Chapter VII · (continued 5)

Anyhow William of Newburgh speaks with great truth when, after (i. 2) sketching the character of William and Robert, he adds; “Porro Henricus frater junior, laudabilem præferens indolem, duris et infidis fratribus militabat.”

The Death of Conan.

The death of Conan suggests the death of Eadric (see N. C. vol. i. pp. 415, 740); only, while the story of Eadric’s death has grown into several mythical forms, we have only two versions of the death of Conan. These are given us by Orderic (689) and by William of Malmesbury (v. 392). Both of these are contemporary writers in the sense of having been born at the time—​Orderic was about fourteen—​though neither could have written his account till a good many years after. Orderic’s account is remarkably clear and circumstantial; and, if the sharp interchang of sentences between Henry and Conan is open to suspicion of another kind, it is not open to the same kind of suspicion which attaches to rhetorical speeches 517 in Orderic or anywhere else. No one but Henry himself could have told the story in the first instance, and stories of this kind, coming under the head of personal anecdote, commonly get improved as they pass from mouth to mouth. But there is no reason to suspect any invention on the part of Orderic himself, which in a long speech we always may suspect. With these prudent allowances, we may surely accept the tale as it stands in Orderic. The version of William of Malmesbury reads like a rather careless summary of some account to the same general effect as Orderic, but with some differences of detail. But the dramatic effect of Orderic’s dialogue has wholly passed away from William’s abridgement.

I will mention the chief differences between the two accounts. According to Orderic, Duke Robert was all this time on the other side of the Seine; William, who knows nothing about his flight, keeps him still at Rouen. Here Orderic’s version is clearly to be preferred. The story of Robert’s flight is either true, or else direct invention. I do not mean an invention of Orderic, but an invention of Robert’s enemies at the time. But if William had never heard that story, he would conceive the Duke to be at Rouen as a matter of course. William then makes Robert wish to put Conan in prison; but Henry demands that he should be given over to himself (“Conanum quendam, proditionis apud comitem insimulatum, quem ille vinculis irretire volebat, arbitratus nihil calamitosius posse inferri misero quam ut exosum spiritum in ergastulo traheret—​hunc ergo Conanum Henricus suæ curæ servatum iri postulavit”). Robert here seems to wish for Conan’s imprisonment, not out of the merciful feeling which Orderic attributes to him when he comes back to the city, but rather as deeming imprisonment worse than death. In either case Henry goes on the principle that “stone dead hath no fellow.”

In the summary of the dialogue, William brings in one or two points which are not in Orderic. As Henry shows the view to Conan, he promises in mockery that all shall be his; “sua per ironiam omnia futura pronuntians.” This differs altogether from “quam pulcram tibi patriam conatus es subjicere.” One is half tempted to see in William’s version a touch of legend worked in from the Gospels.

Instead of Henry’s characteristic oath by the soul of his mother, which must surely be genuine, William puts into his mouth a 518 discourse on the duty of the vassal, and his punishment if faithless, which seems a little too long for the time and place; “Nullam vitæ moram deberi traditori: quoquo modo alieni hominis posse tolerari injurias, illius vero qui tibi juratus fecerit hominium, nullo modo posse differri supplicium si fuerit probatus perfidiæ.”

From the narrative of Orderic, one would certainly infer that Henry and Conan were alone together in the tower, Henry doubtless armed and Conan unarmed. William of Malmesbury gives Henry companions who help to throw Conan down; “comitibus qui secum aderant pariter impellentibus.” The exact spot also seems differently conceived by the two writers. William of Malmesbury makes Conan fall into the river; “inopinum ex propugnaculo deturbans in subjectam Sequanam præcipitavit.” This seems quite inconsistent with Orderic, whose words (690 D) are;

“Contemptis elegi supplicationibus, ipsum ambabus manibus impulit, et per fenestram turris deorsum præcipitavit. Qui miserabili casu in momento confractus est, et antequam solum attingeret mortuus est. Deinde cadaver illius jumenti caudæ innexum est, et per omnes Rothomagi vicos ad terrendos desertores turpiter pertractum est.”

From this it seems clear that Conan fell on dry ground. And though the river, before the quays were made, certainly came nearer to the walls of the castle than it now does to their site, one can hardly fancy that it came so close to the foot of the great tower that Conan could actually fall into the water. William too conceives those concerned—​whether two or more—​as standing on the top of the tower, whence Conan is thrust down from a battlement (“propugnaculum”) to which he clings. Orderic seems to conceive him as pushed out of a window (“fenestra”) in one of the upper rooms “solaria”) of the tower. It is possible however that by “fenestra” Orderic may mean the embrasure of a battlement. There is not so much difference between the two things as might seem at first sight. When the towers (see Viollet-le-Duc’s Military Architecture, passim) were covered with roofs fitting down on the battlements, the embrasure was in fact a window. In no case must we fancy Henry and Conan standing together in the open air on the top of a flat-roofed tower.

The Siege of Courcy.

The siege of Courcy by Duke Robert (Ord. Vit. 692) is remarkable for some picturesque details, which are interesting in themselves, and throw light on the times, though they do not directly concern the history of William Rufus. I was at Courcy in 1875; but I cannot find any notes on the castle. As far as I remember, it does not stand on any remarkable height, and does not contain among its remains any marked features of the eleventh century. There is however at Courcy a remarkably fine church of the twelfth.

Among the allies who came to the help of the besieged were several French knights, two of whom bore epithets which show that, in the days of the chivalrous King, we are getting near to the times of chivalry. Among the defenders of Courcy were the White Knight and the Red Knight;

“Ad conflictus istorum convenerunt Mathæus comes de Bellomonte et Guillelmus de Garenna, aliique plures, ut in tali gymnasio suas ostentarent probitates. Ibi Tedbaldus Gualeranni de Britolio filius et Guido Rubicundus occisi sunt. Quorum prior, quia cornipes et omnia indumenta ejus candida erant, Candidus Eques appellabatur. Sequens quoque Rubeus, quia rubeis opertus erat, cognominabatur.”

Of these persons, the younger William of Warren, son of the elder William and Gundrada, elder brother of the Reginald whom we have met at Rouen, belongs to our home circle. Count Matthew of the French Beaumont in the modern department of Oise—​to be distinguished alike from our Norman and our Cenomannian Beaumont—​a kinsman of Hugh of Grantmesnil’s wife (Ord. Vit. 691 D), appears again twice in Orderic, 836 B, 854 B, the second time at the battle of Noyon. Both times he appears in company with his neighbour Burchard of Montmorency. Guy the Red Knight appears in the former passage as an intended father-in-law of the future King Lewis;

“In juventute sua Ludovicus filiam Guidonis Rubei comitis de Rupeforti desponsavit, et hereditario jure competentem comitatum subjugare sibi sategit. Capreosam et Montem Leherici, et Bethilcurtem aliaque oppida obsedit, sed multis nobilibus illi fortiter 520 obstantibus non obtinuit, præsertim quia Lucianam virginem quam desponsaverat Guiscardo de Belloloco donaverat.”

This Rochefort is in the department of Seine and Oise, between Montfort l’Amaury and Montl’hery. The redness of its Count and the whiteness of Theobald land us in quite another state of things from the personal whiteness and redness of Fulk the Red, Wulfward the White, and others. We seem to be in the fourteenth century rather than in the eleventh. But we must remember that at the battle of Noyon, twenty-eight years later, the French knights at least had armorial bearings (Ord. Vit. 855 B, C; see N. C. v. 189). All these things are French to begin with; they spread from France into Normandy, and from Normandy into England.

In this siege we meet with an instance, of which I shall have to speak again (see Note FF), of the wooden tower employed against a fortified place; not a moving tower, it would seem, but one of those of which we have so often heard. Yet it is spoken of as “ingens machina quam berfredum vocitant” (Ord. Vit. 692 C, cf. 878 C). So in Will. Malms. iv. 369, “pro lignorum penuria turris non magna, in modum ædificiorum facta; Berfreid appellant, quod fastigium murorum æquaret.” This is the beffroi, whose English form of belfry has got quite another use. It was made at Christmas, seemingly by order of Robert of Bellême. But one day, when the arch-enemy was driven back, a daring esquire, a kind of land Kanarês, climbed into it, and set it on fire (“Justo Dei judicio machina combusta est, quæ tyrannico jussu in diebus sanctæ nativitatis Domini proterve fabricata est;” 693 A). We have a story something like this in the legend of our own Hereward (see N. C. vol. iv. p. 472). The castle being newly built, they had not been able to build an oven inside it (“pro acceleratione obsidionis in novo munimento construere furnum oppidanis fas non fuerat”). They had therefore to make use of one which stood outside the castle, commanded by the beffroi (“Clibanus extra munitionem inter machinam oppidique portam stabat, ibique panificus [surely Eurysakês by the Porta Maggiore would have liked so sounding a title] ad subsidium inclusorum panes coquebat”). The beffroi then was not brought up immediately against the wall. There was therefore much fighting over the loaves, and many men were killed at this particular point. In one day’s fight twenty men were killed and many wounded. These last 521 had a scruple; “de panibus emptis cruore suo non gustaverunt.” Notwithstanding the beffroi and the fighting, Duke Robert kept very bad watch; “In conspectu obsidentium commilitones obsessorum in castellum quotidie intrabant, et armis ac alimentis non curante duce socios ne deficerent confortabantur.”

The bishop of the diocese, Gerard of Seez (1082–1091), came and took up his quarters in the neighbourhood, in the abbey of Saint Peter-on-Dive, and tried to bring about peace (“ut dissidentes parrochianos suos pacificaret”); but in vain. A boy of noble birth in the Bishop’s service (“puer quidam qui præsuli ministrabat; idem puer Ricardus de Guaspreia, filius Sevoldi, vocitabatur”), who is afterwards described as “clericus” and “imberbis clericus,” rides about the camp in boyish fashion (“dum per exercitum puerili more ludens equitabat”). The boy’s family are among those who had to defend themselves against the devil of Bellême (“cujus parentela contra Robertum sese jamdudum defendere totis viribus nitebatur”). So, when young Richard appears in the camp, Robert pushes him from his horse, puts him in prison, takes the horse to himself, and threatens his master the Bishop (“Robertus injuriam ei [Gerardo] maximam fecit, eumque minis contristavit. Nam puerum … ejectum de equo comprehendit et in carcere trusit, sibique cornipedem retentavit”). The Bishop threatens the whole army with interdict, unless his beardless clerk is restored, which is done after a few days. The Bishop by this time is sick; he goes to Seez and dies, January 23, 1091, in the same week, according to Orderic (693 B), in which William Rufus crossed the sea. His successor was the more famous Serlo, who so vigorously sheared the locks of the Lion of Justice and his court.

