Chapter VII · (continued 3)

Origin of the earldom of Leicester. The subtlety of the Count of Meulan was famous, and it enabled him to change his fifteen years’ possession of the lands of Ivo of Grantmesnil into a great hereditary earldom. A chief part of Ivo’s position came from his relations to the town of Leicester. Ivo’s relations with Leicester. He had succeeded his father as Sheriff of the shire and farmer of the royal revenues. He was also castellan of the fortress above the Soar, the fortress which the elder Eadmund won back for England and for Christendom,[1062] where 419 a mound older than Æthelflæd[1063] looks down on the church of Robert of Meulan and the hall of Simon the Righteous. Other lords in Leicester. But the lordship of the house of Grantmesnil over the old Danish borough was not complete; besides the King and the Bishop of Lincoln, some rights in Leicester belonged to Earl Simon of Northampton.[1064] Robert Earl of Leicester. 1103. The cunning Count of Meulan contrived to unite all claims in himself, and became the first of the Earls of Leicester,[1065] that title which has passed to so many names, and which has drawn to itself alike the glory of a Montfort and the shame of a Dudley. Dies, 1118. Earl Robert kept his office and his prosperity for the remaining fifteen years of his life, and then died, fifty-two years after the great battle, with the wrongs of Ivo of Grantmesnil upon his conscience.[1066] Married, as we have seen, somewhat late in life,[1067] he was the father of two sons, both of whom were brought up with such care that they could, while still young, hold logical disputations with cardinals.[1068] Of these brothers, Robert, the elder, became a prosperous Earl of Leicester in England, while his brother Waleran 420 became an unlucky Count of Meulan beyond the sea.[1069] Of one of his daughters we have already heard as helping to swell the irregular household of King Henry.[1070] The Earl himself remained the King’s counsellor, keeping on friendly terms with Anselm, while cleaving steadfastly to the ancient law of England in the matter of investitures.[1071] He too was an ecclesiastical benefactor, though on no very great scale. His college at Leicester. 1107. He founded or restored a college of canons within the castle of Leicester, where the small church of his building may still be seen embedded in the greater fabric into which it has grown.[1072] Its endowments transferred to Leicester abbey. 1143. But the greater part of its endowments were taken by the second Earl Robert to enrich the abbey of our Lady of his own foundation, the abbey where a more famous cardinal than those with whom its founder had disputed 1530. came to lay his bones.[1073]

Christmas Gemót. 1101–1102. King Henry had thus overthrown several of his open or secret enemies, and he doubtless wore his crown at the Christmas Gemót at Westminster with a greater feeling of safety. But the greatest work of all had still to be done. There was still one man in England whose presence was utterly inconsistent with the rule of any king whose mind was to give peace to his kingdom. Danger from Robert of Bellême. Peace, in Henry’s sense of the word, could not be in a land where Robert of Bellême was, to say the least, the 421 mightiest man after the King. Henry knew his man; he knew that, sooner or later, the struggle must come between himself and such a subject. The King watches him. For a whole year he kept his eye upon the Earl of Shropshire and all his doings. Spies sent from the King watched all that he did; every blameworthy act was carefully reported and set down in writing.[1074] A bulky volume, one would think, must have been added to the library of the learned King. At last the moment came when Henry thought that it was time to act, and the form of action which he took was one which followed more than one precedent in earlier reigns. Easter Gemót. April 6, 1102. The Easter Gemót was to be held at Winchester. The King summoned Earl Robert to appear before the Assembly, and to answer openly on forty-five distinct charges of offences done either against the King or against his brother the Duke.[1075] Robert asks a licence to be accompanied by his men. We do not read that Robert, like others in the like case on earlier occasions, demanded a safe-conduct to go and to return; but we do read that he demanded—​and it is implied that the demand was an usual one—​a licence to come accompanied by his men. The licence is given. They were to serve, we may suppose, either as compurgators or as defenders by the strong hand, as things might turn out.[1076] The demand was granted; Earl Roger set forth; the King and his barons were waiting for his coming at Winchester; but he came not. Robert does not come. On the road he changed his mind; he knew that the result of any legal trial must be 422 against him; he deemed, and doubtless with truth, that he would be safer in his own strong castles than he could be in the King’s court. He fled, we are told, breathless and afraid, a description which does not savour much of the fierce lord of Bellême. But at any rate the King’s messenger had to report that the Earl of Shropshire had gone elsewhere, and was not on his way to obey the King’s summons.[1077] The King’s proclamation. Henry did not hurry; he put forth a proclamation, declaring that the Earl, lawfully charged with various crimes, had not come to make his defence, and that, if he did not come at once to do right—​to abide his trial—​he would be declared an outlaw.[1078] He again summons Robert, who refuses to come. Along with the issue of the public proclamation, the King, clearly anxious to give no occasion for any man to say that the Earl had been harshly or informally treated, sent him a second personal summons to appear before the Assembly. This time Robert directly refused to come,[1079] and open war broke out. The war begins. The work of King Henry, as we have already heard, was to destroy the ungodly within his kingdom.[1080] He had to 423 begin by doing that useful work on an offender whose ungodliness was on the grandest scale of all.

Greatness of Robert’s possessions. The overweening greatness of the house of Montgomery or Bellême, and the personal energy of its members, is shown in the range both of warfare and of negotiation which was opened by what was in its beginning a mere legal process on the part of the King of the English against an offending subject. We must always remember that, whatever Robert was at Shrewsbury or at Montgomery, at Bellême he was something more than an ordinary vassal of either king or duke. His acquisition of Ponthieu. He had lately increased his continental power by taking possession of the county of Ponthieu, the inheritance of his son, who bore the name of his own maternal grandfather, the terrible William Talvas.[1081] The Earl of Shrewsbury was thus entitled to deal with princes as one of their own order. His brothers Arnulf and Roger. He and the two best known of his brothers, those whom we have already seen leagued with him, Arnulf of Montgomery, lord of Pembroke, and Roger of Poitou, once lord of the land between Mersey and Ribble, were now again firmly joined together against the King.[1082] Wide range of warfare and negotiation. And they contrived to draw no small part of Northern Europe into a partnership in their private quarrel. That Robert of Bellême should be able to get together a large body of Welsh allies is in no way wonderful. He was indeed the sternest enemy of their nation; Welsh alliance of Robert. but, among that divided people, enmity on the part of one tribe or dynasty was a claim to support on the part of another, and all tribes and dynasties 424 forgot every enmity and every wrong when there was a chance of harrying the fields and homes of the Saxon. Welsh allies of the rebel Earl play an important part in the story, and the more distant powers of Ireland and Norway are also brought within its page.

Just at this time the Welsh seem to have been stronger and more united than usual. We have seen that their momentary subjugation after the death of Earl Hugh of Shropshire had led to a successful movement while his successor was busy on the continent.[1083] Revolt in Gwynedd. The men of Gwynedd could not bear Norman rule; whether it took the form of law or of unlaw, it was equally against the grain. Their leader now was Owen son of Edwin, who, we are told, had been the first to bring the French into Mona.[1084] Settlement of Gruffydd and of Cadwgan and his brothers. This was before the end of the year of Earl Hugh’s death; it was in the next year that Cadwgan and Gruffydd came back from their Irish shelter.[1085] The phrase of the Welsh writer, that they came to terms with “the French,” must be understood as referring to their relations with Robert of Bellême. Cadwgan kept Ceredigion and a part of Powys, for which he and his brothers Jorwerth and Meredydd became the men of the Earl of Shropshire. Gruffydd seems to have held Anglesey as a wholly independent prince; there is at least no mention of vassalage in his case.[1086] 425 Robert calls on the Welsh for help; Earl Robert now called on his British vassals to help him in his struggle with the King. As there is no sign that they had become the men either of King Henry or of any earlier king, the law of Salisbury did not apply to them. his gifts and promises. The promises of Robert of Bellême were splendid; so were his gifts; he almost seems to have won the help of the Britons by a promised restoration of complete freedom to their country.[1087] In the allies thus drawn to his banners he professed the most boundless trust. He put into their hands—​so the Welsh writer tells us—​his wealth and his cattle, perhaps also, what a Norman lord would specially value, the horses of noble breed which he had brought over from Spain, and whose race flourished in the land of Powys long after.[1088] A great and motley host was thus got together, which entered zealously into the cause of the Earl, and did not pass by so good an opportunity of finding great spoil.[1089]

Arnulf’s dealings with Murtagh. Meanwhile the Earl’s brother Arnulf at once strengthened the castle of Pembroke and looked further for allies than the land of Ceredigion and Powys. By the hands of his steward at Pembroke, Gerald of Windsor, he sent to Ireland to King Murtagh, to ask for the king’s daughter in marriage and for help in the struggle.[1090] 426 Negotiation with Magnus. From what followed, and from the connexion between Murtagh and Magnus, we can hardly doubt that the negotiations of Arnulf reached to Norway as well as to Ireland, and that Magnus himself was a party to the course which was at once followed by Murtagh. Murtagh sends his daughter to Arnulf. The Irish king promised his daughter to the lord of Pembroke, in some sort his neighbour, and actually sent her to her affianced husband on board a great fleet designed to support the rebel cause.[1091]

