CHAP. VIIJ. Conquest. so few were the fighters that Eric could board the The Danish Serpent; the little group about the king were slain: and Olaf himself, throwing his shield over his head, leaped desperately into the sea. 9881016. The Norman marriage. Master by this victory of the north, Swein's hands were free for his long-planned attack on England; and in 1002 it was clear that such an attack was impending. To deprive the Danish king of Norman aid and to close the Norman harbours against him was an obvious measure of precaution;' but as yet England had failed in securing the neutrality of Normandy either by treaties or by force of arms. Æthelred now resolved to bind Normandy to him by a personal bond, and in the Lent of 1002, Duke Richard's daughter Emma crossed to the shores of England as its king's wife. The step which the king took was one of the highest moment. In it Ethelred broke away from the traditional policy of his house, which from Ethelstan downwards had aimed at crushing or curbing the northmen of the Channel, by a measure which could not but link their fortunes with the fortunes of England itself. But Normandy was now a wholly different power from the pirate state which had roused jealous fear in Eadward or Æthelstan. The century which had passed since the settlement of the northmen along the Seine had seen the steady growth 1 "The Jarls of Rouen reckoned themselves of kin to the chiefs in Norway, and held them in such respect that they were always the greatest friends of the northmen; and every northman found a friendly country in Normandy, if he needed it."—St. Olaf's Saga, Laing, "Sea Kings,” ii. 16. of the duchy in extent and in power. Much of this was due to the ability of its rulers, to the vigour and wisdom with which Hrolf forced order and justice on the new community, as well as to the political tact with which both Hrolf and William Longsword clung to the Karolings in their strife with the dukes of Paris. But still more was owing to the steadiness. with which both these rulers remained faithful to the Christianity which had been imposed on the northmen as a condition of their settlement, and to the firm resolve with which they trampled down the temper and traditions which their people had brought from their Scandinavian homeland, and welcomed the language and civilization which came in the wake of their neighbours' religion. The difficulties that met the dukes were indeed enormous. Turn to France as they might, it was long before France would turn to them. It disbelieved in their religious earnestness, it credited wild stories about Hrolf's sacrifices on his deathbed, about the apostasy of William and his boy. It disbelieved in their craving for admission into the body of French nationality and French civilizationit called the Normans "pirates," and their chief the "pirates' duke." The very sovereigns whom they supported looked on them as intruders to be guarded against, and to be thrust out of the land if it were possible. They were girt in by hostile states, they were threatened at sea by England, under Æthelstan a network of alliances menaced them with ruin. Once a French army occupied Rouen, and a French king held the pirates' land at his will; once the CHAP VIII. The Danish 988 1016. Difficulties of the Norman dukes. CHAP. VIII. Conquest. 9881016. German lances were seen from the walls of their The Danish capital. Nor were their difficulties within less than those without. The subject population which had been trodden under foot by the northern settlers was seething with discontent. The policy of Christianization and civilization broke the Normans themselves into two parties. A great portion of the people clung to their old religion and their old tongue; and this body was continually reinforced by fresh incomers from the north or from the English Danelaw, and strengthened by those connexions with its heathen brethren in the Channel which were forced on the duchy by the French attacks. The very conquests of Hrolf and his successor, the Bessin, the Cotentin, had to be settled and held by the new comers, who made them strongholds of heathendom. The strength of this party of resistance was seen in a revolt which shook the throne of William Longsword, in the concession it forced from him that his child should be reared in the Bessin, in the pagan reaction which followed his death and gave a pretext for the invasion of Lewis From-over-sea, as well as in the stubborn resistance to change which must have gone on throughout the reign of the two dukes who followed William, ere it broke out for the last time in the revolt of Val-ès-dunes. Their French policy. But amidst difficulties from within and from without the dukes held firm to their course, and their stubborn will had its reward. In spite of reinforcement from their pirate-brethren, the balance of strength went more and more against the men who clung to the northern customs and the northern tongue. By The Danish 988 1016. the end of William Longsword's days all Normandy, CHAP. VIII. save the newly settled districts of the west, was Christian, and spoke French. So too in spite of the hatred and leagues of his neighbours, the Norman never loosed his grip from the land he had won. Attack indeed only widened its bounds, and added to the older duchy the broad lands of the Bessin and Cotentin. The work of the statesman at last completed the work of the sword. As the connexion of the dukes with the Karoling kings had given them the land, and helped them for fifty years to hold it against the House of Paris, so in the downfall of the Karolings the sudden and adroit change of front which bound the Norman rulers to the House of Paris in its successful struggle for the Crown secured the land for ever to the northmen. The close connexion which France was forced to maintain with the state whose support held the new royal line on its throne told both on kingdom and duchy. The French dread of the "pirates" died gradually away, while French influence spread yet more rapidly over a people which clung so closely to the French crown. It was thus that the social and religious change which was in full play at the death of William Longsword took a new strength and vigour through the days of his successor, Duke Richard the Fearless, whose long reign stretched over more than half a century, from 943 to 996. It opened, indeed, with a storm of reaction, the terrible strife which all but laid the duchy at the feet of Lewis From-oversea. But the storm soon died down into a profound repose. Without, all danger passed away. France, CHAP. VIII. Conquest. 9881016. under its new rulers, was friendly. The England of The Danish Eadgar was no longer anxious about Norman aid to the Danelaw. The Breton was overmastered. The Fleming held his hand. And within the duchy itself the Normans had learned the danger of civil strife. So tranquil was the land that hardly an event is recorded on the other side the Channel for the thirty years that cover the reigns of Eadred, Eadgar, and Eadmund the Martyr. In this long stillness the fusion of conquerors and conquered, the Christianization and civilization of the Norman, his assimilation in political and social temper to the France beside him, went steadily on. If the free institutions of the north had passed to Norman soil their very memory was now lost. Save for a dim tradition of "the Laws of Hrolf," the power of the duke was henceforth unchecked by legal bounds; and the northern sense of equality faded away as the duchy drifted towards the feudalism of the countries around it. A baronage sprang from the friends or children of the dukes, whose houses were to stamp their names on our later history. The kinsmen of Richard's wife, Gunnor, became heads of great families which played their part on both French and English soil. From her brother Herfast sprang the house of FitzOsbern from her children came the counts of Eu and of Brionne, as well as the counts of Mortain. The lords of Belesme, the Montgomeries, the Beaumonts, rose into power on the Norman border-land, while within it Giffards and Tancarvilles, Warrennes, and Mowbrays, and Mortimers, came to the front in the tranquil years during which Richard the ; |