The boy of high birth serving in the bishop’s household, and counted as belonging to the clerical order—​he may even have held preferment, as “pueri canonici” were not unknown—​is worth notice. The incredible tale told by Giraldus of William Longchamp (iv. 423) at least witnesses to the existence of “pueri nobiles ad mensam ministrantes” in a bishop’s court.

Lastly, it must not be forgotten that it was during the siege of Courcy, on the first day of the year 1091 (“in capite Januarii”), that a priest of the diocese of Lisieux, Walchelm by name, saw that wonderful vision of souls in purgatorial suffering, including many of his personal acquaintance and several respectable prelates, 522 for Bishop Hugh of Lisieux and Abbot Mainer of Saint Evroul (see N. C. vol. iii. p. 383, vol. iv. p. 655) were there also, which is told so graphically by Orderic (693 C). A rationalistic mind may be tempted to see in the supernatural procession another of the endless forms of the Wild Huntsman; but a Defoe-like feeling of reality is given to the picture, when he reads that Walchelm thought that they were the following of Robert of Bellême going to besiege Courcy. He had gone to visit a sick parishioner at a great distance; “unde dum solus rediret, et longe ab hominum habitatione remotus iret, ingentem strepitum velut maximi exercitus cœpit audire, et familiam Roberti Belesmensis putavit esse, quæ festinaret Curceium obsidere.”

The Treaty of 1091.

On the whole, though with some hesitation, I accept Caen as the place of the treaty between William Rufus and Robert. Orderic (693 B) places the meeting of the brothers at Rouen; “Duo fratres Rothomagum pacifice convenerunt, et in unum congregati, abolitis prioribus querimoniis, pacificati sunt.” The meeting at Caen and the mediation of the King of the French come from the Continuation of William of Jumièges (viii. 3). The passage stands in full thus;

“Facta est tandem inter eos apud Cadomum, ut diximus, adminiculante Philippo rege Francorum, qui in auxilium ducis contra Willelmum regem apud oppidum Auci ingenti Anglorum et Normannorum exercitu tunc morantem venerat, qualiscumque concordia, et quantum ad ducem Robertum spectat probrosa atque damnosa.”

The story is here told in a hurried and inverted way, as the whole tale is from the beginning of the chapter; but there is nothing strictly to be called inaccurate in the story. It may be that the mention of Philip now is merely a confusion with his former appearance at Eu; but an intervention of Philip is not unlikely in itself; Caen too as the place of meeting is less obvious than Rouen, and so far the statement in favour of it is to be preferred. 523 But the point is not of much importance, and the evidence is fairly open to doubt.

In any case William of Malmesbury (iv. 307, 308) is mistaken in speaking of the peace as agreed and sworn to before William crossed into Normandy. He gives a picture of the anarchy of Normandy which is true enough; only he seems to conceive it too much after the pattern of the later anarchy of England. King Philip (see the passage quoted in p. 239) has got his money and has gone back to his banquet;

“Ita bello intestino diu laboravit Normannia, modo illis, modo istis, vincentibus; proceres utriusque furorem incitabant, homines levissimi, in neutra parte fidem habentes.”

Now in the days of Stephen the anarchy at least took the form of a war between rival claimants of the crown. Men really fought for their own hands; but they at least professed to fight for King or Empress. But the special characteristic of the Norman anarchy is that everybody is already fighting with everybody else, and that the invasion of the country makes no difference, except so far as it adds a new element of confusion. Ralph of Conches goes over to William only because Robert fails to defend him against a local enemy; William’s name is not mentioned at all in the war of Courcy, till his actual coming frightens both sides alike. William of Malmesbury misses the special point of the whole story, namely that the strife between William and Robert stands quite distinct from the local struggles which still went on all over the country, except when the two got intermingled at particular points. He then adds;

“Pauci quibus sanius consilium, consulentes suis commodis quod utrobique possessiones haberent, mediatores pacis fuere; ut comiti rex Cinomannis adquireret, comes regi castella quæ habebat et Fiscannum cœnobium concederet. Juratum est hoc pactum, et ab utrorumque hominibus sacramento firmatum. Nec multo post rex mare transiit, ut fidem promissorum expleret.”

Florence (1091) puts the case much better;

“Mense Februario rex Willelmus junior Normanniam petiit, ut eam fratri suo Rotberto abriperet; sed dum ibi moraretur, pax inter eos facta est.”

It will be seen that William of Malmesbury gives only a very 524 imperfect statement of the terms of the treaty. They are nowhere so fully and clearly given as in our own Chronicle; only the English writer is not quite so exact with regard to the territorial cessions as those writers who wrote in Normandy. The brothers meet—​the place is not mentioned—​and agree on the terms, which are given in words which sound like the actual words of the treaty, which was likely enough to be set down in an English as well as a Latin copy. They stand thus;

“þæt se eorl him to handan let Uescam and þone eorldom æt Ou, and Kiæresburh. And þærto eacan þes cynges men sæclæs beon moston on þam castelan þe hi ær þes eorles unþances begiten hæfdon. And se cyng him ongean þa Manige behet þa ær heora fæder gewann, and þa fram þam eorle gebogen wæs gebygle to donne, and eall þæt his fæder þær begeondan hæfde, butan þam þe he þam cynge þa geunnen hæfde; and þæt ealle þa þe on Englelande for þam eorle æror heora land forluron hit on þisum sehte habban sceoldan and se eorl on Englelande eallswa mycel swa on heora forewarde wæs.”

The emphatic references to his father are preeminently characteristic of the Red King. We seem to hear his very words, the words of the dutiful son, granting, not without some sarcasm, to the rebel, the heritage of the father against whom he had rebelled. This emphatic feature disappears in the other versions, even in the abridged Latin version of Florence. To the list of places in Normandy to be given up he adds “abbatiam in monte sancti Michaelis sitam,” and the last words, which are certainly not very clear, he translates “et tantum terræ quantum conventionis inter eos fuerat comiti daret.” This can only refer to something which William was to grant to Robert as a free gift. Domesday shows that there were no older English possessions of Robert to be given back to him. See N. C. vol. iv. p. 629.

Besides William of Malmesbury, only the Chronicler and Florence mention the stipulation about Maine. This is again a sign that in the Chronicle we are dealing with an actual document. For, as nothing came of that clause, no part of the treaty was more likely to be forgotten. William of Malmesbury seems to have caught up the first words of the treaty, and to have got no further. Thus Maine gets in his text an undue prominence, which may possibly account for a statement of his 525 which follows, and which has nothing at all like it anywhere else. The King and the Duke are going to attack Maine the very first thing after the conclusion of the treaty; only they are hindered by the campaign against Henry; “Ergo uterque dux ingentes moliebantur conatus ut Cinomannis invaderent; sed obstitit jam paratis jamque profecturis Henrici fratris minoris animositas.”

It may be needful to point out that the Chronicle really does mention Maine; for Mr. Earle seems to have been the first of its editors to find out the fact. Gibson, Ingram, and Thorpe all print “þa manige,” with a small m, and explain it “the many,” “the many castles,” “multa castella.” But, if there were no other reason, the words which answer to it in Florence, “Cenomannicam vero provinciam,” are enough to show that we should read with Mr. Earle “þa Manige,” the county of Maine. The French idiom, whatever may be its origin, which, as is always the case in Wace, adds the article to Le Mans, Le Maine, is here found in English. So it is in 1099, 1110, 1111, 1112. The earlier entry in 1073, “þæt land Mans,” is less clear.

Those who wrote in Normandy say nothing about Maine; but they more distinctly define the cessions in Normandy itself. Thus Robert of Torigny in his Continuation (Will. Gem. viii. 3);

“Quidquid rex Willelmus in Normannia occupaverat, per infidelitatem hominum ducis, qui eidem regi suas munitiones tradiderant, quas suis militibus ipse commiserat ut inde fratrem suum infestarent, impune permissus est habere. Munitiones illæ quas hoc modo tenebat fuerunt, Fiscannum, oppidum Auci quod Willelmus comes Aucensis cum reliquis suis firmitatibus illi tradiderat; similiter Stephanus comes de Albamarla, filius Odonis comitis de Campania, Willielmi autem regis Anglorum senioris ex sorore nepos, fecerat, et alii plures ultra Sequanam habitantes.”

The words in Italics are the writer’s backward way of recording the events of 1090 among the clauses of the treaty of 1091. In his own chronicle (1091) Robert of Torigny has nothing to say, except “ut castra illa quæ frater ab eo acquisierat regi remanerent.” This not very clear account comes from Henry of Huntingdon (vii. 2, p. 215 ed. Arnold), with the omission of an important word. But though Robert mentions no particular places in his summary of the treaty, yet, in copying Henry of Huntingdon’s account of the places occupied by William’s troops in 1090, to Saint Valery 526 which alone are mentioned by Henry, he adds, not only Eu like our authorities, but also Fécamp. The Chronicle, as we have seen, mentions Fécamp among the places which were to be ceded to William in 1091; no one else mentions it among the places which were occupied in 1090.

Orderic has three references to the cessions; but he nowhere mentions either Fécamp or Saint Michael’s Mount. In his first account (693 B, C) he says only “Robertus dux … ei [regi] Aucensem comitatum et Albamarlam, totamque terram Gerardi de Gornaco et Radulfi de Conchis, cum omnibus municipiis eorum eisque subjectorum concessit.” In 697 C he says only “Robertus dux magnam partem Normanniæ Guillelmo regi concessit.”

It is the Chronicle again which seems to give us the real text of the clauses about the succession;

“And gif se eorl forðferde butan sunu be rihtre ǽwe, wære se cyng yrfenuma of ealles Normandig. Be þisre sylfan forewarde, gif se cyng swulte, wære se eorl yrfenuma ealles Englalandes.”

It is perhaps worth notice that these words taken strictly do not contemplate the possibility of William Rufus leaving children. This is slightly altered in Florence;

“Si comes absque filio legali in matrimonio genito moreretur, hæres ejus esset rex; modoque per omnia simili, si regi contigisset mori, hæres illius fieret comes.”

