the enemy, another power, perhaps not the old _commune_, yet some form of republican or municipal government, at once sprang up. Bishop Hildebert appears at the head of a council or assembly of some kind which devised measures daily for the safety of the commonwealth.[560] We must not build too much on the expressions of rhetorical writers who loved to bring in classical allusions; still, considering what Le Mans had been, a momentary burst of the old freedom is no more than we might reasonably look for. If so, the restored commonwealth had, at its first birth, to brave the full might of the younger William, as the former commonwealth had had to brave the full might of the elder. We can only tell the tale as we have it, and we have no means of connecting what was going on in Maine with what was going on at the same time in the Vexin. Yet one is a little surprised to find William, at this stage of the year, sitting quietly at Rouen, holding a council, and presently sending forth orders for the levying of a great army, as if two wars were not already waging. In his council of the Norman barons the Red King is made to express himself in a humane and devout strain. Hitherto he had been careless about winning back the heritage of his father; he had been unwilling, for the mere sake of enlarging his dominions, to trouble a peaceful population or to cause the death of human beings.[561] Now however God, who knew his right, had, without any knowledge of his, delivered his enemy into his hands; what should he do further?[562] The writers of these times do indeed allow themselves strange liberties in putting speeches, and sometimes very inappropriate speeches, into the mouths of the actors in their story. But surely to put words like these into the mouth of William Rufus, as something uttered in seriousness, would be going beyond any conceivable licence of this kind. Considering his better authenticated speeches, one is tempted to believe that we have here the memory of some mocking gibe. He, King William, had not laid waste the fields of Maine nor caused men to die of hunger in prison. It was only Robert of Bellême who had done such things. It would be quite in character with Rufus, as with Jehu, to ask, Who slew all these?[563] Nor is such brutal mockery in any way inconsistent with the display of chivalrous generosity whenever any appeal is made personally to himself in his knightly character. Anyhow we are told that the barons advised that a summons should go forth bidding the whole force of Normandy to come together for an expedition to win back the land of Maine. They themselves would come, willingly and with all daring, in their own persons.[564]

[Sidenote: Numbers of the army.]

All this reads strangely in a narrative which, a page or two before, had told us of the warfare around Gisors which, one would think, must have been going on at this very moment. But we read that the messengers went forth, and that the host came together. Not only from Normandy, but from Britanny and Flanders, from Burgundy and France――not a word as to the treason implied in this last name――men flocked to the banners of the prince who was so bountiful a paymaster.[565] At some stage of their march, an aged French warrior, a survivor of the wars of King Henry――one therefore who could remember the ambush of Varaville and the flames of Mortemer, perhaps even the clashing of lances at Val-es-dunes――Gilo de Soleio by name, beheld the host from the top of a high hill. He had seen many and great gatherings of men, but never on this side the Alps――had he fought then in Apulia or at Dyrrhachion?――had he seen so vast an army. He told the number of the men at fifty thousand.[566] Be the figures trustworthy or not as to this particular army, this is one of several hints which help to show us what passed in those days for an army of unusual numbers.[567]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The army meets at Alençon. June, 1098.]

[Sidenote: The army at Fresnay.]

[Sidenote: The castle and church of Fresnay.]

[Sidenote: Beaumont-le-Vicomte.]

[Sidenote: The Viscount Ralph asks for a truce.]

[Sidenote: Rufus grants it.]

[Sidenote: Action of Geoffrey of Mayenne.]

The trysting-place of this great host was at Alençon, the border town and fortress of Normandy, where the Sarthe divides the Norman and Cenomannian lands.[568] Once famous as the town whose people had felt so stern a vengeance for their insults to the great William, it was now a stronghold of Normandy against Maine, at all events a stronghold of Robert of Bellême against those who still maintained the cause of the captive Helias. There the army met in June.[569] Rufus, in invading Maine, was repeating an exploit of his father. He entered by the same road, and began by threatening the same fortress. The words of our authorities may lead us to think that he himself tarried at Alençon, while his army, or the bulk of it, marched to Fresnay.[570] Fresnay-le-Vicomte, Fresnay-on-Sarthe, was the first castle in Maine to which the Conqueror had laid siege, and under its walls Robert of Bellême had been girt with the belt of knighthood.[571] At that time Fresnay, along with Beaumont lower down the river, had dared to withstand the invader. Both fortresses stand on heights overlooking the Sarthe; Fresnay, seated on a limestone rock rising sheer from the stream, might seem well able to defy any enemy. Of the ancient part of the castle nothing is left but shattered walls and a stern gateway of a later age. The church, a gem of the art of an age nearly a hundred years later, contains only a small part which can have been standing in the days of Rufus. Beaumont is not mentioned in our present story. But its square keep must have already looked down on the Sarthe and its islands, while a mound on each side of the town, one seemingly artificial, one by the river-side only improved by art, may perhaps mark the sites of besieging towers raised by the Conqueror to bring town and castle into subjection.[572] The then lord of Fresnay and Beaumont, the Viscount Hubert, had at a later stage forsaken both his castles on the Sarthe, to defy, and that successfully, the whole might of William the Great from his more inaccessible donjon on the rock of Sainte-Susanne.[573] His successor, the Viscount Ralph, felt no call to run any such risks. When the army drew near to Fresnay, when no hostilities beyond a little skirmishing had as yet taken place, Ralph went to the King at Alençon and asked for a truce. He pleaded that he was but one member of a body; he could not take on himself the duties of the head of that body; he could not without dishonour be the first man in Maine to yield his castle without fighting. The council of Maine was sitting in the city; he, Ralph, was bound by their resolves; let the King go on to Le Mans and negotiate; as he should find peace or war at Le Mans, he should find peace or war at Fresnay.[574] Rufus, always ready to answer any appeal to his personal generosity, praised the proposal of Ralph, and granted him the truce which he asked for.[575] He did the like to others whose lands lay on his line of march. Among these we hear of Rotrou of the Cenomannian Montfort, and of one whose name has for so many years been sure to meet us the first moment he set foot on Cenomannian soil, the now surely aged Geoffrey of Mayenne.[576]