King Henry had thus plenty of foes to strive against in his work of bringing back the reign of law and order in his kingdom. Henry’s negotiation with Duke Robert. But he too could negotiate beyond sea; he could stir up a diversion against the Count of Bellême and Ponthieu, which might do something to weaken the power of the Earl of Shropshire and lord of Arundel. The King sent letters to his brother Duke Robert, setting forth how Earl Robert had incurred forfeiture in the dominions of both of them, and how he had treasonably refused to appear in the general Assembly of England. He called on his brother to do as he was doing himself, and to smite the man who was a traitor to both his lords with the vengeance that was his due.[1092] The Duke attempted something after his fashion, that is his fashion in Normandy and not his fashion in Syria. The man who had been foremost in the crusading host had on his native soil sunk again into the feeble and half-hearted ruler whom we knew of old. Duke Robert besieges Vignats. Yet he did make an attempt to subdue the castles which held out for Robert of Bellême in the land of Hiesmes. He laid siege to 427 Vignats, a castle lying south-east of Falaise, on a height looking to the north, not far from one of the tributaries of the Dive. It was an old possession of the house of Talvas, and in the next generation it became the site of an abbey of Benedictine nuns.[1093] It was now held on behalf of Robert of Bellême by a captain named Gerard of Saint Hilary. The garrison, if their state of mind is rightly described, wished the besiegers to make a fierce assault that they might have an excuse for surrendering without dishonour.[1094] But, under the generalship of Duke Robert on Norman ground, no fierce assault followed. Treason of Robert of Montfort and others. There were even traitors in the Duke’s camp. Robert of the Norman Montfort, whom we have heard of in the wars of Maine,[1095] and other lords in the Duke’s army, being, it would seem, in league with the rebels, burned their quarters and fled, no man pursuing them. They even constrained the loyal part of the army to flee with them.[1096] Victory of the besieged. It was not wonderful then that the garrison of Vignats plucked up heart, made a vigorous sally, and chased the voluntary fliers with loud shouts.[1097] A war 428 followed, in which the whole land of Hiesmes was laid waste. Not only Vignats, but Fourches, Argentan, and Château-Gonthier further down the river, were all held by the rebels. Ravage of the Hiesmes. The loyal lords on both sides of the Oudon, Robert of Grantmesnil, the other son of the old Sheriff of Leicestershire, his brother-in-law Hugh of Mont-Pizon, and his other brother-in-law, Robert of Courcy, strove in vain to defend their lands. But the rebels were too strong for them, and the whole of that district of Normandy was laid waste with havoc of every kind.[1098]

Robert of Bellême strengthens his castles. Works at Bridgenorth. King Henry managed matters better in his island. The rebel Earl put all his castles in a state of defence. Arundel, Shrewsbury, and Tickhill, were all garrisoned, all supplied with provisions. So too was the Castle by the Bridge, where, as well as at Careghova, the works, still, it would seem, not wholly finished, were pressed on by day and night.[1099] The King’s plans. The King had to choose which fortress he would attack first. His plan seems to have been first to cut off Robert’s outlying possessions, before he made any attack on the strongholds of his power on the Welsh border. He besieges Arundel. And, first of all, he led his force—​the host of England it is emphatically called—​to the siege of the Earl’s great South-Saxon castle, that which lay open to the chance of help from the supporters of the 429 rebel cause in Normandy.[1100] The King marched to Arundel; he set up, after the usual fashion, two evil neighbours to keep the fortress in check.[1101] He then gave part of his army leave of absence while the work of blockade went on.[1102] Truce with the besieged. The zeal of the defenders of Arundel in the cause of their rebel lord does not seem to have been strong; but they had a keen sense either of the honour of soldiers or of the duty of vassals. This last, to be sure, was a mistaken sense, according to the laws of England, above all according to the great law of Salisbury. They craved a truce, during which they might ask Earl Robert either to send them help or to give them leave to surrender. Robert was far away in his Mercian earldom, busy on two works. Robert and Arnulf harry Staffordshire. The defences of Bridgenorth were strengthening day by day, and Robert and Arnulf, at the head of their Gal-Welsh and Bret-Welsh forces—​it is significantly hinted that Englishmen had no share in the evil work—​were harrying the neighbouring parts of Staffordshire. A great booty of cattle, and some human captives, were carried 430 off into Wales, the price of the help given by Cadwgan and his brother.[1103] The messengers from Arundel found their lord at some stage of these employments, and set forth to him the danger in which they stood from the King’s leaguer. Terms of the surrender of Arundel. Mournful, but feeling himself unable to send help to so distant a post, Robert of Bellême gave his garrison of Arundel full leave to make what terms they could with the King.[1104] They surrendered at once and with great joy; but they honourably stipulated that their lord Earl Robert should be allowed to go safe into Normandy. The King received them graciously and rewarded them with rich gifts.[1105] Arundel passed into the royal hands, to become in the next reign the seat of a more abiding earldom in the hands of the famous houses of Aubigny and Fitzalan, and to pass through them to the more modern, but perhaps more English, line of Howard.[1106]

431 The surrender of Arundel took away all fear lest any help should come to Robert of Bellême from his Norman partisans. But before the King made any movement towards the lands on the Severn, he marched far to the north-east, to the lands watered by the tributaries of the northern Ouse, on the borders of Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire. Surrender of Tickhill. Here the mound of Tickhill was still held for the rebel Earl, and the new gate-house of his predecessor’s building still frowned defiance in the teeth of any advancing enemy.[1107] But Tickhill proved yet an easier conquest than Arundel. It needed no Malvoisin, no messages sent to Shrewsbury or Bridgenorth, to persuade its garrison to surrender. Question of the King’s presence. According to one version, the siege was not even deemed worthy of the royal presence. While Henry himself marched to the greater enterprise at Bridgenorth, a spiritual lord was deemed to be captain enough for the siege of Tickhill. Action of Robert Bloet. The work to be done there was entrusted to the hands of Bishop Robert of Lincoln.[1108] According to another version, which is perhaps not quite inconsistent with the other, the King himself appeared before Tickhill, and the garrison at once marched forth with all readiness to meet their natural lord--cynehlaford to Normans and Englishmen alike, cynehlaford above all to Yorkshiremen, if he was really born in their shire—​and received him with all fitting joy.[1109] Later history of Tickhill. The castle of Tickhill or Blyth passed back 432 again for a while to the kinsfolk of its former owner, and afterwards became a possession of the Crown.[1110] A collegiate chapel was founded within its walls by the first Queen Eleanor, and in the reign of her son Richard the ground between Tickhill and Blyth became the special scene of fantastic displays of chivalrous rashness.[1111] There was no licensed tournament-ground at Tickhill or elsewhere in the days of the King who made peace for man and deer.[1112]

Henry’s Shropshire campaign. Autumn, 1102. The more distant possessions of the rebel Earl were thus brought under the King’s obedience. The peace of King Henry reigned in Sussex, in Yorkshire, and in Nottinghamshire. Now came the time for attacking the special strongholds of Robert’s own earldom; the stage of attacking himself was to come last of all. After the surrender of Arundel and Tickhill, the King allowed his men a breathing-time;[1113] then, in the course of the autumn, he gathered together the forces of all England for the final overthrow of the rebellion. Robert of Bellême at Shrewsbury. Defence of Bridgenorth. Robert of Bellême had chosen his capital of Shrewsbury as the post which he would defend himself. His new fortress of Bridgenorth he placed in the hands of three chosen captains, at the head of eighty mercenary knights, attended doubtless by a fitting following of lower degree.[1114] Of the three leaders, Robert son of Corbet—​a 433 name which was to become abiding in those parts—​was a hereditary follower of the house of Montgomery; The three captains. Robert son of Corbet. he appears in Domesday as the holder of a large estate under Earl Roger.[1115] To another captain, Robert de Nova Villa, we have no certain clue; Neuvevilles and Newtons abound in Normandy and England; he may or he may not have been a forefather of the historic Nevilles. Robert Neville? Wulfgar the huntsman. The third awakens more interest; his name seems to be English; he is Wulfgar the huntsman.[1116] Nor is there the slightest reason to think that Robert of Bellême would reject the services of a born Englishman in any post, if the man himself seemed likely to suit his purpose. These three, with the regular force at their command, had to defend the Castle by the Bridge; Action of the Welsh princes. the Welsh princes, Cadwgan and Jorwerth, with their less disciplined bands, were planted in the neighbourhood, to annoy the King’s troops, as they might find occasion.[1117]

434 Robert of Bellême seizes the land of William Pantulf. But, while Earl Robert knew how to make use of the services of Robert the son of Corbet, he had the folly to make an enemy of another old follower of his father. He had already, for what cause we are not told, seized the lands of William Pantulf, who appears in Domesday as holding under Earl Roger a great estate in Shropshire, a small one in Staffordshire, and an empty house in the town of Stafford.[1118] He rejects his services. He was a tried and valiant warrior, and he now, forgetting his late wrongs, offered his services to the son of his old benefactor in his time of need. William Pantulf joins the King. Earl Robert thrust him aside with scorn, on which William betook himself to the King, by whom his merits were better valued. Henry had known him of old, and now gladly received him. He commands at Stafford; William Pantulf was sent at the head of two hundred knights, to command the castle of Stafford, a castle which had risen and fallen in the 435 days of the Conqueror, and which must have by this time risen again.[1119] The local knowledge and interest of William Pantulf in the two neighbouring shires seems to have stood him in good stead. his services. He acted vigorously against the lord who had scorned him, and no one, we are told, did more towards bringing about the final overthrow of the proud Earl.[1120]

