“Ðises geares eac com se eorl Rotbert of Normandig to sprecene wið þone cyng [the common Domesday form in English] her on lande, and ær he heonne ferde he forgeaf þa þreo þusend marc þe him seo cyng Heanrig be foreweard ælce geare gifan sceolde.”
Here we have no mention of Matilda, unless she anyhow lurks in the feminine article so oddly assigned to her husband.
Orderic helps us to the more distinct resignation by Robert of his claims on the English crown, which is however implied in all the other accounts—to the release of Henry from his homage to Robert—and to the stipulation about Domfront, which was naturally more interesting to him than it was to those who wrote in England. He does not mention the mutual heirship of the brothers. He also confounds marks and pounds;
“In primis Rodbertus dux calumniam quam in regno Angliæ ingesserat fratri dimisit, ipsumque de homagio, quod sibi jamdudum fecerat, pro regali dignitate absolvit. Henricus autem rex tria milia librarum sterilensium sese duci redditurum per singulos annos spopondit, totumque Constantinum pagum et quidquid in Neustria possidebat, præter Danfrontem, reliquit. Solum Danfrontem castrum sibi retinuit, quia Danfrontanis, quando illum intromiserunt, jurejurando pepigerat quod nunquam eos de manu sua projiceret, nec leges eorum vel consuetudines mutaret.”
I am glad to end with the mention of one of the noblest spots of which I have had to speak in my story, and with one of the most honourable features in the history of King Henry.
FOOTNOTES.
[1] In this chapter we have to make more use than usual of the Scottish, British, and Northumbrian writers. I do not undertake to go very deeply into any purely literary questions about them. I have simply used them for facts, and have dealt with their statements according to the usual rules of criticism. The Scottish and Northumbrian writers will be found in Mr. Skene’s edition of Fordun and in the Surtees Society’s edition of Simeon. This last contains, among other things, Turgot’s Life of Saint Margaret and the passages from Fordun which profess to be extracts from Turgot. The Surtees’ text and Mr. Skene’s text do not always agree, but their differences are not often of much importance for my purposes. It is certainly strange if some of these passages really come from a contemporary writer. For Welsh matters we are, to my mind, better off. Unhappily I do not know enough of the Welsh tongue really to make use of the originals, though I am not utterly at the mercy of the translator as to proper names and technical terms. In the Chronicles and Memorials are two volumes of most valuable matter which need a fresh editor. It is not my business to enter into any questions as to their authorship, how far it is due to Caradoc of Llancarfan or anybody else. In any case the Latin Annales Cambriæ, meagre as they are, form a thoroughly good and trustworthy record, but the Editor seems in many places to have been unable either to read his manuscript or to construe his Latin. Many of the readings too which are most valuable historically are thrust into notes. The Welsh Brut y Tywysogion, published in the same series by the same Editor, is a fuller version of the Annals, and also I believe essentially trustworthy. I have been obliged to quote this in the translation, though often with some doubts as to its accuracy. In the preface a good deal of matter by the late Mr. Aneurin Owen is reprinted without acknowledgement. There is also another Brut y Tywysogion, otherwise “The Gwentian Chronicles of Caradoc of Llancarvan,” translated by Mr. Owen and published by the Cambrian Archæological Association. Here we have the translating and editing of a really eminent Welsh scholar, but the book, as a historical authority, is very inferior to either the Latin Annals or the other Brut. A great deal of legendary matter, some of which must be of quite a late date, has been thrust in. I quote the more trustworthy Brut in the Chronicles and Memorials as the elder, and that published by the Cambrian Archæological Association as the later Brut.
[2] Chron. Petrib. 1093. See [Appendix BB].
[3] See vol. i. p. 304.