[Sidenote: Estimate of their conduct.]

[Sidenote: Fulk Rechin at Le Mans.]

[Sidenote: May 5, 1098.]

[Sidenote: He is received.]

[Sidenote: Fulk’s son Geoffrey left at Le Mans.]

The conduct of these lords seems to show lukewarmness, to say the least, in the cause of Cenomannian independence. We are again reminded of the days of the _commune_, of the unwillingness of the nobles to accept the republican government, of the special treason of Geoffrey himself.[577] We can understand that many of the lords of castles throughout Maine, though they might prefer their own count to the king who came against them, might yet prefer the king to any form of commonwealth. The local historian does not scruple to use strong language on the subject. For we can hardly doubt that Geoffrey, Ralph, Rotrou, and others in the like case, are the persons who are referred to as the faithless men by whose consent Rufus was led to hasten to the city.[578] But the King had another motive to call him thither. By this time there was no longer a commonwealth to be dealt with; Le Mans had again a prince, though no longer her native prince. In the very week after Helias was taken prisoner, Fulk of Anjou came to Le Mans, and brought with him his son Geoffrey. He himself came in his character of superior lord,[579] while Geoffrey, to whom Eremburga, the only child of Helias, was betrothed, might pass in some sort for the heir of the county.[580] The citizens, we are told, received the Angevin count willingly; any master was better than the Norman. Fulk put garrisons in the fortresses of La Mans, with his son in command. He then left the city, seemingly for operations in other parts of Maine.[581]

[Sidenote: March of Rufus.]

[Sidenote: Castle of Bourg-le-roi.]

[Sidenote: Rufus at Montbizot]

[Sidenote: and Coulaines.]

[Sidenote: View of Le Mans.]

[Sidenote: Rufus ravages Coulaines.]

Against this new enemy William Rufus set out from Alençon. He had to overtake the host which was already at Fresnay. He crossed the Sarthe; he continued his course along its left bank, and stopped for the first time at Rouessée-les-fontaines.[582] This point is no great distance from Alençon, and it is still some way north of Fresnay. The present village of Rouessée contains no signs of any castle or mansion fitted for a king’s reception. One suspects that the exact spot meant must be the neighbouring castle of Bourg-le-roi, a castle said to take its name from Rufus himself. Here a ruined round tower, with walls of amazing thickness and girded by a deep ditch, looks down from a small hill on what seems to be the preparation for a large town which has never been built. A small village and church are sheltered within walls of vast compass, pierced by gates of later date than the days of Rufus and Helias. His next stage is distinctly spoken of as an encampment. The King had now joined his army. That night his camp was pitched at Montbizot, in the peninsula between the Sarthe and the Cenomannian Orne.[583] On the third day he encamped in the meadows, by the Sarthe, hard by the village of Coulaines.[584] He was still on the left bank of the river, the same bank as the city itself, though the bend which the stream makes immediately under the hill of Le Mans gives the city almost the look of standing on the other side. Wide meadows spread from the village of Coulaines to the foot of the hill; they were now covered by the tents of Rufus. Right before the eyes of the army, high on its hill, rose the city which they were come to attack, and it rose so as to bring at once before their leader’s eyes the objects which would specially stir up his wrath. As Le Mans is seen from the meadows of Coulaines, the city and its hill lie almost out of sight to the south-west. The prominent objects are those which stand in the north-east corner of the city and in the adjoining suburb. Highest of all, rising above the city itself, soared the abbey of Saint Vincent without the walls, the house whose tenants had been so cruelly oppressed by Robert of Bellême.[585] Saint Julian’s, on its lower ground, almost closes in the view on the other side. When Rufus drew nigh, the twin towers of Howel rose high in all the freshness of their newly-finished masonry, to remind the King that the chair of the prelate whom his father had appointed was now filled by a successor in whose choice no regard had been paid to his own pleasure. Between the two minsters rose the royal tower, the tower of his father, the fortress which had passed away from him and from his father’s house, held no longer even by a rebellious vassal, as he might deem Helias, but by the invading stranger from Anjou. How deeply one at least of these feelings rankled in the mind of Rufus is shown by his dealings with the immediate neighbourhood of his encampment. The village of Coulaines was an episcopal lordship. For the churl chivalry taught no mercy; in his wrath against Hildebert, the King burned the church and the whole village, and cruelly laid waste the neighbouring lands.[586]

[Sidenote: Sally from the city.]

