During the four years of Robert’s reign which we have so far passed in review, his attention had been in the main absorbed by his relations with William Rufus, first in an effort to overthrow him and obtain the English crown, then in a struggle to preserve his own duchy from English conquest, and finally in an effort to coöperate with his brother in a friendly alliance which, after drawing him away on distant enterprises, had proved a hollow mockery. During this same period other problems had pressed upon the duke, in the solution of which he had met with little better success. Indeed, the county of Maine had already slipped entirely from his grasp.
The historian of the bishops of Le Mans records that the death of William the Conqueror produced a ferment throughout the whole of Maine;[137] and there is some reason for believing that very early in his reign Robert Curthose had led a Norman army against the Manceaux and had suppressed an incipient rebellion.[138] In the absence of convincing evidence, however, it seems more probable that Maine was not disturbed during the first year of Robert’s rule by more than local disorders, and that his first expedition into the county did not take place until the late summer of 1088. Upon the fall of Rochester and the failure of his attempted invasion of England, the duke—acting, it is said, upon the advice of Odo of Bayeux,[139] who had now returned to Normandy to pursue his restless ambition[140]—assembled an army and determined to march into Maine and assert his authority. Probably the expedition was intended primarily as a formal progress for receiving the homage of the lords of Maine, for the county was disturbed by no general revolt at that time. Robert’s garrison still held the castle of Le Mans securely, and Bishop Hoël and the clergy and people of the city were loyal.[141] Placing Bishop Odo, William of Évreux, Ralph of Conches, and William of Breteuil at the head of his forces, the duke moved southward, apparently in August 1088, and, encountering no opposition, entered Le Mans, where he was received by the clergy and people with demonstrations of loyalty.[142] The great barons, Geoffrey of Mayenne, Robert the Burgundian, and Helias, son of John of La Flèche, whatever their secret feelings, came forward promptly with offers of loyal service.[143] Only Pain de Mondoubleau, collecting his retainers in the castle of Ballon, dared to offer resistance; and early in September[144] he was reduced to submission. Everywhere Robert’s authority appeared to be firmly established;[145] and as he returned to Normandy to wage war against the rebellious house of Talvas, he was able to recruit his army from the Manceaux as well as from the Normans.[146]
Yet the following year there appear to have been fresh disturbances in Maine. By this time Robert had his hands full with the hostile activity of William Rufus and with the growing defection of the Norman barons in the lands east of the Seine; and as he appealed to his overlord, King Philip, for aid in Normandy,[147] so he turned to his other overlord, Fulk le Réchin, for assistance against the Manceaux.[148] If we could accept the hardly credible account of Ordericus Vitalis,[149] Fulk came to visit Robert in Normandy, where he found him convalescing after a serious illness, and revealed to him his passion for Bertrada de Montfort, niece and ward of Robert’s vassal, William of Évreux. If the duke would only gain for him the hand of the beautiful Bertrada, he, Fulk, would keep the Manceaux in obedience. Accordingly, so runs the account, Robert undertook the delicate negotiations for this famous amour. But William of Évreux was far from pliable, and not until the duke had made him enormous concessions[150] did he agree to the marriage of his ward to the notorious count of Anjou. But with such sacrifices the hand of Bertrada was won, and, true to his undertaking, Fulk prevented a revolt of the Manceaux for a year, “rather by prayers and promises than by force.”
In the year 1090, Robert by this time having become still more deeply involved in his struggle with William Rufus, new and far more serious troubles broke out in Maine.[151] Helias of La Flèche, grandson of Herbert Éveille-Chien through his daughter Paula, set up a claim to the county, and in furtherance of his ambition seized the castle of Ballon, which Duke Robert had besieged and taken two years before. Within the city of Le Mans, however, the cause of Helias made little progress, thanks mainly to Bishop Hoël, who remained staunchly loyal to Robert Curthose and used his great influence to keep the citizens true to their allegiance.[152] But when Helias perceived that the bishop was the chief obstacle to his plan of throwing off the Norman yoke, he did not scruple to seize him and hold him in captivity at La Flèche amid circumstances of great indignity. He could hardly have made a greater mistake. So great was Hoël’s popularity that the persecution provoked a remarkable popular demonstration in his favor. Within the city and the suburbs of Le Mans holy images and crosses were laid flat upon the ground, church doors were blockaded with brambles in sign of mourning, bells ceased to ring, and all the customary religious services and solemnities were suspended. Before such a demonstration Helias yielded and set the bishop free.[153]
Meanwhile, Geoffrey of Mayenne and other revolutionaries had brought from Italy a third claimant to the county of Maine in the person of Hugh of Este, another grandson of Herbert Éveille-Chien.[154] And with his arrival, the rebellion made more rapid progress. Helias of La Flèche, forgetful for the moment of his own claims, joined with Geoffrey of Mayenne and other prominent Manceaux in welcoming the new count. Oaths of fealty to Robert Curthose weighed for nothing.[155]
But Bishop Hoël stood firmly against the revolution. His loyalty could not be shaken. Withdrawing from Le Mans, he hastened to Normandy and laid the whole state of affairs before the duke. But Robert was “sunk in sloth and given over to the pursuit of pleasure,” and showed himself little worthy of the bishop’s loyalty and devotion. The rebellion in Maine disturbed him little; and he showed no disposition to act with vigor for its suppression. It was enough, he thought, if he could preserve his right of patronage over the bishopric. He directed the bishop at all costs to avoid making any concessions to the rebels in the matter of patronage, and with no better satisfaction sent him away.[156] Returning to Le Mans, Hoël found Hugh in possession of the city and occupying the episcopal palace. Hugh opened negotiations and tried to persuade the bishop to receive the temporalities of his office as a grant from himself; but Hoël remained true to Duke Robert, and would make no concessions. An agreement proved impossible. Meanwhile Hugh had succeeded in stirring up a formidable faction against the bishop among the clergy. Soon the disorders became so aggravated that Hoël was obliged to retire from his diocese and seek asylum in England, where he received a cordial welcome from William Rufus and remained for some four months.[157] But in the spring of the following year (1091) he returned to his diocese, and, after further controversy, was finally reconciled with Hugh and his enemies among the clergy, and welcomed back to Le Mans amid much ceremony and rejoicing (29-30 June).[158] Apparently he had at last come to regard Duke Robert and his rights with complete indifference.
