the conquest of England; and as Duke Robert advanced into the land, he was everywhere met by Norman barons and nobles of Norman descent, who ruled even more absolutely in Apulia than did their brethren in our island. At every feudal castle the Duke was hailed and welcomed as a countryman, a friend, a hero, a crusader returning with victory, whom it was honourable to honour; and so much was their hospitality to the taste of that thoughtless prince that he lingered long, and well pleased on his Of all these noble hosts was none more way. noble, or more powerful than William Count of Conversano: he was the son of Geoffrey, who was nephew of Robert Guiscard, the founder of the Norman dynasty in Naples: his vast possessions lay along the shores of the Adriatic, from Otranto to Bari, and extended far in-land in the direction of Lucania and the other sea. He was, in short, the most powerful lord in Lower Apulia. His castle, which stood on an eminence surrounded by olive groves, at a short distance from the Adriatic, had many attractions for the pleasure-loving and susceptible son of the Conqueror. There were minstrels and jongleurs; there were fine horses and hounds, and hawks, in almost royal abundance; and the vast plains of Apulia, with the forests and mountains that encompass them, offered a variety of the finest sport. But there was an attraction even greater than all these in the person of a beautiful maiden, the young Sibylla, the daughter of his host the Count of Conversano. Robert became enamoured, and such a suitor, who, besides his other merits, was sovereign Duke of Normandy, with a prospect of possessing the royal crown of England, was not likely to be rejected. Robert received the hand of Sibylla, who is painted as being as good as she was fair, together with a large sum of money as her dowry. Happy in the present, careless of the future, and little thinking that a man so young as his brother the Red King would die, he lingered several months in Apulia, and finally travelled thence without any eagerness or speed, and at the critical moment when the English throne fell vacant his friends hardly knew when they might expect him. On his arrival, however, in Normandy, he appears to have been received with great joy by the people, and to have obtained peaceful possession of the whole of the country with the exception of the fortresses surrendered to Rufus, and which were now held for Henry. He made no secret of his intention of prosecuting his claim on England; but here again he lost time and threw away his last remaining chance. He was proud of showing his beautiful bride to the Normans, and, with his usual imprudence, he spent her fortune in feasting and pageantry. Ralph Flambard was the first to wake him from this splendid but evanescent dream, and at the earnest suggestion of the fugitive bishop-minister he prepared for immediate war, knowing it was vain to plead to Henry his priority of birth, his treaty with Rufus, or the oaths which Henry himself had taken to him. It may be doubted, seeing the character of the factious nobles

whether, had Robert succeeded in his enterprise, his indolence, easy nature, and incurable imprudence would not have proved as great a curse to England as the harshness and tyranny of any of the Norman line, and whether the nation would not have made a retrograde step instead of advancing, as it certainly did somewhat, under his crafty and cruel, but politic rival Henry.

When his ban of war was proclaimed, Robert's Norman vassals showed the utmost readiness to fight under a prince who had won laurels in the Holy Land, and the Norman barons expressed the same discontent at the separation of the duchy and kingdom which had appeared on the accession of William Rufus. If the nobles had been unanimous in their preference of Robert as sovereign of the country, on either side the Channel where they had domains, the dispute about the English throne must have been settled in his favour; but they were divided, and many preferred Henry (as they had formerly done Rufus) to Robert. The friends of the latter, however, were neither few nor powerless: several of high rank crossed the Channel from England to urge him to recover the title which belonged to him in virtue of the agreement formerly concluded between him and the Red King; and Robert de Belesme, Earl of Shrewsbury and Arundel, William de la Warrenne, Earl of Surrey, Arnulf de Montgomery, Walter Gifford, Robert de Pontefract, Robert de Mallet, Yvo de Grentmesnil, and many others of the principal nobility, promised on his landing to join him with all their forces. Henry, knowing the disaffection of the barons, whose secrets were betrayed to him, began to tremble on the throne he had so recently acquired. These fears of the Normans threw him more than ever on the support of the English people, whom he now called his friends, his faithful vassals, his countrymen, the best and bravest of men,—though his brother, he insidiously added, treated them with scorn, and called them cowards and gluttons.* At the same time he paid diligent court to Archbishop Anselm, who, by the sanctity of his character and his undeniable virtues and abilities, exercised a great influence in the nation. As Anselm was an Italian and a churchman, it may be believed that he gladly obtained the large concessions made to the Pope by the trembling king; but from the earnestness with which he embraced the cause of Henry we are also entitled to assume that he saw good and laudable reasons for supporting the existing settlement of the crown, and the averting of a civil war is no questionable merit. If anxious to extend the privileges of the church, he was scarcely less so to establish the liberties of the people; and to him, as the representative of the nation, Henry swore to maintain the charter he had granted at his coronation, and faithfully to fulfil all his engagements.

