Henry’s Shropshire campaign. Autumn, 1102. The more distant possessions of the rebel Earl were thus brought under the King’s obedience. The peace of King Henry reigned in Sussex, in Yorkshire, and in Nottinghamshire. Now came the time for attacking the special strongholds of Robert’s own earldom; the stage of attacking himself was to come last of all. After the surrender of Arundel and Tickhill, the King allowed his men a breathing-time;[1113] then, in the course of the autumn, he gathered together the forces of all England for the final overthrow of the rebellion. Robert of Bellême at Shrewsbury. Defence of Bridgenorth. Robert of Bellême had chosen his capital of Shrewsbury as the post which he would defend himself. His new fortress of Bridgenorth he placed in the hands of three chosen captains, at the head of eighty mercenary knights, attended doubtless by a fitting following of lower degree.[1114] Of the three leaders, Robert son of Corbet—a name which was to become abiding in those parts—was a hereditary follower of the house of Montgomery; The three captains. Robert son of Corbet. he appears in Domesday as the holder of a large estate under Earl Roger.[1115] To another captain, Robert de Nova Villa, we have no certain clue; Neuvevilles and Newtons abound in Normandy and England; he may or he may not have been a forefather of the historic Nevilles. Robert Neville? Wulfgar the huntsman. The third awakens more interest; his name seems to be English; he is Wulfgar the huntsman.[1116] Nor is there the slightest reason to think that Robert of Bellême would reject the services of a born Englishman in any post, if the man himself seemed likely to suit his purpose. These three, with the regular force at their command, had to defend the Castle by the Bridge; Action of the Welsh princes. the Welsh princes, Cadwgan and Jorwerth, with their less disciplined bands, were planted in the neighbourhood, to annoy the King’s troops, as they might find occasion.[1117]
Robert of Bellême seizes the land of William Pantulf. But, while Earl Robert knew how to make use of the services of Robert the son of Corbet, he had the folly to make an enemy of another old follower of his father. He had already, for what cause we are not told, seized the lands of William Pantulf, who appears in Domesday as holding under Earl Roger a great estate in Shropshire, a small one in Staffordshire, and an empty house in the town of Stafford.[1118] He rejects his services. He was a tried and valiant warrior, and he now, forgetting his late wrongs, offered his services to the son of his old benefactor in his time of need. William Pantulf joins the King. Earl Robert thrust him aside with scorn, on which William betook himself to the King, by whom his merits were better valued. Henry had known him of old, and now gladly received him. He commands at Stafford; William Pantulf was sent at the head of two hundred knights, to command the castle of Stafford, a castle which had risen and fallen in the days of the Conqueror, and which must have by this time risen again.[1119] The local knowledge and interest of William Pantulf in the two neighbouring shires seems to have stood him in good stead. his services. He acted vigorously against the lord who had scorned him, and no one, we are told, did more towards bringing about the final overthrow of the proud Earl.[1120]
Relation of Normans and English. And now we get one of our most instructive pictures of the time, and of the difference of feeling among men of the time. We distinctly see the difference of feeling between Normans and English. But they are no longer labelled as Normans and English, as they were only a year before. They are spoken of simply as different classes in one army. Six-and-thirty years after the day of Senlac, we are but seldom dealing with the men who fought for Harold or for William; we have come to their sons or even their grandsons. Division of feeling in the army. But the great men of the army and the small men, of whom the former class would be all but wholly Norman, while the latter would be Normans and English intermingled in various proportions, had quite different views as to the proper policy for King Henry to follow. And King Henry’s own views agreed with the views of the small men, and not with the views of the great. Siege of Bridgenorth. The King builds a Malvoisin. The army was gathered before Bridgenorth, and a regular siege was opened. The King brought up his engines of war; he built a fort to check the approach of any relief to the castle[1121]—was it on Oldbury, was it on the northern side, beyond the surviving gate of the town, or did it guard the river from the opposite side of the