Two fortresses were thus won from the revolters; and the success of the Duke at both places, his severity at one of them, had their effect on those who still defended other castles for Robert of Bellême.[603] Surrender of Alençon,
of Bellême. Alençon, where the great William had wrought so stern a vengeance for the mockeries of its citizens, stood ready to receive his son without resistance. So did Bellême itself, the fortress which gave its name to the descendants of the line of Talvas, the centre of their power, where their ancient chapel of Mabel’s day still crowns the elder castle hill, standing, isolated below the town and fortress of later date.[604] Its defenders made up their minds to submit to the summons of the Duke, if only the Duke would come near to summon them. The other castles ready to surrender. So did the garrisons of all the other castles which still remained in rebellion. Frightened at the doom of Robert Carrel and his companions, they stood ready to surrender as soon as the Duke should come. But it is not clear whether the Duke ever did draw near to receive the fortresses which were ready to open their gates to him. Robert had had enough of success, or of the exertions which were needful for success. It would almost seem as if the siege of Saint Cenery had been as much as he could go through, and as if he turned back at once on its surrender. At all events he stopped just when complete victory was within his grasp. He longed for the idle repose of his palace. Robert disbands his army. His army was disbanded; every man who followed the Duke’s banner had the Duke’s licence to go to his own home.[605]

Robert of Bellême still in prison. All this while, it will be remembered, Robert of Bellême himself was actually in bonds in the keeping of Bishop Odo. The war had been waged rather against his father Earl Roger than against himself. But it was wholly on Robert’s account that it had been waged. Whatever we may think of the right or wrong of his imprisonment at the moment when it took place, there can be no doubt that it was for the general good of the Norman duchy that Robert of Bellême should be hindered from doing mischief. He was the arch-rebel against his sovereign, the arch-plunderer of his neighbours, the man who, in that fierce age, was branded by common consent as the cruellest of the cruel. It was to break his power, to win back the castles which he had seized, that the hosts of Normandy and Maine had been brought together; it was for the crime of maintaining his cause that Robert Carrel and his comrades had undergone their cruel punishment. But the fates of the chief and of his subaltern were widely different. Duke Robert, weary of warfare, was even more than ever disposed to mercy, that is more than ever disposed to gratify the biddings of a weak good-nature. Earl Roger prays for his son’s release. Earl Roger marked the favourable moment, when the host was disbanded, and when the Duke had gone back to the idle pleasures of Rouen. He sent eloquent messengers, charged with many promises in his name—​promises doubtless of good behaviour on the part of his son—​and prayed for the release of the prisoner.[606] With Duke Robert an appeal of this kind from a man like Earl Roger went for more than all reasonable forethought for himself and his duchy. The welfare of thousands was sacrificed to a weak pity for one man. Robert of Bellême set free.Robert of Bellême was set free. His promises were of course forgotten; gratitude and loyalty were forgotten. Till a wiser sovereign sent him in after days to a prison from which there was no escape, he went on with his His career.career of plunder and torture, of utter contempt and defiance of the ducal authority.[607] But, under such a prince as Robert, contempt and defiance of the ducal authority was no disqualification for appearing from time to time as a ducal counsellor.[608]

Robert of Bellême was thus set free, because his father had asked for his freedom. A prince who sought to keep any kind of consistency in his acts could hardly have kept his own brother Henry in ward one moment after the prison doors were opened to his fellow-captive. But it would seem that the gaol-delivery at Bayeux did not follow at once on that at Neuilly. Henry set free. Henry was still kept in his prison, till, at the general request of all the chief lords of Normandy, he was set free.[609] He went back to his county of the Côtentin with no good will to either of his brothers.[610] Here he strove to strengthen himself in every way, by holding the castles of his principality, by winning friends and hiring mercenaries. Henry strengthens his castles. He strengthened the castles of Coutances and Avranches, those of Cherbourg by the northern rocks and of Gavray in the southern part of the Côtentin. His partisans. Among his counsellors and supporters were some men of note, as Richard of Redvers, and the greater name of the native lord of Avranches, Earl Hugh of Chester.[611] Indeed all the lords of the Côtentin stood by their Count, save only the gloomy, and perhaps banished, Robert of Mowbray, Earl of Northumberland. That we find the lords of two English earldoms thus close together in a corner of Normandy shows how thoroughly the history of the kingdom and that of the duchy form at this moment one tale. His good government. While the Count and Ætheling was strengthened by such support, the land of Coutances and Avranches enjoyed another moment of peace and order, while the rest of Normandy was torn in pieces by the quarrels of Robert of Bellême and his like.