[Sidenote: Rufus goes away.]

[Sidenote: Ballon betrayed to Rufus and occupied by Robert of Bellême.]

[Sidenote: The siege of Le Mans raised.]

But however fiercely Rufus might wreak his spite on the unlucky lands and tenants of the bishopric without the walls, the flock of Hildebert within the city was safe for a while. Le Mans was not to pass into the King’s hands just yet, and Ralph of Beaumont and Geoffrey of Mayenne might still keep their bat-like nature for some while longer. For it is at this stage that the local historian places an exploit of the citizens of Le Mans which reminds us of the way in which our own Godwine was said to have won the special favour of Cnut for himself and his fellow-Englishmen.[587] The men of the city marched forth――whether under Angevin leadership we are not told――to attack the King’s camp at Coulaines. Rufus, deeming that some treachery was on foot, marched off in the night with his army. In the morning the citizens occupied the camp and found no one there.[588] It is hard to say what we are to make of this story, which has a somewhat mythical sound. But it has at least thus much of truth in it, that Rufus was obliged to break up the siege of Le Mans for a while. The castle of Ballon, of which we have already so often heard, was betrayed to Rufus by its lord Pagan of Mont-Doubleau, and it was held that this strong position, nearly due north of the city, almost put the city itself into the King’s power. Robert of Bellême was put in command at Ballon, with three hundred knights. At his bidding the land was ravaged in every way; the vines were rooted up and the crops were trampled down. But at last the invaders began to feel the effects of the damage they themselves had done. A failure of provisions, especially of oats for the horses, hindered the Red King from keeping on the siege.[589] He went away into Normandy, bidding his men go home and see to their harvests, and come again when the crops were reaped.[590] Nothing is more natural in the case of the native Normans, who would feel in such a case very much as Englishmen felt; but one can hardly believe that William allowed his great mercenary force to be wholly broken up. And again, the question keeps always presenting itself, What was going on in the Vexin? Was there any moment when so eager a warrior, with two wars on his hands at once, left both of them to take care of themselves? Throughout this story the relations between the French and the Cenomannian wars form a never-ceasing puzzle. But we presently come to an incident of the campaign which is the most characteristic in the whole history of William Rufus.

[Sidenote: Fulk attacks Ballon.]

[Sidenote: Successful sally of the besieged.]

[Sidenote: William at Ballon, c. July 20, 1098.]

[Sidenote: His treatment of the captive knights.]

[Sidenote: Illustration of the chivalrous spirit.]

While William was away, Count Fulk, at the head of a mixed host, Angevin and Cenomannian, laid siege to the newly-betrayed castle of Ballon. The attack went on for some days; a message was sent to the King for help. To meet this fresh danger, the nobles of Maine and Anjou pressed in greater numbers to help the Count and his force. The defenders of the castle planned a sally. Beggars went out as spies, and brought in news that the besiegers were busy dining at the hour of tierce. The sally was made; the besiegers were surprised in the midst of their meal;[591] a hundred and forty knights and a crowd of foot-soldiers were taken prisoners. The rest took to flight and left a rich spoil of arms, clothes, and furniture as a prey to the Normans. Many of the captives were men of high rank and great possessions. The story almost reads as if Robert of Bellême condemned them to die of hunger; if so, Rufus came before hunger had done its work; cold would no longer be a means of torture. It was now not Lent, but the third week in July, when King William with a great force came to Ballon. A cry presently reached him from the prisoners, “Noble King William, set us free.” The chivalrous King, who had no mercy for the peasants of Coulaines, felt his heart stirred towards the captive knights of Anjou. He ordered that a meal should be made ready for them along with his own followers, and he set them free on their parole till the meal was ready. Some of his companions suggested to him that, in the crowd and confusion, they might easily escape. Rufus cast aside such a suggestion with scorn. He would never believe that a good knight would break his word; he who should do so would have punishment enough in the scorn of all mankind that would follow him.[592] Here we see the chivalrous character in all its fulness. Justice and mercy go for nothing; the law of God and the law of man go for nothing; the oath of the crowned king, the promise of a prince and a brother, go for nothing; but the class tie of knighthood is sacred; the promise made under its guaranty is sacred. As a good knight, William Rufus is faithful to his own word pledged as such to others; as a good knight, he will not believe that a brother of his order can be other than faithful to his word pledged as such to him.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Fulk goes back to Le Mans.]

[Sidenote: Negotiations for peace.]

[Sidenote: Share of Helias.]

[Sidenote: Convention between William and Fulk. August, 1098.]

[Sidenote: Le Mans to be surrendered.]

[Sidenote: Helias to be set free.]

