He then goes on to mention his brothers. (See above, [p. 37.]) Many of the places on this list will come in our story. “Rom,” it is hardly needful to say, is only the capital of Normandy, not of the world. But what are the three counties in England? There is Shropshire, and most likely Sussex. What is the third? Yorkshire, on the strength of Tickhill? But Robert had no earldom there.
[486] Ord. Vit. 675 D.
[487] Hen. Hunt. De Cont. Mund. 11. “Gens ipsis dæmonibus horrenda.”
[488] See N. C. vol. i. p. 468. The Archdeacon of Huntingdon himself, with a slight contempt of sex and species, calls him “Pluto, Megæra, Cerberus, vel si aliquid horrendi scribi potest.” He speaks of the proverb, “Mirabilia Roberti de Belesme.”
[489] See his two pictures in Orderic, 675 C, D, and 707 C, D. In his character of engineer we shall meet him at Gisors. See 766 B.
[490] Ord. Vit. 707 D. “Magis affectabat supplicia miseris inferre quam per redemptionem captivorum pecunias augere.” So Hen. Hunt. u. s. Yet, as some of his captives escaped, he lost the ransom for nothing.
[491] Ib. “Homines privatione oculorum et amputatione pedum manuumve deformare parvipendebat, sed inauditorum commeditatione suppliciorum in torquendis miseris more Siculi Phalaris tripudiabat. Quos in carcere pro reatu aliquo stringebat, Nerone seu Decio vel Diocletiano sævior, indicibiliter cruciabat, et inde jocos cum parasitis suis et cachinnos jactabundus exercebat. Tormentorum quæ vinctis inferebat delectatione gloriabatur, hominumque detractione pro pœnarum nimietate crudelis lætabatur.” The special detail of the impaling comes from Henry of Huntingdon, who says also, “Erat ei cædes horribilis hominum cibus jucundus animæ.”
[492] Will. Malms. v. 398. “Simulationis et argutiarum plenus, frontis sereno et sermonum affabilitate credulos decipiens, gnaros autem malitiæ exterritans, ut nullum esset majus futuræ calamitatis indicium quam prætensæ affabilitatis eloquium.” Something of the same kind was said of King Henry himself. See N. C. vol. v. p. 841.
[493] Ord. Vit. 708 B. She at last escaped to Countess Adela at Chartres, and got to her own land of Ponthieu.
[494] The story is told with the difference spoken of in the text by Henry of Huntingdon (de Cont. Mundi, 11) and by William of Malmesbury (v. 398). Henry says only, “Filioli sui oculos sub chlamide positi quasi ludens pollicibus extraxit.” William supplies a kind of motive; “Puerulum ex baptismo filiolum, quem in obsidatum acceperat, pro modico delicto patris excæcarit, lumina miselli unguibus nefandis abrumpens.” That is, the Archdeacon makes the ugly story still uglier, just as in the case of the children of Juliana. See N. C. vol. v. pp. 157, 841.