RELATIONS BETWEEN NORMANDY AND FRANCE. 3 199 between and friendly. 1031. From this point a new chapter opens in the relations CHAP. VIII. between Normandy and France. We have seen that, ever Relations since the Commendation made by Richard the Fearless to Normandy Hugh the Great,1 the relations between the Norman Princes France and the Dukes and Kings of Paris had been invariably hitherto friendly.2 It was to Norman help that the Parisian 945. dynasty in a great measure owed its rise to royalty; it 987. was to Norman help that the reigning King of the French owed his restoration to his throne. Henry of Paris, made King by the help of Robert, had received Robert's son as his vassal, and had promised to afford him the protection due from a righteous over-lord to a faithful vassal. But we Return to ill-feeling now, from the accession of William, begin to see signs of from the something like a return on the French side to the old state accession of feeling in the days when the Normans were still looked on as heathen intruders, and their Duke was held to be Duke only of the Pirates. We find the French applying contemptuous epithets to the Norman people, and we find the King of the French ready to seize every opportunity for enriching himself at the expense of the Norman Duke. 6 of William. this change of feeling. It is not easy at first sight to explain this return to Causes of a state of things which seemed to have passed away for more than a generation. Still we must not forget that any prince reigning at Paris could hardly fail to look with a grudging eye on the practically independent power which cut him off from the mouth of his own river. The 1 See vol. i. p. 221. 3 Vol. i. pp. 222, 243. See above, p. 187. Roman de Rou, 9907 et seqq. Normans "bigoz 2 Vol. i. p. 245. • Vol. i. p. 465. 6 See vol. i. pp. 163, 190, 253. The great offence was calling the draschiers." The first name has given cause to much controversy; the second is said to mean drinkers of ale, a wholesome witness of their Teutonic descent. But cf. Æsch. Suppl. 930; ἀλλ ἄρσενάς τοι τῆς δε γῆς οἰκήτορας εὑρήσετ', οὐ πίνοντας ἐκ κριθῶν μέθυ. CHAP. VIII. great feudatory at Rouen seemed, in a way in which no other feudatory seemed, to shut up his over-lord in a kind of prison. The wealth and greatness and prosperity of Normandy might seem, both historically and geographically, to be something actually taken away from the possessions of France. This feeling would apply to Normandy in a way in which it did not apply to the other great fiefs of Flanders and Aquitaine. And the feeling would on every ground be stronger in the mind of a King reigning at Paris than in that of a King reigning at Laôn. To a French King at Paris the Normans were the nearest and the most powerful of all neighbours, those whose presence must have made itself far more constantly felt than that of any other power in Gaul. Hitherto this inherent feeling of jealousy had been kept in check by the close hereditary connexion between the two states. The league established between Richard and Hugh had hitherto been kept unbroken by their descendants. But the main original object of that league, mutual support against the Carolingian King at Laôn, had ceased to exist when the Parisian Duke assumed the royal dignity. Since that time, the league could have rested on little more than an hereditary sentiment between the Norman and French princes, a sentiment which probably was never very deeply shared by their subjects on either side. And now that sentiment was giving way to the earlier and more instinctive feeling which pointed out the Rouen Duchy as the natural enemy of the Parisian Kingdom. It had once been convenient to forget, it was now equally convenient to remember, that the original grant to Rolf had been made at the immediate expense, not of the King of Laôn but of the Duke of Paris. Under these changed circumstances, the old feeling, 1 See vol. i. p. 166. The whole feeling between France and Normandy is best summed up in the passage from Wace just referred to, especially the lines, DISPUTE ABOUT TILLIÈRES. tude of about 201 dormant for a time, seems to have again awakened in all CHAP. VIII. its strength. And now that Normandy held out temptations to every aggressor, now that Norman nobles did not scruple to invite aid from any quarter against a prince whose years were the best witness of his innocence, every Ingratifeeling of justice and generosity seems to have vanished King from the mind of King Henry. The King who owed his Henry. Crown to the unbought fidelity of Duke Robert did not scruple to despoil the helpless boy whom his benefactor had entrusted to his protection. The border-fortress of Tillières Dispute formed the first pretext. That famous creation of Richard Tillières. the Good had been raised as a bulwark, not against the King, but against the troublesome Count of Chartres.1 But Odo had found it convenient to surrender the disputed territory of Dreux to the Crown;2 the Arve therefore now became the boundary between Normandy and the royal domain. Tillières was accordingly declared to be a standing menace to Paris, the further existence of which was inconsistent with any friendly relations between King and Duke.3 The loyal party in Normandy thought it better to yield than to expose their young Duke to fresh jeopardy. the actual commander of the fortress was of another mind. Tillières had been entrusted by Duke Robert to Gilbert Gilbert Crispin Crispin, the ancestor of a race by whom, after its restora- besieged in tion to Normandy, the border fortress was held for several generations. He scorned to agree to a surrender which 5 "Sovent les unt medlé al Rei, But A vos ancessors e as nos The feeling is thus represented as being mainly a popular one. 1 See vol. i. p. 455. 