William the Warl Robert, CHAP. VIII. William must at once leave the country, and not return to it during the lifetime of his namesake the Duke. The ing goes to proud Lord of Mortain was thus driven to do what his Apulia. poor knight had thought of doing. He went to the wars in Apulia in humble guise enough, attended by a single esquire. The Duke at once bestowed the vacant County of Mortain on his half-brother Robert, the son of Herlwin and Herleva. Of him we shall hear again in the tale of the Conquest of England. Thus, says oùr informant, did William pluck down the proud kindred of his father and lift up the lowly kindred of his mother.1 Count of Estimate of Wil duct. This affair of William of Mortain is one of which we liam's con- may well wish for further explanation. We are hardly in a position to judge of the truth or falsehood of the charge brought by Robert the Bigod against his lord.2 We have no statement from the other side; we have no defence from the Count of Mortain; all that we are told is that, when arraigned before the Duke, he neither confessed nor denied the charge.3 We need not doubt that William was honestly anxious to preserve his Duchy from internal disturbances. But in this case his justice, if justice it was, fell so sharply and speedily as to have very much the look of interested oppression. It was impossible to avoid the suspicion that William the Warling was sacrificed to the Duke's wish to make a provision for his halfbrother. We are not surprised to find that the charge of having despoiled and banished his cousin on frivolous pretences was brought up against William by his enemies in 1 Will. Gem. vii. 19. "Sic tumidos sui patris parentes asperè prostravit, humilesque matris suæ propinquos honorabiliter exaltavit." 2 The whole story is highly coloured by Sir F. Palgrave, iii. 224. William of Mortain may very likely have been guilty, but the evidence was very weak. 3 Will. Gem, u. s. "Nec negare potuit, neque intentionem dicti declarare præsumpsit." WILLIAM SEEKS MATILDA IN MARRIAGE. 293 later times, and was not forgotten by historians in the CHAP. VIII. next generation.1 condition 1049-1054. seeks The energy of William had thus, for the time, thoroughly quelled all his foes, and his Duchy seems Prosperous for some years to have enjoyed as large a share of of Norpeace and prosperity as any state could enjoy in those mandy. troubled times. The young Duke was at last firmly settled in the ducal seat, and he now began to think of strengthening himself by a marriage into the family of some neighbouring prince. And he seems to have already made up his mind in favour of the woman who retained his love during the remainder of their joint lives, Matilda,2 William the daughter of Baldwin, Count of Flanders. He must Matilda of have been in treaty for her hand very soon after the in marAngevin war, as the marriage was forbidden by a decree riage. of the Council of Rheims. But the marriage itself did 1049. not take place till several years later, and the negotiation opened so many questions, and was connected with so many later events, that I reserve the whole subject of William's marriage for a later chapter. William had to William's objects, struggle through as many difficulties to obtain undisputed Duchy, possession of his wife as he had to obtain undisputed possession of either his Duchy or his Kingdom. And he all pursued 1 Ord. Vit. 534 B. "Ipse Guillelmum Guarlengum Moritolii Comitem pro uno verbo exhæredavit et de Neustriâ penitus effugavit." This comes in the speech at the famous bride-ale of 1076, but the historian afterwards says in his own person (660 B), "Guillelmum cognomento Werlengum pro minimis occasionibus de Neustriâ propulsaverat.” ... 2 The grand old Teutonic name of Machthild had by this time become in Latin Mathildis, and in French mouths and in the mouths of Englishmen pronouncing French names, it became Mahtild, Mahault, Molde, Maud, and so forth. The name is familiar to students of Saxon history, and to the students, if there be any, of our own Æthelweard. 3 Concilia, ed. Labbe and Coss. ix. 1092. Stapleton, Arch. Journal, iii. 20. "Interdixit etiam Balduino Comiti Flandrensi ne filiam suam Wilielmo Nortmanno nuptui daret, et illi ne eam acciperet." On this Council, see above, p. 112. Flanders 1053. Wife, and in the like spirit. CHAP. VIII. struggled after all three with the same deliberate energy, ever waiting his time, taking advantage of every opportunity, never baffled by any momentary repulse. His struggle for Normandy was now, for the time, over; he had fairly conquered his own Duchy, and he had now only to defend it. His struggle for Matilda had already begun; a struggle almost as hard as the other, though one which was to be fought, not with bow and spear, but with the weapons of legal and canonical disputation. Whether he had already begun to lift up his eyes to the succession of his childless cousin, whether he had already formed the hope that the grandson of the despised Tanner might fill, not only the ducal chair of Normandy, but the Imperial throne of Britain, is a question to which we can give no certain answer. But there can be little doubt that, soon after this time, the idea was