The effect of all this was, that the bishops, the common soldiers, and the native English, with a curious exception, stood firmly on the side of

Matt. Paris.

Henry, who could also count among the Norman nobility Robert de Mellent, his chief minister, the Earl of Warwick, Roger Bigod, Richard de Redvers, and Robert Fitz-Hamon, all powerful barons, as his unchangeable adherents. The exception against him, on the part of the native English, was among the sailors, who, affected by Robert's fame, and partly won over by the fugitive Bishop of Durham, deserted with the greater part of a fleet which had been hastily equipped to intercept the Duke on his passage, or oppose his landing. Robert sailed from Normandy in these very ships, and, while Henry was expecting him at Pevensey, on the Sussex coast, reached Portsmouth, and there landed. Before the two armies could meet some of the less violent of the Normans from both parties had interviews, and agreed pretty well on the necessity of putting an end to a quarrel among countrymen and friends. When the hostile forces fronted each other, there was a wavering among his Normans; but the English continued faithful to Henry, and Anselm threatened the invaders with excommunication. To the surprise of most men, the duke's great expedition ended in a hurried peace and a seemingly affectionate reconciliation between the two rivals, after which the credulous Robert, who indeed seemed destined to be the dupe of his crafty brothers, returned peaceably to the continent, renouncing all claim to England, and having obtained a yearly payment of 3000 marks, and the cession to him of all the castles which Henry possessed in Normandy. It was also stipulated, that the adherents of each should be fully pardoned, and restored to all their possessions, whether in Normandy or in England; and that neither Robert nor Henry should thenceforward encourage, receive, or protect the enemies of the other. There was another clause added, which, even without counting how much older he was than Henry, was not worth to Robert the piece of parchment it was written upon : -it imported that if either of the brothers died without legitimate issue the survivor should be the heir to his dominions. To this clause, as to its counterpart in the former treaty signed at Caen, between Robert and Rufus, twenty-four barons, twelve on each side, gave the solemn mockery of their oaths.

Robert was scarcely returned to Normandy when Henry began to take measures against the barons, his partisans, whom he had promised to pardon; and his craft and cunning enabled him to proceed for some time without committing any manifest violation of the treaty. He appointed spies to watch them in their castles, and artfully sowing dissensions among them and provoking them to breaches of the law, he easily obtained from the habitual violence of these unpopular chiefs a plausible pretence for his prosecutions. He summoned Robert de Belesme, Earl of Shrewsbury, to answer to an indictment containing forty-five serious charges. De Belesme appeared, and, according to custom, demanded that he might go freely to consult with his friends and arrange his defence; but he was no

VOL. I.

sooner out of the court than he mounted his horse and galloped off to one of his strong castles. The king summoned him to appear within a given time under pain of outlawry. The Earl responded to the summons by calling his vassals around him and preparing for open war. This was meeting the wishes of the king, who took the field with an army consisting in good part of English infantry, well disposed to do his will, and delighted at the prospect of punishing one of their many oppressors. He was detained several weeks by the siege of the castle of Arundel, the garrison of which finally capitulated, and then, in part, escaped to join their Earl de Belesme, who, in the mean time, had strongly fortified Bridgenorth, near the Welsh frontiers, and strengthened himself in the citadel of Shrewsbury. During the siege of Bridgenorth the Normans in the king's service showed they were averse to proceeding to extremities against one of the noblest of their countrymen, and some of the earls and barons endeavoured to put an end to the war by effecting a reconcilement between Robert de Belesme and the sovereign. "For," says a cotemporary writer, "they thought that the victory of the king over Earl Robert would enable him to make them all bend to his will." They demanded a conference, and an assembly was held in a plain near the royal camp. A body of English infantry posted on a hill close by, who knew what was in agitation among the Norman chiefs, cried out, "Do not trust in them, King Henry; they want to lay a snare for you. We are here; we will assist you and make the assault. Grant no peace to the traitor until you have him in your hands alive or dead!" The attempt at reconciliation failed,-the siege was pressed and Bridgenorth fell. The country between Bridgenorth and Shrewsbury, where the Earl made his last stand, was covered with thick wood, and infested by his scouts and archers. The English infantry cleared the wood of the enemy, and cut a convenient road for the king to the very walls of Shrewsbury, where de Belesme, reduced to despair, soon capitulated. He lost all his vast estates in England, but was permitted to retire into Normandy on taking an oath he would never return to the kingdom without Henry's permission. His ruin involved that of his two brothers, Arnulf de Montgomery and Roger, Earl of Lancaster, and as the king's hands became strengthened, the prosecution and condemnation of all the barons who had been favourable to Robert followed. by one nearly all the great nobles, the sons of the men who had achieved the conquest of England, were driven out of the land as traitors and outlaws, and their estates and honours were given to new men," to the obscure followers of the new court.

