“Anno vero sequenti rex sequens eos concordiam cum fratre suo fecit. Eo tamen pacto ut castra illa quæ frater ab illo injuria acquisierat, regi remanerent, rex autem adjuvaret eum ad omnia quæ pater suus habuerat conquirenda. Statutum etiam, si quis eorum moreretur prior altero sine filio, quod alter fieret hæres illius.”
A good deal of the diplomatic exactness of the Chronicle is lost here, and it is not easy to see what castles Robert had taken from William, unjustly or otherwise. Robert of Torigny hardly mends the matter by leaving out the word “injuria.”
Henry is not mentioned in any account of the treaty; but his possessions come by implication under the head of the lands which William was to win back for Robert, with the exception of Cherbourg and Saint Michael’s Mount—if we are right in adding the Mount on the authority of Florence—which William was to keep for himself. The shameful treatment of Henry by his brothers naturally calls forth a good deal of sympathy on the part of some of our writers, though they do not always bring out the state of the case very clearly. They speak of his brothers refusing him a share in his father’s dominions, rather than of their depriving him of the possessions which one of themselves had sold to him. Hear for instance the author of the Brevis Relatio (11), writing in Henry’s own reign;
“Concordiam adinvicem fecerunt Willelmus secundus rex Angliæ et Robertus comes Normanniæ, et quum fratrem suum Henricum debuissent adjuvare, eique providere ut honorabiliter inter illos sicut frater eorum et filius regis vivere posset, non hoc fecerunt, sed de tota terra patris sui expellere conati sunt.”
The same words are used by Robert of Torigny, in the Continuation of William of Jumièges, viii. 3.
William of Malmesbury (iv. 308), in a passage which follows that which has been already cited about Maine, after the words “Henrici fratris minoris animositas,” adds, “qui frenderet propter fratrum avaritiam, quod uterque possessiones paternas dividerent, et se omnium pene expertem non erubescerent.”
The treaty takes a very strange form in Matthew Paris, Hist. Angl. i. 39. The brothers are reconciled by wise friends, who say to them, “Absit, ne Franci fraternas acies, alternaque regna profanis decertata odiis, derideant subsannantes.” And the reason is given; “Franci enim eo tempore multa super ducem occupaverant.” This hardly means the Vexin; it is more likely to be a confused version of Philip’s intervention.
The only writers who mention the driving out of Eadgar are the Chronicler and Florence. The former brings it into connexion with the treaty, without seeming to make it exactly part of the treaty itself. Having given the clauses of the treaty, and mentioned its confirmation by the oaths on both sides, he adds; “Onmang þisum sæhte wearð Eadgar æþeling belandod of þam þe se eorl him æror þær to handa gelæten hæfde.” The measure seems to have had something to do with the treaty without being one of its clauses. Were such things as secret or additional articles, or agreements which were to go for nothing because they were not written on the same paper as other agreements, known to so early a stage of diplomacy?
The Chronicler does not mention the siege of Saint Michael’s Mount; but, immediately after the confiscation of Eadgar’s lands in Normandy, he mentions his voyage to Scotland and the events which followed on it. Florence puts his account of the siege of the Mount directly after the treaty and the oaths of the twenty-four barons. He then goes on;
“At rex cum obsidionis diutinæ pertæsus fuisset, impacatus recessit, et non multo post Eadgarum clitonem honore, quem ei comes dederat, privavit et de Normannia expulit.” And a little way on he speaks of “clito Eadgarus, quem rex de Normannia expulerat.” These expressions make the treatment of Eadgar more distinctly William’s own act than one would infer from the words of the Chronicle, and they might suggest that Eadgar’s Norman estates lay within the districts which were ceded to William. But it may only mean that Robert sent Eadgar away on William’s demand.