The Reign of William Rufus and the Accession of Henry the First, Volume 1 (of 2)

by Edward A. Freeman

It was clearly not wholly for the sake of such a prince as this that so many Norman leaders, Henry of Coutances among them, had made up their minds that the republican movement at Rouen was to be put down. The moment for putting it down had come. Gilbert enters Rouen. Gilbert of Laigle had by this time, by the strength of his own forces and by the help of the citizens of his party, entered Rouen through the southern gate. His forces now joined the company of Henry; they thus became far more than a match for the citizens of Conan’s party, even strengthened as they were by those of the King’s men who were in the city. Slaughter of the citizens. A great slaughter of the citizens followed; the soldiers of Rufus contrived to flee out of the city, and to find shelter in the neighbouring woods;[712] the city was full of death, flight, and weeping; innocent and guilty fell together; Conan taken prisoner. Conan and others of the ringleaders were taken prisoners. Conan himself was led into the castle, and there Henry took him for his own share of the spoil, not indeed for ransom, but to be dealt with in a strange and dreadful fashion. It is one of the contrasts of human nature that Henry, the great and wise ruler, the king who made peace for man and deer, the good man of whom there was mickle awe and in whose day none durst hurt other, should have been more than once guilty in his own person of acts of calm and deliberate cruelty which have no parallel in the acts of his father, nor in those of either of his brothers. Fate of Conan. So now Conan was doomed to a fate which was made the sterner by the bitter personal mockery which he had to endure from Henry’s own mouth. The Ætheling led his victim up through the several stages of the loftiest tower of the castle, till a wide view was opened to his eyes through the uppermost windows.[713] Henry and Conan in the tower. Henry bade Conan look out on the fair prospect which lay before him. He bade him think how goodly a land it was which he had striven to bring under his dominion.[714] These words well express the light in which Conan’s schemes would look in princely eyes; the question was not whether Robert or William should reign in Rouen; it was whether Conan should reign there as demagogue or tyrant in the teeth of all princely rights. Henry went on to point out the beauties of the landscape in detail; the eyes of the scholar-prince could perhaps better enjoy them than the eyes of Rufus or of Robert of Bellême. Beyond the river lay the pleasant park, the woody land rich in beasts of chase. There was the Seine washing the walls of the city, the river rich in fish, bearing on its waters the ships which enriched Rouen with the wares of many lands.[715] On the other side he bade him look on the city itself thronged with people, its noble churches, its goodly houses. The modern reader stops for a moment to think that, of the buildings which then met the eye of Conan, churches, castles, halls of wealthy burghers like himself, clustering within and without the ancient walls, all doubtless goodly works according to the sterner standard of that day, hardly a stone is left to meet his own eye as he looks down from hill or tower on the great buildings of modern Rouen. It was another Saint Romanus, another Saint Ouen, of far different outline and style from those on which we now gaze, which Henry called on Conan to admire at that awful moment. He bade him mark the splendour of the city; he bade him think of its dignity as the spot which had been from of old the head of Normandy.[716] The trembling wretch felt the mockery; all that was left to him was to groan and cry for mercy. He confessed his guilt; he simply craved for grace in the name of their common Maker. He would give to his lord all the gold and silver of his hoard and the hoards of his kinsfolk; he would wipe out the stain of his past disloyalty by faithful service for the rest of his days.[717] The Conqueror would have granted such a prayer in sheer greatness of soul; the Red King might well have deemed it beneath him to harm so lowly a suppliant. But the stern purpose of Henry was fixed, and his wrath, when it was once kindled, was as fierce as that of his father or his brother. “By the soul of my mother”—​that seems to have been the most sacred of oaths with Matilda’s defrauded heir, as he looked out towards the church of her building—​“there shall be no ransom for the traitor, but rather a hastening of the death which he deserves.”[718] Conan no longer pleaded for life; he thought only of the welfare of his soul. “For the love of God, at least grant me a confessor.”[719] Had the Lion of Justice reached that height of malice which seeks to kill the soul as well as the body? At Conan’s last prayer his wrath reached its height;[720] Conan should have no time for shrift any more than for ransom. If the clergy of Saint Romanus already enjoyed their privilege of mercy, they were to have no chance of exercising it on behalf of this arch-criminal. Death of Conan. With all the strength of both his hands, Henry thrust Conan, like Eadric,[721] through the window of the tower. He fell from the giddy height, and died, so it was said, before he reached the ground. His body was tied to the tail of a pack-horse and dragged through the streets of Rouen to strike terror into his followers. The spot from which he was hurled took the name of the Leap of Conan.[722] The tower, as I have said, has perished; the site of the Leap of Conan must be sought for in imagination, at some point, perhaps the south-eastern corner, of the vast halles of ancient Rouen.

