Hamon
Dentatus.

CHAP. VIII. Bessin which Neal held over the Danes of the Côtentin.1 In the same company was Hamon, lord of Thorigny, lord too of the steep of Creuilly, where a vast fabric of later times has displaced his ancient donjon, and where the adjoining church bears witness to the splendour and bounty of the generation immediately following his own. Some personal peculiarity entitled him to bear, in the language of our Latin chroniclers, one of the most glorious cognomina of old Rome, and Hamon Dentatus became the forefather of men famous in British as well as in Norman history. One loyal chronicler, in his zeal, speaks of the rebel by the strange name of Antichrist; but, as in the case of Thurstan of Falaise, the stain was wiped out in the next generation. His son, Robert Fitz-Hamon, was destined to set the seal to the work of Offa and of Harold, to press down the yoke for ever upon the necks of the southern Cymry, and to surround his princely fortress of Cardiff with the lowlier castles of his twelve homagers of

Grimbald the land of Morganwg. Hardly less famous was a third

of Plessis.

Baron from the Saxon land, Grimbald of Plessis, whose ancestors and whose descendants have won no renown, but whose own name still remains impressed upon his fortress, and whose sister's son became the forefather of a mighty

1 Roman de Rou, 8938.

2 Ib. 9182;

"Dan As Dens esteit un Normant

De fié è d'homes bien poissant,

Sire esteit de Thorignie
E de Mezi è de Croillie."

On Creuilly church and castle, see Cotman, ii. 91; De Caumont, i. 320.

3 William of Malmesbury introduces him (ii. 230) as "Haimo Dentatus [Dan As Dens], avus Roberti quo nostro tempore in Angliâ multarum possessionum incubator exstitit." Robert died of a wound received at Tinchebrai, 1106 (Will. Malms. v. 398), and his daughter Mabel married the famous Robert Earl of Gloucester (Hist. Nov. i. 3).

4 Benoît, 32, 742;

"Per cel Rannol de Beiesin,

E par Neel de Costentin,

E par Hamun uns Antecriz."

The expression is very strange, but it is so understood by M. Le Cointe (see Appendix W), and I see not what else it can mean.

THE REBEL LEADERS.

245

house in England. Of her stock came William of Albini, CHAP. VIII. who, like the Tudor of later days, won the love of a widowed Queen, and whose name still lives among his works in the fortresses of Arundel and Castle Rising.1 By the help of these men the claims of the Burgundian became widely acknowledged. They swore to support his rights, and to deprive the Bastard of the Duchy which he had invaded, whether by force of arms or by the baser acts of treachery. They put their castles into a state of Preparathorough defence; they stored them for a campaign or the revolt. a siege, and made ready for the most extensive and thoroughly organized revolt which the troubled reign of the young Duke had yet beheld.

4

tions for

to seize

The revolt began, as an earlier revolt had begun,3 with a Attempt treacherous attempt to seize or murder the Duke, in which William at Grimbald seems to have been the immediate agent. The Valognes. opportunity was tempting, as William was now at a point in Neal's own Viscounty, at no great distance from his own castle. He was at Valognes, the old town so rich in Roman remains, and the rich and fanciful outline of whose Gothic cupola is one of the most striking objects in the architecture of the district. Perhaps some scent of the coming danger had reached him, and he had ventured into the enemy's country in order to search out matters for himself. But, in any case, he did not neglect the chosen. amusement to which he and his race were given up, even beyond other men of their time. Several days had been

1

Taylor's Wace, 11. Castle Rising is eminently the castle of dowager Queens, the earlier parts having been built for Adeliza, and the later for Isabella, mother of Edward the Third.

2 Roman de Rou, 8796;

"Issi unt lur chastels garniz

Fossez parcéz, dreciéz paliz."

* See above, p. 195.

See Roman de Rou, 9347 et seqq. For the present story see vv. 8800-8895, and Palgrave, iii. 212.

CHAP. VIII. spent in the employment of William's favourite weapon the bow against either savage or harmless victims. At last William one night, when all his party except his immediate housewarned by hold had left him, while he was yet in his first sleep, Gallet his fool, like his uncle Walter at an earlier stage of

his fool.