Henry of Huntingdon (vii. 2, p. 215 ed. Arnold), who, as we have seen, is followed with some changes by Robert of Torigny, seems to abridge the account in the Chronicle. After speaking of the events of 1090, he adds;

“Anno vero sequenti rex sequens eos concordiam cum fratre suo fecit. Eo tamen pacto ut castra illa quæ frater ab illo injuria acquisierat, regi remanerent, rex autem adjuvaret eum ad omnia quæ pater suus habuerat conquirenda. Statutum etiam, si quis eorum moreretur prior altero sine filio, quod alter fieret hæres illius.”

A good deal of the diplomatic exactness of the Chronicle is lost here, and it is not easy to see what castles Robert had taken from William, unjustly or otherwise. Robert of Torigny hardly mends the matter by leaving out the word “injuria.”

Henry is not mentioned in any account of the treaty; but his possessions come by implication under the head of the lands which 527 William was to win back for Robert, with the exception of Cherbourg and Saint Michael’s Mount—​if we are right in adding the Mount on the authority of Florence—​which William was to keep for himself. The shameful treatment of Henry by his brothers naturally calls forth a good deal of sympathy on the part of some of our writers, though they do not always bring out the state of the case very clearly. They speak of his brothers refusing him a share in his father’s dominions, rather than of their depriving him of the possessions which one of themselves had sold to him. Hear for instance the author of the Brevis Relatio (11), writing in Henry’s own reign;

“Concordiam adinvicem fecerunt Willelmus secundus rex Angliæ et Robertus comes Normanniæ, et quum fratrem suum Henricum debuissent adjuvare, eique providere ut honorabiliter inter illos sicut frater eorum et filius regis vivere posset, non hoc fecerunt, sed de tota terra patris sui expellere conati sunt.”

The same words are used by Robert of Torigny, in the Continuation of William of Jumièges, viii. 3.

William of Malmesbury (iv. 308), in a passage which follows that which has been already cited about Maine, after the words “Henrici fratris minoris animositas,” adds, “qui frenderet propter fratrum avaritiam, quod uterque possessiones paternas dividerent, et se omnium pene expertem non erubescerent.”

The treaty takes a very strange form in Matthew Paris, Hist. Angl. i. 39. The brothers are reconciled by wise friends, who say to them, “Absit, ne Franci fraternas acies, alternaque regna profanis decertata odiis, derideant subsannantes.” And the reason is given; “Franci enim eo tempore multa super ducem occupaverant.” This hardly means the Vexin; it is more likely to be a confused version of Philip’s intervention.

The only writers who mention the driving out of Eadgar are the Chronicler and Florence. The former brings it into connexion with the treaty, without seeming to make it exactly part of the treaty itself. Having given the clauses of the treaty, and mentioned its confirmation by the oaths on both sides, he adds; “Onmang þisum sæhte wearð Eadgar æþeling belandod of þam þe se eorl him æror þær to handa gelæten hæfde.” The measure seems to have had something to do with the treaty without being one of its clauses. 528 Were such things as secret or additional articles, or agreements which were to go for nothing because they were not written on the same paper as other agreements, known to so early a stage of diplomacy?

The Chronicler does not mention the siege of Saint Michael’s Mount; but, immediately after the confiscation of Eadgar’s lands in Normandy, he mentions his voyage to Scotland and the events which followed on it. Florence puts his account of the siege of the Mount directly after the treaty and the oaths of the twenty-four barons. He then goes on;

“At rex cum obsidionis diutinæ pertæsus fuisset, impacatus recessit, et non multo post Eadgarum clitonem honore, quem ei comes dederat, privavit et de Normannia expulit.” And a little way on he speaks of “clito Eadgarus, quem rex de Normannia expulerat.” These expressions make the treatment of Eadgar more distinctly William’s own act than one would infer from the words of the Chronicle, and they might suggest that Eadgar’s Norman estates lay within the districts which were ceded to William. But it may only mean that Robert sent Eadgar away on William’s demand.

The Siege of Saint Michael’s Mount.

The primary account of the siege which Henry endured at the hands of his brothers is the short one in Orderic, which I have chiefly followed in the text. There are still shorter notices in Florence of Worcester and in the Continuation of William of Jumièges. The shortest of all is in the local Annals;

“1090. Obsessio montis hujus, quæ facta est a Guillelmo Rufo rege Anglorum et a Roberto comite Normannorum, Henrico fratre eorum in hoc monte incluso.”

There is no objection to this date, as the writer seemingly begins the year at Easter. The accession of Harold is placed under 1065.

The account in Florence is noteworthy, as seeming to supply a reason for the attack made by the two older brothers upon the younger. After the treaty between William and Robert, he goes on;

“Interim germanus illorum Heinricus montem Sancti Michaelis, ipsius loci monachis quibusdam illum adjuvantibus, cum omnibus 529 militibus quos habere potuit, intravit, regisque erram vastavit, et ejus homines quosdam captivavit, quosdam exspoliavit. Eapropter rex et comes, exercitu congregato, per totam quadragesimam montem obsederunt, et frequenter cum eo prœlium commiserunt, et homines et equos nonnullos perdiderunt. At rex, cum obsidionis diutinæ pertæsus fuisset, impacatus recessit.”

This account is true in a sense; it gives the purely military history, except that the words “impacatus recessit” would hardly suggest Henry’s honourable surrender. But no one would find out from Florence’s version that Henry occupied the Mount simply as the last spot left to him in his dominions. As a matter of warfare, it doubtless may be said that William and Robert besieged Henry because he occupied the Mount, and because he was, as we can well believe, driven to harry the neighbouring lands. But he occupied the Mount and harried the lands only because he was driven out of the rest of his county. That Florence misunderstood the matter is plain from his use of the words “regis terra,” which cannot apply to any land which could be reached from the Mount.

Wace has a long account, very confused in its chronology and in the sequence of events; but I have trusted to his local knowledge for some topographical details. William of Malmesbury twice refers to the siege. He tells it under the reign of Rufus (iv. 308); but seemingly wholly for the purpose of bringing in two famous anecdotes about William and Robert. The second time is in his sketch of Henry’s early life (v. 392). In the first account he at least puts the siege in its right place after the Treaty of 1091. In the second he seems, strangely enough, to make the siege immediately follow the death of Conan, or at least to follow Henry’s driving out of Rouen (see above, p. 512), which he places just after Conan’s death;

“Illud fuit tempus quo, ut supra lectum est, apud montem sancti Michaelis ambobus fratribus Henricus pro sui salute simul et gloria restitit.”

And, as Orderic (see p. 294) is careful to insist on the wholesome effect which the season of exile which followed had on Henry’s character, so William insists on the wholesome effect of the siege itself;

“Ita, cum utrique germano fuerit fidelis et efficax, illi nullis adolescentem possessionibus dignati, ad majorem prudentiam ævi processu penuria victualium informabant.”

530 The Red King’s way of schooling a brother was not quite so harsh as that by which Gideon taught the men of Succoth; but it is essentially of the same kind.

Nothing can be more confused than the way in which Wace brings in the story (see Pluquet’s note, ii. 310). I have already (see above, p. 514) mentioned the course of his story up to that point. Robert, without any help from William, has deprived Henry of the Côtentin, while William is angry with Henry for having paid the purchase-money to Robert. Henry then goes to the Mount (14588);

Then, having no place of shelter anywhere, he gathers a large company of nobles and others who serve him willingly (14598);

He thinks of seeking a lasting shelter in Britanny; but he is entertained by Earl Hugh at Avranches, with whom he has much talk, and who one day counsels him to occupy the Mount and to make a castle of the monastery. This is without any reference to the lines just quoted in which Henry is made to have been there already. But the speech of the Earl is well conceived (14624);

Henry will do well to get together Bretons and mercenaries, and hold the rock against the Normans (14625);

Henry adopts Hugh’s advice, rides off at once, occupies the Mount, and sends a defiance to Robert (14646);

531

Henry ravages the neighbouring lands (see above, p. 529, and p. 286); then the King and the Duke come to besiege him, without any hint how William came to be in Normandy, or how the two brothers, who were enemies less than a hundred lines before, have now come to be allies.

It is plain that the striking event of the occupation of the Mount of which he would hear a good deal in his childhood, if it did not actually come within his own childish days, was strong in Wace’s imagination, but that he took very little pains to fit the tale into its right place in the history. It is specially hard to reconcile his picture of the action of Earl Hugh with the facts of the case. There is perhaps no literal contradiction. Hugh, while giving up his castles to Robert (see p. 284), may have given Henry secret advice, and the words of Robert of Torigny in the Continuation of William of Jumièges (see p. 323) may be taken as implying that Henry looked on him as having been on the whole faithful to him. But Wace could hardly have conceived Hugh as giving up the castle of Avranches to Robert.

The ending of the siege is still more thoroughly misconceived than the beginning. The brothers are all reconciled; Henry gets the Côtentin back again (14740);

William goes back to England, whereas we know (see p. 293) that he stayed in Normandy for six months. Robert goes to Rouen. Henry pays off his mercenaries—​out of what funds we are not told, and the other accounts do not speak of his followers as mercenaries. He then follows Robert to Rouen (14750);

There the Duke imprisons Henry; that is, the imprisonment which happened long before (see p. 199) is moved out of its place. But Wace cannot tell why he was imprisoned, or how it was that he was released and made his way to France (14754);

532

In opposition to all this, Orderic’s account of the siege, its beginning and its ending, is perfectly straightforward, and hangs well together. He alone puts everything in its place, and gives an intelligible reason for everything. Robert of Torigny, in the Continuation (viii. 3), preserves the fact that Henry surrendered on honourable terms, but he is in rather too great a hurry to get him to Domfront;

“Unde accidit ut quadam vice ipsum obsidione cingerent in monte sancti Michaelis. Sed illis ibidem incassum diu laborantibus, et ad ultimum inter se dissidentibus, comes Henricus inde libere exiens oppidum munitissimum nomine Danfrontem sagacitate cujusdam indigenæ suscepit.”

The words in Italics may perhaps refer to the story about the water; but William and Robert were in any case sure to quarrel about something. And it was quite in William’s character to get tired of a fifteen days’ siege, as he is represented both here and by Florence (see p. 292); only Florence is not justified in saying that at once “impacatus rediit.” William of Malmesbury too (iv. 310) tells his story about the water, and then adds;

“Ita rex, deridens mansueti hominis ingenium, resolvit prælium; infectaque re quam intenderat, quod eum Scottorum et Walensium tumultus vocabant, in regnum se cum ambobus fratribus recepit.”