forcibly brought before his mind. And, with characteristic pertinacity, when he had once dreamed of the prize, he never slackened in its pursuit till he could at last call it his own. Condition 1051–1052. Normandy was now at rest, enjoying the rest of hardof England. won peace and prosperity. England was also at rest, if we may call it rest to lie prostrate in a state of feverish stillness. She rested, as a nation rests whose hopes are crushed, whose leaders are torn from her, which sees for the moment no chance of any doom but hopeless subWilliam's mission to the stranger. It was at this crisis in the history England. of the two lands that the Duke of the Normans appeared as a guest at the court of England. Visits of mere friendship and courtesy among sovereign princes were rare in those days. The rulers of the earth seldom visit to 1051. 1 Chron. Wig. 1052. "Da sone com Willelm Eorl fram geondan sæ, mid mycclum werode Frenciscra manna; and se cyning hine underfeng, and swa feola his geferan swa him to onhagode, and let hine eft ongean." See also Roman de Rou, 10539 et seqq., where however the journey is put much too late. WILLIAM'S VISIT TO ENGLAND. 295 met, save when a superior lord required the homage of CHAP. VIII. a princely vassal, or when Princes came together, at the summons of the temporal or the spiritual chief of Christendom, to discuss the common affairs of nations and churches. Such visits as those which William and Eustace of Boulogne paid at this time to Eadward were, in England at least, altogether novelties. And they were novelties which were not likely of William to be acceptable to the national English mind. We may Estimate be sure that every patriotic Englishman looked with an in English evil eye on any French-speaking prince who made his way eyes. to the English court. Men would hardly be inclined to draw the distinction which justice required to be drawn between Eustace of Boulogne and William of Rouen. And yet, under any other circumstances, England, or any other land, might have been proud to welcome such a guest as the already illustrious Duke. Under unparalleled difficulties he had displayed unrivalled powers; he had shone alike in camp and in council; he had triumphed over every enemy; he had used victory with moderation; he was fast raising his Duchy to a high place among European states, and he was fast winning for himself the highest personal place among European Princes. Already, at the age of twentythree, the Duke of the Normans might have disputed the palm of personal merit even with the great prince who then filled the throne of the world. He had, on a narrower field, displayed qualities which fairly put him on a level with Henry himself. But, in English eyes, William was simply the most powerful, and therefore the most dangerous, of the greedy Frenchmen who every day flocked in greater numbers to the court of the English King. William came with a great following; he tarried awhile in his cousin's company; he went away loaded with gifts and honours.' 1 Flor. Wig. 1051. "His gestis Nortmannicus Comes Willelmus cum multitudine Nortmannorum Angliam venit, quem Rex Eadwardus et alleged the Crown made at General appearance favourable Norman predominance in CHAP. VIII. And we can hardly doubt that he also went away enEadward's couraged by some kind of promise, or at any rate by some promise of kind of implied hope, of succeeding to the Kingdom which to William he now visited as a stranger. There was indeed everything probably to raise the hope in his breast. He landed in England; he this time. journeyed to the court of England; his course lay through what were in truth the most purely English parts of Engof things land; but the sons of the soil lay crushed without a chief. to William. On the throne sat a King of his own kin, English in nothing but in the long succession of glorious ancestors of whom he showed himself so unworthy. His heart was Norman ; his speech was French; men of foreign birth were alone welcome at his court; men of foreign birth were predominant in his councils. The highest places of the Church were already filled by Norman Prelates. The England. Norman Primate of all England, the choicest favourite of the King, the man at whose bidding he was ready to believe that black was white, would doubtless be the first to welcome his native sovereign to his province and diocese. The great city which was fast becoming the capital of England, the city beneath whose walls Eadward had fixed his chosen dwelling, had been made to own the spiritual rule of another Norman priest. A short journey, a hunting-party or a pilgrimage, would bring King and Duke within the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of a third Norman, the unworthy stranger who disgraced the episcopal throne of Dorchester. Among the temporal chiefs of the Kingdom there was already one French Earl, kinsman alike of William and of Eadward, who would not fail in showing honour to the most renowned of his speech and kindred. Norman socios ejus honorificè suscepit, et magnis multisque donatum muneribus ad Nortmanniam remisit." Roman de Rou, 10548; "Et Ewart forment l'énora ; E kanke il trover poeit Ki à haut hom cunveneit." |