Relation of Normans and English. And now we get one of our most instructive pictures of the time, and of the difference of feeling among men of the time. We distinctly see the difference of feeling between Normans and English. But they are no longer labelled as Normans and English, as they were only a year before. They are spoken of simply as different classes in one army. Six-and-thirty years after the day of Senlac, we are but seldom dealing with the men who fought for Harold or for William; we have come to their sons or even their grandsons. Division of feeling in the army. But the great men of the army and the small men, of whom the former class would be all but wholly Norman, while the latter would be Normans and English intermingled in various proportions, had quite different views as to the proper policy for King Henry to follow. And King Henry’s own views agreed with the views of the small men, and not with the views of the great. Siege of Bridgenorth. The King builds a Malvoisin. The army was gathered before Bridgenorth, and a regular siege was opened. The King brought up his engines of war; he built a fort to check the approach of any relief to the castle[1121]—​was it on Oldbury, was it on the northern side, beyond the surviving gate of the town, or did it guard the river from the opposite side 436 of the bridge? The siege lasted three weeks;[1122] and the course of events shows that it cannot have been at any very late stage of it that King Henry found that he had in his camp two widely different classes of men. There were in it men who were working honestly in his service, men who strove heartily for his success, knowing that the interests of King and people were the same. There were also men there to whom the interests of their own order were dearer than those of either King or people, and who feared that the overthrow of the power of the Earl of Shropshire might tend to the lessening of their own power, perhaps of their own possessions. We have seen the same division of feeling before the walls of Rochester;[1123] we now see it beneath the cliff of Bridgenorth. The great men lean to Robert of Bellême. The earls and great men of the kingdom who were in the army came together in separate consultations. They argued that it was not for their interest that the power of Robert of Bellême should be utterly broken. If the King dealt so with the greatest of his nobles, he might deal in the like sort with the rest, and might tread them under his feet like servants and handmaidens.[1124] It would suit them far better to bring about a peace between the King and the Earl. It would have been, one may guess, a peace by which Robert of Bellême should keep his earldom and the castles within his earldom, but should leave to the King the castles and 437 lands which the King had already won. In this way they would put an end to disputes, and would make both the King and the Earl their debtors.[1125]

The smaller men, Normans and English, faithful to the King. So reasoned the great men, the Norman nobles, the men to most of whom Robert of Bellême was a countryman and a comrade, and none of whom were likely to have felt the grip of his iron claws[1126] in their own persons. So reasoned not the sons of the soil; so reasoned not men of any race who were lowly enough to feel that in the power of the King—​that is in Henry’s days, the power of law—​lay their only hope of shelter against smaller oppressors. Meeting of the nobles. The great men came together in a field—​perhaps in the meadows beside the Severn—​and there held a parliament with the King—​a meeting, one might say, of the Witan from which the land-sitting men were shut out—​and earnestly pressed peace upon the King.[1127] Henry’s own feelings were clearly the other way; and those who were shut out from the counsels of the great ones now came to his help. Gathering of the mass of the army. Three thousand men of the mass of the army, men seemingly of the shire most nearly concerned, who were stationed on one of the neighbouring hills, knew, by whatever means, the counsel of the leaders, and were minded to have their voice in the matter too.[1128] If the King chose to hold a military Gemót, an assembly of the armed nation,[1129] they 438 had a right to be heard as well as men of higher degree. At Rochester too the English soldiers had spoken their minds; but to the Red King they must have spoken them through an interpreter. But Henry knew the tongue of his people, and we may fancy him not unwilling to listen to counsels which he could hear and weigh, while the mass of those of whom he had reason to be jealous understood not what was said. Appeal of the army to the King. A vigorous speech, which doubtless fairly represents the feelings of the moment, is put into the mouths of the three thousand or their leaders; “Lord King Henry, trust not those traitors. They do but strive to deceive you, and to take away from you the strength of kingly justice. Why do you listen to them who would have you spare the traitor and leave unpunished the conspiracy of those who seek your death? Behold we all stand by you faithfully; we are ready to serve and help you in all things. Attack the castle vigorously; shut in the traitor on all sides, and make no peace with him till you have him alive or dead in your hands.”[1130] The speakers do not call, as the English before Rochester called in the case of Odo, for the judicial death of the traitor. Henry’s faith pledged for Robert’s life. The faith of Henry was pledged to the garrison of Arundel that Robert of Bellême should be allowed to go safe into Normandy.[1131] But the three thousand clearly cherished a hope, perhaps that Robert’s own men might turn against him, certainly that, when Bridgenorth should fall and Shrewsbury should be beleagued, then some lucky bolt from an arrow or a mangonel might light on him before the time of surrender came, or, best of all for those who had felt his iron claws, that he might fall beneath one of their own axes in a sally or a storm.

439 Henry seeks to detach the Welsh from Robert. The King listened to the counsels of his advisers of lower degree, but of more honest hearts. King and people were one, and the designs of the traitors in the camp were brought to naught.[1132] First of all, Henry determined to weaken the strength of Robert, and no doubt to relieve his own army from a never-ending annoyance, by detaching the Welsh force from the cause of the rebels. Dealings of William Pantulf with Jorwerth. William Pantulf, who was doubtless well known to the Britons, acted as the King’s agent with Jorwerth son of Bleddyn. We are not told why he was thought more easy to win over than his brothers; but it seems plain that the negotiation was carried on with him only, unknown to Cadwgan and Meredydd.[1133] Henry’s great promises to Jorwerth. The King invited Jorwerth to his presence, with the assurance that he would do more for him than Earl Robert and his brothers could do.[1134] Jorwerth came; the gifts of King Henry were acceptable; his promises were magnificent indeed. As long as Henry lived—​it was wise not to bind his successor—​the British prince should 440 have, free of all homage and all tribute, Powys, Ceredigion, half Dyfed with the castle of Pembroke, the vale of Teifi, Kidwelly, and Gower.[1135] Such a dominion would give its holder a seaboard on two seas; it would leave under English rule little beyond the central and southern lands of Brecheiniog, Gwent, and Morganwg, and the outlying land of Pembroke, which would thus be most distinctly “Little England beyond Wales.” We are not told what was to be the fate of Cadwgan when Jorwerth received this great inheritance; but Jorwerth himself naturally caught at such a prospect. Jorwerth makes the Welsh change sides. And it seems that his power over his countrymen was so great that, while his brothers knew nothing of what was going on, Jorwerth was able to turn the whole British force which had come to the Earl’s help to the side of the King. The Welshmen now harried the lands of the Earl and his friends instead of those of his enemies, and carried off a vast booty.[1136] In any case the lands of some one were harried, and for the Britons that was doubtless enough.

Henry’s dealings with the captains at Bridgenorth. Having thus relieved himself of the enemy who hung upon his flanks, Henry began to deal directly with the defenders of Bridgenorth. Three of the leaders—​we may safely guess that Roger son of Corbet, Robert of Neville, and Wulfgar, are the three meant—​were invited to the King’s presence. They doubtless had a safe-conduct for that once; but they had to take back an ugly message to their comrades. The King swore in the hearing of all men that, unless they surrendered the castle within three 441 days, he would hang every man of the garrison that he could catch.[1137] The three captains, whose necks were in as much danger as those of their followers, began to consult for their own safety. Mediation of William Pantulf. They asked William Pantulf, as their neighbour, to act as a mediator between them and the King.[1138] At their request, he came to them, and made them a set speech on the duty of surrendering the castle to the lawful king. And his eloquence was backed by one special argument which shows that, in one point at least, Henry had made some progress in the school of Rufus. William was commissioned to swear in the King’s name that submission should be rewarded by an addition to the estates of each of the captains of lands of a hundred pounds’ worth.[1139] The captains promise to surrender. Moved, we are told, by a sense of the common good, the captains agreed, and, to avoid all further danger, submitted to the King’s will.[1140] They were allowed to send a message to Earl Robert to say that they could hold out no longer against the invincible power of King Henry.[1141]

Position of Robert. Robert of Bellême was now nearly at the end of his hopes and of his wits. His distant castles were lost; Bridgenorth, his own work, his newest work, was as good as lost; William Pantulf, able and active, had 442 turned against him; his Welsh allies had failed him; Cadwgan and Meredydd were still at his side;[1142] but they were useless guests now that Jorwerth had turned the whole power of the Britons to the other side. He still held Shrewsbury; but it was hard to defy the strength of the whole kingdom from within the walls of a single fortress. His dealings with Ireland and Norway. In his despair, he caught at the hope of making his peace with the King;[1143] he caught also at the most distant chances of stirring up enemies against the King. The Britons had proved a broken reed; he would try the Irish and the Northmen. The Irish fleet was said to be actually coming; Arnulf goes to Ireland. Arnulf was sent, or went of his own accord, to hasten the pace of these new allies, who, beside such help as they might give to Robert, were to bring Arnulf himself a wife who might one day give him a crown. But as Arnulf took his own men with him, Robert was yet further weakened by his going.[1144] At this moment one more chance seemed to offer itself. Magnus in Anglesey. The Norwegian King was once more afloat, and that for the last time. His course was much the same as on his former voyage. He sailed by the Orkneys and the Sudereys to Man, and thence once more to Anglesey.[1145] His castle-building in Man. Here, we are told, he busied himself in cutting down timber for the repair of certain castles in Man which he had formerly destroyed. It must have been at this 443 stage of the voyage of Magnus that Earl Robert sent a message craving help at his hands. It must have cost Robert somewhat of an effort to ask help of the slayer of his brother, Robert vainly asks help of Magnus. and, unless we attribute to the Norwegian King a general interest in confusion everywhere, it is hard to see on what ground Magnus could be expected to help Robert of Bellême against King Henry. The Northman refused all help. Failure of the Irish scheme. It would seem too that the Irish alliance came to nothing; one version at least makes this the moment when the daughter of Murtagh was given to Sigurd the son of Magnus, and not to Arnulf of Montgomery.[1146] Robert of Bellême left alone. Every chance of help far and near had failed the once mighty lord of so many lands and castles; his old friends had turned against him; his strivings to win new friends had failed. As far as England was concerned, Earl Robert seemed to be left alone on the mound of Shrewsbury.