On these last words, which are so startling at first sight, I have spoken in the next Note.

The two anecdotes of William and Robert seem, in William of Malmesbury’s first account (iv. 308), to be his chief or only reason for mentioning the siege at all;

“In ea obsidione præcluum specimen morum in rege et comite apparuit; in altero mansuetudinis, in altero magnanimitatis. Utriusque exempli notas pro legentium notitia affigam.”

Then come the two stories “De Magnanimitate Willelmi” and “De Mansuetudine comitis Roberti,” which I have told in the text after him. Both of them are also told by Wace; that is, if the story “De Magnanimitate Willelmi” is really the same story as the corresponding story in Wace. Every detail is different; but both alike set before us the self-confidence of the Red King. In this version he is unhorsed and wounded; but he keeps hold of his saddle, and fights on foot with his sword (14672);

We hear nothing of any discourse with Henry’s followers, nothing of any dealings with the knight who had unhorsed him. But he calls to his vassals, Normans and English, who do not appear in the other story, but who in this press to his help, and, after many blows, take him off safely;

Then his own men, not those of Henry, talk merrily with him about his defence of his saddle. He answers in the like strain, telling them that it is a shame if a man cannot keep his own, and that it would have grieved him if any Breton had boasted that he had carried off his saddle;

If this is the same story as that in William of Malmesbury, it is a very inferior version of it. Lappenberg (Geschichte von England, ii. 172) takes the two for distinct stories and tells them separately. (See above, p. 503.) But it is strange that his translator (p. 232) should tell both stories after his original, should give the reference to Wace, and should then, at the end of William’s story, remark, giving the same reference again—“Wace gives a version of the occurrence totally different from the above as related by Malmesbury.”

The “Normanz” and “Engleiz” of Wace appear in Lappenberg as “Normannen und Angelsachsen.” This involves the old question about the force of the word “Angli,” which is very hard to answer at this particular stage. In a narrative actually written in 1091, I should certainly understand the words as Lappenberg does, and should see in the “Engleiz” men of the type of Tokig son of 534 Wiggod and Robert son of Godwine. But, as Wace, if he were already born in 1091, did not write till many years after, it is more likely that we ought to take the words “Normanz” and “Engleiz” in the sense which they took in the course of Henry the First’s reign. That is, by “Normanz” we should understand those only who were “natione Normanni,” and by “Engleiz” all who were “natione Angligenæ,” even though many of them were “genere Normanni.” See N. C. vol. v. p. 828.

Whatever we make of the relations between the two stories, the reference to the “Brez” in Wace’s version has a very genuine ring. That name came much more home in Jersey, or even at Bayeux, than it did in Wiltshire.

The story “De Mansuetudine comitis Roberti” connects itself with the fact stated by Orderic—​who does not tell either of the anecdotes—​that the besieged really did suffer for want of water (see p. 292). William of Malmesbury, whom I have followed in the text, tells the story straightforwardly enough from that point of view. Wace does casually speak of the water, but his main thought is of wine (see p. 291). Henry thus states his case to Robert (14704);

Robert then sends him the tun of wine, of the best they have in the host, and throws in a truce to take water daily seemingly of his own free will (14712);

The King is angry at all this, and sets forth his principles of warfare (14729);

He is inclined to give up the siege (“Del siege volt par mal torner”); but he listens to Robert’s excuse;

535 Here we have nothing of the argument in William of Malmesbury, an argument essentially the same as that which is so thoroughly in place in the mouth of the wife of Intaphernes in Herodotus (iii. 119), and so thoroughly out of place in the mouth of the Antigonê of Sophoklês (892). But the words are very like those which we shall find Wace putting into the mouth of Robert at a later time. (See 15456, and vol. ii. p. 406.)

The Adventures of Henry after the Surrender of Saint Michael’s Mount.

That Henry was in possession of Domfront in 1094 is certain from the witness of the Chronicle under that year; “Se cyng W. sende æfter his broðer Heanrige, se wæs on þam castele æt Damfront.” But we have no hint when he got possession of it. Florence has no mention of Henry between his account of the siege of Saint Michael’s Mount—​from which William “impacatus recessit”—​and his election as king. William of Malmesbury (see p. 293) brings him to England with William and Robert in August 1091. As I have already said, such is William of Malmesbury’s carelessness of chronology that I should not have ventured to accept this statement on his showing only. But it has a piece of the very strongest corroborative evidence in the form of the Durham charter of which I have spoken in the text (see p. 305). This is the one which is printed at p. xxii of the volume of the Surtees Society called “Historiæ Dunelmensis Scriptores Tres,” a document which has every sign of genuineness. It is a grant by Bishop William of the churches of Northallerton, Sigston, and Brunton to the convent of Durham, and confirms the picture given by Simeon (see p. 508) of William Rufus as a benefactor to Durham;

“Hæc omnia, præcipiente domino meo Willielmo rege, domini mei magni regis Willielmi filio, feci, qui Alvertonescire sancto Cuthberto et episcopis ejus in perpetuum dedit. Has vero ecclesias monachis sancto Cuthberto servituris pro salute animæ suæ dedit, et mihi donare præcepit.”

I have shown that the deed must belong to a time after the pacification 536 with Malcolm, but before Christmas, 1091. At no other time could we have had the signatures of Robert and Eadgar, nor probably that of Duncan. And the signature of Henry shows that William of Malmesbury is right, and that Henry was in England at this time. There was then some assembly held in the autumn of 1091, and that seemingly at Durham or somewhere in the North. Its object would probably be to confirm the treaty with Malcolm. Indeed, except a few bishops and abbots, most of the men who sign would naturally be in the camp. The signatures are in two columns. That to the right contains the names of Bishop William, King William (signum Willielmi regis secundi), his brothers (signum Rodberti fratris regis, signum Henrici fratris regis), Robert Bloet (Roberti cancellarii regis cognomento Bloet), Duncan (Dunechani filii regis Malcolmi), Earl Roger, Randolf Flambard (Ranulphi thessarii—​thesaurarii?), three local priests, Merewine (Mervini), Eglaf (Ælavi; in another document, p. xx, we get the dwelling-places of these priests, Eglaf of Bethlington and Merewine of Chester—​that is of course Chester-le-Street), and Orm, Robert “dispensator regis” (see p. 331), Siward Barn, and Arnold of Percy. The left-hand column contains Archbishop Thomas, the Bishops Remigius of Lincoln, Osmund of Salisbury, and John of Bath, the Abbots Guy of Saint Augustine’s, Baldwin of Saint Eadmund’s, and Stephen of Saint Mary’s at York, Earl Hugh, Philip son of Earl Roger, Earl Robert, “signum Eadgari clitonis,” Roger Bigod, “signum Morealis vicecomitis,” William Peverel, “signum Gileberti dapiferi.”

This list, though singular and startling, is perfectly possible. This cannot be said of some of those in the same volume. Thus in the document just before this one, John Bishop of Bath is made to sign in the time of the Conqueror, and in that which follows (p. xxvii), Lanfranc and Abbot Ælfsige are made to sign in 1093.

The evidence of this charter, combined with the notice in William of Malmesbury, seems conclusive. Henry was in England during part of 1091. We therefore cannot accept the obvious meaning of Orderic’s story which makes Henry a wanderer from the time of the surrender of the Mount till his reception at Domfront. In this version he leaves the Mount, and spends two years, or somewhat less, in a very poor case (697 B); 537

“Per Britanniam transiit, Britonibus, qui sibi solummodo adminiculum contulerant, gratias reddidit, et confines postmodum Francos expetiit. In pago Vilcassino nobilis exsul non plenis duobus annis commoratus, diversa hospitia quæsivit. Uno tantum milite unoque clerico cum tribus armigeris contentus pauperem vitam exegit.”

In another place (698 C) we find a date given to the occupation of Domfront, and a duration assigned to Henry’s wanderings, which at first sight seems not to agree with this version;

“Anno ab incarnatione Domini MXCII. Indictione XV. Henricus Guillelmi regis filius Danfrontem oppidum, auxilio Dei suffragioque amicorum, obtinuit, et inde fortiter hereditarium jus calumniari sategit. Nam idem, dum esset junior, non ut frater a fratribus habitus est, sed magis ut externus, exterorum, id est Francorum et Britonum, auxilia quærere coactus est, et quinque annis diversorum eventuum motibus admodum fatigatus est. Tandem Danfrontani nutu Dei ærumnis tam præclari exsulis compassi sunt, et ipsum ad se de Gallia accersitum per Harecherium honorifice susceperunt, et, excusso Roberti de Belesmo, a quo diu graviter oppressi fuerant, dominio, Henricum sibi principem constituerunt. Ille vero contra Robertum Normanniæ comitem viriliter arma sumpsit, incendiis et rapinis expulsionis suæ injuriam vindicavit, multosque cepit et carceri mancipavit.”

The five years mentioned in the above extract must be meant to take in all Henry’s adventures, lucky and unlucky, from the death of his father in 1087 to his settlement at Domfront in 1092. From his surrender of the Mount in February 1091 to his settlement at Domfront Orderic makes, as we have seen, somewhat less than two years; that is, Henry came to Domfront quite at the end of 1092.

In 706 C (under 1094, see p. 319) he says;

“Henricus Guillelmi Magni regis Anglorum filius Danfrontem possidebat, et super Robertum [de Belesmo], cui præfatum castellum abstulerat, imo super fratres suos regem et ducem guerram faciebat, a quibus extorris de cespite paterno expulsus fuerat.”

In 722 D he says;

“Henricus frater ducis Danfrontem fortissimum castrum possidebat, et magnam partem Neustriæ sibi favore vel armis subegerat, fratrique suo ad libitum suum, nec aliter, obsecundabat.” 538

This is in 1095, and it is meant as a summary of Henry’s course up to that year. Lastly, the promise of Henry never to give up Domfront to any other master comes quite incidentally in Orderic’s account (788 B) of the treaty between Robert and Henry in 1101 (see vol. ii. p. 413). By that treaty Henry ceded to Robert everything that he held in Normandy “præter Danfrontem.” The reason for the exception is added;

“Solum Danfrontem castrum sibi retinuit, quia Danfrontanis, quando illum intromiserunt, jurejurando pepigerat quod numquam eos de manu sua projiceret nec leges eorum vel consuetudines mutaret.”