The siege of Ballon was at an end. Fulk, we are told, betook himself to the city, and there stayed in some of the monasteries, waiting to see what would happen.[593] But the defenders of Le Mans, both native and Angevin, had now made up their minds that resistance to the power of Rufus was hopeless; their object was to treat for peace. The captive Helias was allowed a share in the negotiations; he was specially fearful that Fulk might make some agreement by which he himself might be cut off from Maine for ever.[594] By the King’s leave, Bishop Hildebert and some of the chief men of the city visited Helias, and they agreed on terms which were put into the form of an agreement between Rufus and Fulk. It was rather a military convention than a treaty of peace, and it left all the disputed questions unsettled. Nothing was said either as to the general question about the bishopric or as to the particular election of Hildebert. Nor was it at all ruled who was to be looked on as lawful Count of Maine. It was not even agreed that hostilities were to cease. The actual terms are conceived in words which seem to come from Rufus himself. The memory of his father is put prominently forward. Le Mans and all the fortresses which had been held by the late King William were to be surrendered to King William his son. Helias and all other prisoners on both sides were to be set free.[595] All sides, we are told, rejoiced at this agreement. To William and his followers it was a great immediate triumph. To the people of Le Mans it was at least immediate deliverance from a wasting struggle. And wary men may have seen that the liberation of Helias was not too dearly bought even by the surrender of his capital. If the valiant Count were set free, free alike from fetters and from promises, he would win back his lost city and dominion before long.

[Sidenote: Submission of Le Mans.]

[Sidenote: The castles occupied by the King’s troops.]

But for the present all went according to the pleasure of the Red King. Rufus, as his father had twice done, entered Le Mans without bloodshed, amidst at least the outward welcome of its inhabitants. And it may well be that, if Helias was not to be had, they may have looked on William as a more promising master than Fulk. The convention was formally accepted, and it was immediately carried out. Robert the son of Hugh of Montfort, that Hugh whom we have already heard of on Senlac and at Dover,[596] was sent at the head of seven hundred chosen knights, full armed in their helmets and coats of mail, to occupy the fortresses of Le Mans.[597] They met with no opposition; the garrisons, native or Angevin, marched out; the Normans took possession. All the strong places of the city――the ancient palace of the counts on the Roman wall――the donjon of William the Great, the royal tower, standing so dangerously near to the north wall of Saint Julian’s minster――the other fortress of the Conqueror, the tower of Mont Barbet on its height, overlooking the city from the side of Saint Vincent’s abbey――all that the father had either subdued or called into being――now passed without a blow into the hands of the son. The King’s banner――what was the ensign wrought upon it?――was hoisted amid shouts of victory on the highest point of the royal tower. King William the Red had achieved the object which in his thoughts came nearest to the nature of a duty. He had brought under his hand all that had ever been under the hand of his father.[598]

[Sidenote: William’s entry into Le Mans.]

[Sidenote: His reception by Hildebert.]

[Sidenote: The church of Saint Julian.]

On the day of the military occupation followed the day of the joyous entry. The Red King entered, doubtless by the northern gate, the gate between Saint Vincent’s abbey and the royal tower. His new subjects welcomed him with shouts and songs, and were received by him to his full peace.[599] Bishop Hildebert, seemingly now admitted to favour, with his clergy and people, met the King with psalms and processions. They led him by the royal tower, with his own banner floating on its battlements, to the cathedral church, now a vaster and more splendid pile than when the first Conqueror had been led to it with the same pomp.[600] The twin towers of Howel soared in their freshness; the aisles which we still see, with their abiding Roman masonry, had risen at his bidding; it may well have been by the mighty portal of his rearing that Rufus entered within the hallowed walls. Within, the sight was different in every stone, in every adornment, from that on which we now gaze. The columns and arches of Saint Julian’s nave were still the columns and arches of the basilica which Aldric had raised when Le Mans was a city of the Empire of the pious Lewis.[601] It may be that of those columns we can here and there spell out some faint traces amid the finer masonry and gorgeous foliage of the next age. But of the works to the east, still new when Rufus came, the splendid reconstructions of later times have left us no signs. The choir of Arnold still blazed in all its freshness with the rich decorations which had been added by the skill and bounty of Howel. The first bloom had not passed away from the painted ceiling, from the rich pavement, from the narrow windows glowing with the deep richness of colour which no later age could surpass. Through all these new-born splendours of the holy place the scoffer and blasphemer was solemnly guided to the shrines of Saint Julian and of all the saints of Le Mans. And there were moments when the heart of Rufus was not wholly shut against better thoughts. As at Saint Martin of the Place of Battle, so at Saint Julian in newly-won Le Mans, we may deem that some dash of thankfulness was mingled with his swelling pride, as he felt that he had finished his father’s work.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: William leaves Le Mans.]

[Sidenote: General submission of Maine.]

