Page images
PDF
EPUB

CHAP. VIII. terms which we find applied to the mother of Richard the

Story of William's birth.

Falaise.

Fearless. Throughout the whole of Duke Robert's life, she remained in the position of an acknowledged mistress, and her illustrious son came forth before the world with no other description than the Bastard.

The irregular birth of one so renowned naturally became the subject of romance and legend. And the spot on which William first saw the light is one which seems to call for the tribute of the legend-maker as its natural due. Position of The town of Falaise, in the Diocese of Seez, is one of the most famous spots both in the earlier and in the later history of Normandy, and none assuredly surpasses it in the striking character of its natural position. Lying on the edge of the great forest of Gouffer, the spot had its natural attractions for a line of princes renowned, even above others of their time, for their devotion to the sports of the field. The town itself lies in a sort of valley between two heights. The great Abbey, a foundation of a later date than the times which we are concerned with, has utterly vanished; but two stately parish churches, one of them dating from the days of Norman independence, bear witness to the ecclesiastical splendour of the place. Passing Historical by them, the traveller gradually ascends to the gate of tions of the the Castle, renowned alike in the wars of the twelfth, the fifteenth, and the sixteenth centuries. A tall round tower still bears the name of the great Talbot, the guardian of 1417-1450. the castle in the great English war, and who afterwards won a still higher fame as the last champion of the ancient freedom of Aquitaine against the encroachments of the Kings of Paris. But this witness of comparatively recent strife is but an excrescence on the original structure. It is the addition made by an English King to one of the

associa

Castle.

1453.

1 For the sieges of Falaise in 1417 and 1450, see Monstrelet, i. 263 and iii. 30 b (ed. Paris 1595). Talbot was not actually present during the defence against the French King.

POSITION OF FALAISE.

175

1175.

name to

noblest works of his Norman forefathers. The Castle where CHAP. VIII. legend fixes the birth of William of Normandy, and where history fixes the famous homage of William of Scotland, is a vast donjon of the eleventh or twelfth century.1 One of the grandest of those massive square keeps which I have The rocks already spoken of as distinguishing the earliest military give its architecture of Normandy crowns the summit of a preci- the town. pitous rock, fronted by another mass of rock wilder still, on which the cannon of England were planted during Henry's siege. To these rocks, these felsen, the spot owes its name of Falaise, one of the many spots in Normandy where the good old Teutonic speech still lingers in local nomenclature, though in this case the Teutonic name has also preserved its permanent being in the general vocabulary of the Romance speech. Between these two rugged heights lies a narrow dell, through which runs a small beck, a tributary of the neighbouring river Ante. The dell is crowded with mills and tanneries, but the mills and tanneries of Falaise have their share in the historic interest of the place. The mills play no inconsiderable part in the records of the Norman Exchequer,3 and the tanneries at The Tanonce suggest the name of the greatest son of Normandy. Falaise. In every form which the story has taken in history or

1 More probably, I think, of the twelfth than of the eleventh. Not that I at all think the building of such a castle to have been impossible in the eleventh century, but because it seems likely that Falaise was one of the castles which were destroyed and rebuilt in the wars of William and his successors. This point is well put by M. Ruprich-Robert, the architect employed by the powers which at present bear rule over Falaise and all Normandy in the "restoration"-that is, of course, the destruction-of this venerable keep. See his "Rapport,” 1864, p. 27.

2 Will. Brit. Philipp. lib. viii. Duchesne, Hist. Franc. Scriptt. v. 183;
"Vicus erat scabrâ circumdatus undique rupe,

Ipsius asperitate loci Falesa vocatus,
Normannæ in medio regionis, cujus in altâ
Turres rupe sedent et moenia, sic ut ad illam
Jactus nemo putet aliquos contingere posse."

3 Stapleton, Roll of the Norman Exchequer, i. xcvi.; ii. cix.

neries of

a Tanner's

English

the birth of William.

CHAP. VIII. legend, the mother of the Conqueror appears as the William daughter of a tanner of Falaise, who plied his unsavoury the son of craft on the spot where it has continued to be plied daughter. through so many ages. The conquered English indeed strove to claim the Norman Duke as their own, by representing his mother as a descendant of their own royal house.1 But even in this version the traditional trade of her father is not forgotten. The daughter of the hero legend of Eadmund disgraced herself by a marriage or an intrigue with her father's tanner, to whom in process of time she bore three daughters. The pair were banished from England, and took refuge on the opposite coast. In the course of their wanderings they came to beg alms at the gate of Duke Richard the Good. The Prince discovered the lofty birth of the mother, and took the whole family into his favour. The youngest daughter became the mistress of his son Robert, and of them sprang the mighty William, great-grandson of Eadmund Ironside no less than of Richard the Fearless.

