Lastly comes the great difference of all as to Earl Robert’s last days. The Chronicler and Florence merely record his imprisonment at Windsor, without saying how long it lasted. Florence says only, “Comes forti custodiæ mancipandus ad Windlesoram est ductus,” followed by the passage about Morel quoted in [p. 55]. He says nothing about the many accusations brought by Morel, or about the special summons of all the tenants-in-chief to the trial, of which the Chronicler speaks (see [p. 56]). The Chronicler, after recording them, says; “And þone eorl Rotbert hét se cyng to Windlesoran lædan, and þær innan þam castele healdan.” This is consistent with any later destiny, with release and monastic profession or with lifelong imprisonment. This last is asserted by several authorities. Thus Orderic (704 A) says; “Rodbertus…. fere triginta annis in vinculis vixit, ibique scelerum suorum pœnas luens consenuit.” He then sets forth the sad state of his wife; “Mathildis uxor ejus, quæ cum eo vix unquam læta fuerat, quia in articulo perturbationis desponsata fuerat, et inter bellicas clades tribus tantum mensibus cum tremore viri thoro incubuerat, maritali consolatione cito caruit, multisque mœroribus afflicta diu gemuit.” The Continuator of William of Jumièges (viii. 8), who has nothing to say about Matilda, equally bears witness to Robert’s lifelong imprisonment; “Captus a militibus Willelmi regis, ipsoque jubente in ipsis vinculis diutius perseverans; regnante jam Henrico rege, tandem in ipso ergastulo deficiens mortuus est.” So William of Malmesbury, iv. 319; “Captus et æternis vinculis irretitus est.”
On the other hand, there clearly was a story according to which Robert was released some time or other, and died a monk at Saint Alban’s. It is somewhat remarkable that there is no mention of this in any of the chief writings of Matthew Paris, neither in the Historia Major nor the Historia Anglorum, nor the Lives of the Abbots. But we find the story implied in the extract from his Additamenta in the Monasticon, iii. 312; “Ibidem [at Tynemouth] monachos congregavit de domo sancti Albani, tanquam ab electissima domo inter omnia cœnobia Angliæ, ubi etiam se vovit monasticum habitum suscepturum, et sepulturam in loco memorato. Quæ omnia, Deo sibi propitio, feliciter consummavit.” So in the Abbreviatio Chronicorum (Hist. Angl. iii. 175), a marginal note is added to the name of Earl Robert; “Sepultus est apud sanctum Albanum.” But, oddly enough, the most distinct statement that he became a monk comes, not from any Saint Alban’s writer, but from one manuscript of the “De Regibus Saxonum Libellus” at the end of the Surtees Simeon, p. 214. King Henry keeps Robert of Mowbray some while in prison; then “rogatu baronum suorum eundem resolvens, concessit illi mutare vitam habitumque sæcularem. Qui ingressus monasterium Sancti Albani sub professione monastica ibidem vitam finivit.”
The story about Matilda’s second marriage and divorce comes from Orderic. His story runs thus; “Vir ejus, ut dictum est, in carcere vivebat, nec ipsa, eo vivente, secundum legem Dei alteri nubere legitime valebat. Tandem, permissu Paschalis papæ, cui res a curiosis enucleata patuit, post multos dies Nigellus de Albineio ipsam uxorem accepit, et pro favore nobilium parentum ejus, aliquamdiu honorifice tenuit. Verum, defuncto Gisleberto de Aquila fratre ejus, vafer occasionem divortii exquisivit, eamque, quia consanguinei sui conjux fuerat, repudiavit, et Gundream, sororem Hugonis de Gornaco, uxorem duxit.” If all this happened at all, it must have happened between 1099 and 1118, the years which mark the reign of Paschal.
Matilda of Laigle could not well have been the sister of William the Chaplain to whom Bishop Herbert Losinga writes his third letter (Ep. Herberti, p. 5). He there says; “De matrimonio sororis vestræ non aliud respondeo vobis, quam id quod præsens ex ore meo audivistis, suo videlicet ut vivente viro, secundum evangelium et secundum sanctorum canonum usum, alii viro nubere non potest.” But the person spoken of could hardly have been thinking of such a marriage, unless she had some special excuse, like this of Matilda.
The second wife of Nigel appears both as “Gundrea” and as “Gundreda.” There is a great deal about her husband Nigel and her son Robert, the founder of Byland Abbey, in the Monasticon, v. 346–351. The marriage of Nigel and Gundreda took place after Tinchebrai, and as King Henry gave Nigel the castle of Mowbray, and much else in Normandy and England which had belonged to Earl Robert, their son Roger called himself Roger of Mowbray. Such a description was likely to lead to confusion, and it may have led some to fancy that later bearers of the name of Mowbray had something to do with the famous Bishop and Earl of our story. The artificial Percy is indeed connected with the real one by grandmothers; but the artificial Mowbray was purely artificial. This Roger of Mowbray appears also in the Continuator of William of Jumièges, viii. 8, who tells us that Nigel himself became a monk at Bec.
As Walknol has been casually mentioned in the text ([p. 47]) there may be some interest in a document in the Cartulary of Newminster published by the Surtees Society, p. 178. The date must be after 1137, the date of the foundation of Newminster. The number of English names, and specially the two bearers of scriptural names who are sons of English-named fathers, illustrate points of which I have often had to speak;
“De terra de Walknol in castro. Johannes filius Edwyni fabri, salutem. Sciatis me concessisse, dedisse, et hac præsenti carta mea confirmasse, Bartholomæo filio Edricii illam terram totam quæ jacet in australi parte cimiterii capellæ beati Michaelis, in longitudine a curtillo Eadmundi clerici usque ad terram quæ fuit Johannis Stanhard, et in latitudine a cimiterio capellæ beati Michaelis usque ad antiquam communem viam subtus versus austrum. Habendum et tenendum eidem Bartholomæo et hæredibus suis de me et hæredibus meis et assignatis in perpetuum, libere, quiete, et pacifice, pro duabus marcis arg. quas michi dedit idem Bartholomæus in manu in mea magna necessitate.”
NOTE GG. [Vol. ii. p. 79.]
The Conquest of Glamorgan.
I gave a note to the conquest of Glamorgan in the Appendix to vol. v. of the Norman Conquest, p. 820. I look, as I did then, upon the account in what I find it convenient to call the later Brut as thoroughly legendary in its details, though I am perhaps inclined to put rather more faith in the general story than I was then. And I am not so much inclined as I was then to draw the same wide distinction as Mr. Floyd draws between the expeditions led by the King himself and those which partook more or less of the character of private adventure. There was doubtless a difference, when it was King William who called the whole force of England to his standard, and when it was only either Earl Hugh or Robert Fitz-hamon who set out on an expedition on his own account. But both processes were parts of the same general undertaking. Whatever individual lords conquered, they conquered with the King’s approval, to be held by them as his vassals and subjects. He himself stepped in only on great occasions, when the Welsh seemed to be getting too strong for the local lords. The same general work must have been going on all over the country. The only strange thing is that the conquest of Glamorgan, of whose general results there can be no doubt, and of which we have so very full a legendary account, is left out altogether in every really trustworthy history.