But by this time the popularity of Count Hugh had vanished among the Manceaux, who had found him to be “without wealth, sense, or valor.”[159] And when the soft Italian learned that Robert Curthose and William Rufus had composed their difficulties and, as allies, were planning the reëstablishment of Norman rule in Maine,[160] he had no stomach for remaining longer to cope with the difficulties that were gathering around him. A few days after he had made peace with Bishop Hoël, he sold all his rights in Maine to Helias of La Flèche for 10,000 sous manceaux, and departed for Italy.[161] Count Helias now quickly gained the recognition and support of Hoël and of Fulk le Réchin,[162] and became henceforth the sole opponent of Norman rights in Maine. Hard fighting was yet in store for him against William Rufus, and only in the time of Henry I was he to obtain universal recognition; but for the time being his trials were at an end. The plans which William and Robert were maturing for a combined invasion of the county were, as has been seen,[163] suspended by their sudden departure for England in August 1091. And when Robert returned to the Continent, he made, so far as is known, no effort to recover his authority in Maine. Through weakness and inertia he had allowed a splendid territory, which the Conqueror had been at much pains to win, to slip from his hands without striking a blow. Indeed, without any formal abrogation of his rights he seems to have dropped all pretension to ruling in Maine. In four extant charters he bears the title of count or prince of the Manceaux.[164] But they all belong to the early period of his reign (1087-91), and, so far as their evidence goes, it is not clear that he used the title after 1089.
It was not only in his dealings with William Rufus and in his government of Maine that Robert’s reign was one long record of weakness and failure. He showed himself equally incompetent to curb and control the feudal baronage within the duchy. We have already remarked the general expulsion of royal garrisons from baronial castles upon the death of the Conqueror.[165] It is not recorded that Robert made any protest against this, and his own reckless grants of castles to the barons aggravated a situation which had been dangerous from the first. He gave Ivry to William of Breteuil; and for recompense to Roger of Beaumont, who had previously had castle guard at Ivry, he gave Brionne, “a most powerful fortress in the very heart of his duchy.”[166] To William of Breteuil, he also gave Pont-Saint-Pierre, and to William of Évreux, Bavent, Noyon, Gacé, and Gravençon, apparently for no better reason than to gratify Fulk le Réchin in the matter of Bertrada de Montfort and gain his friendly support in Maine.[167] When Robert had reduced Saint-Céneri by a successful siege, he immediately gave it away to Robert Géré,[168] upon whom he later had to make war to compel the destruction of an adulterine castle.[169] He established Gilbert of Laigle at Exmes,[170] and to Helias of Saint-Saëns he granted several strongholds on the east bank of the Seine.[171] The almost independent establishment of Prince Henry in the Cotentin and the Avranchin has been noted elsewhere. Some of these favored barons, it is true, remained faithful to their trusts; but such reckless prodigality meant exhaustion of resources, and too often it meant license for private war, plunder of the unarmed populace, and an open defiance of ducal authority.
Against rebellious barons, the duke could on occasion act with great vigor. In 1088 he threw Robert of Bellême into prison,[172] and accepted the challenge of Roger of Montgomery to a decisive contest. He laid siege to the impregnable stronghold of Saint-Céneri, and when he had reduced it by starvation, he blinded Robert Quarrel, the castellan, and had other members of the garrison condemned to mutilation by judgment of his curia.[173] He also imprisoned Robert of Meulan for factious opposition to the grant of Ivry to William of Breteuil; and, in the sequel of this controversy, between three in the afternoon and sunset, he took Brionne by assault, a great fortress which it had taken the Conqueror three years to reduce with the aid of the king of France.[174]