A History of England, Period I. Mediæval Monarchy

by J. Franck Bright

Trouble in Normandy. 1075.

His foreign neighbours also gave William some trouble. The province of Maine, which he had conquered in 1063, threw off his allegiance. The citizens of Le Mans had risen in insurrection against their lords, and formed themselves into a free commune; but Geoffrey of Mayenne, a nobleman whose help they had sought, betrayed the burghers in their efforts to reduce one of the neighbouring nobility, and they were obliged to call in the assistance of Fulk of Anjou, who had claims upon the province. William reduced Le Mans, but was obliged to make a peace with Fulk, who had strengthened himself by an alliance with the Bretons; and, by the treaty of Blanchelande, William’s son Robert took the government of Maine, but did homage for it to Anjou.

Conspiracy of Norman nobles suppressed. 1076.

Waltheof executed. 1076.

While affairs on the Continent were thus occupying his attention, in 1075 a conspiracy of his own nobles in England broke out. Ralph of Gwader (or Wader), the son of Ralph the Staller and a Breton lady, had been intrusted with the Earldom of Norfolk. Roger, the son of William Fitz-Osbern, had succeeded to the Earldom of Hereford. These two nobles sought to ally their houses, and, against the will of William, Ralph married Emma, Roger’s sister. At the bridal feast Waltheof of Nottingham, the one remaining English Earl, was present, and there a conspiracy was entered into, apparently on account of the strong hold which William kept over his nobles, and in the interests of more perfect feudalism. The kingdom was to be divided among the three earls, one of whom was to be king. Waltheof had been well treated by the King, and married to his niece Judith. His conscience seems to have pricked him, and he confessed all to Lanfranc, at that time governing England. The conspiracy was at once suppressed; Norwich alone, under Emma, the new married bride, made a brave defence. Ralph fled to Brittany. Roger was taken prisoner, and spent his life in captivity. Waltheof was at first received into favour, but afterwards, it is believed at the instigation of his wife, he was tried before the Witan and found guilty of death. The sentence was executed in secret outside the town of Winchester. During his imprisonment the Earl’s penitence had been deep, and it was while still on his knees uttering the Lord’s Prayer that the impatient executioner smote off his head. The national hero, dying in this religious state of mind, speedily became the national saint. His remains were removed to Crowland, which he had much benefited, and miracles were worked at his tomb. The confiscation of the property of these two earldoms, and the death of Queen Edith, the widow of the Confessor, threw great property into the hands of William, who did not reappoint to the earldoms.

Quarrels between William and his sons.

Reconciliation at Gerberoi. 1079.

From this time onward William lived generally in Normandy, leaving England to the care of Lanfranc and Odo of Bayeux. The great success of his reign had indeed been reached, and the remaining years were disturbed by constant disputes with his sons and with his suzerain the King of France. Already, when pursuing Ralph of Gwader on his retreat into Brittany, and besieging him in the town of Dol, he had found himself checked by the union of Philip of France with Alan Fergant of Brittany, and had found it advisable to marry his daughter Constance to that nobleman as the price of peace. So, too, to lessen the jealousy the King of France might naturally have felt at his vassal’s great aggrandisement, he had made the Norman barons swear fealty to his son Robert as his heir, and had caused him to do homage in his place for Maine. Robert desired to make this nominal position real; and, as a part of the same feudal movement perhaps which produced the conspiracy of 1075, he demanded Normandy and Maine of his father. His demand was refused; and when, during an expedition of William against the Count of Mortagne, an accidental quarrel arose between Robert and his brothers, in company with many of the younger nobility he broke into open rebellion. With these, after an unsuccessful attempt at Rouen, he fled to Hugh of Neufchâtel. Beaten thence, he wandered from court to court, assisted by his mother Matilda, against William’s will. At length he found an ally in Philip, who established him in 1079 in Gerberoi, near the borders of Normandy. It was there that father and son met face to face, and that William was unhorsed by Robert. The siege of Gerberoi had to be raised, and William underwent the humiliation of seeking a reconciliation with his son, a reconciliation which was of short duration, as in 1080 Robert again fled from court.

Odo’s oppressive government.

In all directions ill success was attending William. He had been defeated at Dol and at Gerberoi; his son Robert in the period between his two quarrels had failed in an expedition against Scotland; he had just lost his son Richard in the New Forest; and in 1083 he lost his wife, to whom he was deeply attached. Meanwhile Odo had been ruling with extreme severity. In suppressing an insurrection in Northumberland he had been guilty of extortion and of cruel punishment even of the innocent. In his general government he seems to have been extremely avaricious. In the year 1082 his wealth and pride had risen to such a point that he thought of attaining to the Papacy. This he intended to secure by violent means. He purchased a magnificent palace in Rome to win the favour of the people, and even collected an army, in which Hugh of Chester took service, to cross the Apennines. William met him and apprehended him at the Isle of Wight; nor could the complaints of the Pope, which we cannot conceive to have been very earnest, produce any effect. He was seized, as the King affirmed, not as Bishop but as Earl of Kent, and remained in prison till the King’s death. Odo’s oppressions had been very severe, and the condition of England no doubt had become much worse since the complete subjugation of the country, and now, in addition to a famine which had just wasted the country, a heavy direct tax was laid on all land, and worse than that, a vast host of foreign mercenaries was quartered on all the King’s tenants, for a great danger was threatening.