One

rage the enemies of the other. He was soon, however, made sensible that the real crime of all the outlaws, in Henry's eyes, was the preference they had given to him; and following one of those generous impulses to which his romantic nature was prone, he came suddenly over to England, and put himself completely in the power of Henry, to intercede in favour of the unfortunate barons. The crafty king received him with smiles and brotherly embraces, and then placed spies over him to watch all his motions. Robert, who had demanded no hostages, soon found he was a prisoner, and was glad to purchase his liberty by renouncing his annuity of three thousand marks. He then returned to Normandy, and, in self-defence, renewed his friendship with the barons exiled from England, accepting among others the services of De Belesme, who was still a powerful lord, as he possessed above thirty castles of different kinds in Normandy. Henry now most impudently pretended that Robert was the aggressor, and declared the peace between them was for ever at an end. The simple truth was, that Robert was completely at his mercy, and he had resolved to unite the duchy to his kingdom. Normandy, indeed, was in a deplorable state, and Robert, it must be said, had given, and continued to give, manifold proofs of his inability to manage. a factious and intriguing nobility, or to govern any state as states were then constituted. He was, indeed, "too trusting and merciful" for his age; and his generous virtues were more fatal to him than the vices or defects which stained his moral character. He had, however, relapsed into his old irregularities after losing the beautiful Sibylla, who died in 1102, leaving an infant son, the only issue of their brief marriage. His court was again thronged with vagabond jongleurs, loose women, and rapacious favourites, who plundered him of his very attire, at least this sovereign prince is represented as lying in bed at times from want of proper clothes to put on when he should rise. A much more serious evil for the country was, that his pettiest barons were suffered to wage war on each other and inflict all kinds of wrong and insult on the people. When Henry first raised the mask he declared himself the protector of Normandy against the bad government of his brother; and there were many, as well nobles as of the commonalty, who were glad to consider him in that light. He called on Robert to cede the duchy for a sum of money or an annual pension. "You have the title of chief," said he; "but in reality you are no longer a chief, seeing that the vassals who ought to obey you set you at nought." The duke indignantly rejected the proposal; on which the king crossed the seas with an army, and, "by large distributions of money carried out of England," won many new partisans, and got possession of many of the fortresses of Normandy. The duke, on the other hand, had now nothing to give to any one, for, in his thoughtless generosity and extravagance,

• William of Malmsbury says, "He forgot and forgave too much." † Orderic,

he had squandered everything on his return from Italy; yet still some brave men rallied around him out of affection to his person, or in dread and hatred of his brother, and Henry found it impossible to complete his ruin in this campaign.

In the following year (1106) the king re-appeared in Normandy with a more formidable army and with still more money, to raise which he had cruelly and arbitrarily distressed his English subjects; for by this time his charter had become worthless, and he had broken nearly every promise he made at his coronation. About the end of July he laid siege to Tenchebray, an important place, the garrison of which, incorruptible by his gold, made a faithful and gallant resistance. Robert, when informed that his friends were hard pressed, promised to march to their relief, ensue what might, and on the appointed day, most true to his word, as was usual with him in such matters, he appeared before the walls of Tenchebray, where Henry had concentrated his whole army. As a soldier Robert was far superior to his brother, but his forces were numerically inferior, and there was treachery in the camp. As brave, however, as when he fought the Paynim and mounted the breach in the Holy City, he fell upon the king's army, threw the English infantry into disorder, and had nearly won the victory, when De Belesme basely fled with a strong division of his forces, and left him to inevitable defeat; for a panic spread among the troops that remained, and all men thought they were betrayed. After a last and most brilliant display of his valour as a soldier, and his conduct as a commander, the duke was taken prisoner, with four hundred of his knights. "This battle," observes old John Speed, แ fought, and Normandy won, upon Saturday, being the vigil of St. Michael, even the same day forty years that William the Bastard set foot on England's shore for his conquest; God so disposing it (saith Malmsbury) that Normandy should be subjected to England that very day, wherein England was subdued to Normandy."