The stay of William at Le Mans does not seem to have been long. The government of the city was put into the hands of Count William of Evreux and of Gilbert of Laigle. The royal tower, well provisioned, stocked with arms and with all needful things, was placed under the immediate command of Walter the son of Ansgar of Rouen.[602] The nobles of Maine now came in to make their submission and to receive the King’s garrisons into their castles. Among them were Count Geoffrey of Mayenne and the Viscount Ralph of Beaumont. The terms of their engagement were fulfilled. Their castles were to follow the fortune of Le Mans, and Le Mans now was King William’s.[603]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Meeting of William and Helias.]

[Sidenote: Proposals of Helias.]

But he who had lately been the lord of them all was waiting for the benefits of the convention to be extended to himself. We are a little surprised when we presently find the King at Rouen, and when we further find that Helias, who had been lately in ward in the castle there, had now to be brought hither from a prison at Bayeux.[604] The King and his captive met face to face. The contrast between the outward look of the two men was as striking as the difference in their inward souls. Before the victorious King, short, bulky, ruddy, fierce of countenance, hasty and stammering in speech, stood the captive Count, tall, thin, swarthy, master of eloquent and winning words. Something of bodily neglect marked, perhaps not so much the rigour of his confinement as a captive’s carelessness of wonted niceties. His hair, usually neatly trimmed, was now rough and shaggy.[605] The King seems to have begun the dialogue;[606] “I have you, Sir.” Helias answered with dignity and respect, as a man of fallen fortunes speaking to a superior in rank, and yet not stooping to any unworthy submission. He called on the King, in the name of his might and his renown, to help him. He had once, he said, been a count, lord of a noble county. Fortune had now turned against him, and he had lost all. He asked leave to enter the King’s service, to be allowed to keep his rank and title of count, but pledging himself not to make any claim to the Cenomannian county or city, till by some signal exploit on the King’s behalf he should be deemed worthy to receive them as a grant from the King’s free will. Till then it would be enough for him to have his place in the royal following and to enjoy the royal friendship.

[Sidenote: William disposed to accept Helias’ proposal.]

[Sidenote: He is hindered by Robert of Meulan.]

[Sidenote: Defiance of Helias.]

[Sidenote: Answer of Rufus.]

[Sidenote: Helias set free.]

Such an appeal as this went straight to the better part of William’s nature, and he was at once disposed to agree to the proposal of Helias. But then stepped in the selfish prudence of Robert of Meulan, who measured other men by himself. He was now the King’s chief adviser, and he jealously grudged all influence which might fall to the lot of any one else.[607] The admission of Helias to the King’s friendship and councils would of all things be the least suited for Robert’s purposes. He could not bear that any man, least of all a man of a spirit so much higher than his own, should be so near the throne as Helias threatened to be. The men of Maine, said the Count of Meulan, were a cunning and faithless race. All that the captive Helias sought by his offers was to insinuate himself into the King’s favour, to learn his secrets, that he might be able, when a fitting moment came, to rise up against him with more advantage and join himself to his enemies with greater power. The purpose of Rufus was changed by the malignant counsel of Count Robert. The petition of Helias was refused; it was again made; it was again refused. Then the Count of Maine spoke his defiance. “Willingly, Sir King, would I have served you, if it had been your pleasure; willingly would I have earned favour in your sight. But now, I pray you, blame me not, if I take another course. I cannot bear with patience to see mine inheritance taken from me. All right is denied to me by overwhelming violence; wherefore let no man wonder if I again renew my claim, if I strive with all my might to win back the honour of my fathers.” Rufus was beside himself with wrath at words like these; but it was in words only that his wrath spent itself. He stammered out, “Scoundrel, what can you do? Be off, march, take to flight; I give you leave to do all you can, and, by the face of Lucca, if you ever conquer me, I will not ask you for any grace in return for my favour of to-day.” Even after this outburst, the Count had self-command enough to ask for a safe-conduct, and the King had self-command enough to grant it. Helias was guided safely through the Norman duchy, and made his way, to the delight of his friends, to his own immediate possessions on the borders of Maine and Anjou.[608]

[Sidenote: Illustration of the King’s character.]

Of all the stories of the Red King there is none more characteristic than this. His first impulse is to accept a generous and confiding offer in the spirit in which it was made. For a moment he seems to rise to the level of the man who stood before him. Even when his better impulse is checked by an evil counsellor, he does not sink so low as many would have sunk in the like case. In the wildest wrath of his insulted pride, he does not forget that his word as a good knight is pledged to the man who has defied him. Rufus was bound by all the laws of chivalry to let Helias go this time, whatever he might do if he caught him again. And the laws of chivalry Rufus obeyed in the teeth of temptations of opposite kinds. A meaner tyrant might have sent Helias at once to death or blinding. A calmer or more wary prince, even though not a tyrant, might have argued that it was unsafe for him and his dominions to let the man go free who had uttered such a challenge. He might further have argued that a speech which was so like an open declaration of war at once set aside the conditions of peace. But William Rufus, when once on his point of honour, was not led away from it either by the impulse of vengeance or by the calculations of prudence. His knightly word was pledged that Helias should go free. Free therefore he went, after his defiance had been answered by a counter defiance, each alike emphatically characteristic of the man who uttered it.

§ 3. _The End of the French War_.

