What could M. de Rémusat (Anselme, 113) have meant when he said that the revolt of the Norman nobles “força le roi à se rapprocher de ses sujets bretons”? Then “il fit appel à la noblesse indigène.” This last may come from Matthew Paris; but the Welsh, the nearest approach to Bretons, joined the rebels.
The Share of Bishop William of Saint-Calais in the Rebellion of 1088.
There are few more glaring contradictions to be found in history than the picture of Bishop William of Saint-Calais as drawn by the southern writers, and his picture as drawn by his own hand or that of some local admirer in the Durham document printed in the Monasticon, i. 245, and in the old edition of Simeon. No one would know the meek confessor of this last version in the traitor whom the Chronicler does not shrink from likening to the blackest of all traitors. Yet, if the narratives are carefully compared, it may seem that, with all the difference in colouring, there is much less contradiction in matter of fact than we are led to think at first sight. The opposition is simply of that kind which follows when each side, without asserting any direct falsehood, leaves out all that tells on behalf of the other side. We read the Bishop’s story; we see no reason to suspect him of stating anything which did not happen; under the circumstances indeed he could hardly venture to state anything which did not happen. But we see that the statement, though doubtless true as a mere record of facts, is dressed up in a most ingenious way, so as to put everything in the best light for his side, while everything that was to be said on the other side is carefully left out. But, on the other hand, while the Chronicler, Florence, and William of Malmesbury, clearly leave out a great deal, there is no reason to think that they leave it out from any partisan wish to pervert the truth. They believed, and doubtless on good grounds, that the Bishop of Durham was a chief actor in the rebellion, and they said so. But there was nothing to lead them to dwell on his story at any special length. Their attention was chiefly drawn to other parts of the events of that stirring year. Orderic indeed, whose account of some parts of the story is so minute, does not speak of Durham or its bishop at all.
Some of the passages from the Chronicle have been quoted in the text. The Bishop of Durham is there mentioned three times. First comes the record of his influence with the King, and his treason against him;
“On þisum ræde wæs ærest Oda bisceop and Gosfrið bisceop and Willelm bisceop on Dunholme. Swa wæll dyde se cyng be þam bisceop þæt eall Englaland færde æfter his ræde, and swa swa he wolde, and he þohte to donne be him eall swa Iudas Scarioð dide be ure Drihtene.”
Then, after the account of the deliverance of Worcester, Bishop William is named at the head of the ravagers in different parts of the country; “Se bisceop of Dunholme dyde to hearme þæt he mihte ofer eall be norðan.”
Lastly, at the end of the whole story, when Odo has come out of Rochester and gone beyond sea, we read;
“Se cyng siððan sende here to Dunholme, and let besittan þone castel, and se bisceop griðode and ageaf þone castel, and forlet his biscoprice and ferde to Normandige.”
Florence, writing seemingly with the Chronicle before him, changes the story so far as to make, not Bishop William but Count Robert (see [p. 33]), the chief accomplice of Odo. He then gives the list of the other confederates, at the end of which, after Robert of Mowbray, Bishop Geoffrey, and Earl Roger, we read, “quod erat pejus, Willelmus episcopus Dunholmensis,” followed by the passage (see [p. 23]) in which he describes the Bishop’s influence with the King. After this, he says nothing more about him till he records his death in 1096.