This is Orderic’s account, in which I see no difficulty at all in accepting all that concerns Domfront. Henry was in England late in 1091; but he may have been in France or anywhere else late in 1092. And Henry may have had a time of distress and wandering in the Vexin, either between March and August 1091 or at any time in 1092. Where Orderic goes wrong, it is through forgetting Henry’s visit to England in 1091, which was of no importance to his story. He therefore naturally spreads the season of wandering in the Vexin over the whole time from the surrender of the Mount early in 1091 to the occupation of Domfront late in 1092.

Robert of Torigny, in the Continuation of William of Jumièges (viii. 3), is in a still greater hurry to get Henry to Domfront (see above, p. 532). The passage, as far as it concerns the relations between Henry and Domfront, runs thus;

“Comes Henricus, inde [from the Mount] libere exiens, oppidum munitissimum nomine Danfrontem sagacitate cujusdam indigenæ suscepit. Indignabatur enim prædictus indigena, utpote vir nobilis et dives, oppressiones amplius perpeti quas Robertus de Belismo, homo ferox et mentis inhumanæ, sibi et aliis convicaneis inferebat, qui tunc temporis illud castrum possidebat. Quod tanta diligentia Henricus exinde custodivit ut usque ad terminum vitæ illius in suo dominio habuerit.”

The “indigena nobilis et dives” of this account is of course the same as the Harecherius of Orderic. And the statement that Henry kept Domfront all his days agrees with Orderic’s statement about his promise. Wace (14762–14773) gives us some, perhaps 539 legendary, details of the way in which Henry was brought from Paris—​from the French Vexin, one would have thought, from Orderic’s account—​to Domfront; but he is clearly wrong in making any Robert, whether the Duke or him of Bellême, turn Henry out of Domfront;

The covering of one of Henry’s eyes with pitch by way of disguise may be believed or not; but the “savoir” of Haschier answers to the “sagacitas” of the “indigena nobilis et dives.” Passeiz, Passais (see Pluquet, Wace, ii. 319; Neustria Pia, p. 423), is the district which contains Domfront and the abbey of Lonlay, a district which lay in the ancient diocese of Le Mans, but which was added to Normandy by William’s conquest.

This name “Haschier” or “Harecherius” is supposed by Le Prévost (Pluquet, ii. 319) to be the same name as “Achardus,” the name of one of the witnesses to the foundation charter of Lonlay abbey in 1026. He signs as “Achardus dives, miles de Donnifronte.” This document is contained in an inspeximus of Peter, Count of Alençon (1361–1377), contained in an inspeximus of Henry, King of France and England about 1423 (Neustria Pia, p. 424). The founder is the old William of Bellême, father of William Talvas and grandfather of Mabel. There is a certain interest in a document relating to Domfront and Lonlay before they became Norman, when lands there could be granted “usque in Normaniæ commarchiam.” Among the signatures are those of the founder’s brother Avesgaud Bishop of Le Mans (994–1036, see N. C. vol. iii. p. 191), Siegfried Bishop of Seez (1007–1026), the founder and his wife, “Guillelmus princeps [in the body of the document he is “Guillelmus Bellismensis, provinciæ principatum gerens”] et Mathildis uxor ejus,” and this “Achardus dives” whom Le Prevost takes for a forefather of the “indigena nobilis et dives.”

Orderic says that Henry obtained Domfront “suffragio amicorum.” Robert of Torigny, in the next chapter of his Continuation 540 (viii. 4), tells us who his friends a little later were. He is established at Domfront; then we read;

“Redeunte Willelmo rege in Angliam, Henricus haud segniter comitatum Constantiniensem, qui sibi fraudulentia ante præreptus fuerat, consensu Willelmi regis et auxilio Richardi de Revers et Rogerii de Magna-villa, ex majori parte in ditionem suam revocavit.”

He then goes on with the passage about Earl Hugh and the grant of Saint James to him, quoted in p. 323.

I think that this distinct assertion that Henry was now in William’s favour outweighs the vague expressions of Orderic about Henry making war on both his brothers. By 1093, the earliest date for these exploits, William was again scheming against Robert, and his obvious policy would be to ally himself with Henry.

Henry, as we have seen in the extracts from Orderic, carried on war in the usual fashion. But he at least treated his prisoners better than Robert of Bellême did. We have (698 D) a picture of one Rualedus—​a Breton Rhiwallon, or what?—​who is carried off from the lands of Saint Evroul to the castle of Domfront. It was winter; but he was not left to die of cold and hunger for Count Henry’s amusement; we see him sitting comfortably by the fire (“quum sederet ad focum; hiems enim erat”). On the road he had fallen from the horse on which he was tied, and had suffered some hurt. But, after prayer to Saint Evroul, followed by a comforting dream, he wakes, and, as his keeper’s back is turned, he gets up, unbars the door, walks into the garden, and, after some further adventures, gets back to Saint Evroul. He was a man “legitimus et laudabilis vitæ;” so Orderic, who heard the story from his own mouth, believes it. There seems no reason why anybody should disbelieve it; as the only part of the tale which sounds at all incredible is the very bad guard which Henry’s men kept over their prisoner.

The Homage of Malcolm in 1091.

The account of Malcolm’s homage to William Rufus which is given by Orderic (701 A) is treated with some contempt by Mr. 541 E. W. Robertson (Scotland under her Early Kings, i. 142), while it is naturally not forgotten by Sir Francis Palgrave (English Commonwealth, ii. cccxxxii). The main fact of the homage itself, paid to the second William on the same terms on which it had been paid to the first, is abundantly proved by the Chronicle. Nothing is gained by disproving at this stage the exaggerated account of Robert’s expedition in 1080 which is to be found in the local History of Abingdon (see N. C. vol. iv. pp. 671, 790). The only question is, whether, accepting the general fact from the Chronicle, we can or cannot accept any of the very curious details with which Orderic tells the story.

First of all, while Orderic’s geography is right, his topography is wrong. The mention of the “magnum flumen quod Scotte watra dicitur” must come from some genuine source. “Ordericus Angligena” heard the tale from some one who told it him in English. And, if there could be the shadow of a doubt, this shows that “Loðene” in the Chronicle means Lothian, and nothing else. Mr. Burton (Hist. Scot. i. 412) insists on carrying Malcolm to Leeds; but he cannot make the Aire to be the “Scotte watra.” But Orderic, who plainly got his account from some quite different source from the Chronicler, failed to take in the actual position of the two armies. He failed to see that Malcolm, having crossed the Scots’ Water into Lothian and therefore into England, was necessarily on the south side of the Scots’ Water. He fancied that the two kings were on opposite sides of the firth. William reaches the Scots’ Water; “sed, quia inaccessibilis transitus erat, super ripam consedit. Rex autem Scottorum e regione cum legionibus suis ad bellandum paratus constitit.” So he doubtless did; only they were both south of the water. The Chronicle shows plainly that Malcolm, as soon as he heard of William’s coming, determined that the invader should not, as his father had done, cross into the proper Scotland to Abernethy or elsewhere, but that he would meet him, for peace or for war, in the English part of his dominions.

This topographical confusion does not affect the main story, nor does it greatly matter whether the picturesque details of Robert’s visit to Malcolm literally happened or not. It is further plain that Orderic has left out one of the two mediators, namely Eadgar. But he records the main fact of the homage no less than the Chronicler. The question is whether we can accept 542 the curious conversation between Robert and Malcolm, in which Malcolm makes two statements, which are perhaps a little startling in themselves, which are not mentioned elsewhere, but which certainly do not contradict what we find elsewhere.

First, Malcolm asserts that King Eadward gave him the earldom of Lothian, seemingly as the dowry of Margaret; “Fateor quod rex Eduardus, dum mihi Margaritam proneptem suam in conjugium tradidit, Lodonensem comitatum mihi donavit.” Now it is certainly true that King Eadward, or Earl Siward in his name, gave Malcolm the earldom of Lothian; only he gave him something else too, namely the kingdom of Scotland. And I have mentioned elsewhere (see N. C. vol. iv. p. 785) that a betrothal of Margaret to Malcolm, when Malcolm received the kingdom from Siward, though recorded nowhere else, is perfectly possible.

Secondly, Malcolm’s strong point is that he does owe a homage to Robert, but that he owes none to William. This he asserts in his first message; “Tibi, rex Guillelme, nihil debeo, nisi conflictum si a te injuriis lacessitus fuero. Verum si Robertum primogenitum Guillelmi regis filium videro, illi exhibere paratus sum quicquid debeo.” Afterwards, in his conference with Robert, he is made to say, after mentioning Eadward’s grant of Lothian, “Deinde Guillelmus rex quod antecessor ejus mihi dederat concessit, et me tibi primogenito suo commendavit. Unde quod tibi promisi conservabo. Sed fratri tuo nihil promisi et nihil debeo. Nemo, ut Christus ait, potest duobus dominis servire.” To this Robert agrees; “Ut asseris, ita est. Sed mutationes rerum factæ sunt, et statuta patris mei a pristina soliditate in multum vacillaverunt.” I do not know that a homage of Malcolm to Robert is recorded anywhere else, unless we so understand the confused Abingdon story about the expedition of 1080. But nothing was more likely than that William the Conqueror should at Abernethy call on Malcolm to pledge himself, as was so often done, not only to himself but to his son after him. In 1072 there could have been no reason for looking to any one but Robert as the probable successor; least of all could any one have thought of William the Red. He was not even the second son, as Richard was still alive. And the time when King William renewed the gift of his predecessor Eadward must surely be the day of Abernethy, and none other.