was

The fate of the captives made at Tenchebray, or taken after that battle, or who voluntarily surrendered, was various: some received a free pardon, some were allowed to be ransomed; and a few, among whom were the Earl of Mortaigne and Robert de Stuteville, were condemned to perpetual imprisonment. The ex-earl of Shrewsbury, the false De Belesme, was gratified with a new grant of most of his estates in Normandy; and the exbishop-minister Ralph Flambard, who had been moving in all these contentions, obtained the restoration of his English see, by delivering up the town and castle of Lisieux to King Henry. A remarkable incident in the victory of Tenchebray is, that the royal Saxon, Edgar Atheling, was among the prisoners. Duke Robert had on many occasions treated him with great kindness and liberality; and, as in some of their qualities the two princes resembled each other, there seems to have been a lasting sympathy and affection between

At

them. According to some accounts Edgar had followed Robert to the Holy Land; but this is at the least doubtful, and the Saxon Chronicle represents him as having joined the duke only a short time before the battle of Tenchebray, where he charged with the Norman chivalry. This was his last public appearance. He was sent over to England, where, to show the Norman king's contempt of him, he was allowed to go at large. the intercession of his niece, the Queen Maud, Henry granted him a trifling pension; and this survivor of so many changes and sanguinary revolutions passed the rest of his life in an obscure but tranquil solitude in the country. So perfect was the oblivion into which he fell, that not one of the chroniclers mentions the place of his residence or records when or how he died. The fate of his friend Duke Robert, who had much less apathy, was infinitely more galling from the beginning, and his captivity was soon accompanied with other atrocities. He was committed a prisoner for life to one of his brother's castles. At first his keepers, appointing a proper guard, allowed him to take air and exercise in the neighbouring woods and fields. One day he seized a horse, and breaking from his guard, did his best to escape; but he was presently pursued, and taken in a morass, wherein his

In 1086, the last year of the Conqueror's reign, Edgar Atheling obtained permission to conduct two hundred knights to Apulia, and thence to Palestine; but we are not informed what progress he made in this journey, and Duke Robert did not set out for the Holy Land until 1096, or ten years after.

*

horse had stuck fast. Upon hearing of this attempt the king not only commanded "a greater restraint and harder durance," but ordered that his sight should be destroyed, in order to render him incapable of such enterprises, and unapt to all royal or martial duties for the future. This detestable order was executed by a method which had become horribly common in Italy during these ages, and which was not unknown in other countries on the continent. A basin of copper or iron, made redhot, was held close over the victim's eyes till the organs of sight were seared and destroyed. The wretched prince lived twenty-eight years after this, and died in Cardiff Castle in 1135, a few months before his brother Henry. He was nearly eighty years old, and had survived all the chiefs of name who rescued Jerusalem from the Saracens. Matthew of Paris tells a touching anecdote of his captivity. One day, when some new dresses were brought to him from the king, in examining them by his touch he found that one of the garments was torn or rent in the seam: the people told him that the king had tried it on and found it too tight for him. Then the prisoner threw them all far from him, and

The punishment was usually applied to captive princes, fallen ministers, and personages of the highest rank and political influence. The Italians had even a verb to express it-Abbacinare, from bacino, a basin. "L'abbacinare è il medesimo che l'accecare; e perchè si faceva con un bacino rovente, che avvicinato agli occhi tenuti aperti per forza, concentrandosi il calore struggeva que' panicelli, e riseccava l'umidità, che, come un' uva è intorno alla pupilla, e la ricopriva di una cotal nuvola, che gli toglieva la vista, si aveva preso questo nome d'abbacinare.' Such is the formal explanation of the horrid verb in the Dictionary Della Crusca.

exclaimed, "How, then, my brother, or rather my traitor, that craven clerk who has deprived me of my all, imprisoned me, blinded me, now holds me at so mean a rate-I, who had so much honour and renown, that he makes me alms of his old clothes, as if I were his valet." It seems to have been an established custom for kings to give dresses to their state prisoners at certain festivals in the year; and it is related of Fitz-Osborn that he lost his only chance of enlargement by treating a suit sent him by the Conqueror with disrespect.

