Note 25 — Chapter V · FAILURE TO GAIN THE ENGLISH CROWN

The whole episode is related with much detail by Ordericus Vitalis in one of his most pleasing chapters. Ordericus, iv, pp. 99-102. His whole account is in general confirmed by the Actus Pontificum (p. 404), which, however, make no mention of the envoy sent to Robert, and merely record that the besieged garrison waited in vain for aid from the king. The date of the surrender of the garrison can be placed definitely before 1 November 1100 on the evidence of a donation in favor of Saint-Aubin of Angers. Archives départementales de la Sarthe, H 290 (Inventaire sommaire, iii, p. 127). The document is dated in the year of King William’s death “et recuperationis Helie comitis Cenomanorum,” 1100, indiction viii, kalends of November. According to the Actus Pontificum, the garrison held out for more than three months, but this is evidently an exaggeration, as it would carry us beyond November. The surrender must, it seems safe to conclude, have taken place on or very shortly before that date.