Divisions in Bridgenorth; And yet for a moment one hope seemed left to him. The message of the three captains which announced the speedy surrender of Bridgenorth was premature. Roger, Robert, and Wulfgar, had promised more than they could do at the moment. There was a wide difference of interest between two classes of men who stood side by side on the height of Bridgenorth. the captains and the townsmen for surrender; The captains and the burgesses of the town—​for such a class had already in the space of four years sprung up at the gate of Earl Robert’s castle[1147]—​were of one mind, the mercenary soldiers were of another. The three captains, the townsmen, and doubtless any of the Earl’s soldiers of whatever rank who were English by birth or settlement, any who 444 had any stake on English soil, were eager to come to terms with the King. So to do was their manifold interest and manifest duty; it was a special interest and duty of the captains who had promised so to do, and who looked for such rich rewards for so doing. the mercenaries wish to hold out. But to the mercenary soldiers of Earl Robert, professional fighting men picked out from many lands, things had another look. They had no stake in England; they cared nothing for King Henry and for the peace of his kingdom. The more the peace of England was likely to be disturbed, the better it would be for them. Any glimmering of duty which found a place in their minds would be a feeling of rude faithfulness to the master whom they served, the rebel Earl whose bread they had eaten. The mercenaries therefore cried out loudly against the submission to which, without taking them into their counsels, the captains and the townsmen had agreed. They seized their arms, and strove to hinder the carrying out of the surrender which had been promised.[1148] They are overpowered. But the captains, with the townsmen and the loyal party in the garrison, were too strong for them; they were themselves made prisoners and shut up within some one part of the castle.[1149] Surrender of Bridgenorth. The surrender was now carried out; the gates were opened; the royal troops marched up the path which led to the castle, and the banner of England again floated over the height crowned by the stronghold of Æthelflæd.[1150] The joy of the men of Bridgenorth was great, and on that day of deliverance no man was inclined to harshness. King Henry could honour the faithfulness of the Earl’s mercenaries to their own lord, even though that faithfulness was, in the eye of the law, 445 treason to himself and his kingdom. The mercenaries march out with the honours of war. They were allowed to go forth with the honours of war, with their arms and their horses. Whither they went we are not told. They may even have entered the King’s service. The prudence of Henry might be trusted not to let them go anywhither where they were likely to be dangerous. And, as they came forth between the ranks of the besiegers, they were allowed to tell their tale in the hearing of all men. It was not, they said, to be turned to the shame of their calling that the Castle by the Bridge had been given up without a blow. They were guiltless; the deed was done by the guile of faithless captains and of unwarlike townsmen.[1151] King and people might admire, in truth there is something to admire, in the mistaken faithfulness of these men, even to an evil cause. But King and people had still work on their hands; the arch-enemy had still to be found, alive or dead, in the last stronghold which held out for him.

And now came the last act of the drama, the last stage of the struggle which was to make Henry truly king, and to give England three-and-thirty years of peace under his rule. Robert still holds Shrewsbury. With the news of the fall of Bridgenorth all hope passed away from the heart of Robert of Bellême. One strong fortress indeed was still his. Earl of the Mercians, Earl of Shropshire, he could call himself no longer; lord of Shrewsbury he still was, while he still kept the castle of his capital as the last abiding seat of rebellion. Shrewsbury castle. All the distinctive features 446 of Shrewsbury in later times, town, churches, castle, abbey, were all there. On the neck of the peninsula girded by the Severn, on ground high in itself though lower than some points of the hill town behind it, the mound of Old-English days which had supplanted the old seat of British kingship, and which was now crowned by the fortress of his father, still was his.[1152] Its towers rose as high as the loftiest buildings of the town which they kept in awe; from their height he might look forth on the mountain land which had been won for his earldom by his father’s power; he might look down on the broad and rushing river, and on his father’s minster beyond its stream.[1153] But the mountain land, so lately his ally, had now turned against him; the stream of Severn brought no help to the beleaguered fortress; no prayers, we may be sure, went up for the son of Mabel from the altars whose guardians had seen the virtues and tasted the bounty of Adeliza. Despair of Robert. The stern earl, thus utterly forsaken, lost his fierce and defiant spirit; he groaned for sorrow; he knew not which way to turn for help or counsel.[1154] The King’s march to Shrewsbury. And soon he felt that his hour indeed was come, when he saw the royal banners draw near to his last stronghold. As soon as Bridgenorth had fallen, the march on Shrewsbury began. A mighty host it was which set forth on the errand of deliverance. Gathering of the English army. We take the figures as merely the conventional expression of a vast number, when we read that sixty thousand Englishmen gathered around the standard of King Henry 447 of England.[1155] Zeal of the troops. They marched with a will, eager to meet the great oppressor face to face, to bring the last stronghold of wrong under the dominion of law, to join in their king’s work of rooting out the ungodly that were in the land. Englishmen had gone forth with a will to the siege of Rochester, perhaps to the siege of Bamburgh; but then they had gone forth at the bidding of a king who was wholly a stranger. Now they gathered around a king, born indeed of the foreign stock, but a king of their own choice, born on their own soil, cheering them on in their own tongue, a king whom they might well deem a truer Ætheling than the grandson of Ironside born in distant Hungary or than the son of Harold brought up among the wikings of the North. Nature of the road. The road by which they had to march was one which had dangers of its own. It was a road among hills, sometimes rough with stones; in one part it was for a mile’s space a mere hollow way, overhung by a thick wood, a path so narrow that two horses could hardly pass, a path which men called the Evil Hedge. Among the trees on either side archers might easily lurk, to the no small loss of the host which had to march between two fires.[1156] The road is cleared. The King accordingly first sent forward his pioneers to clear the way for his army and for all travellers along that road for ever. The wood was cut down on both sides, the path was widened, and the evil hedge became a broad road along which the great host of England could march in safety.[1157]

448 Along the new-made road King Henry marched to a bloodless conquest. He had no need to throw up a bank or to shoot an arrow against the mound and the towers of Shrewsbury. Robert sends to ask for peace. On his way he was met by an embassy from Earl Robert, asking for peace. The terms are not told us, but the answer implied that Robert still asked for terms. He may have hoped, shut out as he was from everything else, still to keep the capital of his earldom, perhaps as a means for one day winning back all that he had lost. The King refuses terms. But the King and his host were in no mood to listen to terms; they longed for the last attack on the arch-enemy. The answer, the decree, as we read it, of the armed Gemót, was that Robert of Bellême must hope for no mercy, unless he came and freely threw himself into the King’s hands.[1158] In that case, it will be remembered, the King’s word was pledged for his life and his safe passage to Normandy. Robert consulted the few friends whom he had left, and their advice at last bent his proud heart to an unconditional submission. Nine days had passed since the surrender of Bridgenorth[1159] when the royal force drew near to Shrewsbury. Robert submits at discretion. Robert of Bellême came forth in person to meet them; he knelt, we may suppose, before the King; he confessed his treason, and placed in the King’s hands the keys of Shrewsbury, city and castle. He thus gave up for ever his last English possession, the head of that great earldom which his father had received from the hands of the King’s father.[1160] As far as 449 England was concerned, the lord of Bellême, a moment before lord of Shrewsbury, was a landless man. He is sent out of England. The King strictly kept his word to the suppliant; but he would not grant him the slightest favour beyond what his word bound him to. Robert was untouched in life and limb, he received a safe-conduct to the sea-shore, and he was allowed to keep his arms and horses, a needful defence in case of irregular attack.[1161] And so the land was free from its worst enemy; the devil of Bellême was cast out of the realm of England. Evil men no doubt were left behind; but none, we may believe, who would refuse to ransom his prisoners, for the mere pleasure of seeing them die of hunger or of torture.

The work was done; the host of victorious Englishmen marched back to their homes.[1162] Joy at Robert’s overthrow. The joy of the land at the great deliverance was beyond words. The tyrant was overthrown, the King was now king indeed. The national joy is set before us as bursting forth in a kind of rhythmical song, which reminds us of those fragments of primæval poetry which remain imbedded in the history of the Hebrews. We hear the same strain as that which denounced woe to Moab and rejoiced in the undoing of the people of Chemosh,[1163] when Englishmen 450 are described as gathering round their King, and shouting the hymn of victory. The song of deliverance. “Rejoice, King Henry, and give thanks to the Lord God, now that thou hast overthrown Robert of Bellême and hast driven him from the borders of thy kingdom.”[1164] Banishment of Arnulf and Roger. Nor was he driven forth alone. The King had good grounds for the banishment of his chief accomplices, his two brothers Arnulf and Roger, and for the seizure of their lands.[1165] The King’s hatred towards the whole family. His hatred towards the whole house of Montgomery, or rather towards the whole house of Talvas, had become so great that he would not endure that any member of it should hold lands or honours in his kingdom. Later history of Robert of Bellême. Robert of Bellême himself went over to Normandy, to raise new disturbances there. At a later time he was again twice to visit England, once as an ambassador, and again as a prisoner, a prisoner in a prison so strait that no man knew whether he lived or died.[1166] But his part, a part only of four years, as an English earl and perhaps the greatest of English land-owners, was played out for ever.

