Note 622 — Chapter VI · (continued 2)

Orderic (773 D), immediately after recording the submission of the Cenomannian castles, goes on to draw a harrowing picture of the sufferings of England during the King’s absence; how “Rannulfus Flambardus jam Dunelmi episcopus, aliique regis satellites et gastaldi, Angliam spoliabant, et latronibus pejores, agricolarum acervos, ac negotiatorum congeries immisericorditer diripiebant, nec etiam sanguinolentas manus a sacris cohibebant.” He then goes on to describe the special wrongs of the Church, and adds, “Sic immensi census onera per fas perque nefas coacervabant, et regi trans fretum, ut in nefariis seu commodis usibus expenderentur, destinabant. Hujusmodi utique collectionibus grandia regi xenia præsentabantur, quibus extranei pro vana laude ditabantur.” They then cried to God who had raised up Ehud to slay the “rex pinguissimus” Eglon, which sounds rather like a prayer for the coming of Walter Tirel. But the chronology is utterly confused. The time of which Orderic is speaking is the year 1098; yet he makes Flambard already Bishop of Durham, which he was not till 1099, and he makes Anselm withstand all these oppressions and go away because he could not hinder them. But, as we well know, Anselm was already gone in 1097.

Henry of Huntingdon also (vii. 20) notices the special oppression during the continental war. The King “in Normannia fuit, semper hosticis tumultibus et curis armorum deditus, tributis interim et exactionibus pessimis populos Anglorum non abradens sed excorians.”