§ 2. The first Successes of William Rufus.
1090.

Schemes of William Rufus. While the duchy of Normandy had thus become one scene of anarchy under the no-government of its nominal prince, the King of the English had been carefully watching the revolutions of his brother’s dominions. He now deemed that the time had come to avenge the wrongs which he deemed that he had suffered at his brother’s hands. He must have seen that he had not much to fear from a prince who had let slip such advantages as Robert had held in his hands after the taking of Saint Cenery. He watched his time; he made his preparations, and was now ready to take the decisive step of crossing the sea himself or sending others to cross it. But even William Rufus in all his pride and self-confidence knew that it did not depend wholly on himself to send either native or adopted Englishmen on such an errand. He had learned enough of English constitutional law not to think of venturing on a foreign war without the constitutional sanction of his kingdom. He consults the Assembly at Winchester. Easter, 1090.In a Gemót at Winchester, seemingly the Easter Gemót of the third year of his reign,[612] he laid his schemes before the assembled Witan, and obtained their consent to a war with the Duke of the Normans. His speech. If we may trust the one report which we have of his speech, William the Red had as good reasons to give for an invasion of Normandy as his father had once had to give for an invasion of England. He went forth to avenge the wrongs which his brother had done to him, the rebellion which he had stirred up in his kingdom. But he went also from the purest motives of piety and humanity. The prince who had tried to deprive him of his dominions had shown himself utterly unable to rule his own. A cry had come into the ears of him, the Red King, to which he could not refuse to hearken. It was the cry of the holy Church, the cry of the widow and the orphan. All were alike oppressed by the thieves and murderers whom the weakness of Robert allowed to do their will throughout the Norman land. That land looked back with a sigh to the days of William the Great, who had saved Normandy alike from foreign and from domestic foes. It became his son, the inheritor of his name and crown, to follow in his steps, and to do the same work again. He called on all who had been his father’s men, on all who held fiefs of his granting in Normandy or in England, to come forward and show their prowess for the deliverance of the suffering duchy.[613] But it was for them to take counsel and to decide. His constitutional language. Let the Assembly declare its judgement on his proposal. His purpose was, with their consent, to send over an army to Normandy, at once to take vengeance for his own wrongs, and to carry out the charitable work of delivering the Church and the oppressed, and of chastising evil-doers with the sword of justice.[614]

This constitutional language in the mouth of William Rufus sounds somewhat strange in our ears; the profession of high and holy purposes sounds stranger still. There is of course no likelihood that we are reading a genuine report of an actual speech; still the words of our historian are not without their value. No one would have been likely to invent those words, unless they had fairly represented the relations which still existed between a King of the English and the Assembly of his kingdom. The piety may all come from the brain of the monk of Saint Evroul; Its witness to constitutional usage. but the constitutional doctrines which he has worked into the speech cannot fail to set forth the ordinary constitutional usage of the time. Even in the darkest hour in which England had any settled government at all, in the reign of the worst of all our kings, it was not the will of the King alone, not the will of any private cabal or cabinet, but the will of the Great Council of the nation, which, just as in the days of King Eadward,[615] decided questions of peace and war.

