STATE OF THE NORMAN SUCCESSION.

179

riage of Richard and Gunnor was contracted expressly CHAP. VIII. to take away the canonical objections which were raised against the appointment of a bastard to the metropolitan see.1 Archbishop Robert was thus an uncle of Duke Robert and a great-uncle of the child William. Besides his Archbishoprick, he held the County of Evreux as a lay fee. Like the more famous Odo of Bayeux, he drew a marked distinction between his ecclesiastical and his temporal character. As Count of Evreux, he had a wife, Herleva by name,2 and was the father of children of whom we shall hear again in our history. In his latter days, his spiritual character became more prominent; he repented of his misdeeds, gave great alms to the poor, and began the rebuilding of the metropolitan church. There were also two princes whose connexion with the ducal house was by legitimate, though only female, descent. One was Guy Guy of of Burgundy, a nephew of Duke Robert, being grandson of Burgundy; Richard the Good through his daughter Adeliza.4 The other was Robert's cousin, Count Alan of Britanny, the Alan of Britanny; son of Hadwisa daughter of Richard the Fearless. Nearer in blood, but of more doubtful legitimacy, were Robert's own half-brothers, the sons of Richard the Good by Papia. These were the churchman Malger, who afterwards suc- Malger ;

1 Will. Gem. viii. 36.

3

2 Ord. Vit. 566 B. "Conjugem nomine Herlevam ut Comes habuit, ex quâ tres filios Ricardum, Radulfum, et Guillelmum genuit, quibus Ebroicensem comitatum et alios honores amplissimos secundum jus sæculi distribuit."

3 Ib. C. This church was finished by Maurilius in 1063. Ib. 568 B. See Pommeraye, Concilia Ecclesiæ Rotomagensis, p. 73; Bessin, Concilia, p. 49. No part of his building remains. The account of the Archbishops of Rouen in Mabillon (Vet. Anal. ii. 438), written while Robert's church was standing ("Ecclesiam præsentem miro opere et magnitudine ædificare cœpit"), gives him much the same character; "Ante obitum suum, gratiâ Dei præveniente, vitam suam correxit. Feminam enim reliquit, et de hoc ceterisque pravis actibus suis pœnitentiam egit, et sic bono fine, in quantum humana fragilitas capere potest, quievit." 5 See vol. i. p. 454.

See vol. i. p. 460.

date free

tion.

CHAP. VIII. ceeded Archbishop Robert in the see of Rouen,1 and William of William, who held the County and castle of Arques near Arques; Nicholas. Dieppe. There was also the monk Nicholas, the young, and no doubt illegitimate, son of Richard the Third.3 No candi- None of these were promising candidates for the ducal from objec- crown. Robert, the lineal heir, might be looked on as disqualified by his profession; Alan and Guy were strangers, and could claim only through females; the nearer kinsmen were of spurious or doubtful birth, and some of them were liable also to the same objection as Archbishop Robert. Had any strong opposition existed, William of Arques would probably have been found the best card to play; but there was no candidate whose claims were absolutely without cavil; there was none round whom national feeling could instinctively centre; there was none who was clearly marked out, either by birth or by merit, as the natural leader of the Norman people. This state of things must be borne in mind, in order to understand the fact, otherwise so extraordinary, that Robert was able to secure the succession to a son who was at once bastard and minor. There were strong objections against young William; but there were objections equally strong against every other possible Unpopu- candidate. Under these circumstances it was possible for larity of William's William to succeed; but it followed, almost as a matter of succession. course, that the early years of his reign were disturbed by constant rebellions. William's succession was deeply offensive to many of his subjects, especially to that large portion of the Norman nobility who had any kind of connexion with the ducal house. From the time of the child's birth, there can be little doubt that his father's intentions

1 Will. Gem. vii. 7.

2 Will. Gem. u. s.; Will. Malms. iii. 232. William of Malmesbury says "patruus ejus, sed nothus," but William of Jumièges distinctly calls Papia the wife of Richard; "aliam uxorem nomine Papiam duxit." So Chron. Fontanellense, ap. D'Achery, iii. 289; "Papia matrimonio Richardi potita." 3 See vol. i. p. 464.

THE GREAT NORMAN HOUSES.

181

in his favour were at least suspected, and the suspicion CHAP. VIII. may well have given rise to some of the rebellions by which Robert's reign was disturbed.1

Norman

nexion

lish his

tory.