bridge? The siege lasted three weeks;[1122] and the course of events shows that it cannot have been at any very late stage of it that King Henry found that he had in his camp two widely different classes of men. There were in it men who were working honestly in his service, men who strove heartily for his success, knowing that the interests of King and people were the same. There were also men there to whom the interests of their own order were dearer than those of either King or people, and who feared that the overthrow of the power of the Earl of Shropshire might tend to the lessening of their own power, perhaps of their own possessions. We have seen the same division of feeling before the walls of Rochester;[1123] we now see it beneath the cliff of Bridgenorth. The great men lean to Robert of Bellême. The earls and great men of the kingdom who were in the army came together in separate consultations. They argued that it was not for their interest that the power of Robert of Bellême should be utterly broken. If the King dealt so with the greatest of his nobles, he might deal in the like sort with the rest, and might tread them under his feet like servants and handmaidens.[1124] It would suit them far better to bring about a peace between the King and the Earl. It would have been, one may guess, a peace by which Robert of Bellême should keep his earldom and the castles within his earldom, but should leave to the King the castles and lands which the King had already won. In this way they would put an end to disputes, and would make both the King and the Earl their debtors.[1125]
The smaller men, Normans and English, faithful to the King. So reasoned the great men, the Norman nobles, the men to most of whom Robert of Bellême was a countryman and a comrade, and none of whom were likely to have felt the grip of his iron claws[1126] in their own persons. So reasoned not the sons of the soil; so reasoned not men of any race who were lowly enough to feel that in the power of the King—that is in Henry’s days, the power of law—lay their only hope of shelter against smaller oppressors. Meeting of the nobles. The great men came together in a field—perhaps in the meadows beside the Severn—and there held a parliament with the King—a meeting, one might say, of the Witan from which the land-sitting men were shut out—and earnestly pressed peace upon the King.[1127] Henry’s own feelings were clearly the other way; and those who were shut out from the counsels of the great ones now came to his help. Gathering of the mass of the army. Three thousand men of the mass of the army, men seemingly of the shire most nearly concerned, who were stationed on one of the neighbouring hills, knew, by whatever means, the counsel of the leaders, and were minded to have their voice in the matter too.[1128] If the King chose to hold a military Gemót, an assembly of the armed nation,[1129] they had a right to be heard as well as men of higher degree. At Rochester too the English soldiers had spoken their minds; but to the Red King they must have spoken them through an interpreter. But Henry knew the tongue of his people, and we may fancy him not unwilling to listen to counsels which he could hear and weigh, while the mass of those of whom he had reason to be jealous understood not what was said. Appeal of the army to the King. A vigorous speech, which doubtless fairly represents the feelings of the moment, is put into the mouths of the three thousand or their leaders; “Lord King Henry, trust not those traitors. They do but strive to deceive you, and to take away from you the strength of kingly justice. Why do you listen to them who would have you spare the traitor and leave unpunished the conspiracy of those who seek your death? Behold we all stand by you faithfully; we are ready to serve and help you in all things. Attack the castle vigorously; shut in the traitor on all sides, and make no peace with him till you have him alive or dead in your hands.”[1130] The speakers do not call, as the English before Rochester called in the case of Odo, for the judicial death of the traitor. Henry’s faith pledged for Robert’s life. The faith of Henry was pledged to the garrison of Arundel that Robert of Bellême should be allowed to go safe into Normandy.[1131] But the three thousand clearly cherished a hope, perhaps that Robert’s own men might turn against him, certainly that, when Bridgenorth should fall and Shrewsbury should be beleagued, then some lucky bolt from an arrow or a mangonel might light on him before the time of surrender came, or, best of all for those who had felt his iron claws, that he might fall beneath one of their own axes in a sally or a storm.