_September-December_, 1098.

[Sidenote: William on the continent. 1097-1099.]

[Sidenote: Extent of William’s conquests in Maine.]

[Sidenote: He begins, but does not finish.]

The war of Maine was, or seemed to be, over. And, just at this point we get a chronology clear enough to enable us to fix the connexion of the two works which were going on at once. We have seen William in his Norman capital at a time when we should rather have looked for him on one or other of his Norman frontiers. But it seems plain that he spent the whole year on the mainland, and that he did not cross to England at any time between the two Christmas feasts which he is specially said to have kept in Normandy. Helias was set free in August, and we are led to believe that Rufus now deemed that the war of Maine was over, or at least that he could afford to despise it in its present stage. We shall presently see that the war of Maine was by no means over, and that William’s Cenomannian conquests hardly reached beyond the capital and the lands north of the capital. We are inclined to wonder that a warlike prince like Rufus took no further heed to a campaign which was manifestly unfinished, while an active enemy was again at liberty and was still in possession of a strong line of castles. But this is neither the first nor the last time in which we find William the Red much more vigorous in beginning a campaign than in ending it. And in this case he may, with two wars on his hands, have not unreasonably thought that, after so great a conquest as that of the capital of Maine, he could afford to turn his thoughts to the other seat of warfare. In the month after Helias was set free, he made up his mind for a special effort against the stubborn border-land of France.

[Sidenote: William sets forth. September 27, 1098.]

[Sidenote: The sign in the sky.]

[Sidenote: Its meaning.]

[Sidenote: He marches to Pontoise.]

Two days before Michaelmas, William set forth, from what head-quarters we are not told, at the head of a great army. On his way to the seat of war he enjoyed the hospitality of Ralph of Toesny on the hill of Conches. That night there was a sign in the heavens; the whole sky blazed and seemed as red as blood. At other times such a portent in the heavens might not have seemed too great to betoken some great victory or defeat on the part of one or other of the contending kings of the West. But, while Christendom was on its march to the eastern land, the heavens could tell of nothing meaner than the ups and downs of the strifes between two continents and two creeds. If the sky was red over Conches and Evreux and the whole western world, it was because at that moment Christians and heathens met in battle in the eastern lands, and by God’s help the Christians had the victory.[609] But William Rufus cared little for signs and wonders, even when he himself was deemed to be the subject of their warning. His heart was not in Palestine, but on the French border; and his present business was a march against the most distant of the three fortresses to which he laid claim. Chaumont and Trie still held out; but their garrisons could not hinder him from carrying a destructive raid into districts far more distant from his head-quarters at Gisors. He marched to the south-east, burning, plundering, and carrying off prisoners from the whole French territory as far as Pontoise.[610]

[Sidenote: Castle and town of Pontoise.]

[Sidenote: Strong position of the town.]

[Sidenote: Pontoise the furthest point of the raid.]

The invading King had now reached a point of French soil nearer to Paris than the spot where Count Robert kept the Seine barred at Meulan. At Pontoise, as the name implies, was the bridge spanning the Oise, the tributary which joins its waters with those of the Seine at Conflans――the Gaulish _Confluentes_――between Paris and Meulan. Here a precipitous rock rises above the stream, a rock which, strengthened and defended by art in every way, was crowned by the vast circuit of the castle of Pontoise. Here is no town sloping down from the castle to the river. The castle rock rises sheer――it rose most likely from the water itself, till the Oise, like the Seine at Rouen, was curbed by a quay. In the view from the bridge, the castle, shorn as it is of its towers and of all that can give stateliness to such a building, still lords it over everything. The town of Pontoise seems to crouch by the side of the rock; the great church of Saint Maclou, with its lofty tower of late architecture, is wholly hidden from sight. It is only at some distance beyond the river, in the suburb known as that of Saint Ouen _l’Aumône_, that we begin to see that the church stands on ground not much lower than the site of the castle. We then learn that the town of Pontoise, standing on a height separate from the castle-rock, well walled, and with streets as steep as those of Le Mans or Lincoln, was in itself no contemptible fortress. As usual, there is little or nothing in town or church or castle that we can positively assign to the period of our story. But the main features of the spot must be the same now as they were when the Red King led his plundering host as far as the bridge of the Oise. It is plain that this was the end of his course on this side; it is plain that Pontoise was not added to the list of fortresses which were taken by him or betrayed to him. But we have nothing to explain why he turned back at this point, whether he met with any repulse in an attack on Pontoise or whether he attacked Pontoise at all. We only know that Pontoise marks in one sense the furthest point of the French campaigns of William Rufus. We shall presently find him on another side at a greater distance from his own dominions; but Pontoise marks his nearest approach to the capital of France. Had Pontoise been William’s as well as Meulan, Paris would indeed have been threatened. But this south-eastern journey was clearly, in its effect at least, a mere plundering raid, from which Rufus came back to attempt a more regular attack on the nearer enemy at Chaumont.

[Sidenote: Siege of Chaumont.]

[Sidenote: The archers of Chaumont shoot the horses only.]

