Two days before Christmas, 1091, Robert had departed from England and returned to Normandy, feeling much vexed because the Red King would not abide by the terms of their alliance.[208] Yet an open breach between the brothers was long delayed. William Rufus had his hands full with domestic affairs in 1092 and 1093, and he had little opportunity either for advancing his own interests in Normandy or for aiding the duke against his enemies as he had agreed to do. Robert, on his part, so far as can be seen, did not fail in his obligations under the provisions of the treaty. In the reservation which he attached to a grant to the abbey of Bec in February 1092 he was careful to guard the rights of William Rufus as well as of himself.[209] The readiness with which he accommodated himself to the king’s wishes in releasing Anselm, abbot of Bec, to become archbishop of Canterbury in 1093 is indicative of a similar spirit of coöperation. But it appears that he sought in vain the king’s promised assistance in Normandy until his patience was exhausted; and when, finally, the rupture came between them, it was the duke who took the initiative in terminating an agreement from which he could no longer hope to derive any good. Towards the close of 1093, he addressed to William Rufus a formal defiance. “This year at Christmas,” says the Chronicler, “King William held his court at Gloucester; and there came messengers to him out of Normandy, from his brother Robert, and they said that his brother renounced all peace and compact if the king would not perform all that they had stipulated in the treaty; moreover they called him perjured and faithless unless he would perform the conditions, or would go to the place where the treaty had been concluded and sworn to, and there clear himself.”[210]
In the spring of 1094, William Rufus took up this challenge and prepared for an invasion of Normandy. It is characteristic of the Red King that we hear more of the vast quantities of money which he gathered in from all sides than of the men whom he brought together for the expedition. The barons were called upon to contribute heavily to the expenses of the campaign, and strong pressure was put upon them in order to insure that their offerings should not be too sparing. Archbishop Anselm thought to make a contribution of five hundred pounds of silver, but the king rejected his offer as being too small.[211] On 2 February the forces were assembled at Hastings for the crossing.[212] But the winds were contrary and the expedition was delayed for more than a month,[213] and it did not succeed in sailing till Midlent.[214]
After the landing in Normandy, active hostilities were still further delayed by negotiations. William and Robert met in a conference, but a reconciliation proved impossible between them. Then a more formal meeting was held at an unidentified place called Campus Martius, and the dispute was laid before the great nobles who had confirmed the earlier treaty with their oaths. Unanimously they gave their decision in favor of the duke and laid the whole responsibility for the present discord upon the king. But William Rufus, ‘a fierce king,’ would have none of their condemnation. He would not accept responsibility for the breach, neither would he abide by the terms of the treaty. The conference was accordingly broken off, and the brothers separated in wrath, the king going to his headquarters at Eu, the duke to Rouen.[215]
Then, or more likely even before this, William Rufus turned to that brand of diplomacy in which he was so eminently skilful and which had gained him such successes in his earlier Norman policy. With the treasure which he had brought from England, he began to collect great numbers of mercenaries; and also, by lavish expenditure of gold and silver, and by grants and promises of Norman lands, he succeeded in corrupting more of the Norman baronage and in winning them away from their allegiance to the duke. And as rapidly as he gained possession of their strongholds he filled them with garrisons upon whom he could rely.[216] But he was not content with mere diplomacy and bribery. He also took the field, and laying siege to Bures, a castle of Helias of Saint-Saëns, he reduced it, and took many of the duke’s men captive.[217]
But meanwhile, Robert had not been idle, and the success of his operations suggests that he had not ventured to defy William Rufus without making greater preparations than have been recorded by the contemporary writers. As he had done previously when confronted with an English invasion, he brought in his overlord, King Philip, and a French army.[218] Philip and Robert appear to have opened their campaign in the south and west of Normandy with two remarkable victories. Philip invested Argentan,[219] and, on the very first day of the siege, Roger le Poitevin and an enormous garrison of seven hundred knights and fourteen hundred esquires surrendered without any blood being shed, and were held by the king to ransom. Soon after, the duke won a victory of almost equal importance by the reduction of Le Homme and the capture of William Peverel and a garrison of eight hundred knights.[220]
These reverses came as a staggering surprise to William Rufus. Immediately he sent off to England and ordered the assembling of a great army of English foot soldiers—some twenty thousand, it is said—for the invasion of Normandy. But when they came to Hastings for the crossing, Ranulf Flambard, at the king’s order, took from each of them the ten shillings that he had brought for maintenance during the campaign; and then sent them back home, while he forwarded the money to William Rufus in Normandy.[221] The king had need of this fresh supply of English treasure. For by this time Philip and Robert, after their double victory in the south and west, were advancing on William’s headquarters at Eu,[222] in the very heart of the district which he had controlled since 1089 or 1090. But at Longueville King Philip halted.[223] William Rufus had found a way to repeat the measure which had turned the French king back from La Ferté in 1089, if not from Eu in 1091. “There was the king of France turned back by craft, and all the expedition was afterwards dispersed.”[224] Again the resources of Duke Robert had proved unequal to the greater stores of English treasure which the Red King was able to command.[225]
Yet the strength of Robert’s resistance was by no means broken. William Rufus sent to Domfront to call Prince Henry to his aid, and such was Robert’s strength that it proved impossible for Henry to make his way by land to Eu. The king sent ships to fetch him.[226] But instead of proceeding to Eu, he crossed the Channel, and, landing at Southampton at the end of October, he went to London for Christmas, evidently with a view to meeting the king upon his return from the Continent.[227] Meanwhile, William Rufus remained in Normandy almost to the end of the year. But clearly he met with no great success in his projects. He had spent vast sums of money, yet little or nothing had come of it—so ran the contemporary judgment: “Infecto itaque negotio, in Angliam reversus est.”[228] On 29 December he crossed from Wissant to Dover.[229]