THE TRUCE RECEIVED IN NORMANDY. 239 We are told that it was most carefully observed;1 but, CHAP. VIII. nearly forty years after, when the long reign of William was drawing towards its end, it had to be again ordained in another Council at Lillebonne, and all the powers of the and LilleState, ecclesiastical and temporal, were called on to help in [1080]. enforcing its observance.2 bonne The men who laboured to put even this small check on the violence of the times are worthy of eternal honour, and it is probable that the institution of the Truce of God really did something for a while to lessen the frightful anarchy into which Normandy had fallen. But we can hardly doubt that a far more effectual check was supplied by the increasing strength of William's government, as he drew nearer to manhood, and more and more fully displayed the stern and vigorous determination of his character. But neither the one nor the other could avail wholly to preserve Normandy for some years to come either from civil war or from foreign invasion. A far Widespread conmore deeply spread conspiracy than any that we have as spiracy yet heard of was now formed against the Duke. We have against now reached one of the great epochs in the life of the 1047. Conqueror; we shall soon have to tell of his first battle and his first victory. Within a few years after the pro dicitur Trevia Dei, et quæ die Mercurii sole occidente incipit, et die Lunæ sole nascente finit, hæc quæ dicam vobis promptissimâ mente dehinc inantea debetis observare. Nullus homo nec femina hominem aut feminam usquam assaliat, nec vulneret, nec occidat, nec castellum, nec burgum, nec villam in hoc spatio quatuor dierum et quinque noctium assaliat nec deprædetur nec capiat, nec ardeat ullo ingenio aut violentiâ aut aliquâ fraude." See Roman de Rou, 10485 et seqq. The church of Sainte Paix at Caen was built to commemorate the event, but Prevost (note to Roman du Rou, ii. 99) places its building in 1061. 1 Will. Pict. 113, Giles. "Sanctissime in Normanniâ observabatur sacramentum Pacis quam Treviam vocant, quod effrænis regionum aliarum iniquitas frequenter temerat." 2 Ord. Vit. 552 A. It was confirmed again for Christendom generally at the Council of Clermont in 1095. Will. Malms. iii. 345. William. CHAP. VIII. clamation of the Truce of God, not this or that isolated Baron, but the whole nobility of the most Norman part and his large pos sessions. of Normandy rose in open revolt against their sovereign. Intrigues The prime mover in the rebellion was Guy of Burgundy.1 of Guy of Burgundy. He had been brought up with the Duke as his friend and His friend- kinsman, and he had received large possessions from his ship with the Duke, bounty. Among other broad lands, he held Vernon, the border fortress on the Seine, so often taken and retaken in the wars between France and Normandy. He held also Brionne, the castle on the Risle, lately the home of William's faithful guardian Count Gilbert.3 But the old jealousy was never lulled to sleep; the sway of the Bastard was insupportable, and, the greater the qualities that William displayed, the more insupportable was it doubtless felt to be. William had now reached manhood. After such a discipline as he had gone through, his nineteen years of life had given him all the caution and experience of a far more advanced age. He was as ready and as able to show himself a born leader of men as Cnut had been at the same time of life. The turbulent spirits of Normandy began to feel that they had found a master; unless a blow were struck in time, the days of anarchy and licence, the days of castle-building and oppression, would soon be over. Guy of Brionne therefore found many lords of the ready listeners, especially among the great lords of the Bessin and true Norman land west of the Dive. He, the lawful heir He plots with the Côtentin. of their Dukes, no bastard, no tanner's grandson, but sprung of a lawful marriage between the princely houses of Burgundy and Normandy, claimed the Duchy as his 1 Will. Pict. 80 (Giles). "Hujus vesaniæ signifer prosiluit Guido." Will. Malms. iii. 230. "Sator discordiarum erat Guido quidam." 2 Will. Pict. u. s. "A puerilibus annis cum ipso familiariter nutritus." Will. Gem. vii. 17. "Crudelem convivam... qui cum eo a puerilibus annis educatus fuerat." Will. Malms. u. s. "Convictus familiaritatem, familiaritas amicitias, paraverat." So Roman de Rou, 8728 et seqq. 3 See above, p. 192. See vol. i. p. 365. GUY OF BURGUNDY CONSPIRES AGAINST WILLIAM. 