The Witan unanimously agreed to the King’s proposal, and applauded, so we are told, the lofty spirit—​the technical name is used—​of the King himself.[616] War voted by the Witan. War was at once voted, and it might have been expected that a brilliant campaign would at once have followed on the warlike vote. We might have looked to see the Red King, the mirror of chivalry, cross the sea, as his father had done on the opposite errand, at the head of the whole force of his realm. We might have looked to see a series of gallant feats of arms take place between the two hostile brothers. The real story is widely different. The King stays in England. William Rufus did not cross the sea till a year after war had been declared, and remarkably little fighting happened, both while he stayed in England and after he set forth for Normandy. His policy. But we have seen that William Rufus, as a true Norman, was, with all his chivalry, at least as much fox as lion.[617] And a ruler of England, above all, a son of William the Great, had many weapons at his command, one only of which could the Duke of the Normans hope to withstand with weapons of the like kind. His advantages in a a struggle with Robert. Robert was in his own person as stout a man-at-arms as Rufus, and, if the chivalry of Normandy could only be persuaded to rally round his banner, he might, as the valiant leader of a valiant host, withstand on equal terms any force that the island monarch could bring against him. But courage, and, we may add, whenever he chose to use it, real military skill, were the only weapons which Robert had at his bidding. The armoury of the Red King contained a choice of many others, any one of which alone might make courage and military skill wholly useless. William, headstrong as he often showed himself, could on occasion bide his time as well as his father, and, well as he loved fighting, he knew that a land in such a state as Normandy was under Robert could be won by easier means. Besides daring and generalship equal to that of Robert, Rufus had statecraft; and he was not minded to use even his generalship as long as his statecraft could serve his turn. He knew, or his ready wit divined, that there were men of all classes in Normandy who would be willing to do his main work for him without his striking a blow, without his crossing the sea in person, almost without a blow being struck in his behalf. He had only to declare himself his brother’s rival, and it was the interest of most of the chief men in Normandy to support his claims against his brother. Interest of the chief Normans. The very same motives which had led the Normans in England to revolt against William on behalf of Robert would now lead the Normans in Normandy to revolt against Robert on behalf of William. Norman nobles and land-owners who held lands on both sides of the sea had deemed it for their interest that one lord should rule on both sides of the sea. They had then deemed it for their interest that that lord should be Robert rather than William. The former doctrine still kept all its force; on the second point they had learned something by experience. Position of William and Robert. If England and Normandy were to have one sovereign, that sovereign must needs be William and not Robert. There was not the faintest chance of placing Robert on the royal throne of England; there was a very fair chance of placing William in the ducal chair of Normandy. Simply as a ruler, as one who commanded the powers of the state and the army, William had shown that he had it in his power to reward and to punish. Robert had shown that it was quite beyond his power to reward or to punish anybody. He who drew on himself the wrath of the King was likely enough to lose his estates in England; he who drew on himself the wrath of the Duke had no need to be fearful of losing his estates in Normandy. Power of William’s wealth. And William had the means of making a yet more direct appeal to the interests of not a few of his brother’s subjects, in a way in which it was still more certain that his brother would not appeal to any of his subjects. The hoard at Winchester was still well filled. If it had been largely drawn upon, it was again filled to the brim with treasures brought in by every kind of unrighteous exactions. Already was the land “fordone with unlawful gelds;”[618] but the King had the profit of them. But there was no longer any hoard at Rouen out of which Robert could hire the choicest troops of all lands to defend his duchy, as William could hire them to attack it. Hiring of mercenaries. And the wealth at William’s command might do much even without hiring a single mercenary. The castles of Normandy were strong; but few of them were so strong that, in the words of King Philip—​Philip of Macedon, not Philip of France—​an Bribes. ass laden with gold could not find its way into them.[619] Armed at all points, master alike of gold and steel, able to work himself and to command the services of others alike with the head and with the hand, William Rufus could, at least in contending with Robert, conquer when he chose and how he chose. Bribes. He conquers without leaving England. And for a while he chose, like the Persian king of old, to win towns and castles without stirring from his hearth.[620]

Edwᵈ. Weller

For the Delegates of the Clarendon Press.