Death of Magnus. 1103. Of the other chief actors in the events of those four 451 years, King Magnus died the year after the fall of Robert of Bellême, in his last and greatest attack on Ireland.[1167] A Giffard in his fleet. It awakens some interest when we read that he had in his host a stranger who bore the great Norman name of Giffard.[1168] Was he an accomplice, was he a messenger, of Earl Robert of Shropshire? Later history of Jorwerth. Towards the Welsh prince Jorwerth, who had done so much on both sides in the course of the rebellion, Henry was, according to the Welsh writers, far from keeping his word. War between Jorwerth and his brothers. It is not wonderful that enmity arose between Jorwerth and his brothers after his conduct during the siege of Bridgenorth. He seems to have waged open war with them in the King’s name. Meredydd imprisoned. For we are told that he seized his brother Meredydd and handed him over to the King or imprisoned him in a royal prison.[1169] Jorwerth cedes Ceredigion to Cadwgan. But with Cadwgan he made peace, giving up to him a large share of his promised dominions, namely the lands which Cadwgan had before held of Robert of Bellême, Ceredigion and part of Powys. It was perhaps this agreement with an enemy which offended Henry. The King does not fulfil his promises to Jorwerth. When Jorwerth came, seemingly to receive his grant from the King’s hands, he received nothing. Dyfed and the castle of Pembroke, far too precious a stronghold to be left in the hands of any Briton, was entrusted to a knight named Saer, from whom it afterwards passed to Gerald of Windsor, a man who had already bravely defended it, and whom the King had his own reasons for promoting.[1170] Grant of Gower and other lands to Howel. But the remainder of the promised possessions of Jorwerth, the vale of Teifi, Gower, and Kidwelly, were, by a breach of promise 452 which must have been yet more galling, granted to another Welsh lord, Howel son of Goronwy.[1171] Jorwerth tried at Shrewsbury and imprisoned. 1103. The next year Jorwerth was summoned before an assembly at Shrewsbury, the place renowned for the trial of a more famous Welsh prince of later days. The choice of the place is characteristic of the reign of Henry, Gemóts held in various places under Henry. under whom national assemblies were held in various parts of the kingdom, and were no longer confined to the three places to which custom had confined them under Eadward, Harold, and the two Williams.[1172] Shrewsbury a former place of meeting. It was but a return to older custom; Shrewsbury had been the seat of more than one memorable assembly in earlier times;[1173] but this was the first time that Shrewsbury in its new form had seen a great national gathering; The earldom of Shrewsbury. it was the first assembly that had been held since the English mound had become the kernel of Earl Roger’s castle, and since Earl Roger’s abbey had arisen beyond the river. Earls had now passed away from Shrewsbury; no such title was heard again till the days of the famous Talbot, when it was in French and not in English ears that the name was terrible. After the four years’ rule of Robert of Bellême, there was doubtless much to settle in his former earldom and along the whole Welsh border. Trial of Jorwerth. In the assembly held for that end Jorwerth appeared and was put upon his trial. We should be well pleased to have as full an account of the proceedings against the British prince as we have of the proceedings against Bishop William of Durham. His conviction and imprisonment. But the story was not deemed worth recording by any English writer; the Welsh, who bitterly complain of the injustice of the court, tell us how, after a day’s pleading, Jorwerth was declared guilty and committed to prison.[1174] He was 453 afterwards set free, and again played a part among his own people; His later history. but a patriotic Welsh chronicler laments that the hope, the fortitude, the strength, and the happiness of all the Britons failed them when Jorwerth was put in bonds.[1175]

Establishment of Henry’s power. King Henry had at last done his work. When Robert of Bellême was cast out, his throne remained safe and his kingdom peaceful. Two years later indeed there was another enemy to cast out; but the ease with which the work was now done showed how thoroughly the harder work had been done before Bridgenorth and Shrewsbury. Banishment of William of Mortain, 1104. When the King’s near kinsman and bitter enemy, Count William of Mortain, would fain have had the earldom of Kent and have been another Odo in it, there was no need of a siege of Pevensey or of Montacute. His imprisonment after Tinchebrai. 1106. A simple legal process was enough to send him out of the land without slash or blow.[1176] He lived to try the chance of slash and blow at Tinchebrai, and to meet with a heavy doom, live-long bonds, perhaps borne in blindness, His alleged blinding. at the hands of his offended cousin and sovereign.[1177] His ambition could not disturb the peace of the land for a single day; the might of armed unlaw had been broken when the gates of Shrewsbury 454 opened to receive King Henry. Peace of Henry’s reign. 1102–1135. From that day for three-and-thirty years, a wonder in those days, a whole kingdom saw neither civil war nor foreign invasion. As Italy rested of old under Theodoric, as Sicily rested under his contemporary Roger, so England rested under Henry. Henry and Roger of Sicily. The two Norman and insular kings, lords of the great island of the Mediterranean and of the great island of the Ocean, had each his wars to wage. But each kept his battle-ground on the mainland, while his island realm abode in peace. Character of Henry’s reign. The bright promises with which the reign of Henry opened, the dreams of an English king reigning over an English people, were not wholly fulfilled. Its promises how far fulfilled. The fair dawn was in some measure clouded over; the winning promises were not in everything carried out. Still things were not under Henry as they had been under his brother. The dawn was never changed into the blackness of darkness; the promises of righteous and national rule were never utterly trampled under foot. Under the strong hand of the Lion of Justice such deeds as those of Robert of Bellême became impossible. The complaints of exactions in money go on throughout his reign. The more grievous complaints of the wrongs done by his immediate followers are not heard of after the stern statute by which Henry and Anselm joined together to check their misdoings. The reign of law. Under Henry law did not always put on a winning shape; but it was felt that the reign of law in any shape was better than the reign of unlaw. Effects of Henry’s reign. It may be that the very restraint under which the powers of evil were kept down during the reign of Henry led to a fiercer outbreak when they were set free at his death. Henry the Second. But the same process had given the nation life and strength to bear up through the frightful years of anarchy, and to be ready at their close to welcome another Henry again to do justice 455 and make peace. Fusion of Normans and English under Henry. But above all, the rule of Henry wiped out the distinction which, at his accession, had divided the conquerors and the conquered. Under him Normans born on English ground grew up as Englishmen. They felt as Englishmen, when the second restoration of the reign of law brought with it, as its dark side, the preference of men from beyond the sea to the sons of the soil of either race. Henry the refounder of the English nation. With all his faults, his vices, his occasional crimes, Henry the Clerk, the first of the new line who was truly an English Ætheling, must rank before all other kings as the refounder of the English nation. He embodies the process of fusion. He is himself the embodiment of the process by which the Norman on English soil washed off the varnish of his two centuries’ sojourn by the Seine, and came back to his true place in the older Teutonic fellowship of Angle, Saxon, and Dane. When Henry gave back to his people the laws of King Eadward with the amendments of King William, he wrote in advance the whole later history of England. The old stock was neither cut down nor withered away; but a new stock was grafted upon it. And it was no unworthy fruit that it bore in the person of the King in whose days none durst misdo with other.

With the firm establishment of Henry’s rule by the fall of Robert of Bellême my immediate story ends. Of the memorable time which followed, a time memorable for many things, but memorable above all as being, within the English kingdom, a perfect blank in military history, I have sketched the outline in another volume. I there traced out the leading features of the reign and discussed its leading results. The compromise with Anselm. 1107. I there traced the later stages of the career of Anselm, his dispute with Henry, his second departure and second restoration, the final 456 compromise which to the wisdom of Henry and the single-mindedness of Anselm was not impossible. The war with Robert. I traced out also the various matters in dispute between Henry and Robert till the time when, as men fondly deemed, England, after forty years, paid back the day of Senlac on the day of Tinchebrai. 1106. I could have been well pleased to carry on in detail to their end two stories of which I have had to tell so large a part. But my immediate subject ends when King Henry is made fast on his throne by the overthrow of the rebel Earl of Shrewsbury. Earlier than that point the tale could not stop. The reign of Rufus how far an episode. Deep as is the importance of the reign of William Rufus in so many ways, there is a certain way of looking at things in which the reign of William Rufus is a kind of episode. Or rather it is an attempt at a certain object which, when tried in the person of Rufus, failed, and which had to be again tried, with better luck, in the person of Henry. Problem of reconciling England to the Conquest. The problem was to reconcile the English nation to the Norman Conquest, to nationalize, so to speak, the Conquest and the dynasty which the Conquest had brought in. The means thereto was to find a prince of the foreign stock who should reign as an English king, with the good will of the English people, in the interest of the English people. Not solved under Rufus, William Rufus might have held that place, if he had been morally capable of it. His crown was won for him from Norman rebels by the valour and loyalty of Englishmen, when for the last time they met Normans on their own soil as enemies. But Rufus forsook his trust; he belied his promises; if he did not strictly become an oppressor of Englishmen as Englishmen, it was only because he became the common oppressor and enemy of mankind. but solved by Henry. Thirteen years later the same drama was acted over again. Henry, who reigned by a more direct choice of the English people than William, owed his crown also to 457 the loyalty of Englishmen whose valour against Norman enemies it was found needless to test in the open field. This time the problem was solved; if Henry did not bring back the days of Ælfred or even the days of Cnut, he at least brought in a very different state of things from what men had seen in the days of his brother. England no longer a conquered land. After the election at Winchester, the conference at Alton, the fight at Tinchebrai, England could no longer be called a conquered land. The work of the Norman Conquest was from one side confirmed for ever, from another side it was undone for ever. The Conquest at once confirmed and undone. The last act of the struggle, an afterpiece more stirring than the main drama, was when Robert of Bellême came forth, shorn of his power to do evil, to surrender the stronghold of Shrewsbury to his sovereign. The surrender of Chester to the elder William marked that the first struggle was over, and that the Norman was to rule in England. Import of the surrender of Shrewsbury. The surrender of Shrewsbury to his youngest son marked that the second struggle was over, the struggle which ruled that, though the Norman was to reign in England, he was to reign only by putting on the character of an English king, called to his throne by the voice of Englishmen, and guarded there by their loyalty against the plots and assaults of Norman rebels.

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APPENDIX.

The Accession of William Rufus.

The remarkable thing about the accession of William Rufus is that it is the one case in those days in which a king succeeds without any trace of regular election, whether by the nation at large or by any smaller body. The ecclesiastical election which formed part of the rite of coronation was doubtless not forgotten; but there is no sign of any earlier election by the Witan, or by any gathering which could call itself by their name. Lanfranc appears as the sole actor. One account, the Life of Lanfranc attached to the Winchester Chronicle, speaks of the archbishop in so many words as the one elector; “Mortuo rege Willielmo trans mare, filium ejus Willielmum, sicut pater constituit, Lanfrancus regem elegit, et in ecclesia beati Petri, in occidentali parte Lundoniæ sita, sacravit et coronavit.” The words of Eadmer (Hist. Nov. 13) are almost equally strong;

“Defuncto itaque rege Willielmo, successit ei in regnum, Willielmus filius ejus, qui cum regni fastigia fratri suo Roberto præripere gestiret, et Lanfrancum, sine cujus accensu in regnum ascisci nullatenus poterat, sibi in hoc ad expletionem desiderii sui non omnino consentaneum inveniret, verens ne dilatio suæ consecrationis inferret ei dispendium cupiti honoris,” &c.