Henry seeks to detach the Welsh from Robert. The King listened to the counsels of his advisers of lower degree, but of more honest hearts. King and people were one, and the designs of the traitors in the camp were brought to naught.[1132] First of all, Henry determined to weaken the strength of Robert, and no doubt to relieve his own army from a never-ending annoyance, by detaching the Welsh force from the cause of the rebels. Dealings of William Pantulf with Jorwerth. William Pantulf, who was doubtless well known to the Britons, acted as the King’s agent with Jorwerth son of Bleddyn. We are not told why he was thought more easy to win over than his brothers; but it seems plain that the negotiation was carried on with him only, unknown to Cadwgan and Meredydd.[1133] Henry’s great promises to Jorwerth. The King invited Jorwerth to his presence, with the assurance that he would do more for him than Earl Robert and his brothers could do.[1134] Jorwerth came; the gifts of King Henry were acceptable; his promises were magnificent indeed. As long as Henry lived—it was wise not to bind his successor—the British prince should have, free of all homage and all tribute, Powys, Ceredigion, half Dyfed with the castle of Pembroke, the vale of Teifi, Kidwelly, and Gower.[1135] Such a dominion would give its holder a seaboard on two seas; it would leave under English rule little beyond the central and southern lands of Brecheiniog, Gwent, and Morganwg, and the outlying land of Pembroke, which would thus be most distinctly “Little England beyond Wales.” We are not told what was to be the fate of Cadwgan when Jorwerth received this great inheritance; but Jorwerth himself naturally caught at such a prospect. Jorwerth makes the Welsh change sides. And it seems that his power over his countrymen was so great that, while his brothers knew nothing of what was going on, Jorwerth was able to turn the whole British force which had come to the Earl’s help to the side of the King. The Welshmen now harried the lands of the Earl and his friends instead of those of his enemies, and carried off a vast booty.[1136] In any case the lands of some one were harried, and for the Britons that was doubtless enough.
Henry’s dealings with the captains at Bridgenorth. Having thus relieved himself of the enemy who hung upon his flanks, Henry began to deal directly with the defenders of Bridgenorth. Three of the leaders—we may safely guess that Roger son of Corbet, Robert of Neville, and Wulfgar, are the three meant—were invited to the King’s presence. They doubtless had a safe-conduct for that once; but they had to take back an ugly message to their comrades. The King swore in the hearing of all men that, unless they surrendered the castle within three days, he would hang every man of the garrison that he could catch.[1137] The three captains, whose necks were in as much danger as those of their followers, began to consult for their own safety. Mediation of William Pantulf. They asked William Pantulf, as their neighbour, to act as a mediator between them and the King.[1138] At their request, he came to them, and made them a set speech on the duty of surrendering the castle to the lawful king. And his eloquence was backed by one special argument which shows that, in one point at least, Henry had made some progress in the school of Rufus. William was commissioned to swear in the King’s name that submission should be rewarded by an addition to the estates of each of the captains of lands of a hundred pounds’ worth.[1139] The captains promise to surrender. Moved, we are told, by a sense of the common good, the captains agreed, and, to avoid all further danger, submitted to the King’s will.[1140] They were allowed to send a message to Earl Robert to say that they could hold out no longer against the invincible power of King Henry.[1141]
Position of Robert. Robert of Bellême was now nearly at the end of his hopes and of his wits. His distant castles were lost; Bridgenorth, his own work, his newest work, was as good as lost; William Pantulf, able and active, had turned against him; his Welsh allies had failed him; Cadwgan and Meredydd were still at his side;[1142] but they were useless guests now that Jorwerth had turned the whole power of the Britons to the other side. He still held Shrewsbury; but it was hard to defy the strength of the whole kingdom from within the walls of a single fortress. His dealings with Ireland and Norway. In his despair, he caught at the hope of making his peace with the King;[1143] he caught also at the most distant chances of stirring up enemies against the King. The Britons had proved a broken reed; he would try the Irish and the Northmen. The Irish fleet was said to be actually coming; Arnulf goes to Ireland. Arnulf was sent, or went of his own accord, to hasten the pace of these new allies, who, beside such help as they might give to Robert, were to bring Arnulf himself a wife who might one day give him a crown. But as Arnulf took his own men with him, Robert was yet further weakened by his going.[1144] At this moment one more chance seemed to offer itself. Magnus in Anglesey. The Norwegian King was once more afloat, and that for the last time. His course was much the same as on his former voyage. He sailed by the Orkneys and the Sudereys to Man, and thence once more to Anglesey.[1145] His castle-building in Man. Here, we are told, he busied himself in cutting down timber for the repair of certain castles in Man which he had formerly destroyed. It must have been at this stage of the voyage of Magnus that Earl Robert sent a message craving help at his hands. It must have cost Robert somewhat of an effort to ask help of the slayer of his brother, Robert vainly asks help of Magnus. and, unless we attribute to the Norwegian King a general interest in confusion everywhere, it is hard to see on what ground Magnus could be expected to help Robert of Bellême against King Henry. The Northman refused all help. Failure of the Irish scheme. It would seem too that the Irish alliance came to nothing; one version at least makes this the moment when the daughter of Murtagh was given to Sigurd the son of Magnus, and not to Arnulf of Montgomery.[1146] Robert of Bellême left alone. Every chance of help far and near had failed the once mighty lord of so many lands and castles; his old friends had turned against him; his strivings to win new friends had failed. As far as England was concerned, Earl Robert seemed to be left alone on the mound of Shrewsbury.