[Sidenote: Chaumont not taken.]

The siege of Chaumont is described to us in greater detail than the march on Pontoise, but we do not, any more than at Pontoise, get a really intelligible account. It is plain that the siege was a considerable enterprise, one to which Rufus led his whole army. It is also plain from the result that its issue must have an important effect on the turn of affairs. But of the siege itself all that we hear is one of those strange stories by which we are sometimes met, stories which must have some meaning, which must be grounded on some fact, and which yet, as they stand, pass all belief. We are told that the defenders of Chaumont were valiant men, strong to defend the battlements of their own castle. But to defend their own castle was all that they could do; their numbers were not enough to enable them either to meet William’s great army in open battle, or even to hinder his plunderers from laying waste the neighbouring lands. But the defence of Chaumont itself was stout, and, as it turned out, successful. Yet we are told that the garrison of Chaumont, out of the fear of God and out of tenderness towards men, stood strictly on the defensive, or took the offensive only towards brute beasts. In taking aim at the besiegers, they avoided the persons of the riders, and aimed all their blows at the horses. Seven hundred horses of great price fell under the arrows and darts of the men of Chaumont, and their carcases made a rich feast for the dogs and birds of prey of the Vexin.[611] The virtue of these scrupulous warriors did not go unrewarded. Our story breaks off somewhat suddenly; but we see that at all events Chaumont was not taken.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Rare notices of southern Gaul.]

[Sidenote: Coming of William of Poitiers.]

[Sidenote: Alliance of Normandy and Aquitaine.]

The war now takes a turn of special interest, which makes us specially regret the very unsatisfactory nature of our materials. The field of our story is suddenly enlarged; but events do not crowd it at all in proportion to its enlargement. It is but seldom that our tale brings us into any direct dealing with the lands and the princes south of the Loire. We have seen the tongue of _oil_ supplant the Danish tongue in Normandy, and we have seen it appear as a rival to our own speech in our own island. But we have been seldom called on to listen to the accents of the tongue of _oc_. But at this moment the chief potentate of that tongue suddenly appears on the field of our story, an appearance from which we naturally look for great events. The young lord of the Vexin and heir of France had to meet a new enemy, almost as powerful, and quite as reckless and godless, as the old one. Another William, William of Poitiers and Aquitaine, came to the help of William of Normandy and England.[612] He was in the end to go to the crusade――to go not exactly in the guise of Godfrey or Helias.[613] But he had not yet set out; and, before he went, he came to strike a blow on behalf of the prince to whom he was said to have sold the reversion of his dominions. The mighty dukes of the North and the South might seem to have utterly hemmed in the smaller realm of the king whose men they were or should have been.[614] The final results of their alliance were not memorable, but the coming of the southern duke had the immediate effect of carrying the war into districts little used to the presence of English or even of Norman warriors.

[Sidenote: Campaign to the west of Paris.]

[Sidenote: Valley of the Maudre.

[Sidenote: Maule.]

[Sidenote: Montfort-l’Amaury.]

[Sidenote: Neauphlé-le-Château.]

[Sidenote: Epernon.]

[Sidenote: The two Williams march against the Montfort castles.]

[Sidenote: Seat of war affected by the coming of William of Poitiers.]

It can hardly fail to have been the march of William of Aquitaine which led to a campaign carried on in the lands west and south-west of Paris, within the triangle which may be drawn between the three points of Mantes, Paris, and Chartres. One side of this triangle is formed by the Seine itself, and here the adhesion of the Count of Meulan must have effectually guarded the seat of war from the north. Somewhat to the west of Meulan, between that fortress and Mantes, the small stream of the Maudre empties itself into the Seine. The course of this stream and the valley through which it flows formed the chief seat of warfare at this stage, seemingly after the attacks on Chaumont had proved fruitless. Small as the Maudre is, its course makes a clearly marked valley, running nearly north and south. About the middle of it lies Maule, the fortress of Peter of Maule, the benefactor of the house of Saint Evroul, and therefore high in favour with its historian. Further to the south, where the stream is a mere brook, the valley widens into a plain between hills, and here some of the strongest points are occupied by the strongholds of the French house of Montfort, numbering among them the spot which gave that house its ever-memorable name. Here rose the hill which above all others glories in the name of the Strong Mount, the home of the Simons and the Amalrics. Under the name of Montfort-l’Amaury it still keeps the less illustrious of the two names, one or other of which was always borne by its successive counts. To the north-east of the cradle of their race, on the other side of the Maudre, the Counts of Montfort had planted another stronghold on a height, which, though all traces of a fortress have passed away, still keeps the name of Neauphlé-_le-Château_, as distinguished from another place of the same name, Neauphlé-_le-Vieux_. Much further to the south-west, on the upper course of the Drouelle, a tributary of the Eure, stood Epernon, another fortress of the house of Montfort, a border fortress of the strictly French territory towards the lands of the Counts of Chartres. On this district now fell the heavy wrath of the two Williams, who led a mighty multitude against Montfort and Epernon and laid waste the whole surrounding land. They had traitors in their service; they came under the guidance of Almaric the Young and of Nivard of Septeuil.[615] This last place lies in the valley of the Vaucouleurs, a stream running almost parallel with the Maudre and joining the Seine at Mantes. Such a position, lying nearly due west from Maule, and at a greater distance north-east from Montfort, marks a dangerous outpost thrown out from the Norman side into the heart of the French territory. Of the line of march of the Poitevin duke we have no account; but it must have been his coming which caused the seat of war to be changed from the north-west of the threatened capital of France to the south-west, a region so much better suited for an invader from the south.

