[44] A.-S. C., a. 1101: “twelve nights before Lammas”; Henry of Huntingdon, p. 233: “ante kalendas Augusti”; Florence of Worcester, ii, pp. 48-49: “circa ad Vincula S. Petri”; Ordericus, iv, p. 110: “in autumno.” The sources agree that the expedition landed at Portsmouth, though Wace gives the landing place as Porchester. Roman de Rou, ii, p. 439. Freeman explains that Portsmouth is a “vaguer name” referring to the “whole haven,” and that Wace, wishing to be more specific, names Porchester as the exact point within the harbor where the landing took place. William Rufus, ii, p. 406, n. 1. But it seems more likely that Wace’s choice of the word was due to the exigencies of his verse:
Passa mer e vint a Porcestre,
D’iloc ala prendre Wincestre.
The Annales de Wintonia places the number of ships in the invading fleet at two hundred, and record the presence of Ranulf Flambard: “Dux Robertus venit in Angliam cum cc. navibus, et cum eo Radulfus Passeflambere.” Annales Monastici, ii, p. 41.
[45] Ordericus, iv, p. 110.
[46] Ibid.
[47] Florence of Worcester, ii, p. 49; Wace, Roman de Rou, ii, p. 440.
[48] Ibid., ii, pp. 440-441. For the identification of Alton, see Freeman, William Rufus, ii, p. 408, n. 2. According to Ordericus (iv, p. 113) the armies met “in quadam planicie.”
Wace, with his fondness for chivalrous detail, relates that Robert abandoned his proposed attack upon Winchester because he learned that the queen was then lying there in childbed. Only a villain, he declared, would attack a woman in such plight:
Mais l’on li dist que la reigne,