Policy of Henry. The rule of Robert was now restored in Rouen, so far as Robert could be said to rule at any time in Rouen or elsewhere. It is remarkable that after the death of Conan we lose sight of Henry; that is, as far as Rouen is concerned, for we shall before long hear of him again in quite different relations towards his two brothers. He may well have thought that one fearful example was needed, but that one fearful example was enough. He would secure the punishment of the ringleader, even by doing the hangman’s duty with his own hands; but mere havoc and massacre had no charms for him at any time. His policy might well have forestalled the later English rule, “Smite the leaders and spare the commons.” If Robert or anybody else was to reign in Rouen, nothing would be gained by killing, driving out, or recklessly spoiling, the people over whom he was to reign. But there were men at his side to whom the utmost licence of warfare was the most cherished of enjoyments. The Duke, never personally cruel,[723] was in a merciful mood. Robert brought back. When all danger was over, he was brought across the river from his monastery to the castle. He saw how much the city had already suffered; his heart was touched, and he was not minded to inflict any further punishment. Treatment of the citizens. But he had to yield to the sterner counsels of those about him, and to allow a heavy vengeance to be meted out.[724] He seems however to have prevailed so far as to hinder the shedding of blood. At least we hear nothing of any general slaughter. The fierce men who had brought him back seem to have contented themselves with plunder and leading into captivity. The citizens of Rouen were dealt with by their countrymen as men deal with barbarian robbers. They were spoiled of all their goods and led away into bondage. Robert of Bellême and William of Breteuil, if they spared life, spared it only to deal out on their captives all the horrors of the prison-house.[725] Imprisonment and ransom of William son of Ansgar. The richest man in Rouen after the dead Conan, William the son of Ansgar, became the spoil of William of Breteuil. After a long and painful imprisonment, he regained his liberty on paying a mighty ransom of three thousand pounds.[726]

Before his captive was set free, the lord of Breteuil himself learned what it was to endure imprisonment, this time doubtless of a milder kind than that which he inflicted on William the son of Ansgar or that which himself endured at the hands of Ascelin.[727] Count William marches against Conches. November, 1090. The Count of Evreux and his nephew of Breteuil must have marched almost at once from their successful enterprise at Rouen to a less successful enterprise at Conches. For it was still November when Count William or his Countess resolved on a great attack on the stronghold of their rival.[728] Evreux was doubtless the starting-point for an undertaking which followed naturally on the work which had been done at Rouen. The Count of Evreux might keep on the garb of Norman patriotism which he had worn in the assault on the rebellious capital, and his Countess might add to the other crimes with which she charged Ralph and Isabel a share in the crime of Conan, that of traitorous dealing with the invading enemy. The forces of Evreux and Breteuil were therefore arrayed to march together against the stronghold of the common kinsman and enemy at Conches.