There is then really nothing in Orderic’s story which gainsays 543 any known facts, and it is hard to see what should have made him think of a betrothal of Margaret, a homage to Robert, and the rest, unless he had some ground for them. And the general argument put into Malcolm’s mouth seems exactly in place. It is of a piece with the arguments of Scottish disputants long after Orderic’s day. Something is admitted, that something is perhaps specially insisted on, in order to avoid the admission of something else. Lothian is the special personal gift of Eadward to Malcolm himself, though it is certain, on any view of the cession of Lothian, that predecessors of Malcolm had held it of predecessors of Eadward. That gift of Eadward, renewed by William the Great, is allowed to carry with it a personal duty to William the Great and to his personal heir. But the denial of any duty to William the Red implicitly denies any duty to the King of the English as such. Still this question is in words left open; so is all that relates to the proper Scotland left open. Malcolm at last consents to do homage to William for something; but, in Orderic’s story at least, it is not very clear for what. (The Chronicler, we may be sure, felt so certain of its being for Scotland that he did not think it needful to say so.) All this is exactly like later controversies on the same subject. When the two kingdoms were on friendly terms, it often suited both sides that the homage should be general, leaving it open to each side to assert its own doctrine the next time there should be any dispute (see N. C. vol. v. p. 209). And we must remember that by this time it is quite possible that Rufus might make claims which Malcolm would, on the principles of an earlier time, do quite right in refusing. Strictly feudal ideas were growing, and when a King of the English demanded homage for the kingdom of Scotland, he may well have meant more than had been meant when the king and people of the Scots sought Eadward the Unconquered to father and lord. Certainly, when the whole thing had stiffened into a question of ordinary feudal law, Edward the First, if judged by the standard of the tenth century, asked more than his historic rights over Scotland, less than his historic rights over Lothian. See Historical Essays, Series I. p. 65; N. C. vol. i. p. 128.

I am therefore inclined to believe that Orderic has, in this case, as in some others, incidentally preserved facts of which we 544 have no record elsewhere. But I am not anxious strongly to insist upon this. The general course of the history is the same, whether Margaret had or had not been betrothed to Malcolm before his marriage—​or whatever it was—​with Ingebiorg; it is the same whether Malcolm had or had not done an act of homage to Robert. And I must allow that, as Orderic has misunderstood some points at the beginning of the story, so he has more thoroughly misunderstood some points at the end of the story. For he makes Malcolm go into England—​Florence would have said into Wessex—​with William and Robert; “Deinde reges agmina sua remiserunt, et ipsi simul in Angliam profecti sunt.” This comes, as we shall presently see, from rolling together the events of the years 1091 and 1093.

The twelve “villæ” which, according to Florence, were to be restored to Malcolm are, I suppose, the same as the “mansiones” which the kings of Scots are said to have held in England in times both earlier and later than those with which we are dealing. This comes from Roger of Wendover’s account (i. 416; cf. N. C. vol. i. p. 584) of the grant of Lothian by Eadgar to Kenneth. It was given “hac conditione, ut annis singulis in festivitatibus præcipuis, quando rex et ejus successores diadema portarent, venirent ad curiam, et cum cæteris regni principibus festum cum lætitia celebrarent; dedit insuper ei rex mansiones in itinere plurimas, ut ipse et ejus successores ad festum venientes ac denuo revertentes hospitari valuissent, quæ usque in tempora regis Henrici secundi in potestate regum Scotiæ remanserunt.” The slighter mention in Florence gives some confirmation to the story in Roger. And though it was not likely that the King of Scots, or even the Earl of Lothian, should regularly attend at the great festivals, yet it was doubtless held that it was the right thing that he should do so; and we find Malcolm himself coming to the King’s court not long after (see vol. ii. p. 13), and his son Eadgar after him (see vol. ii. p. 265).

There is not much to be got from the other writers. William of Malmesbury twice refers to the matter, but as usual without much regard to chronology. It is seemingly this submission of Malcolm to which he refers in iii. 250, where, having said that Malcolm, in the days of the elder William, “incertis et sæpe fractis fœderibus ævum egit,” adds “filio Willelmi Willelmo 545 regnante, simili modo impetitus, falso sacramento abegit.” He must also refer to this time in iv. 310–311, where he says that, after the siege of Saint Michael’s Mount, he went back to England, “quod eum Scottorum et Walensium tumultus vocabant.” There was (see vol. ii. pp. 78, 79) a considerable “Walensium tumultus” this year; but it does not seem that the King himself did anything in those parts till later in his reign. William however says;

“Primo contra Walenses, post in Scottos, expeditionem movens, nihil magnificentia sua dignum exhibuit, militibus multis desideratis, jumentis interceptis.”

He then goes on to speak more at large of Welsh matters, and comes back to speak of the action of Robert in Scotland (see p. 301). The old friendship which he there speaks of between Malcolm and Robert falls in with Orderic’s story, and specially with Orderic’s way of telling it. We shall hear of it again in Notes BB, EE.

Henry of Huntingdon (vii. 2, p. 216) tells the story thus;

“Interea Melcolm rex Scotorum prædatum veniens in Angliam validissime vexavit eam. Venientes igitur in Angliam rex, et cum eo Robertus frater suus, direxerunt acies in Scotiam. Itaque Melcolm, nimio terrore perstrictus, homo regis effectus est et juramento fidelitatis ei subjectus.” Matthew Paris (Hist. Angl. i. 40) has a wonderful version in which the invasion is altogether left out. Malcolm, hearing of the peace between the brothers, begins to fear for his own kingdom. He therefore comes to William and makes a very humble homage indeed; “Veniens ad regem Angliæ Willelmum, humilitate sua regis flexit ferocitatem, asserens se nullum hostium suorum receptasse vel recepturum fore, nisi tali intentione, ut ipsos dominum suum recognoscentes, regi, persuasionibus suis mediantibus, redderet pacificatos et fideliores.”

The Earldom of Carlisle.

It is certainly a singular fact that, so lately as 1873, a long controversy raged in the Times newspaper as to the reason why Cumberland and Westmoreland were not surveyed in Domesday. The dispute was kept up for some time among men who seemed to have 546 some local knowledge; but, till Dr. Luard kindly stepped in to set them right, every reason was guessed at but the true one. No one seemed to grasp the simple facts, that no part of England was known at the time of the Survey by the name Cumberland or Westmoreland—​that so much of the shires now bearing those names as then formed part of the kingdom of England is surveyed under the head of Yorkshire—​that the reason why the rest is left unsurveyed is because it formed no part of the kingdom of England. The whole matter had long before been thoroughly sifted and set right by two local writers, who, I am tempted to suspect, were only one writer; yet the received local confusions were just as strong as ever.

The general history of Cumberland, and of this part of it in particular, was very minutely examined in the Introduction to the volume published in 1847 by the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle-upon-Tyne under the name of “The Pipe-Rolls or Sheriffs’ Annual Accounts of the Revenues of the Crown for the Counties of Cumberland, Westmorland, and Durham, during the Reigns of Henry II, Richard I, and John.” After this, in 1859, a paper was read by Mr. Hodgson Hinde at the Carlisle meeting of the Archæological Institute, “On the Early History of Cumberland,” which appeared in the Archæological Journal, vol. xvi. p. 217. These two essays have pretty well exhausted the piece of Cumbrian history with which I have now to deal, and they contain a great deal more with which I am not concerned.

The word Cumberland, I need not say, is a word of many meanings, and at the present moment we have not to do with any of them. We have to do only with the city and earldom of Carlisle, which does not answer to Cumberland in either the older or the later sense. The confusion which has immediately to be got rid of is the notion that Carlisle and its district already formed an English earldom in the time of the Conqueror. Thus we read in Sir Francis Palgrave (English Commonwealth, i. 449);

“‘Cumberland’—​for we must now call the Dominion by its modern appellation—​was, as I have observed, retained by the Conqueror; Malcolm had invaded the country; but he could not defend the territory against William, who granted Cumberland to Ranulph de Meschines, one of his Norman followers; and the border Earldom became wholly assimilated, in its political character, to the other 547 great baronies of England…. Carlisle was always excepted from these grants. The city, and the territory of fifteen miles in circuit, had become English by Ecgfrid’s donation, and probably was always held, either by the Kings or Earls of Bernicia or of Northumbria. Little further is known concerning ‘merry Carlisle,’ the seat of Arthur’s chivalry. Until the reign of William Rufus, this city, desolated by the Danes, was almost void of inhabitants. William completed the restoration of its walls and towers, which his father had begun.”

This comes primarily from a passage in the so-called Matthew of Westminster under the year 1072;

“Rex Gulihelmus cum grandi exercitu Scotiam ingressus est, et obviavit ei pacifice Malcolmus rex Scotorum apud Barwicum et homo suus devenit. His temporibus regebat comitatum Carleoli comes Ranulphus de Micenis, qui efficax auxilium præbuit regi Gulihelmo in conquestu suo Angliæ. Hic urbem Carleoli cœpit ædificare, et cives ejusdem plurimis privilegiis munire. Sed rediens rex Gulihelmus a Scotia per Cumbriam, videns tam regale municipium, abstulit illud a Ranulpho comite, et dedit illi pro eo comitatum Cestriæ, multis honoribus privilegiatum. Carleolum vero precepit rex Gulihelmus turribus propugnaculisque muniri firmissimis. Rex vero Gulihelmus Conquestor in redeundo de Scotia apud Dunelmum novum ibidem construxit castellum contra irruptiones Scotorum.”

There is also printed in the Monasticon, vol. iii. p. 584, a genealogical document called “Chronicon Cumbriæ,” which comes from the Register of Wetheral priory. This begins by saying that

“Rex Willielmus, cognomine Bastardus, dux Normanniæ, conquestor Angliæ, dedit totam terram de comitatu Cumbriæ Ranulpho de Meschines, et Galfrido fratri ejusdem Ranulphi totum comitatum Cestriæ, et Willielmo fratri eorundem terram de Copland, inter Duden et Darwent.”

The source of error here is that Matthew of Westminster, so to call him, mixed up the Scottish expedition of the Conqueror in 1072 with the Scottish expedition of William Rufus in 1091, and made the restoration of Carlisle a work of the father and not of the son. He also brings in Earl Randolf, with whom we are not as yet concerned; but it is to be noticed that he says nothing about an 548 earldom of Cumberland, but speaks only of an earldom of Carlisle. It is only in the Wetheral document that an earldom of Cumberland is carried back to the days of the Conqueror. Sir Francis Palgrave failed to notice this distinction; but he knew his books far too well to pass by the entries in the Chronicle and Florence under 1092. He therefore tried to reconcile them with the passages in Matthew of Westminster and the Wetheral chronicle by supposing an earldom of Cumberland which did not take in Carlisle and its district. The error and its source were first pointed out by Lappenberg (ii. 175 of the German original, p. 234 of Mr. Thorpe’s Anglo-Norman Kings, where, as usual, some of Lappenberg’s notes and references are left out). Lappenberg notices the difference between Matthew’s story and Palgrave’s; he suggests that Matthew has further confounded the events of 1072 and 1092 with those of 1122; and he gives a summary of the whole matter in the words;

“Wichtig aber ist es wahrzunehmen, dass erst Rufus und nicht sein Vater Cumberland zu einer wirklichen Provinz des normannischen Englands machte.”