2 Art de Vérifier les Dates, ii. 670. 3 Will. Gem. vii. 5. "Duxit se placabilem ei nullo modo fore, quamdiu Tegulense castrum videret in pristino statu persistere." Ib. "Cujus fraudes animi ob salutem pueri vitare cupientes, in fide stantes Normanni decreverunt fieri quod egisse postmodum pœnituit." 5 On the family of Crispin or of Tillières see Stapleton, i. cxx.; ii. xliv. There is a special treatise, "De nobili Crispinorum Genere," which will be Tillières. Tillières surren CHAP. VIII. he looked on as dangerous and disgraceful;1 he shut himself up in the castle with a strong force, and there endured a siege at the hands of the King. Besides his own subjects, Henry had a large body of Normans in the besieging host.2 It is not clear whether these were Normans of the disaffected party, or whether the Duke's own adherents, when they had once pledged themselves to surrender the castle, deemed it expedient to display this excess of zeal against a comrade who had carried his loyalty to the extreme of disobedience. It is certain that it was only in deference dered and to orders given in the Duke's name, and which seem to imply the Duke's personal presence,3 that the gallant Gilbert at last surrendered his trust. The fortress of which Normandy had been so proud was handed over to the French King, and was at once given to the flames, to the sorrow of every true Norman heart. The King pledged himself, as one of the conditions of the surrender, not to restore the fortress for four years. But if the Norman writers may be trusted, he grossly belied his faith. His somewhat unreasonable demand had been granted, and no further provocation seems to have been given on burned. 5 found in Giles's Lanfranc, i. 340. This Gilbert must not be confounded 1 Will. Gem. vii. 5. "Mox ut molestissimum agnovit decretum." 2 Ib. 3 Ib. reddidit." Ib. "Quod [castrum] sub oculis omnium sub maximo dolore cordis confestim igne concremari perspexit." The speedy restoration of the fortress, of which we shall hear directly, shows what is really meant by this burning. That the castle was wholly of wood is inconceivable. But all the wooden appendages, all the roofs, floors, and fittings of the main building, were burned. The principal tower would thus remain dismantled, blackened, perhaps a little damaged in its masonry, but quite fit to be made available again in a short time. 5 Ib. "Sacramenta quæ Duci juraverat ne a quoquam suo in quatuor annis reficerentur, irrita fecit." TREACHEROUS CONDUCT OF KING HENRY. vades and re 203 the Norman side. But now that the protecting fortress CHAP. VIII. was dismantled, Henry ventured on an actual invasion. Henry inHe retired for a while; but he soon returned and crossed Normandy the border. He passed through the County of Hiesmes, stores Tilthe old appanage of Duke Robert; from the valley of the lières. Dive he passed into the valley of the Orne, and burned the Duke's own town of Argentan. He then returned laden with booty, and on his way back, in defiance of his engagements, he restored and garrisoned the dismantled fortress of Tillières.1 The border fortress, so long the cherished defence of Normandy, now became the sharpest thorn in her side. It is impossible to doubt that this devastation of the County of Hiesmes was made by special agreement with the man who was most bound to defend it. The commander of the district was Thurstan surnamed Goz, the son of Ansfrid the Dane.2 In this description, so long after the first occupation of the country, we must recognize a son of a follower of Harold Blaatand,3 not a son of an original companion of Rolf. And a son of a follower of Harold Blaatand must by this time have been a man advanced in life. But neither his age and office, nor his Treason of Scandinavian descent and name, hindered Thurstan from Goz. playing into the hands of the French invaders. Seeing He garrithat the Duke had been thus compelled to yield to the sons Falaise King, Thurstan looked upon the moment as one propitious against the for revolt. He took some of the King's soldiers into his pay, and with their help he garrisoned the castle of Falaise against the Duke.1 1 Will. Gem. vii. 5. Young William's indignation was 2 Ib. vii. 6. "Turstenus cognomento Goz, Ansfridi Dani filius, qui tunc præses Oximensis erat." See vol. i. pp. 186, 190, 216, 233. Without trusting all Dudo's details, there can be no doubt as to the general fact of these later settlements. Will. Gem. vii. 6. "Zelo succensus infidelitatis, regales milites stippendiis conduxit, quos complices ad muniendum Falesiæ castellum, ne inde Thurstan Castle Duke. |