At this stage of our narrative it becomes necessary to The great form some clear conception of the personality and the houses; ancestry of some of the great Norman nobles. Most of their conthem belonged to houses whose fame has not been confined with Engto Normandy. We are now dealing with the fathers of the men, in some cases with the men themselves, who fought round William at Senlac, and among whom he divided the honours and the lands of England. These men became the ancestors of the new nobility of England, and, as their forefathers had changed in Gaul from Northmen into Normans, so, by a happier application of the same law, their sons gradually changed from Normans into Englishmen. Many a name famous in English history, many a name whose sound is as familiar to us as any word of our own Teutonic speech, many a name which has long ceased to suggest any thought of foreign origin, is but the name of some Norman village, whose lord, or perhaps some lowlier inhabitant, followed his Duke to the Conquest of England and shared in the plunder of the conquered. But the names which are most familiar to us as names of English lords and gentlemen of Norman descent belong, for the most part, to a sort of second which first grew into importance on English soil. The great Norman houses whose acts-for the most part whose crimesbecome of paramount importance at the time with which we are now dealing, were mostly worn out in a few generations, and they have left but few direct representatives on either side of the sea.

crop,

High among these great houses, the third in among the original Norman nobility, stood the

1 See vol. i. p. 464.

2 See Palgrave, ii. 536.

CHAP. VIII. of Belesme, whose present head was William, surnamed Talvas. The domains held by his family, partly of the Crown of France, partly of the Duchy of Normandy, might almost put him on a level with princes rather than with ordinary nobles. The possession from which the family took its name lay within the French territory, and was a fief of the French Crown. But, within the Norman Duchy, the Lords of Belesme were masters of the valley bounded by the hills from which the Orne flows in one direction and the Sarthe in another. Close on the French frontier, they held the strong fortress of Alençon, the key of Normandy on that side. They are called Lords of the city of Seez,2 and, at the time of which we are speaking, a member of their house filled its episcopal throne.3 Their domains stretched to Vinoz, a few miles south-east of Falaise, and separated from the town by the forest of Gouffer. Ivo, the first founder of this mighty house, had been one of the faithful guardians of the childhood of Richard the Fearless, and had been enriched by him as the reward of his true service in evil days. But with Ivo the virtue of his race seems to have died out, and his deposed he- scendants appear in Norman and English history as monsters of cruelty and perfidy, whose deeds aroused the horror

Their sup

reditary

wicked

ness.

1 "William Talevaz," according to the Roman de Rou, 8061. "Willelmus Talvacius," Will. Gem. vi. 7.

2 Roman de Rou, 8062. "Ki tint Sez, Belesme, è Vinaz."

3 Ivo, son of the elder William, a Prelate of whom Orderic draws a very favourable picture (469 D), did not scruple to attack and burn his own church, when it had been turned into a fortress by certain turbulent nobles. He tried to repair it, and reconsecrated it; but the walls, having been damaged by the fire, fell down. He was then charged with sacrilege at the Council of Rheims, and defended himself by the necessity of the case. He was bidden by Pope Leo, as a penance, to rebuild the church. He went as far as Apulia, and even as Constantinople, collecting contributions and relics, and he began the work on such a scale that, forty years later, the efforts of his three successors had not enabled them to finish it. Will. Gem. vii. 13-15. No part of his building now remains.

* Will. Gem. viii. 35. See Palgrave, ii. 313, 536.

THE HOUSE OF BELESME.

183

even of that not over scrupulous age. Open robbery and CHAP. VIII. treacherous assassination seem to have been their daily occupations. The second of the line, William of Belesme, had rebelled against Duke Robert, and had defended his fortress of Alençon against him.1 His eldest son Warren murdered a harmless and unsuspecting friend, and was for this crime, so the men of his age said, openly seized and strangled by the fiend. Of his other sons, Fulk, presuming to ravage the ducal territory, was killed in battle; Robert was taken prisoner by the men of Le Mans and was beheaded by way of reprisals for a murder committed by his followers. The surviving heir of the possessions and of the wickedness of his race was his one remaining son William Talvas.2 This man, we are told, being displeased William by the piety and good life of his first wife Hildeburgis, his crimes. hired ruffians to murder her on her way to church.3 At his second wedding-feast he put out the eyes and cut off the nose and ears of an unsuspecting guest. This was William the son of Geroy, one of a house whose name we shall often meet again in connexion with the famous Abbeys of Bec and Saint Evroul. A local war followed, in which William Talvas suffered an inadequate punishment for his crimes in the constant harrying of his lands. At last a more appropriate avenger arose from his own house. The hereditary wickedness of his line passed on to See vol. i. p. 464.

1 Will. Gem. vi. 4. 2 Will. Gem. vi. 7. "Ipse cunctis fratribus suis in omnibus flagitiis deterior fuit, et in ejus seminis hæredibus immoderata nequitia usque hodie viguit." So vii. 10. "Hic a parentum suorum perfidiâ nequaquam sua retorsit vestigia."

3 Ib. vii. 10.

Ib. Orderic (460 D) adds, "amputatis genitalibus." These stories of the extreme wickedness of the house of Belesme are doubtless not without foundation, but one cannot help suspecting exaggeration, especially when we remember that Orderic writes in the interest of the hostile house of Geroy. This particular outrage of William Talvas can hardly be an invention; but it must surely have had some motive which does not appear in our authorities.

Talvas;