Note 237 — Chapter IV · SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF NORMANDY DURING THE TENTH CENTURY.[188]

Here Lewis the Eleventh was kept in durance by Charles the Bold, on which Philip of Comines remarks (ii. 7), “Le roy qui se vid enfermé en ce chasteau (qui est petit) et force archers à la porte, n’estoit point sans doute: et se voyoit logé rasibus d’une grosse tour, où un comte de Vermandois fit mourir un sien predecesseur roy de France.” There is a curious notice of Charles’s imprisonment in Thietmar of Merseburg (i. 13. Pertz, iii. 741); “Fuit in occiduis partibus quidam rex, ab incolis Karl Sot, id est stolidus, ironice dictus, qui ab uno suimet ducum captus, tenebris includitur carceralibus.” Both Thietmar and Widukind (i. 33) attribute to the Eastern King a powerful intervention in favour of Charles, which is perfectly possible, but which it is hard to find in the French writers.