No contrast could well be greater than the contrast between the spot from which Count William set forth and the spot which he led his troops to attack. Position of Evreux and Conches. Near as Conches and Evreux are, they are more thoroughly cut off from one another than many spots which are far more distant on the map. The forest of Evreux parts the hills of Conches from the capital of Count William’s county. The small stream of the Iton flows by the homes of both the rival heroines. But at Conches it flows below the hill crowned by castle, church, and abbey; at Evreux its swift stream had ages before been taught to act as a fosse to the four walls of a Roman chester. Position of Mediolanum or Evreux. Low down in the valley, like our own Bath, with the hills standing round about his city, the Count of Evreux lived among the memorials of elder days. The walls of Mediolanum, which can still be traced through a large part of their circuit, fenced in to the south the minster of Our Lady and the palace of the Bishop, then still tenanted by the eloquent Gilbert.[729] His home, like that of his metropolitan at Rouen,[730] might seem to stand upon the Roman wall itself. At the north-west corner, the wall fenced in the castle from which Count William had driven out the Conqueror’s garrison, and where he, either then or at some later time, overthrew the Conqueror’s donjon.[731] History of Evreux. The wall of Mediolanum, like the wall of the Athenian akropolis, had fragments of ornamental work, shattered columns, capitals, cornices, built in among its materials. It would thus seem to belong to a late stage of Roman rule, when the Frank was dreaded as a dangerous neighbour, perhaps when he had already once laid Mediolanum waste. To the north, much as at Le Mans and at Rouen, the city in later times enlarged its borders, as, in later times still, it has enlarged them far to the south. The “Little City”—​a name still borne by a street within the Roman circuit—​is a poor representative of the Old Rome on the Cenomannian height;[732] but both alike bear witness to the small size of the original Roman encampments, and to the gradual process by which they were enlarged into the cities of modern times. The Roman walls. But in the days of William and Heloise the circuit of Roman Mediolanum was still the circuit of Norman Evreux. And, as in so many other places, the oldest monuments have outlived many that were newer. Small traces of the eleventh century at Evreux. Neither church, castle, nor episcopal palace, keeps any fragments of the days of the warlike Countess; it is only in the minster of Saint Taurinus without the walls that some small witnesses of those times are to be found. Even the Romanesque portions of the church of Our Lady must be later than Count William’s day, and the greater part of the building of the twelfth century has given way to some of the most graceful conceptions of the architects of the fourteenth. The home of the Bishop has taken the shape of a stately dwelling in the latest style of mediæval art; the home of the Count has vanished like the donjon which Count William overthrew. But the old defences within which bishops and counts had fixed themselves in successive ages still live on, to no small extent in their actual masonry, and in the greater part of their circuit in their still easily marked lines. And, high upon the hills, the eye rests on the stronghold of yet earlier days, bearing the local The Câtelier. name of the Câtelier, the earth-works which rise above Evreux as the earth-works of Sinodun rise above the northern Dorchester. Here we may perhaps see the point where the Gaul still held out on the hill, when the Roman had already entrenched himself by the river-side. At Evreux the works of the earliest times, the works of the latest times, the works of several intermediate times, are there in their fulness. But there is nothing whatever left in the city directly to remind us of the times with which we are now dealing. A man might pass through Evreux, he might make a diligent search into the monuments of Evreux, and, unless he had learned the fact from other sources, he might fail to find out that Evreux had ever had counts or temporal lords of any kind.

E. Weller

For the Delegates of the Clarendon Press.

