The extension and abuse of feudal law, however, do not fill up the measure of his guilt. Another important source of royal revenue, the judicial system, was put under his control, and was forced to contribute the utmost possible to the king's income. That the justiciarship was at this time as well defined an office, or as regularly recognized a part of the state machinery, as it came to be later, is hardly likely. But that some officer should be clothed with the royal authority for a special purpose, or in the absence of the king for general purposes, was not an uncommon practice. In some such way as this Ranulf Flambard had been given charge of the king's interests in the judicial system, and had much to do by his activities in that position with the development of the office of justiciar. Exactly what he did in this field is as uncertain as in that of feudal law, though the one specific instance which we have on record shows him acting in a capacity much like that of the later itinerant justice. However this may be, the recorded complaints of his oppressions as judge, though possibly less numerous and detailed than of his mistreatment of the Church, are equally bitter. He was the despoiler of the rich, the destroyer of the poor. Exactions already heavy and unjust he doubled. Money alone decided cases in the courts. Justice and the laws disappeared. The rope was loosened from the very neck of the robber if he had anything of value to promise the king; while the popular courts of shires and hundreds were forced to become engines of extortion, probably by the employment of the sheriffs, who were allowed to summon them, not according to the old practice, but when and where it suited their convenience. The machinery of the state and the interpretation of its laws were, in days like these, completely at the mercy of a tyrannous king and an unscrupulous minister. No system of checks on absolute power had as yet been devised; there were no means of expressing public discontent, nor any form of appeal but insurrection, and that was hopeless against a king so strong as Rufus. The land could only suffer and wait, and at last rejoice that the reign was no longer. In the meantime, from the beginning of Robert's rule in the duchy across the channel, the condition of things there had been a standing invitation to his brother to interfere. Robert is a fair example of the worst type of men of the Norman-Angevin blood. Not bad in intention, and not without abilities, he was weak with that weakness most fatal of all in times when the will of the ruler gave its only force to law, the inability to say no, the lack of firm resisting power. The whole eleventh century had been nourishing the growth, in the favouring soil of feudalism, of the manners and morals of chivalry. The generation to which William and Robert belonged was more strongly influenced in its standards of conduct by the ideals of chivalry than by any other ethical code, and both these princes are examples of the superior power of these ideals. In the age of chivalry no princely virtue was held of higher worth than that of "largesse," the royal generosity which scattered gifts on all classes with unstinted hand; but Robert's prodigality of gifts was greater than the judgment of his own time approved, and, combined with the inability to make himself respected or obeyed, which often goes with such generosity, it was the source of most of his difficulties. His ideal seemed to be that every man should have what he wanted, and soon it was apparent that he had retained very little for himself.
The castles of Normandy were always open to the duke, and William the Conqueror had maintained garrisons of his own in the most important of them, to insure the obedience of their holders. The first move that was made by the barons of Normandy, on the news of William's death, was to expel these garrisons and to substitute others of their own. The example was set by Robert of Bellême, the holder of a powerful composite lordship on the south-west border and partly outside the duchy. On his way to William's court, he heard of the duke's death, and he instantly turned about, not merely to expel the ducal garrisons from the castles of his own fiefs, but to seize the castles of his neighbours which he had reason to desire, and some of these he destroyed and some he held for himself. This action is typical of the influence of Robert's character on government in Normandy. Contempt for the authority of the duke meant not merely that things which belonged to him would be seized upon and his rights denied, but also that the property and rights of the weak, and even of those who were only a little weaker than their neighbours, were at the mercy of the stronger.
Duke Robert's squandering of his resources soon brought him to a want of ready money intolerable to a prince of his nature, and his mind turned at once with desire to the large sum in cash which his father had left to Henry. But Henry was not at all of the stamp of Robert. He was perfectly clear headed, and he had no foolish notions about the virtue of generosity. He preferred to buy rather than to give away. A bargain was struck between them, hardly six months after their father's death, and the transaction is characteristic of the two brothers. For three thousand pounds of silver, Henry purchased what people of the time regarded as a third of Robert's inheritance, the lordship of the Cotentin, with its important castles, towns, and vassals. The chroniclers call him now Count of the Cotentin, and he there practised the art of government for a time, and, in sharp contrast to Robert, maintained order with a strong hand. During the same summer of 1088, Henry crossed over to England to get possession of the lands of his mother Matilda, which she had bequeathed to him on her death. This inheritance he does not seem to have obtained, at least not permanently; but there was no quarrel between him and William at that time. In the autumn he returned to Normandy, taking with him Robert of Bellême. Robert had been forgiven his rebellion by the king, and so clear was the evidence that Henry and Robert of Bellême had entered into some kind of an arrangement with King William to assist his designs on Normandy, or so clear was it made to seem to Duke Robert, that on their landing he caused them both to be arrested and thrown into prison. On the news of this the Earl of Shrewsbury, the father of Robert of Bellême, crossed over from England to the aid of his son, and a short civil war followed, in the early part of the next year, in which the military operations were favourable to the duke, but his inconstancy and weakness of character were shown in his releasing Robert of Bellême at the close of the war as if he had himself been beaten. Henry also was soon released, and took up again his government of the Cotentin.