Divisions in Bridgenorth; And yet for a moment one hope seemed left to him. The message of the three captains which announced the speedy surrender of Bridgenorth was premature. Roger, Robert, and Wulfgar, had promised more than they could do at the moment. There was a wide difference of interest between two classes of men who stood side by side on the height of Bridgenorth. the captains and the townsmen for surrender; The captains and the burgesses of the town—for such a class had already in the space of four years sprung up at the gate of Earl Robert’s castle[1147]—were of one mind, the mercenary soldiers were of another. The three captains, the townsmen, and doubtless any of the Earl’s soldiers of whatever rank who were English by birth or settlement, any who had any stake on English soil, were eager to come to terms with the King. So to do was their manifold interest and manifest duty; it was a special interest and duty of the captains who had promised so to do, and who looked for such rich rewards for so doing. the mercenaries wish to hold out. But to the mercenary soldiers of Earl Robert, professional fighting men picked out from many lands, things had another look. They had no stake in England; they cared nothing for King Henry and for the peace of his kingdom. The more the peace of England was likely to be disturbed, the better it would be for them. Any glimmering of duty which found a place in their minds would be a feeling of rude faithfulness to the master whom they served, the rebel Earl whose bread they had eaten. The mercenaries therefore cried out loudly against the submission to which, without taking them into their counsels, the captains and the townsmen had agreed. They seized their arms, and strove to hinder the carrying out of the surrender which had been promised.[1148] They are overpowered. But the captains, with the townsmen and the loyal party in the garrison, were too strong for them; they were themselves made prisoners and shut up within some one part of the castle.[1149] Surrender of Bridgenorth. The surrender was now carried out; the gates were opened; the royal troops marched up the path which led to the castle, and the banner of England again floated over the height crowned by the stronghold of Æthelflæd.[1150] The joy of the men of Bridgenorth was great, and on that day of deliverance no man was inclined to harshness. King Henry could honour the faithfulness of the Earl’s mercenaries to their own lord, even though that faithfulness was, in the eye of the law, treason to himself and his kingdom. The mercenaries march out with the honours of war. They were allowed to go forth with the honours of war, with their arms and their horses. Whither they went we are not told. They may even have entered the King’s service. The prudence of Henry might be trusted not to let them go anywhither where they were likely to be dangerous. And, as they came forth between the ranks of the besiegers, they were allowed to tell their tale in the hearing of all men. It was not, they said, to be turned to the shame of their calling that the Castle by the Bridge had been given up without a blow. They were guiltless; the deed was done by the guile of faithless captains and of unwarlike townsmen.[1151] King and people might admire, in truth there is something to admire, in the mistaken faithfulness of these men, even to an evil cause. But King and people had still work on their hands; the arch-enemy had still to be found, alive or dead, in the last stronghold which held out for him.