241 a division right by birth.1 But if the lords of the Bessin and the CHAP. VIII. Côtentin would aid him in dispossessing the Bastard, he Scheme for would willingly share the land with them.2 This most of the Duchy. probably means that he would content himself with the more purely French parts of the Duchy, the original grant to Rolf, and would leave the Barons of the later settlements in the enjoyment of independence. We can thus understand, what at first sight seems puzzling, why the cause of Guy was taken up with such zeal. Otherwise it is hard to see why the chiefs of any part of Normandy, why, above all, the chiefs of this more strictly Scandinavian part, should cast aside a prince who was at any rate a native Norman, in favour of one whose connexion with Normandy was only by the spindle-side, and who must have seemed in their eyes little better than a Frenchman. We can thus also understand the geographical division of GeograWilliam is faith- phical parties during the war which followed. fully supported by the French districts to the east, by Parties; Rouen and the whole land to the right of the These are the districts which the division between and the confederate Lords would have given to the Burgundian prince, and which no doubt armed zealously against any such arrangement. To them the overthrow division of Rouen and Dive. the French Guy lands loyal 1 William, in his autobiography in Orderic (657 A), is made to say, “Ille [Guido] vero verbis et actibus mihi derogavit, me nothum degeneremque et principatu indignum detestatus judicavit et hostiliter diffamavit." Roman de Rou, 8770; to William. CHAP. VIII. of William's authority meant their own handing over to Bayeux a foreign ruler. But by the inhabitants, at any rate by the great lords, of the Lower Normandy, the Scandinavian lands join land, it would seem that the struggle against the ducal and the Danish the rebel lion. Rebel leaders; Neal of power was felt as a struggle for renewed independence. We are told indeed that the sympathies of the mass of the people, even in the Bessin and the Côtentin, lay with William.1 This is quite possible. The peasant revolt may well have left behind it some abiding root of bitterness, bitterness which would show itself far more strongly against the immediate lords of the soil than against the distant sovereign, who is in such cases always looked to as a possible protector. But the great lords of the western districts joined eagerly in the rebellion; and the smaller gentry, willingly or unwillingly, followed their banners. The descendants of the second colony of Rolf, the descendants of the colonists of William Longsword and Harold Blaatand, drew the sword against the domination of those districts which, even a hundred years before, had become French.3 Saxon Bayeux and Danish Coutances rose against Romanized Rouen and Evreux. We know not whether the old speech and the old worship may not still have lingered in some out-of-the-way corners; it is certain that the difference in feeling between the two districts was still living and working, just as the outward difference is still to this day stamped on their inhabitants. The foremost men of western Normandy at once attached themselves to Guy, and joined zealously in his plans. First in the revolt was the Viscount of Coutances, Neal of Saint Saviour, the son of the chief who had, forty-six years 1 Roman de Rou, 8896 et seqq. 2 See vol. i. p. 176. 3 See vol. i. pp. 191, 607. Both Neals bear the title of Viscount of the Côtentin, but others also bore it in their lifetime. See Delisle, Histoire du Château et des Sires de Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte (Valognes, 1867), p. 23. The collection of charters in this work is most valuable. GEOGRAPHICAL DIVISION OF PARTIES. 243 before, beaten back the host of Ethelred.1 The elder Neal CHAP. VIII. had died, full of years, during the days of anarchy,2 and his son was destined to an equally long possession of his honours. In the very heart of his peninsula stood his castle by the Ouve, already consecrated by a small college of Canons, the foundation of his grandfather Roger, soon to give way to his own famous Abbey of Saint Saviour.3 This point formed the natural centre of the whole conspiracy. From that castle, Neal, the ruler of the Côtentin, commanded the whole of that varied region, its rich meads, its hills and valleys, its rocks and marshes, the dreary landes by the great minster of Lessay, the cliffs which look down on the fortress of Cæsar, and which had stood as beacons to guide the sails of Harold Blaatand to the rescue. The Viscount of Saint Saviour now became the chief leader of the rebellion, won over by the promises and gifts of Guy, who did not scruple to rob his mother of her possessions, and to bestow them on his ally. With Neal Randolf, stood Randolf, Viscount of Bayeux, who, from his castle of Brichessart, held the same sway over the Saxons of the 1 See vol. i. p. 300. The three chief conspirators, Neal, Randolf, Will. Pict. 80; Will. and Hamon, are mentioned in various accounts. 2 In 1040 or 1042. Delisle, p. 3. The Abbey was founded by Neal himself in the next year, 1048, according to Neustria Pia, 540. Cotman, Antiquities of Normandy, i. 9. But what seems to be Neal's foundation charter in Delisle (Preuves, p. 42; cf. 55, 59) is placed by him in 1080. * See vol. i. p. 216, for Harold Blaatand's occupation of Cherbourg. 5 This very curious fact comes out in a charter of the Abbey of the Holy Trinity at Caen, printed by Mr. Stapleton in the Archæologia, xxvi. 355. "Adeliza, Ricardi Comitis filia, Ricardi Comitis soror, contra eumdem prædictum fratrem suum, scilicet Robertum Comitem, castrum quid dicitur Hulme in Constantino situm cum omnibus ibidem pertinentibus mercata est. Quod postea Guido filius suus, injuste sibi auferens, dedit illud Nigello Vicecomiti." See also Stapleton, Roll of Exchequer, ii. xxix. The charter bears date in 1075, when Adeliza was still living. Viscount of Bayeux. |