William may have felt that Robert's willingness to accept the crown of England from the rebel barons gave him the right to take what he could get in Normandy, though probably he was not particularly troubled by the question of any moral justification of his conduct. Opportunity would be for him the main consideration, and the growing anarchy in the duchy furnished this. Private war was carried on without restraint in more than one place, and though the reign of a weak suzerain was to the advantage of the rapacious feudal baron, many of the class preferred a stronger rule. The arguments also in favour of a union of the kingdom and the duchy, which had led to the rebellion against William, would now, since that attempt had failed, be equally strong against Robert. For William no motive need be sought but that of ambition, nor have we much right to say that in such an age the ambition was improper. The temptation which the Norman duchy presented to a Norman king of England was natural and irresistible, and we need only note that with William II begins that determination of the English kings to rule also in continental dominions which influences so profoundly their own history, and hardly less profoundly the history of their island kingdom, for centuries to come. To William the Conqueror no such question could ever present itself, but the moment that the kingdom and the duchy were separated in different hands it must have arisen in the mind of the king.
But if William did not himself care for any moral justification of his plans, he must make sure of the support of his English vassals in such an undertaking; and the policy of war against Robert was resolved upon in a meeting of the court, probably the Easter meeting of 1090. But open war did not begin at once. William contented himself for some months with sending over troops to occupy castles in the north-eastern portion of Normandy, which were opened to him by barons who were favourable to his cause or whose support was purchased. The alarm of Robert was soon excited by these defections, and he appealed to his suzerain, King Philip I of France, for aid. If the policy of ruling in Normandy was natural for the English king, that of keeping kingdom and duchy in different hands was an equally natural policy for the French king. It is hardly so early as this, however, that we can date the beginning of this which comes in the end to be a ruling motive of the Capetian house. Philip responded to his vassal's call with a considerable army, but the money of the king of England quickly brought him to a different mind, and he retired from the field, where he had accomplished nothing.
In the following winter, early in February of 1091, William crossed over into Normandy to look after his interests in person. The money which he was wringing from England by the ingenuity of Ranulf Flambard he scattered in Normandy with a free hand, to win himself adherents, and with success. Robert could not command forces enough to meet him in the field, and was compelled to enter into a treaty with him, in which, in return for some promises from William, he not merely accepted his occupation of the eastern side of the duchy, which was already accomplished, but agreed to a similar occupation by William of the north-western corner.
Cherbourg and Mont-Saint-Michel, two of the newly ceded places, belonged to the dominions which "Count" Henry had purchased of his brother, and must be taken from him by force. William and Robert marched together against him, besieged him in his castle of Mont-Saint-Michel, and stripped him of his lordship. Robert received the lion's share of the conquest, but William obtained what he wished. Henry was once more reduced to the condition of a landless prince, but when William returned to England in August of this year both his brothers returned with him, and remained there for some time.
William had been recalled to England by the news that King Malcolm of Scotland had invaded England during his absence and harried Northumberland almost to Durham. Malcolm had already refused to fulfil his feudal obligations to the new king of England, and William marched against him immediately on his return, taking his two brothers with him. At Durham Bishop William of St. Calais, who had found means to reconcile himself with the king, was restored to his rights after an exile of three years. The expedition to Scotland led to no fighting. William advanced with his army to the Firth of Forth. Malcolm met him there with an army of his own, but negotiations were begun and conducted for William by his brother Robert, and for Malcolm by the atheling Edgar, whose expulsion from Normandy had been one of the conditions of the peace between William and Robert. Malcolm at last agreed to acknowledge himself the man of William II, with the same obligations by which he had been bound to his father, and the king returned to England, as he had gone, by way of Durham. Very likely something in this expedition suggested to William that the north-western frontier of England needed rectification and defence. At any rate, early in the spring of the next year, 1092, he marched against Carlisle, expelled Dolphin, son of the Gospatric of William the Conqueror's time, who was holding it under Malcolm of Scotland, built and garrisoned a castle there, and after his return to the south sent a colony of English families to occupy the adjacent country. This enlargement of the area of England was practically a conquest from the king of Scotland, and it may have been, in violation of the pledge which William had just given, to restore to Malcolm all his former possessions. Something, at least, led to immediate complaints from Malcolm, which were without avail, and a journey that he made by invitation the next year, to confer with William at Gloucester, resulted only in what he regarded as further humiliating treatment. On his return to Scotland he immediately took arms, and again invaded Northumberland. This, however, was destined to be the last of his incursions, for he was killed, together with his eldest son, Edward, near Alnwick, on the eastern coast. The news of the death of her husband and son at once proved fatal to Queen Margaret. A reaction followed against English influence in the state, which she had supported, and a conflict of parties and a disputed succession gave to William an opportunity to interfere in favour of candidates of his own, though with little real success. At least the north of England was relieved of the danger of invasion. This year was also marked by important advances in the conquest of South Wales by the Norman barons of the country.
[14] Dugdale, Monasticon, ed. 1846, 1.244 ff—and Symeon of Durham, Deinjusta Vexations (Rolls series), i. 170 ff.