Such a tale is of course valuable only as illustrating the universal tendency of conquered nations to try to alleviate the shame and grief of conquest by striving to believe that their tyrants are at least their countrymen. The story of William's English origin clearly comes from the same mint as the story in which Egyptian vanity gave out that Kambysês was Egyptian by his maternal origin,2 as the story which saw in Alexander himself a scion of the royal house of Persia. It seems however to preserve one grain of truth in the midst of so much that is mythical. It represents the connexion between Robert and his mistress as having begun before he ascended the ducal throne. There can be little doubt that this was the case, though the story is generally told as if Robert had been already Duke of the

3

1 See Appendix T.

3 Malcolm's History of Persia, i. 70.

2 Herod. iii. 2.

BIRTH OF WILLIAM.

177

Herleva.

Normans at the time of William's birth. But it is more CHAP. VIII. likely that Robert was as yet only Count of the Hiesmois, Story of and, as such, Lord of Falaise, when his eye was first caught by the beauty of Arlette, or rather Herleva, the daughter of Fulbert the Tanner. Some say that he first saw her engaged in the dance,1 others that she was busied in the more homely work of washing linen in the beck which flows by her father's tannery at the foot of the castle.2 The prince, himself a mere stripling, saw and loved her. He sought her of her father, who, after some reluctance, gave up his child to his lord, by the advice, according to one account, of a holy hermit his brother. She was led the same evening to the castle; the poetical chroniclers are rich in details of her behaviour. She became the cherished mistress of Robert, and her empire over his heart was, we are told, not disturbed by any other connexion, lawful or unlawful.5 After the example of former princes, Robert in after times Advanceraised the kinsfolk of his mistress to high honours. Half family. the nobility of Normandy had sprung from the brothers and sisters of Gunnor, so now Fulbert the Tanner, the father of Herleva, was raised to the post of ducal chamberlain, and her brother Walter was placed in some office which in after times gave him close access to the person of his princely nephew. After Robert's death, Herleva Her marriage with obtained an honourable marriage, and became, by her Herlwin of

1 Will. Malms. iii. 229; R. Wend. i. 469. Cf. Chron. Alberici, 1035 (ap. Leibnitz, Accessiones, ii. 66), and Appendix U.

2 Benoît de Ste. More, 31216 et seqq. (vol. ii. p. 555), who becomes rapturous in his description of her beauty. He makes Robert see her on his return from hunting. Local tradition, endowing Robert with a singular gift of discerning beauty at a distance, makes him see her from a window of the castle. 3 Benoît, 31276.

Roman de Rou, 7998; Bromton, 910; Benoit, 31441 et seqq.

See Appendix U.

"Willelmus ex concubinâ Roberti Ducis, nomine

Herleva, Fulberti cubicularii Ducis filiâ, natus."

Will. Gem. vii. 3.

Ord. Vit. 656 D.

ment of her

Conteville.

[blocks in formation]

omens.

CHAP. VIII. husband Herlwin of Conteville,' the mother of two sons who will fill no small space in our history. But her union with the Duke produced but one son, perhaps but one Legends of child.2 That child however was one whose future greatness was, so we are told, prefigured by omens and prodigies from the moment of his birth, and even from the moment of his conception. On the night of her first visit to the castle, Herleva dreamed that a tree arose from her body which overshadowed all Normandy and all England.3 At the moment of his birth, the babe seized the straw on the chamber floor with so vigorous a grasp that all who saw the sight knew that he would become a mighty conqueror, who would never let go anything that he had once laid his hand upon. Leaving tales like these apart, it is certain that William, the bastard son of Robert and Herleva, was born at Falaise, perhaps in the year in which the Great Cnut made his famous pilgrimage to the threshold of the Apostles.5

Birth of William. 1027-1028.

Question of

4

Before Robert undertook the same perilous enterprise, the succes it was clearly needful for him to regulate the succession of the to the Duchy. The reigning prince had no legitimate

sion state

ducal

family.

Robert
Arch-

child, no undoubtedly legitimate brother. The heir, according to modern notions of heirship, was a churchman, Robert Archbishop of Rouen. This Prelate we have already seen in rebellion against his namesake the bishop of Rouen. Duke, probably on account of this very claim to the 989-1037. succession. He was one of those children of Richard the Fearless who were legitimated and made capable of ecclesiastical honours by the tardy marriage of their parents. Indeed, according to one account, the mar

1 Will. Gem. vii. 3. See Appendix U.

3 Roman de Rou, 8021; Will. Malms. iii. 229.
Roman de Rou, 8037; Will. Malms. iii. 229.
See Appendix U.

2 See Appendix U.

See vol. i. p. 464.

« PreviousContinue »