William of Malmesbury too (iv. 305) goes so far as to say;

“A patre, ultima valetudine decumbente, in successorem adoptatus, antequam ille extremum efflasset, ad occupandum regnum contendit, moxque volentibus animis provincialium exceptus, et claves 460 thesaurorum nactus est, quibus fretus totam Angliam animo subjecit suo. Accessit etiam favori ejus, maximum rerum momentum, archiepiscopus Lanfrancus, eo quod eum nutrierat et militem fecerat, quo auctore et annitente,… coronatus,” &c.

Neither of these writers follows any strict order of time. The willing assent of the people may mean either their passive assent at his coming, or their more formal assent on the coronation-day. The general good-will shown towards the new king is set forth also by Robert of Torigny (Cont. Will. Gem. viii. 2; “susceptus est ab Anglis et Francis”), by the author of the Brevis Relatio (11) in the same words, and by the Battle writer (39); “omnium favore, ut decebat, magnifice exceptus.”

If then we accept Eadmer’s words in their fulness, the only objection made at the time to Rufus’ accession came from his special elector, Lanfranc himself. This incidental notice, implying that Lanfranc did hesitate, is very remarkable. We are not told the ground of his objections. But of whatever kind they were, they were overcome by the new King’s special oath, in which the formal words of the coronation bond seem to be mixed up with oaths and promises of a more general kind;

“Cœpit, tam per se tam per omnes suos quos poterat, fide sacramentoque Lanfranco promittere justitiam, æquitatem, et misericordiam, se per totum regnum, si rex foret, in omni negotio servaturum; pacem, libertatem, securitatem, ecclesiarum contra omnes defensurum, necne præceptis atque consiliis ejus per omnia et in omnibus obtemperaturum.”

We may compare the special promise of Æthelred on his restoration (N. C. vol. i. p. 368) to follow the advice of his Witan in all things.

The first signs of any thought of usurpation or the like in the accession of Rufus may be dimly seen in the Hyde writer (298); where however stronger phrases are, oddly enough, applied to Robert;

“Defuncto rege Willelmo et sepulturæ tradito, Willelmus filius ejus in Angliam transvectus regnum occupat, regemque se vocari omnibus imperat; Robertus quoque frater ejus regressus a Gallia, Normanniam invadit, et nullo resistente ditioni suæ supponit.”

By the time of William of Newburgh men had found out the hereditary right of the eldest son. He says, first (i. 2), that Robert 461 succeeded in Normandy, William in England, “ordine quidem præpostero, sed per ultimam patris, ut dictum est, voluntatem commutato.” Directly after, the rebels of next year favour Robert, “tanquam justo hæredi et perperam exhæredato” (cf. Suger, Duchèsne, iv. 283, “Exhæredato majore natu Roberto fratre suo”). And presently, we hear of “frater senior Robertus, cui nimirum ordine naturali regni successio competebat.” All this is odd, when we remember how well in the next chapter (see vol. i. p. 11) the same author understands the position of Henry, as the only true Ætheling, son of a king. Oddly enough, Thomas Wykes (Ann. Mon. iv. 11) gives this last position to Rufus, “quem primum genuit [Willelmus le Bastard, rex Angliæ] postquam regnum adquisivit.”

Matthew Paris (Hist. Angl. i. 34, 35), as usual, gives the story a colouring of his own, which may be compared with his version of the accession of Henry the First (see N. C. vol. v. p. 845). He has told us that the Conqueror, in bequeathing his kingdom to his second son, gave him special advice as to its rule;

“Willelmo Rufo filio suo Angliam, scilicet conquestum suum, assignavit; supplicans ut Anglos, quos crudeliter et veluti ingratus male tractaverat, mitius confoveret.”

He crosses to England, “utilius reputans regnum sibi firmare vivorum quam mortui cujuscumque exsequiis interesse.” Then we read;

“Willelmus, cognomento Rufus, filius regis Willelmi primi, veniens in Angliam, consilio et auxilio Lamfranci Cantuariensis archiepiscopi, qui ipsum a primis annis nutriverat et militem fecerat, sine moroso dispendio Angliam sibi conciliatam inclinavit, nec tamen totam. Sed ut negotium regis optatum cito sortiretur effectum, ipsum die sanctorum Cosmæ et Damiani, etsi cum sollemnitate mutilata, coronavit, veraciter promittentem ut Angliam cum modestia gubernaret, leges sancti regis Edwardi servaturus, et Anglos præcipue tractaret reverenter.”

These remarkable words must be taken in connexion with what immediately follows, which is in truth a very rose-coloured version of the rebellion of 1088, which is made immediately to follow, or rather to accompany, the coronation. For the next words are;

“Verumtamen quamplures Anglorum nobiles, formidantes et augurantes ipsum velle patrissare, noluerunt ei obsecundare, sed 462 elegerunt potius Roberto, militi strenuissimo, militare, et tamquam primogenito ipsi in regem creato famulari, quam fallacibus promissis Rufi fidem adhibere. Sed Lamfrancus hæc sedavit, bona promittens.”

Still the new King sees that many of the nobles of the kingdom are plotting against him. By the advice of Lanfranc therefore he gathers a secret assembly of English nobles (“Anglorum nobiliores et fortiores invitando secretius convocavit”); he promises with an oath on the Gospels to give them good laws and all the old free customs (“pristinae libertatis consuetudines”). He then wins over Roger of Montgomery, according to the account in vol. i. p. 61. Then, again by Lanfranc’s advice, he divides and weakens the English by his promises (“omnes Anglos, quos insuperabiles, si fuissent inseparabiles, cognoverat, talibus sermocinationibus et promissis dissipatos et enervatos sibi conciliavit”). A few only resist; against those he wages a successful war at the head of the nation generally (“eorum conamina, universitatis adjutus viribus, quantocius annullavit”), and confiscates their goods.

It is clear that Matthew Paris had the elder writers before him, but that he did not fully understand their language with regard to the appeal of Rufus to the English. We must remember the time when he wrote. In his day the immediate consequences of the Conquest had passed away; the distinction of “Angli” and “Franci,” so living in the days of Rufus, was forgotten. But men had not yet begun to speculate about “Normans and Saxons,” as Robert of Gloucester did somewhat later. Moreover Matthew was used to a state of things in which a king who, if not foreign by birth, was foreign in feeling, had to be withstood by an united English nation, indifferent as to the remoter pedigree of each man. He therefore told the story of the reign of Rufus as if it had been the story of the reign of Henry the Third. All are “Angli;” the distinction drawn by the Chronicler between the “French” who rebelled against the King and the “English” to whom he appealed, is lost. The English people whom he called to his help against the Norman nobles become English nobles whom he cunningly wins over in secret. Matthew understands that England was a conquered country with a foreign king; he does not understand the relations of foreigners and natives in the island, and that the foreign king appealed to the natives against his own countrymen. The 463 passage is most valuable, not as telling us anything about the reign of William Rufus, but as showing us how the reign of William Rufus looked when read by the present experience of the reign of Henry the Third.

At the same time Matthew Paris must have had something special in his eye, when he spoke of the coronation rites of William Rufus as being in some way imperfect. Was there any tradition that, as John did not communicate at his coronation, so neither did William? Men may have argued from one tyrant to another.

On the whole we may say that William Rufus, like Servius Tullius (Cic. de Rep. ii. 21), “regnare coepit, non jussu, sed voluntate atque concessu civium.”

Besides these accounts, given by contemporary or nearly contemporary writers, or founded on their statements, there is another version of William’s accession, which I take to be wholly mythical. This is preserved in the local history of Colchester abbey (Monasticon, iv. 607). In this the accession of Rufus is said to have been almost wholly brought about by Eudo the dapifer, the son of Hubert of Rye. It seems to be a continuation of another legend (see N. C. vol. iii. p. 683), in which Hubert is made the chief actor in the bequest of the crown which Eadward is said to have made in favour of the elder William. It is in short a family legend, devised in honour of the house of Rye. The same part is played in two successive generations; the father secures the crown for the elder William, the son for the younger. First of all, we are told of the way in which Eudo gained his office of dapifer, an office which the witness of Domesday shows that he really held. The story is almost too silly to tell; but it runs thus. William Fitz-Osbern, before he set out to seek for crowns in Flanders, held the post of “major domus regiæ.” In that character he was setting a dish of crane’s flesh before William, and, as it was ill-cooked (“carnem gruis semicrudæ adeo ut sanguis exprimeretur”), the King aimed a blow at him. Eudo, as though he had been Lilla saving Eadwine from the poisoned dagger of Eomer, thrust himself forward and received the blow which was meant for the Earl of Hereford. William Fitz-Osbern accordingly resigns his office, asking that Eudo may succeed him in it. We hear no more till William’s death, when Eudo appears as exhorting 464 William Rufus to hasten and take possession of the English crown (“Eudo, arrepta occasione ex paterna concessione, Willelmum juniorem aggreditur, et ut negotio insistat hortatur”). They cross over together, and are made to land at Worcester—Portchester must be meant, through some confusion of p and ƿ. Thence they go to Winchester, and get the keys of the treasure-house by favour of its keeper, William of Pont de l’Arche, a person whom I cannot find in Domesday (“In Angliam transvecti, appliciti Worcestriæ comparato sibi favore Willielmi de Ponte-arce, claves thesauri Wintoniæ suscipiunt quarum idem Willielmus custos erat”). Not only the coming of the younger William, but the death of the elder, is carefully kept secret, while Eudo goes to Dover, Pevensey, Hastings, and the other fortresses on the coast. Pretending orders from the King, he binds their garrisons by oaths to give up the keys to no one except by his orders (“fide et sacramento custodes obligat nemini nisi suo arbitrio claves munitionis tradituros … prætendens regem in Normannia moras facturum, et velle de omnibus munitionibus Angliæ securitatem habere, per se scilicet qui senescallus erat”). He then comes back to Winchester; the death of the King is announced, and, while the peers of the realm are in Normandy debating about the succession to the crown, William Rufus is, through the diligence of Eudo, elected and crowned (“acceleratoque negotio, Wintoniam redit; et tunc demum regem obiisse propalat. Ita dum cæteri proceres de regni successione tractant in Normannia, interim studio et opera Eudonis, Willielmus junior in regem eligitur, consecratur, confirmatur, in Anglia”). The story goes on to say that the people of Colchester petitioned the new King that they might be put under the care of Eudo. To this William gladly agreed, and Eudo ruled the town with great justice and mercy, relieving the inhabitants from their heavy burthens, seemingly by the process of taking to himself a large amount of confiscated land and paying the taxes laid upon the town out of it (“causas cœpit inquirere, sublevare gravatos, comprimere elatos, et in suis primordiis omnibus complacere. Terras damnatorum, exlegatorum, et pro culpis eliminatorum, dum nemo coleret, exigebantur tamen plenaliter fiscalia, et hac de causa populus valde gravabatur. Has ergo terras Eudo sibi vindicavit, ut pro his fisco satisfaceret et populum eatenus alleviaret”).

