1107.
The King, having stayed a while to settle the state of Normandy, returned with his brother into England, whom he sent prisoner to Cardiff Castle, with orders that he should be favourably used, which, for some time, were duly observed; until being accused of attempting to make his escape (whether it were real or feigned) he had his eyes put out with a burning basin, by the King's express commands; in which miserable condition he lived for six-and-twenty years.
It is believed the King would hardly have engaged in this unnatural and invidious war, with so little pretence or provocation, if the Pope had not openly approved and sanctified his cause, exhorting him to it as a meritorious action; which seems to have been but an ill return from the Vicar of CHRIST to a prince who had performed so many brave exploits for the service of the Church, to the hazard of his person, and ruin of his fortune. But the very bigoted monks, who have left us their accounts of those times, do generally agree in heavily taxing the Roman court for bribery and corruption. And the King had promised to remit his right of investing bishops, which he performed immediately after his reduction of Normandy, and was a matter of much more service to the Pope, than all the achievements of Duke Robert in the Holy Land, whose merits, as well as pretensions, were now antiquated and out of date.