CHAPTER VI
THE LOSS OF NORMANDY
Duke Robert’s ambitious attempt to drive Henry I from the throne had ended in a signal failure. To be sure, he had gained the promise of an annual subsidy of 3000 marks of silver, and this must have seemed to him an important consideration. But he had also revealed his weakness and indecision; and Henry can hardly have looked upon the payment of the subsidy as more than a temporary measure which would serve his purpose until he was in a position to adopt a more aggressive course towards the duke. By accepting a money payment in lieu of his claim upon the English crown, Robert had inevitably been reduced from the offensive to the defensive; and his continued failure to give strong and effective government to Normandy was a standing invitation to Henry to attack him. The treaty of Alton marked the beginning of a path of disaster which was to lead the duke to the field of Tinchebray and the prison walls of Cardiff.
From a military standpoint there had been little of the heroic about Henry’s course in meeting the invasion. But he had won a diplomatic victory of the first importance, and he was not slow to take full advantage of his success. Regardless of the amnesty which had been provided by the recent treaty, he proceeded at once to take summary vengeance upon his enemies. Robert had not yet left the realm when the first blow fell upon William of Warenne and several others who were sent out of the kingdom with him, “disinherited for his sake.”[1] It soon appeared that a like fate was in store for others of the duke’s late supporters. King Henry did not proceed against them directly for calling in the invader—that presumably would have been a needless violation of the treaty—nor did he court disaster by attacking them all at once. But one by one, and upon various charges, he had them haled before his curia and condemned.[2] Ivo of Grandmesnil, the crusader, attempted to engage in private war, a thing before almost unknown in England, and was made to pay for his presumption with a heavy fine. Covered with shame as he was, as a result of his cowardice at Antioch, and convinced that he would never be able to regain the king’s friendship, he found it advisable to extricate himself from his difficulties by departing a second time on crusade.[3] Robert Malet and Robert of Pontefract, son of Ilbert de Lacy, were also disinherited and made to quit the realm.[4]
Before proceeding against his more powerful enemies of the great house of Talvas, or Bellême, Henry made more careful preparations. For the best part of a year he set his secret agents to watch the terrible Robert, earl of Shrewsbury, and to gather information against him, which was all carefully reduced to writing.[5] Then suddenly, in 1102, the earl was summoned to appear before the curia regis,[6] accused upon forty-five separate counts of words spoken or acts committed against the king or his brother, the duke of Normandy. Tacitly admitting that his case was hopeless, the great earl fled to his strongholds without pleading, and was adjudged a public enemy.[7] War followed. One by one, the earl’s fortresses, Arundel, Tickhill, Bridgenorth, and Shrewsbury, were reduced; and before Michaelmas[8] Robert of Bellême was driven from England, an utterly defeated and disinherited outlaw. “Filled with grief and rage,” he went over sea and “spent his fury on the Normans.”[9]
It was not the king’s way to do things by halves. As soon as he had finished with Robert, he took action against other members of the Bellême family. Accusations were brought against Arnulf and Roger, Robert’s brothers, and they were condemned to the loss of their estates and driven from the realm.[10] But even then the king’s anger was not appeased or his appetite for plunder sated; and he proceeded to confiscate the lands which the nuns of the Norman monastery of Almenèches had received in England through the generosity of Roger of Montgomery.[11] Their sole offence lay in the fact that they happened to be presided over by Abbess Emma, a sister of Robert of Bellême.
While Henry was thus engaged in extirpating his enemies in England, Normandy under Duke Robert was increasingly a prey to confusion and anarchy. As we have noted, the death of William Rufus had been the signal for an outbreak of private war in the duchy. In the very week that the news of the king’s death was received, William of Évreux and Ralph of Conches made a hostile incursion into the territory of Beaumont and plundered the lands of Robert of Meulan. In a like spirit, others who had been held in check by the rigor of the Red King’s justice now took up arms and desolated the wretched country.[12] It is probable that the duke’s return from the Crusade and his attack upon England in some degree mitigated these conditions of disorder. The expedition against England could hardly have been fitted out and launched amid such anarchy as Ordericus describes. And as the turbulent barons prepared themselves for the foreign enterprise, their minds and hands must necessarily have been turned away from domestic feuds.
But for the same reason the failure of the attack upon England reacted disastrously upon Normandy, and brought on disorders hitherto unheard of. As Henry I expelled the outlaws from England, they invariably sought a refuge in Normandy and attempted to recoup their damaged fortunes by indulging in the worst excesses.[13] For a time Robert Curthose showed some spirit in dealing with the freebooters, though, if one accept the account of Ordericus Vitalis even with considerable reservations, his efforts did him little credit. When Henry embarked upon his great struggle with the house of Bellême in 1102, he appealed to Robert under the terms of the treaty of Alton to join him in the enterprise. And the duke so far responded to his call as to assemble the forces of Normandy and lay siege to the castle of Vignats, a Bellême stronghold, which was held by Gerard de Saint-Hilaire. It is reported that the garrison were ready and even eager to surrender, had a vigorous assault been made to give them a fair excuse. But the duke had little control over his undisciplined host, and Robert de Montfort and other traitors in the ranks fired the encampment and threw the whole army into a panic. The ducal forces fled in wild confusion with none pursuing, and the astonished garrison of Vignats shouted after them in derision.[14] Realizing now that they had nothing to fear, they issued from their stronghold and carried a devastating war throughout the Hiémois, and, so far as is recorded, the duke made no effort to repress them. Nothing remained but for the local lords of the district to defend themselves. Robert of Grandmesnil and his two brothers-in-law, Hugh de Montpinçon and Robert de Courcy, assembled their vassals and did what they could to check the freebooters. But their efforts met with small success. Other Bellême garrisons from Château-Gontier, Fourches, and Argentan joined with the plunderers from Vignats, and their raids were carried far and wide. Only the strong could defend themselves, and the homes of the unarmed peasantry were pillaged and given over to the flames.[15]