As another trait of manners we may mention here, that Duke Robert was made prisoner at Tenchebray by Galdric, King Henry's chaplain, who was promoted to the bishopric of Llandaff for this clerical piece of service. This martial prelate's end was, however, in keeping with the circumstances of his promotion; for, having exasperated the people of Llandaff with his tyranny and violence, they set upon him in a field and killed him, with five of his canons.

In getting possession of Robert's person Henry became master of all Normandy. Rouen, the capital, submitted to the conqueror, and Falaise surrendered after a short resistance. At the latter place William, the only son of Sibylla and Duke Robert, fell into his hands. When the child, who was then only five years old, was brought into the presence of his uncle, he sobbed and cried for mercy. It could not escape the king's far-reaching calculations that this boy's legitimate claims might cause him future trouble; but Henry, as if making a violent effort to rid himself of evil thoughts, suddenly commanded that he should be removed from him, and given in custody to Helie de St. Saen, a Norman noble, on whom, though he had married an illegitimate daughter of Duke Robert, he thought he could rely. He soon, however, repented of this arrangement, and sent a force to surprise the castle of St. Saen, and secure the person of young William. Helie fled with his pupil, and they were both honourably received at all the neighbouring courts, where the beauty, the innocence, the early misfortunes, and claims of the boy, gained him many protectors. The most powerful of these friends were Louis the Sixth, commonly called Le Gros, and Fulk, Earl of Anjou, who were reasonably apprehensive of the increasing power of his uncle on the continent. As William Fitz-Robert, as he was called, grew up, and gave good promise of being a valiant prince, they espoused his cause more decidedly, Louis engaging to grant him the investiture of Normandy, and Fulk to give him his daughter Sibylla in marriage as soon as he should be of proper age. Before that period arrived circumstances occurred (A.D.1113) that hurried them into hostilities, and the Earl of Flanders having been induced to sanction, if not to join their league, Henry was attacked at every point along the frontiers of Normandy. He lost towns and castles, and was alarmed at the same time by a report, true or false, that some friends of Duke Robert had formed a plot against his life. So great was his alarm, that for a long

time he never slept without having a sword and buckler by his bed-side. When the war had lasted two years Henry put an end to it by a skilful treaty, in which he regained whatever he had lost in Normandy, and in which the interests of William Fitz-Robert were overlooked. These advantages were obtained by giving the estates and honours of the faithful Helie de St. Saen to Fulk, Earl of Anjou, and by stipulating a marriage between his only son, Prince William of England, and Matilda, another daughter of that earl. The previous contract between Fitz-Robert and Sibylla was broken off, and the Earl of Anjou agreed to give no more aid or countenance to that young prince.

These arrangements, so advantageous for Henry, were not made without great sacrifices of money on the part of the English people; and some years before they were concluded the nation was made to bear another burden. By the feudal customs the king was entitled to levy a tax for the marrying of his eldest daughter; and (A.D. 1110) Henry affianced the Princess Matilda, a child only eight years old, to Henry V., Emperor of Germany. The high nominal rank of the party, and the general poverty of the German emperors in those days, would alike call for a large dowry; and Henry V. drove a hard bargain with his brother (and to-be father-in-law) of England. The marriage portion seems to have been principally raised by a tax laid upon land at the rate of three shillings per hide ; and the contemporary histories abound in complaints of the harsh manner in which instant payment was exacted. The stipulated sum was at length placed in the hands of the emperor's ambassadors, who conducted the young lady into Germany, where she was to be educated. If the English people suffered, they were regaled by a fine spectacle; for it is said that never was sight seen more splendid than Matilda's embarkation. The graver of the impressions, however, remained, and it was remembered to her disadvantage, many years after, how dear her espousals had cost the nation.

He

About this time Henry checked some incursions of the Welsh, the only wars waged in the interior of England during his reign, and, causing a strong army to follow them into their fastnesses, he gained several advantages over the mountaineers. despaired, however, of reducing them to his obedience, and was fain to content himself with building a few castles a little in advance of those erected by the Conqueror and the Red King. He also collected a number of Flemings who had been driven into England by the misfortunes of their own country, and gave them the town of Haverfordwest, with the district of Ross, in Pembrokeshire. They were a brave and industrious people, skilled in manufacturing woollen cloths; and, increasing in wealth and numbers, they maintained themselves in their advanced post, in spite of the long efforts of the Welsh to drive them from it. But a subject which occupied the mind of the English king much more than the con