EVREUX

Position of Conches. It is otherwise with the fortress of the warlike lady of the hills, against which the warlike lady of the river-city now bade the forces of her husband’s county to march. The home of Isabel has no more of her actual work or date to show than the home of Heloise; but the impress of the state of things which she represents is stamped for ever on the stronghold of the house of Toesny. At Evreux the Count and his followers lived in the midst of works which, even in their day, were ancient; at Conches, on the other hand, all was in that day new. Conches had already its minster, its castle, most likely its growing town; but all were the works of its present lord or of his father. The hill of Conches is another of those peninsular hills which, as the chosen sites of castles, play so large a part in our story. But the castle of Conches does not itself crown a promontory, like the castle of Ballon. The cause doubtless was that at Conches the abode of peace came first, and the abode of warfare came only second. Either Ralph himself, the first of his house who bears the surname of Conches as well as that of Toesny, Foundation of the monastery. or else his fierce father in some milder moment, had planted on the hill a colony of monks, the house of Saint Peter of Conches or Castellion.[733] The monastery arose on that point of the high ground which is most nearly peninsular, that stretching towards the north. To the south of the abbey presently grew up the town with its church, a town which, in after times at least, was girded by a wall, and which was sheltered or threatened The castle. by the castle of its lords at the end furthest from the monastery. To the east, the height on which town and castle stand side by side rises sheer from a low and swampy plain, girt in by hills on every side, lying like the arena of a natural amphitheatre. On the hill-side art has helped nature by escarpments; the mound of the castle, girt by its deep and winding ditch, rises as it rose in the days of Ralph and Isabel; but the round donjon on the mound and the other remaining buildings of the fortress cannot claim an earlier date than the thirteenth century. The donjon and the apse of the parish church, a gem of the latest days of French art, now stand nobly side by side; in Isabel’s day they had other and ruder forerunners. The abbey. But of the abbey, which must have balanced the castle itself in the general view, small traces only now remain; it has become quite secondary in the general aspect of the place, which gathers wholly round the parish church and the donjon. The western side of the hill, towards the forest which takes its name from Conches, shows nearly the same features as the eastern side on a smaller scale. It looks down on another plain girt in by hills; but on this side the slope of the hill of Conches itself is gentler, and the town is here defended by a wall. Altogether it was a formidable undertaking when the lord of the ancient city in the vale carried his arms against the fortress, the work of his brother, which had arisen within his own memory on the height overlooking his own river.

Siege of Conches. Count William thus began his winter siege of Conches; but, as usual, we get no intelligible account of the siege as a military operation. We are told nothing of the Count’s line of march, or by what means he sought to bring the castle to submission. Near kindred of the combatants. But, as usual too, we have no lack of personal anecdotes, anecdotes some of which remind us how near were the family ties between the fierce nobles who tore one another in pieces. We have already mentioned one nephew of the Count of Evreux who came with him to the attack of Conches. But William of Breteuil was nephew alike of both the contending brothers. His mother Adeliza, daughter of Roger of Toesny, wife of Earl William of Hereford before he went to seek a loftier bride in Flanders,[734] was the whole sister of Ralph of Conches and the half-sister of Count William of Evreux.[735] Another nephew and follower of Count William, Richard of Montfort, son of his whole sister, was moreover a brother of the Penthesileia of Conches.[736] The fate of these two kinsmen was different. Death of Richard of Montfort. Richard, in warring against his sister’s castle, with some chance of meeting his sister personally in the field, did not respect the sanctity of the neighbouring abbey of her husband’s foundation. He heeded not the tears of the monks who prayed him to spare the holy place. A chance shot of which he presently died was looked on as the reward of his sacrilege. Both sides mourned for one so nearly allied to both leaders.[737] William of Breteuil taken prisoner. William of Breteuil, the ally of his uncle of Evreux, became the captive of his uncle of Conches. That wary captain, when the host of Evreux came a-plundering, was at the head of a large force of his own followers and of the King of England’s soldiers.[738] But he bade his men keep back till the foe was laden with booty; they were then to set upon them in their retreat. His orders were successfully carried out. Many of the party became the prisoners of the lord of Conches, among them the lord of Breteuil, the gaoler of William the son of Ansgar.[739] Of this incident came a peace which ended the three years’ warfare of the half-brothers.[740] The captive William of Breteuil procured his freedom by a ransom of three thousand pounds paid to his uncle of Conches, which was presently made good to him by the ransom of his own victim from Rouen. Settlement of the county of Evreux on young Roger of Conches. Moreover, as he had no lawful issue,[741] he settled his estates on his young cousin Roger, the younger son of Ralph and Isabel. The same youthful heir was also chosen by his childless uncle of Evreux to succeed him in his county.[742] Perhaps Duke Robert confirmed all these arrangements as a matter of course; perhaps the consent of such an over-lord was not deemed worth the asking.