Here is the root of the matter, so far as we have got rid of the notion of the Conqueror having done anything at Carlisle or thereabouts. Still Lappenberg should not have spoken, as I myself ought not to have spoken (N. C. vol. v. p. 118), of Cumberland now becoming an English earldom. The district with which we are concerned forms only a very small part of the old kingdom of Cumberland, while it does not answer to the modern county of Cumberland, which does not appear by that name till 1177 (see Pipe Rolls of Cumberland, p. 18; Archæological Journal, xvi. 230). The land with which we are concerned bears the name of the city. It is the land and earldom, not of Cumberland, but of Carlisle.

The point to be clearly taken in is that the district with which we are concerned was not part of England till 1092; more accurately still, it ceased to be part of England in 685, and became so again in 1092. For those four centuries, Carlisle, city and district, had as much or as little to do with England as the lands immediately to the north of it, the lands which formed that part of Cumberland in the wider sense which became in the end part of the kingdom of Scotland. This district of Carlisle does not answer to any modern shire, and it is of course not surveyed in Domesday. But it does answer to the diocese of Carlisle, as it stood before late changes. 549 That diocese took in part of modern Cumberland and part of modern Westmoreland. The rest of those shires, with Lancashire north of Ribble and the wapentake of Ewecross (Pipe Rolls, p. xlii), formed the Domesday district of Agemundreness (see Domesday, 301 b), forming part of Yorkshire, as it formed part of York diocese till the changes under Henry the Eighth. Mr. Hinde suggests (Arch. Journal, xvi. 227) that this district was conquered by Earl Eadwulf, the great enemy of the Britons (see N. C. vol. i. p. 526), a position which it might be hard either to prove or to disprove. Before the death of Henry the First, the Carlisle district was divided into two shires, Carlisle and Westmoreland (Chaerleolium and Westmarieland, Pipe Roll Hen. I. pp. 140, 143). This last consisted of the barony of Appleby, specially known as Westmoreland. Enlarged by the barony of Kirkby Kendal in Yorkshire, it became the modern county of Westmoreland. So the shire of Carlisle took the name of Cumberland in 1177, and, enlarged by the part of Yorkshire north of the Duddon, it became the modern county of Cumberland. But these added lands remained part of the diocese of York, till Henry the Eighth removed them to his diocese of Chester. This last diocese must not be confounded with the diocese of Chester—​otherwise of Lichfield or Coventry—​with which we have to do in our story. That diocese did not reach north of the Ribble, and its seat at Chester was in Saint John’s minster, while the new see of Henry the Eighth was planted in Saint Werburh’s.

The earldom of Carlisle brings us among old acquaintances. It was granted early in the reign of Henry the First (see Arch. Journal, xvi. 230, 231) to Randolf called Meschines, de Micenis, and other forms, who in 1118 became Earl of Chester, on the death of Earl Richard in the White Ship (see N. C. vol. v. p. 195), on which he gave up Carlisle. He died in 1129, being the second husband of the younger Lucy (see N. C. vol. ii. p. 682; vol. iii. p. 778), daughter of Ivo Taillebois. Ivo himself, at some time after the drawing up of Domesday (Carlisle Pipe Rolls, p. xliii) appears in the same part of the world as lord of Kirkby Kendal. After 1118 the earldom of Carlisle or Cumberland remained in the crown, till it was granted to David of Scotland in 1136 (see N. C. vol. v. p. 259).

The name of the city and earldom of Carlisle is the best comment 550 on its history. Alone among the names of English cities, it remains purely British, not only in its root, but, so to speak, in its grammar. The British idiom, I need hardly say, places the qualifying word second; the Teutonic idiom places it first. Thus Caer Gwent and Caer Glovi have become Winchester and Gloucester. But Caer Luel has not changed; it remains Carlisle, and has not become something like Lilchester. The reason is doubtless because the first English occupation of Caer Luel did not last long enough to give it a lasting English name. In 1092 nomenclature had lost the life which it had in 685, and a foreign tongue moreover had the upper hand. No one then thought of turning the name of Carlisle about, any more than of doing so by the names of Cardiff (Caerdydd), Caermarthen, or the Silurian Caerwent and Caerleon.

As for the colonists brought from the south, I have assumed them to be a strictly Saxon element added to the already mixed population of the border. And there may have been a Flemish element too, as I was inclined to think when I wrote N. C. vol. v. p. 119. The point is not of much importance, as the two kindred elements would easily fuse together; but it strikes me now that, if any part of the settlers had come from beyond sea, the Chronicler would not have so calmly spoken of them as churlish folk from the south. That phrase however is one well worthy of notice. The words “hider suð” can hardly have been written at Peterborough. That abbey certainly lies a long way south of Carlisle; but Peterborough would hardly speak of itself in this general way as “south.” (In 1051 Worcester, which lies south of Peterborough, counted itself to be “at this north end”—“ofer ealre þisne norð ende” says the Worcester Chronicle. See N. C. vol. ii. p. 620.) The suggestion that these “churlish folk” (“multi villani” in the translation in the Waverley Annals) were the men who had lost their lands at the making of the New Forest has high authority in its favour. It seems to have been first made by Palgrave (English Commonwealth, i. 450), and it is supported by Lappenberg (ii. 175, Thorpe 235). Still it is a simple guess, and I cannot say that to my own mind it has any air even of likelihood. It arises, it seems to me, from an exaggerated notion of the amount of havoc done at the making of the New Forest, combined with a forgetfulness of the time which had passed since that event. We 551 cannot fix its exact date, but the Survey shows that whatever was done in the New Forest, much or little was fully done before 1085, and we are now in 1092.

The earliest official notice of Carlisle and Westmoreland, the Pipe Roll of the 31st year of Henry the First, contains several interesting entries. The city wall was building. There are entries, “in operationibus civitatis de Caerleolio, videlicet in muro circa civitatem faciendo” (p. 140), “in operatione muri civitatis de Caerleolio” (p. 141), and (p. 142) “in liberatione vigilis turris de Penuesel,” which needs a local expounder. Both in this roll and in the rolls under Henry the Second we notice a mixture of personal nomenclature, Norman, Danish, English, and Scottish, which is just what we should look for. Distinctly British names I do not see. In the first few pages of the roll of 1156 we find at least three Gospatrics. One is very fittingly the son of Orm; another is the son of Beloc (6), whose nationality may be doubted; a third is the son of Mapbennoc, a clear Pict or Scot. So again we have Uhtred son of Fergus (p. 5), William son of Holdegar, Æthelward [Ailward] son of Dolfin, hardly the dispossessed prince. Swegen son of Æthelric [Sweinus fil. Alrici] in the roll of Henry the First (142) is a local man; but Henry son of Swegen, who comes often under Henry the Second, is the unlucky descendant of Robert son of Wymarc. See N. C. vol. iv. p. 735. There are a good many entries about the canons of Saint Mary of Carlisle who were founded before the bishopric, in 1102 (see Haddan and Stubbs, ii. 13). There is a notice in 1156 (p. 3) of the Bishop of Candida Casa or Whithern. That see was (Haddan and Stubbs, ii. 25) revived about 1127, as suffragan of York, and 1156 is the date of the death of Æthelwulf the first Bishop of Carlisle.

The Early Life of Randolf Flambard.

I quoted some of the passages bearing on the early life of Randolf Flambard in N. C. vol. iv. p. 521. I mentioned there that he had a brother named Osbern, who appears in the Abingdon 552 History. He had another brother Fulcher, of whom we shall hear again. See Ord. Vit. 788 D, and vol. ii. p. 416. He had also a son Thomas. I do not feel quite so sure as I did then, or as Dr. Stubbs seems to be (Const. Hist. i. 348), that he really did hold lands in England T. R. E. The entry which looks like it is the second of the three in Domesday, 51, which stands thus in full;

“Isdem Ranulfus tenuit in ipsa villa i. hidam, et pro tanto se defendebat T. R. E. modo est tota in foresta exceptis iiii. acris prati terra fuit iiii. carucatarum. Hæ duæ terræ valebant iiii. libras.”

It appears then that Flambard lost the arable part of this hide at the making of the New Forest, as he also lost another hide, with the same exception of four acres of meadow, which had been held T. R. E. by one Alwold. A third hide, of which it is said that “duo alodiarii tenuerunt,” he kept, as well as his holdings in Oxford and Oxfordshire. Dr. Stubbs suggests that these lands were “possibly acquired in the service of the Norman Bishop William of London.” Sir F. Palgrave (England and Normandy, iv. 52) makes the most of this despoiling of a Norman holder. But I am not clear that the words of the entry which I have given in full necessarily imply that the land was held by Flambard himself T. R. E. And, if we need not suppose this, his story becomes a great deal simpler. Above all, we need no longer suppose that a man who lived till 1128, and whose mother was living in 1100 (see vol. ii. p. 398), had made himself of importance enough to receive grants of land at some time before 1066.

The account of Flambard which is given by Orderic (678 C) would certainly not suggest that he had been in England in the time of Eadward;

“Hic de obscura satis et paupere parentela prodiit, et multum ultra natales suos ad multorum detrimentum sublimatus intumuit. Turstini cujusdum plebeii presbyteri de pago Bajocensi filius fuit, et a puerilibus annis inter pedissequos curiales cum vilibus parasitis educatus crevit, callidisque tergiversationibus et argutis verborum machinationibus plusquam arti literatoriæ studuit. Et quia semetipsum in curia magni regis Guillermi arroganter 553 illustribus præferre ardebat, nesciente non jussus, multa inchoabat, infestus in aula regis plures procaciter accusabat, temereque majoribus quasi regia vi fultus imperabat.”

It is not easy to reconcile this with the version which makes Flambard pass into the King’s service from that of Bishop Maurice, who did not become bishop till Christmas, 1085. The story of his service with Maurice appears in the account of him which is printed in Anglia Sacra (i. 705), and also along with Simeon (249 ed. Bedford, and X Scriptt. 59). It is much more likely that the name of the bishop should be wrongly given than that his service with some bishop of London should be mere invention. If so, he may have passed into the service of the Conqueror at almost any time of his reign, while still so young that it becomes an easy exaggeration on the part of Orderic to say that he was in the King’s service from his childhood. The passage in the Life which continues Simeon stands thus;

“Fuerat autem primo cum Mauritio Lundoniensi episcopo; sed propter decaniam sibi ablatam orto discidio, spe altioris loci se transtulit ad regem.”