[Sidenote: No special mention of Lewis.]

[Sidenote: The castles resist singly.]

[Sidenote: Peter of Maule.]

[Sidenote: The two Simons of Montfort.]

[Sidenote: The elder Simon defends Neauphlé.]

[Sidenote: The castle of Montfort.]

[Sidenote: The church.]

[Sidenote: Defence of the younger Simon.]

[Sidenote: Interest of the defence.]

It is somewhat singular that, while we have so striking a general picture of the courage and conduct of the young Lewis during this struggle, we hear nothing of any particular exploit of his, we hear nothing of any help given by him to any of the threatened fortresses. It is their own lords, each for himself, who withstand, and successfully withstand, the attacks of the powers of North and South. Our chief informant――English, Norman, and French, all at once――enlarges on the failure of Philip to give any help to his vassals; but we should never learn from him that his place was supplied by his son.[616] Every man, it would seem, fought for his own hand. We are told this of a crowd of unnamed lords defending unnamed fortresses. But we are not left to guess at the name of the friend of Saint Evroul, Peter of Maule, who, with his sons Ansold and Theobald, successfully defended his fortress in the valley of the Maudre.[617] We must suppose that the forces of the two Williams were scattered and frittered away in a series of desultory attacks against strongholds scattered all over the country. But to us at least the main interest of the campaign gathers round the dwellings of the house of Montfort. We should be well pleased to have even such details of a warfare which affected them as we have had of the sieges of Chaumont and as we shall presently have of the siege of Mayet. But we hear only of the result, how the arms of the two Simons, elder and younger, defended all the possessions which looked up to the Strong Mount as their head. The elder guarded the height of Neauphlé, where a curve in the hills, theatre-shape, awakens some faint remembrance of the kingly mount of Laon.[618] But the _Mons fortis_ itself, the hill from whence, in after times, Simon the father went to work the bondage of Toulouse and Simon the son to work the freedom of England, must have been among the strongholds which were saved by the energy of the younger bearer of the name which was to be so fearfully and so gloriously renowned. High on its peninsular hill, still keeping some small traces of elder towers along with one graceful fragment of far later days, the castle of Montfort looks down over church and town, over hills and plains, bidding defiance to foes on every side, but bidding the most direct defiance of all to any foe who should advance by the path which must have been trodden by the Aquitanian duke. For of all the outlooks from the height of Montfort the widest and the most striking is that by which the eye looks out towards those southern lands which came so near to forming a South-Gaulish realm for its own lords. The church stands beneath on a lower point of the steep. The works of later times, which have filled its windows with the painted forms of the basest of the later Valois, have spared one side of the more ancient central tower, preserving to us forms which were looked on, not indeed by the Simons of our own immediate story, but by the Simon of Muret and the Simon of Evesham. A gate at the base of the castle mound, though the actual building must be of later date, still keeps the name of that Hugh Bardolf, himself joined by a tie of affinity to the house of Montfort, of whom we have heard elsewhere as one of the most abiding of the enemies of Normandy.[619] Here, while the father defended Neauphlé, the son defended the cradle of their race, and their other outlying possessions. Not a detail is given us; but our historian emphatically tells us that it was by the help of God that the lords of Montfort kept their fortresses safe from the twofold enemy.[620] And, though a King of the English marched against them, though doubtless there was no lack of native English warriors in his train, yet we may join in the pious thankfulness of our guide at Saint Evroul. It was not good for English interests in any wide or lasting sense that the sovereign of England should even hold his ancestral Normandy, much less that he should inherit Aquitaine and conquer France. When the lords of Montfort in the eleventh century beat back from their strongholds all the efforts of England and Normandy, of Poitiers and Aquitaine, they were in truth working in the same cause as their glorious descendant in the thirteenth. Unknowingly and indirectly, they were, no less than he, fighting for the freedom and the greatness of what in their eyes seemed hostile England.

[Sidenote: The war lingers on.]

[Sidenote: Christmas, 1098.]

[Sidenote: No successes of the two Williams.]

[Sidenote: A truce agreed to.]

The war seems to have lingered on through another winter, the second of those when King William kept his Christmas feast in Normandy. But no successes are recorded either of William of England or of William of Aquitaine. The Red King had really done nothing, either alone or in company with his Poitevin ally. The gallant resistance of the men of the French borderland had beaten him back at every point. He was now glad to conclude a truce, which the events which followed made practically a peace.[621]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Survey of the French war. Its ill-success.]

[Sidenote: Illustration of William’s character.]