And now came the last act of the drama, the last stage of the struggle which was to make Henry truly king, and to give England three-and-thirty years of peace under his rule. Robert still holds Shrewsbury. With the news of the fall of Bridgenorth all hope passed away from the heart of Robert of Bellême. One strong fortress indeed was still his. Earl of the Mercians, Earl of Shropshire, he could call himself no longer; lord of Shrewsbury he still was, while he still kept the castle of his capital as the last abiding seat of rebellion. Shrewsbury castle. All the distinctive features of Shrewsbury in later times, town, churches, castle, abbey, were all there. On the neck of the peninsula girded by the Severn, on ground high in itself though lower than some points of the hill town behind it, the mound of Old-English days which had supplanted the old seat of British kingship, and which was now crowned by the fortress of his father, still was his.[1152] Its towers rose as high as the loftiest buildings of the town which they kept in awe; from their height he might look forth on the mountain land which had been won for his earldom by his father’s power; he might look down on the broad and rushing river, and on his father’s minster beyond its stream.[1153] But the mountain land, so lately his ally, had now turned against him; the stream of Severn brought no help to the beleaguered fortress; no prayers, we may be sure, went up for the son of Mabel from the altars whose guardians had seen the virtues and tasted the bounty of Adeliza. Despair of Robert. The stern earl, thus utterly forsaken, lost his fierce and defiant spirit; he groaned for sorrow; he knew not which way to turn for help or counsel.[1154] The King’s march to Shrewsbury. And soon he felt that his hour indeed was come, when he saw the royal banners draw near to his last stronghold. As soon as Bridgenorth had fallen, the march on Shrewsbury began. A mighty host it was which set forth on the errand of deliverance. Gathering of the English army. We take the figures as merely the conventional expression of a vast number, when we read that sixty thousand Englishmen gathered around the standard of King Henry of England.[1155] Zeal of the troops. They marched with a will, eager to meet the great oppressor face to face, to bring the last stronghold of wrong under the dominion of law, to join in their king’s work of rooting out the ungodly that were in the land. Englishmen had gone forth with a will to the siege of Rochester, perhaps to the siege of Bamburgh; but then they had gone forth at the bidding of a king who was wholly a stranger. Now they gathered around a king, born indeed of the foreign stock, but a king of their own choice, born on their own soil, cheering them on in their own tongue, a king whom they might well deem a truer Ætheling than the grandson of Ironside born in distant Hungary or than the son of Harold brought up among the wikings of the North. Nature of the road. The road by which they had to march was one which had dangers of its own. It was a road among hills, sometimes rough with stones; in one part it was for a mile’s space a mere hollow way, overhung by a thick wood, a path so narrow that two horses could hardly pass, a path which men called the Evil Hedge. Among the trees on either side archers might easily lurk, to the no small loss of the host which had to march between two fires.[1156] The road is cleared. The King accordingly first sent forward his pioneers to clear the way for his army and for all travellers along that road for ever. The wood was cut down on both sides, the path was widened, and the evil hedge became a broad road along which the great host of England could march in safety.[1157]
Along the new-made road King Henry marched to a bloodless conquest. He had no need to throw up a bank or to shoot an arrow against the mound and the towers of Shrewsbury. Robert sends to ask for peace. On his way he was met by an embassy from Earl Robert, asking for peace. The terms are not told us, but the answer implied that Robert still asked for terms. He may have hoped, shut out as he was from everything else, still to keep the capital of his earldom, perhaps as a means for one day winning back all that he had lost. The King refuses terms. But the King and his host were in no mood to listen to terms; they longed for the last attack on the arch-enemy. The answer, the decree, as we read it, of the armed Gemót, was that Robert of Bellême must hope for no mercy, unless he came and freely threw himself into the King’s hands.[1158] In that case, it will be remembered, the King’s word was pledged for his life and his safe passage to Normandy. Robert consulted the few friends whom he had left, and their advice at last bent his proud heart to an unconditional submission. Nine days had passed since the surrender of Bridgenorth[1159] when the royal force drew near to Shrewsbury. Robert submits at discretion. Robert of Bellême came forth in person to meet them; he knelt, we may suppose, before the King; he confessed his treason, and placed in the King’s hands the keys of Shrewsbury, city and castle. He thus gave up for ever his last English possession, the head of that great earldom which his father had received from the hands of the King’s father.[1160] As far as England was concerned, the lord of Bellême, a moment before lord of Shrewsbury, was a landless man. He is sent out of England. The King strictly kept his word to the suppliant; but he would not grant him the slightest favour beyond what his word bound him to. Robert was untouched in life and limb, he received a safe-conduct to the sea-shore, and he was allowed to keep his arms and horses, a needful defence in case of irregular attack.[1161] And so the land was free from its worst enemy; the devil of Bellême was cast out of the realm of England. Evil men no doubt were left behind; but none, we may believe, who would refuse to ransom his prisoners, for the mere pleasure of seeing them die of hunger or of torture.