This must surely refer to something which really happened; and in the Register of Christchurch Twinham (Mon. Angl. vi. 303) we distinctly read of Flambard, “qui Randulphus antea fuerat decanus in ecclesia Christi de Twynham.” But this is directly followed by another extract from the same register which denies that the heads of the church of Twinham ever bore the title of dean, and which connects Flambard with Twinham in quite another way. According to this story, there were at Twinham in the time of William Rufus twenty-four canons under a chief named Godric (“Hunc Godricum sui tunc temporis clerici, non pro decano, quasi nominis ignorantes, sed pro seniore ac patrono venerabantur”). Flambard, already bishop of Durham, obtains a grant of Twinham and its church from William Rufus (“Randulfus episcopus hanc ecclesiam cum villa a rege Willielmo impetravit”). If I rightly understand a very corrupt text, Flambard enriches the church and designs to rebuild it, and then to put in monks instead of canons; meanwhile he keeps the prebends vacant as they fall in. This Godric opposes; but in the end Flambard rebuilds the church, and keeps the prebends in his own hands till there are only thirteen left. Then comes his own banishment, and the grant of the church to one Gilbert de 554 Dousgunels, after which Flambard seems to have had nothing more to do with it.

It is odd that so many prebends should have become vacant in the single year during which Flambard held the bishopric for the first time, and one would not have expected him to have been a favourer of monks. But I can get no other meaning out of the words “cupiens et disponens … præfatam ecclesiam … funditus eruere, et meliorem decentioremque cuilibet ædificare religioni.” What comes after seems plainer still;

“Fregit episcopus illius loci primitivam ecclesiam, novemque alias quæ infra cimiterium steterant, cum quorundam domibus canonicorum prope locum ecclesiæ cimiterii, et officinarum compenciorem [?] faciendum et canonicis in villa congruum immutationem [sic] ut dominus adaptavit locum. Fundavit equidem hanc ecclesiam episcopus Randulfus quæ nunc est apud Twynham, et domos et officinas cuilibet religioni. Obeunte canonicorum aliquo, ejus beneficium in sua retinebat potestate, nulli tribuens alii, volens unamquamque dare præbendam religioni, si eos omnes mortis fortuna in suo tulisset tempore.”

Now all this can hardly have happened between Flambard’s consecration in 1099 and his imprisonment in 1100. But he may have had the grant of Twinham before he was bishop. Again, in two charters (Mon. Angl. vi. 304), granted by the elder Baldwin of Redvers, we hear of deans of Twinham and of “Ranulfus decanus,” which seems to mean Flambard himself. The lands of the canons of Twinham are entered in Domesday, 44; but there is no mention of Flambard.

We thus have the absolutely certain fact that Flambard held lands near Twinham. In two independent sources he is said to have been dean of Twinham. In another independent source he is said to have held and lost some deanery not named. In yet another story he is described, not as dean of Twinham, but as doing great things at Twinham in another character. These accounts cannot literally be reconciled; but they certainly point to a connexion of some kind between him and the church of Twinham.

We must indeed mourn the loss of the primitive church of Twinham with its nine surrounding chapels, something like Glendalough or Clonmacnois. The nave of the present church may well 555 be Flambard’s work; but it has no special likeness to his work at Durham. But this may only prove that he built it before he went to Durham, and there learned the improvements in architecture which had been brought in by William of Saint-Calais (see N. C. vol. v. p. 631). The seculars of Twinham made way for Austin canons about 1150.

While speaking of Twinham, I must correct a statement which I made long ago with regard to one of the chief worthies of my earlier story. I said (N. C. vol. ii. p. 33) that Earl Godwine was “nowhere enrolled among the founders or benefactors of any church, religious or secular.” I find him enrolled among the benefactors of Twinham. And here again we mark that, as with his wife (see N. C. vol. ii. p. 358) and his son, his bounty goes to the seculars. The passage, in one of the charters of the elder Baldwin of Redvers granted to Hilary Dean of Twinham (Mon. Angl. vi. 304), stands thus;

“Ecclesiam de Stoppele cum omnibus quæ ad eam spectant; unam virgatam terræ cum appendiciis in eadem villa ex dono Godwini comitis, quam Orricus de Stanton eidem Christi ecclesiæ violenter surripuit.”

I cannot identify this “Orricus de Stanton” in Domesday, nor do I know anything as to the genuineness of the charter. But no one in the twelfth century or later would be likely to invent a benefaction of Earl Godwine.

Orderic, in the passage quoted above (678 C), distinctly speaks of Randolf as having been in the service of the Conqueror, and it must have been in his court that he got the surname which, in so many forms, has stuck to him, and which we find even in Domesday (see N. C. vol. iv. p. 521). The way in which he came by it is thus described—​his false accusations have just been mentioned;

“Unde a Roberto dispensatore regio Flambardus cognominatus est, quod vocabulum ei secundum mores ejus et actus quasi prophetice collatum est. Flamma quippe ardens multis factis intulit genti novos ritus, quibus crudeliter oppressit populorum cœtus, et ecclesiæ cantus temporales mutavit in planctus.”

In this last piece of rhetoric we seem to lose the real reason why he was called Flambard, which is not very clear: still less do we get any explanation of the form “Passeflambard.” Lappenberg 556 (ii. 167) says “er habe den Beinamen von der Fackel wegen seiner schon früh bewährten Habsucht erhalten.” But one has some fellow-feeling with his translator (225)—​if he would only have written English to match Lappenberg’s German—“It is not easy to conceive how the sobriquet of Flambeau could be given to an individual on account of his covetousness.” Nor is it quite clear that it is covetousness strictly so called of which Orderic speaks. He says elsewhere (786 D); “Erat sollers et facundus, et, licet crudelis et iracundus, largus tamen et plerumque jocundus, et ob hoc plerisque gratus et amandus.”

In a letter to Pope Paschal (Epp. iv. 2) Anselm seems quite carried out of his usual mildness of speech by the thought of Flambard, especially by the thought of his being made a bishop. The letter must have been written just after Paschal and Flambard had received their several promotions. We get the same derivation of the name as in our other extracts; “Quando de Anglia exivi, erat ibi quidem professione sacerdos [see p. 330], non solum publicanus, sed etiam publicanorum princeps infamissimus, nomine Ranulphus, propter crudelitatem similem flammæ comburenti, promine Flambardus; cujus flamma qualis sit, non in Anglia solum, sed in exteris regnis longe lateque innotuit.”

Lappenberg, in the passage quoted above, refers to Thierry’s wonderful account of Flambard (ii. 141);

“Renouf Flambard, évêque de Lincoln, autrefois valet de pied chez les ducs de Normandie, commettait, dans son diocèse, de tels brigandages, que les habitants souhaitaient de mourir, dit un ancien historien, plutôt que de vivre sous sa puissance.”

I cannot find that Thierry speaks of Flambard anywhere else. The “valet de pied” must come from the bit in Orderic about the “pedissequi curiales.” The rest, including the wonderful confusion which makes him bishop of Lincoln, comes, as Lappenberg points out, from a passage in the Winchester Annals, 1092 (cf. 1097), which I shall presently have to refer to. But it is really amazing that Flambard’s loss of property in the New Forest did not cause him to be brought in at some stage or other as an oppressed Saxon.

The Official Position of Randolf Flambard.

The exact formal position held by Flambard under William Rufus has in some measure to be guessed at, as the rhetoric of our authorities sometimes veils such matters in rather vague language. Thus his biographer (Anglia Sacra, i. 706) describes him;

“Admixtus enim causis regaliorum negotiorum, cum esset acrioris ingenii et promptioris linguæ, brevi in tantum excrevit ut adepta apud regem familiaritas totius Angliæ potentes et natu quoque nobiliores illum superferret. Totius namque regni procurator constitutus, interdum insolentius accepta abutens potestate, cum negotiis regis pertinacius insisteret, plures offendere parvi pendebat. Quæ res multorum ei invidiam et odium contraxerat. Crebris accusationibus serenum animi regalis ei obnubilare, et locum familiaritatis conabantur interrumpere.”

Here we have a vague description of a position of great influence, without the bestowal of any official title whatever. Orderic (678 B), in first introducing him, comes somewhat nearer to a formal description;

“His temporibus quidam clericus nomine Rannulfus familiaritatem Rufi regis adeptus est, et super omnes regios officiales ingeniosis accusationibus et multifariis adulationibus magistratum a rege consecutus est.”

What then was the formal description of this office which set its holder above all other officers of the King? Lappenberg (ii. 168, p. 226 of the English translation) and Stubbs (Const. Hist. i. 347) both rule, and seemingly with good reason, that the office held by Flambard was really that of Justiciar. Official names were at this time still used so vaguely that it seems to be only in another passage of Orderic (786 C, see p. 559) that he is directly called so; but, as Lappenberg says, his office is distinctly marked by the words of the Chronicler (1099), when he says that the King “Rannulfe his capellane þæt biscoprice on Dunholme geaf þe æror ealle his gemot ofer eall Engleland draf and bewiste.” The same office seems to be meant when Florence (1100) says, “Cujus astutia et calliditas tam 558 vehemens extitit, et parvo tempore adeo excrevit, ut placitatorem ac totius regni exactorem rex illum constitueret.” Henry of Huntingdon uses the same word, when (vii. 21, p. 232 ed. Arnold) he seems to be translating the entry in the Chronicle; “Anno illo [1099] rex Ranulfo placitatori sed perversori, exactori sed exustori, totius Angliæ, dedit episcopatum Dunhelme.” Florence himself, in his entry under the same year, calls him “Rannulfus, quem negotiorum totius regni exactorem constituerat.” (In 1094 he is “Rannulphus Passeflambardus.”) Dr. Stubbs (Const. Hist. i. 348) remarks that these “expressions recall the ancient identity of the gerefa with the exactor, and suggest that one part of the royal policy was to entrust the functions which had belonged to the præfectus or high steward to a clerk or creature of the court.” In the Gesta Pontificum (274) William of Malmesbury, like the Biographer, calls him “totius regni procurator;” in Eadmer (Hist. Nov. 20), he is more vaguely “Ranulfus regiæ voluntatis maximus executor.”