Curthose declined the proposal with disdain; and Beauclerc, having prepared to take Normandy by force of arms, fitted out an armament, and soon appeared on continental soil with a determination to conquer. For a time, however, Beauclerc and Curthose proceeded with caution, and not till the autumn of 1106 did they put their fortunes to the chance of a decisive engagement.
It was Friday, the 28th of September—the vigil of St. Michael, and just forty years after William the Conqueror had landed at Pevensey; and Beauclerc, with a great army, was besieging the castle of Tinchebray, situated about three leagues from the town of Mortain. Curthose, however, having promised speedy relief, the garrison made a brave defence; and the Norman duke, having allied himself with De Belesme, came to redeem his pledge, accompanied by Edgar Atheling, who by his side had fought so gallantly beneath the Cross in Palestine.
On learning that a hostile force was approaching, Beauclerc turned to give battle; and the trumpets having sounded an onset, Curthose began the conflict by a charge so hot, that for a time the English were thrown into confusion. Bearing down all opposition, William Crispin, Count d'Evreux, fought his way to the English standard, and dealt the king so violent a blow on the head that blood gushed from his mouth. Beauclerc, indeed, was in extreme peril, and his army in danger of being scattered in dismay. At a critical moment, however, a cry of "Treason!" arose to turn the fortunes of the day; and De Belesme was observed leading away his men, and basely deserting his allies.
While Curthose and his friends were still under the influence of surprise and indignation, Beauclerc recovered himself, and, showing himself to his army, encouraged them by words and gestures to encounter the foe, weakened by desertion. But meanwhile Curthose, rallying his broken forces, made another onset; and never in his younger days, neither on the plain of Antioch nor on the plain of Archembrage, had his courage and prowess been more conspicuous. Foe after foe went down before his weapon, and it seemed for a moment that his single arm was about to retrieve the day.
At Beauclerc's side, however, was Nigel de Albini, a Norman warrior, who, more than thirty years earlier, marched with the Conqueror on the terrible expedition into Northumberland, and who had since figured as bow-bearer to Rufus. For a captain who had faced the tall Danes of Northumberland even the prowess of the bravest champion of the Cross had no terrors; and Albini followed Curthose through the battle as keenly as he had ever chased a stag in the New Forest. At length, availing himself of an opportunity, he killed the duke's horse, and found the redoubted Crusader at his mercy. At that moment forward rushed Ealdric, the king's chaplain, by whom Curthose was disentangled from his prostrate steed, and conducted to his victorious brother. With Curthose were captured several men of high rank, the most distinguished of whom was his friend Edgar Atheling, who, by some strange destiny, was ever leagued with the unfortunate.
The captive princes were forthwith conveyed to England. Curthose was committed as a prisoner to the castle at Cardiff. Atheling was allowed to go at large, having no longer sufficient influence to endanger the king's throne. The captors, meanwhile, were well rewarded—Nigel de Albini having a grant of the lands forfeited by the great Robert de Moubray; while Ealdric, the king's chaplain, was promoted to the bishopric of Llandaff.
At first Curthose was indulged with some measure of freedom, and allowed to walk along the banks of the Severn. For a time he seemed content with his lot. One day, however, his old spirit of adventure seized him, and, leaping on a horse, he broke from his keepers, and rode off at full speed. Unfortunately for him, his horse floundered in a morass, and having been secured, he was subjected to a rigorous durance. Some even say his eyes were put out. But, however that may have been, he remained in his prison at Cardiff till 1135, and then dying, was laid at rest in the cathedral of Gloucester, where his tomb is still to be seen.
Edgar Atheling long survived his comrade-in-arms. Indeed, the life of the Saxon prince far exceeded the term of years ordinarily allotted to mortal man. Well-nigh a century after the battle of Hastings, and his coronation as king, when the first of our Plantagenet sovereigns was on the English throne, Atheling was still alive in England, in full possession of his faculties, and probably telling old stories of the Norman Conquest, and the First Crusade, and of William the Norman, and Rufus, and Curthose, and Beauclerc, and a hundred other warriors and statesmen who had gone the way of all flesh, and who were known only by name to the generation amid which he found himself lingering out the last years of his strange and diversified career.