465 The share taken by Eudo in the accession of William seems to be pure fiction. His good deeds at Colchester are perfectly possible; but the latter part of the story seems to be a confusion or perversion of an entry in Domesday (ii. 106), which rather reads as if Eudo had become possessor, and that in the time of the elder William, of the common land of the burgesses (“Eudo dapifer v. denarios et xl. acras terræ quas tenebant burgenses tempore R. E. et reddebant omnem consuetudinem burgensium. Modo vero non reddunt consuetudinem nisi de suis capitibus”). This looks as if the burgesses had hitherto paid the royal dues out of their corporate estate, but that, when that estate passed to Eudo, a poll-tax had to be levied to defray them.

The beginning of the Rebellion of 1088.

Of the great revolt of the Normans in England against William Rufus we have three accounts in considerable detail, in the Chronicle, in Florence, and in Orderic. The Chronicle and Florence do not follow exactly the same arrangement, but I do not see any contradiction between them. Florence simply arranges his narrative in such a way as to give special prominence to his own city and his own bishop. But Orderic, from whom we get a most vivid, and seemingly quite trustworthy, account of certain parts of the campaign, seems to have misconceived the order of events in the early part of the story, especially with regard to the time of Bishop Odo’s coming to England. According to him, Odo did not come to England till after Christmas. He then comes, along with Eustace of Boulogne and Robert of Bellême, as the agent of a plot already devised in concert with Duke Robert for the death or deposition of his brother. The others join them, and the rebellion begins.

In the other version, that of the Chronicle and Florence, illustrated in various points of detail by William of Malmesbury, Henry of Huntingdon, and other writers, Odo comes to England much sooner, in time for the Christmas assembly. He brings no treasonable intentions with him; he takes to plotting only when 466 he finds that his power in England is less than he had hoped that it would be. Eustace and Robert of Bellême do not come to England till a later stage, when the rebellion has fully broken out, and when Odo is holding Rochester against the King. They are then sent by Duke Robert, who is represented (see p. 56) as hearing for the first time of the revolt in his favour after Rochester was seized by Odo.

Orderic begins his story (665 D) with an account of seditious meetings held by the nobles of Normandy and England, and of speeches made at them. It is not said where they were spoken or by whom, but the context would seem to imply that they were spoken by Odo in Normandy. For immediately after the speech follow the words (666 C);

“Hoc itaque consilium Odo præsul Baiocensis et Eustachius comes Boloniensis atque Robertus Belesmensis aliique plures communiter decreverunt, decretumque suum Roberto duci detexerunt.”

Then the consent of Robert is given, as in p. 56, and the three ringleaders cross to England, and begin the revolt;

“Igitur post natale Domini prædicti proceres in Angliam transfretaverunt, et castella sua plurimo apparatu muniverunt, multamque partem patriæ contra regem infra breve tempus commoverunt.”

I have ventured (in p. 25) to work the substance of the speech into the text, as it contains arguments which suit the circumstances of the case, and which are specially suited to speakers in Normandy. But the speech cannot really have been spoken by Odo in Normandy. For it is impossible to resist the evidence which brings Odo over to England before the Christmas Assembly, and which makes his enmity to the King arise out of things which happened after he came to England. We have, first, the direct statement (see p. 19) of Henry of Huntingdon that Odo was present at the Christmas Gemót. And this statement is the more valuable, because it is not brought in as part of the story of Odo; it reads rather as if it came from some official source, perhaps from a list of signatures to some act of the Assembly. But the words of William of Malmesbury (iv. 306) come almost to the same thing;

“Cum ille, solutus a vinculis, Robertum nepotem in comitatu Normanniæ confirmasset, Angliam venit, recepitque a rege comitatum Cantiæ.”

467 The Midwinter Gemót was the obvious time for such a grant, and Odo’s restoration to his earldom is asserted or implied everywhere. Thus in the Chronicle we read a little later how “Odo … ferde into Cent to his eorldome,” and Florence speaks of him as “Odo episcopus Baiocensis, qui et erat comes Cantwariensis.” Orderic himself (666 C) says, “Odo, ut supra dictum est, palatinus Cantiæ consul erat, et plures sub se comites virosque potentes habebat,” seemingly without seeing that his version hardly gives any opportunity for the restoration of the earldom. Henry of Huntingdon (214 Arnold), almost alone, speaks of him as “princeps et moderator Angliæ,” without reference to his special office of earl. William of Malmesbury goes on (see p. 23) to give the reason for Odo’s discontent, the greater authority of the Bishop of Durham. The Chronicle and Florence (see pp. 23, 24) mention only the great authority enjoyed by Bishop William, and the revolt of Odo, without mentioning Odo’s motive. That is, they simply state the facts, while William of Malmesbury supplies the connecting link. If we accept Orderic’s version that Odo did not come to England till after Christmas, we have hardly time for the events as they are stated in our other authorities. For we have to find time for Odo’s re-establishment in his earldom, for his hopes and for his disappointment, all leading up to the seditious gatherings during Lent. And in some parts of the kingdom, as we shall see in the next Note, these gatherings took the form of an open outbreak somewhat earlier than we should have been led to think from the account in the Chronicle.

Now there can be no doubt as to the truth of the version in which the Chronicle, Florence, and William of Malmesbury substantially agree. All that Orderic has done has been to place the voyage of Odo to England at a wrong time, and it is easy to see how the mistake arose. He makes Odo, Eustace, and Robert of Bellême cross together soon after Christmas. Now it is quite clear that Eustace and Robert did not come to England till after the rebellion had fully broken out, when Odo was holding Rochester against the King. The Chronicle simply says (see p. 57) that they were at Rochester with Odo. Florence (see p. 56) tells us more fully how they came to be there, namely, because they had been sent by Robert in answer to Odo’s request. Nothing was more easy than for Orderic to mistake this for a crossing in company 468 with Odo. In his version, Odo, Eustace, and Robert, all cross with a commission from Duke Robert. In the true version Odo crosses long before to receive his English earldom, but with no purpose of disturbing the new settlement of England. He becomes discontented on English ground; he rebels, he asks help of Duke Robert, and Eustace and Robert of Bellême come in answer to his asking.

The Hyde writer, as usual, has a version of his own, which however, as far as Odo is concerned, follows that of Orderic. As soon as Robert has taken possession of his duchy, he calls a council, and sends over an army under his two uncles Bishop Odo and Count Robert, to take away the English crown from his brother. They cross the sea, winning a naval victory over a pirate fleet; they seize Rochester and Pevensey, and begin the rebellion seemingly before the end of the year 1087. This account (298) runs thus;

“Robertus … convocatis principibus et consilio habito, duos avunculos suos, comitem Moritanii et episcopum Baiocensem, cum valida manu transmittit, omnimodis decertatis Waltero [sic] fratri regnum auferre sibique conferre. Qui vela ventis committentes, et cum piratis obsistentibus in mari viriliter decertantes, Angliam veniunt, urbemque Roffensem et castellum Pevenesellum intrantes, rebellare contendunt.”

We easily see from the later history of the rebellion how this writer has taken some of its most striking incidents and, as it were, crushed them up together. As Orderic confounds the crossing of Odo with the crossing of Eustace and Robert of Bellême, so the Hyde writer seems to confound both with the later expedition from Normandy (see p. 74), which did not occupy Pevensey after a victory, but was driven back by the King’s English troops in an attempt to land at Pevensey.

The account given incidentally by Robert of Torigny (Cont. Will. Gem. viii. 3) has points in common with this version, though it may be more easily reconciled with the true story. He records the peace between William and Robert in 1091, and adds;

“Licet regnum Angliæ ipse Robertus facillime paullo ante potuisset habere, nisi minus cautus esset. Siquidem Eustachius comes Boloniæ, et episcopus Baiocensis et comes Moritolii patrui ejus, et alii principes Normanniæ, cum magno apparatu militum 469 mare transeuntes, Rovecestriam et alia nonnulla castella in comitatu Cantuariensi occupantes et tenentes ad opus illius, dum ipsum Robertum ducem exspectant, qui tunc temporis ultra quam virum deceat in Normannia deliciabatur, obsessi diu a rege Willelmo, dum ille cujus causa tantum discrimen subierant, non subvenit, cum dedecore ipsas quas tenebant munitiones exeuntes ad propria sunt reversi.”

