In any case William of Malmesbury (iv. 307, 308) is mistaken in speaking of the peace as agreed and sworn to before William crossed into Normandy. He gives a picture of the anarchy of Normandy which is true enough; only he seems to conceive it too much after the pattern of the later anarchy of England. King Philip (see the passage quoted in p. 239) has got his money and has gone back to his banquet;
“Ita bello intestino diu laboravit Normannia, modo illis, modo istis, vincentibus; proceres utriusque furorem incitabant, homines levissimi, in neutra parte fidem habentes.”
Now in the days of Stephen the anarchy at least took the form of a war between rival claimants of the crown. Men really fought for their own hands; but they at least professed to fight for King or Empress. But the special characteristic of the Norman anarchy is that everybody is already fighting with everybody else, and that the invasion of the country makes no difference, except so far as it adds a new element of confusion. Ralph of Conches goes over to William only because Robert fails to defend him against a local enemy; William’s name is not mentioned at all in the war of Courcy, till his actual coming frightens both sides alike. William of Malmesbury misses the special point of the whole story, namely that the strife between William and Robert stands quite distinct from the local struggles which still went on all over the country, except when the two got intermingled at particular points. He then adds;
“Pauci quibus sanius consilium, consulentes suis commodis quod utrobique possessiones haberent, mediatores pacis fuere; ut comiti rex Cinomannis adquireret, comes regi castella quæ habebat et Fiscannum cœnobium concederet. Juratum est hoc pactum, et ab utrorumque hominibus sacramento firmatum. Nec multo post rex mare transiit, ut fidem promissorum expleret.”
Florence (1091) puts the case much better;
“Mense Februario rex Willelmus junior Normanniam petiit, ut eam fratri suo Rotberto abriperet; sed dum ibi moraretur, pax inter eos facta est.”
It will be seen that William of Malmesbury gives only a very imperfect statement of the terms of the treaty. They are nowhere so fully and clearly given as in our own Chronicle; only the English writer is not quite so exact with regard to the territorial cessions as those writers who wrote in Normandy. The brothers meet—the place is not mentioned—and agree on the terms, which are given in words which sound like the actual words of the treaty, which was likely enough to be set down in an English as well as a Latin copy. They stand thus;
“þæt se eorl him to handan let Uescam and þone eorldom æt Ou, and Kiæresburh. And þærto eacan þes cynges men sæclæs beon moston on þam castelan þe hi ær þes eorles unþances begiten hæfdon. And se cyng him ongean þa Manige behet þa ær heora fæder gewann, and þa fram þam eorle gebogen wæs gebygle to donne, and eall þæt his fæder þær begeondan hæfde, butan þam þe he þam cynge þa geunnen hæfde; and þæt ealle þa þe on Englelande for þam eorle æror heora land forluron hit on þisum sehte habban sceoldan and se eorl on Englelande eallswa mycel swa on heora forewarde wæs.”
The emphatic references to his father are preeminently characteristic of the Red King. We seem to hear his very words, the words of the dutiful son, granting, not without some sarcasm, to the rebel, the heritage of the father against whom he had rebelled. This emphatic feature disappears in the other versions, even in the abridged Latin version of Florence. To the list of places in Normandy to be given up he adds “abbatiam in monte sancti Michaelis sitam,” and the last words, which are certainly not very clear, he translates “et tantum terræ quantum conventionis inter eos fuerat comiti daret.” This can only refer to something which William was to grant to Robert as a free gift. Domesday shows that there were no older English possessions of Robert to be given back to him. See N. C. vol. iv. p. 629.
Besides William of Malmesbury, only the Chronicler and Florence mention the stipulation about Maine. This is again a sign that in the Chronicle we are dealing with an actual document. For, as nothing came of that clause, no part of the treaty was more likely to be forgotten. William of Malmesbury seems to have caught up the first words of the treaty, and to have got no further. Thus Maine gets in his text an undue prominence, which may possibly account for a statement of his which follows, and which has nothing at all like it anywhere else. The King and the Duke are going to attack Maine the very first thing after the conclusion of the treaty; only they are hindered by the campaign against Henry; “Ergo uterque dux ingentes moliebantur conatus ut Cinomannis invaderent; sed obstitit jam paratis jamque profecturis Henrici fratris minoris animositas.”