As for the object of the rebellion, the transfer of the English crown from William to Robert, we may hear William of Newburgh, who, though he believes (see above, p. 461) in Robert’s right of succession, yet says that he “in minori administratione, scilicet ducatus Normannici, claruit quod regno amplissimo administrando nunquam idoneus fuerit.”

What could M. de Rémusat (Anselme, 113) have meant when he said that the revolt of the Norman nobles “força le roi à se rapprocher de ses sujets bretons”? Then “il fit appel à la noblesse indigène.” This last may come from Matthew Paris; but the Welsh, the nearest approach to Bretons, joined the rebels.

The Share of Bishop William of Saint-Calais in the Rebellion of 1088.

There are few more glaring contradictions to be found in history than the picture of Bishop William of Saint-Calais as drawn by the southern writers, and his picture as drawn by his own hand or that of some local admirer in the Durham document printed in the Monasticon, i. 245, and in the old edition of Simeon. No one would know the meek confessor of this last version in the traitor whom the Chronicler does not shrink from likening to the blackest of all traitors. Yet, if the narratives are carefully compared, it may seem that, with all the difference in colouring, there is much less contradiction in matter of fact than we are led to think at first sight. The opposition is simply of that kind which follows when each side, without asserting any direct falsehood, leaves out all that tells on behalf of the other side. We read the Bishop’s story; we see no 470 reason to suspect him of stating anything which did not happen; under the circumstances indeed he could hardly venture to state anything which did not happen. But we see that the statement, though doubtless true as a mere record of facts, is dressed up in a most ingenious way, so as to put everything in the best light for his side, while everything that was to be said on the other side is carefully left out. But, on the other hand, while the Chronicler, Florence, and William of Malmesbury, clearly leave out a great deal, there is no reason to think that they leave it out from any partisan wish to pervert the truth. They believed, and doubtless on good grounds, that the Bishop of Durham was a chief actor in the rebellion, and they said so. But there was nothing to lead them to dwell on his story at any special length. Their attention was chiefly drawn to other parts of the events of that stirring year. Orderic indeed, whose account of some parts of the story is so minute, does not speak of Durham or its bishop at all.

Some of the passages from the Chronicle have been quoted in the text. The Bishop of Durham is there mentioned three times. First comes the record of his influence with the King, and his treason against him;

“On þisum ræde wæs ærest Oda bisceop and Gosfrið bisceop and Willelm bisceop on Dunholme. Swa wæll dyde se cyng be þam bisceop þæt eall Englaland færde æfter his ræde, and swa swa he wolde, and he þohte to donne be him eall swa Iudas Scarioð dide be ure Drihtene.”

Then, after the account of the deliverance of Worcester, Bishop William is named at the head of the ravagers in different parts of the country; “Se bisceop of Dunholme dyde to hearme þæt he mihte ofer eall be norðan.”

Lastly, at the end of the whole story, when Odo has come out of Rochester and gone beyond sea, we read;

“Se cyng siððan sende here to Dunholme, and let besittan þone castel, and se bisceop griðode and ageaf þone castel, and forlet his biscoprice and ferde to Normandige.”

Florence, writing seemingly with the Chronicle before him, changes the story so far as to make, not Bishop William but Count Robert (see p. 33), the chief accomplice of Odo. He then gives the list of the other confederates, at the end of which, after Robert of Mowbray, Bishop Geoffrey, and Earl Roger, we read, “quod erat 471 pejus, Willelmus episcopus Dunholmensis,” followed by the passage (see p. 23) in which he describes the Bishop’s influence with the King. After this, he says nothing more about him till he records his death in 1096.

Henry of Huntingdon (215), also writing with the Chronicle before him, leaves out the first passage of the three and translates the two others. The third stands in his text;

“Mittens rex exercitum Dunhelmiæ obsedit urbem, donec reddita est ei. Episcopus vero multique proditorum propulsi sunt in exilium.”

William of Malmesbury, in the Gesta Regum (iv. 306), first mentions the influence of Bishop William and the envy which Odo felt at it. Then, in reckoning up the Conspirators, he adds;

“Quinetiam Willelmus Dunelmensis episcopus, quem rex a secretis habuerat, in eorum perfidiam concesserat; quod graviter regem tulisse ferunt, quia, cum amissæ charitatis dispendio, remotarum provinciarum frustrabatur compendio.”

At the end of the story, after Odo is gone, he adds;

“Dunelmensis episcopus ultro mare transivit, quem rex, verecundia præteritæ amicitiæ, indemnem passus est effugere. Cæteri omnes in fidem recepti.”

In the Gesta Pontificum (272) he introduces Bishop William as “potens in sæculo,” and “oris volubilitate promptus, maxime sub Willelmo rege juniore.” This almost sounds as if he had read the debates at the bishop’s own trial, but it is more likely that he had his dealings with Anselm before his mind. He then goes on;

“Quapropter, et amicorum cohorti additus, et Angliæ prælatus, non permansit in gratia. Quippe nullis principis dictis vel factis contra eum extantibus, ab amicitia descivit, in perfidia Odonis Baiocensis et ceterorum se immiscens. Quapropter, victis partibus, ab Anglia fugatus, post duos annos indulgentia principis rediit.”

Simeon of Durham, in his History (1088, at the end of the year), says simply, “Etiam Dunholmensis episcopus Willielmus vii. anno sui episcopatus, et multi alii de Anglia exierunt.” This omission is the more to be noticed, as he clearly had Florence and the Chronicle before him. In the History of the Church of Durham (iv. 8) we get a fuller account;

“Hujus [Willielmi regis], sicut et antea patris, amicitiis antistes præfatus adjunctus, familiariter ei ad tempus adhærebat: unde 472 etiam Alvertoniam cum suis appenditiis rex illi donavit. Post non multum vero temporis, per aliorum machinamenta orta inter ipsos dissensione, episcopus ab episcopatu pulsus ultra mare secessit, quem comes Normannorum, non ut exulem, sed ut patrem suscipiens, in magno honore per tres annos quibus ibi moratus est, habuit.”

In these accounts almost the only direct contradiction as to matters of fact comes in at the end, about the surrender of the castle of Durham to the King. The Chronicle certainly seems to imply a siege; and, reading the Chronicle only without reference to anything else, we should have thought that the Bishop himself was besieged there. William of Malmesbury, on the other hand, makes the story wind up between the King and the Bishop in a wonderfully friendly way. But on this point we can have little doubt in accepting the version which I have followed in the text (see p. 114), namely that the Bishop was not at Durham, that the castle was surrendered after a good deal of haggling, and perhaps a little plundering, on both sides, but with nothing that could be called a regular siege. In short, the Chronicler makes a little too much of the fact that the castle was surrendered to a military force. William of Malmesbury, on the other hand, makes a little too much of the fact that the Bishop was not, strictly speaking, driven from England by a judicial sentence, but that he rather went by virtue of a proposal of his own making. The only other question of strict fact which could be raised is as to the ravages which the Chronicler says were wrought by the Bishop. The picture in William of Malmesbury of the Bishop turning against the King without any provocation on his part, and the picture in the History of the Church of Durham of the men who stirred up strife between the King and the Bishop, are merely the necessary colouring from opposite sides. The only important point on this head is that the disposition to make the best of the Bishop’s conduct seems to have been general at Durham, and that it is not confined to the narrative which must have been written either by himself or under his immediate inspiration. But we must remember that the general career of William of Saint-Calais at Durham, his bringing in of monks and his splendid works of building, were sure to make him pass into the list of local worthies, so that local writers, both at the time and afterwards, would be led to make the best of his conduct in any matter. 473

Of the Bishop’s own story, or at least the story of some local writer who told it as the Bishop wished it to be told, I have given the substance in the text. And, as its examination does not involve any very great amount of comparison of one statement with another, I have given the most important illustrative passages in the form of notes to the text. I have said that, after all, there is little real contradiction in direct statements of fact between this version and that of the southern writers. We find the kind of differences which are sure to be found when we have on one side a general narrative, written without any special purpose, a narrative doubtless essentially true, but putting in or leaving out details almost at random, while we have on the other side a very minute and ingenious apology, enlarging on all points on which it was convenient to enlarge, and leaving out those which might tell the other way. But the truth is that the Bishop’s own statement of his services done to the King (see pp. 29, 111), and the charge which was formally brought against him by the King (see p. 98), do not really contradict one another. They may be read as a consecutive story, according to which the Bishop continued to be the King’s adviser, and to do him good outward service, after he had made up his mind to join the rebels and while he was waiting for an opportunity of so doing. It is most likely this special double-dealing which led the Chronicler to his exceptionally strong language with regard to the Bishop’s treason. The only point where there seems any kind of contradiction in fact is with regard to the dates. From the Chronicler and the other writers on the King’s side we should have thought that there was no open revolt anywhere till after Easter, whereas it is plain from the Durham story that a great deal must have happened in south-eastern England much earlier in the year. On this point the Durham version, a version founded on documents and minutely attentive to dates, is of course to be preferred. With the other writers the Bishop’s affairs are secondary throughout, and the affairs of Kent and Sussex are secondary in the first stage of the story. Till they come to the exciting scenes of the sieges of Tunbridge and Pevensey, the attention of the Chronicler, Florence, and the others, is mainly given to the affairs of the region stretching from Ilchester to Worcester. We may infer from them that the occupation of Bristol and the march against Worcester did not happen till after Easter, while we must infer from the Durham account that the 474 movements in London, Kent, and Sussex, had happened not later than the beginning of March. There is in short no real contradiction; there is only that kind of difference which there is sure to be found when one writer gives a general view of a large subject with a general object, while another gives a minute view of one part of the subject with a special object.