2

his life, burst into his room, staff in hand, and aroused

him. If he did not arise and flee for his life, he would
never leave the Côtentin a living man.
The Duke arose,

His escape. half dressed himself in haste, leaped on his horse, seemingly
alone, and rode for his life all that night. A bright moon
guided him, and he pressed on till he reached the estuary
formed by the rivers Ouve and Vire. There the ebbing
tide supplied a ford, which was afterwards known as the
Duke's Way. William crossed in safety, and landed in
the district of Bayeux, near the church of Saint Clement.
He entered the building, and prayed for God's help on his
way. His natural course would now have been to strike
for Bayeux; but the city was in the hands of his enemies;
he determined therefore to keep the line between Bayeux
and the sea, and thus to take his chance of reaching the
loyal districts. As the sun rose, he drew near to the
church and castle of Rye,3 the dwelling-place of a faithful
His recep- vassal named Hubert. The Lord of Rye was standing at
tion by
Hubert of his own gate, between the church and the mound on
Rye.
which his castle was raised. William was still urging
on his foaming horse past the gate; but Hubert knew and

1 Roman de Rou, 8803. "Par li boiz chacié et bersé." "Berser" is explained (Roquefort, Glossaire de la Langue Romaine) by "tirer de l'arc." On William's skill with the bow, see Will. Malms. iii. 279.

2 See above, p. 195.

3 On the church of Rye, parts of which may be as old as this time, see

De Caumont, iii. 572.

4 Roman de Rou, 8846;

"Hubert de Rie ert à sa porte,

Entre li mostier et sa mote,

Guillame vit désaturné

E sun cheval tuit tressué."

Hubert seems to have been an early riser and a good church-goer. On the

"mote" see Appendix S.

WILLIAM'S ESCAPE FROM VALOGNES.

Falaise.

247

stopped his sovereign, and asked the cause of this headlong CHAP. VIII. ride. He heard that the Duke was flying for his life. before his enemies. He welcomed his prince to his house, he set him on a fresh horse, he bade his three sons ride by his side, and never leave him till he was safely lodged in his own castle of Falaise.1 The command of their He reaches father was faithfully executed by his loyal sons. We are not surprised to hear that the house of Rye rose high in William's favour; and we can hardly grudge them their share in the lands of England, when we find that Eudo the son of Hubert, the King's Dapifer and Sheriff of Essex, was not only the founder of the great house of Saint John at Colchester, but won a purer fame as one of the very few Normans in high authority who knew how to win the love and confidence of the conquered English.2

of the re

The Bessin and the Côtentin were now in open rebellion. Progress We are told that men cursed the rebels, and wished well bellion. to the Duke in their hearts. But the revolted Barons had for the time the upper hand. They seized on the ducal revenues within their districts, and robbed and slew many who still clave to their allegiance. The dominion of the male line of Rolf, the very existence of Normandy as an united state, seemed in jeopardy. William did not venture to meet his enemies with the forces of the districts which still remained faithful. He was driven to seek for foreign He seeks help of the aid, and he sought it in a quarter where one would think King of the

1 Roman de Rou, 8860 et seqq. I see no reason to doubt the general truth of the story, but there is a passage in the sequel which sounds mythical. William's pursuers presently ask Hubert which way the Bastard is gone, and he puts them on a wrong scent (vv. 8874). This story is as old as the babyhood of Hermês.

2 On Eudo see Ellis, Introduction to Domesday, i. 415. Orderic (489 C) calls him "Normannici Ducis dapiferum, qui in pago Constantino divitiis et potestate inter Normanniæ proceres eminebat." The good character of Eudo comes from the Colchester History in the Monasticon, iv. 607, which I shall have to refer to again. He married Roberia, daughter of Richard son of Count Gilbert (Ib. 608).

French.

Henry comes to

person.

CHAP. VIII. that nothing short of despair could have led him to dream of seeking for it. He craved help of one who was indeed bound to grant it by every official and by every personal tie, but who had hitherto acted towards William only as a faithless enemy, ready to grasp at any advantage, however mean and treacherous. The Duke of the Normans, driven to such humiliation by the intrigues of an ungrateful kinsman, crossed the French border, and made his suit to his Lord King Henry at Poissy. He met with favour in the his help in eyes of his suzerain; a French army, with the King at its head, was soon ready to march to the support of Duke William against his rebels. It is hard to see why Henry, whose whole earlier and later conduct is of so opposite a kind, stood forth for this once faithfully to discharge the duties of an honourable over-lord towards an injured vassal. One would have thought that a revolt which, above all others, tended to the dismemberment of Normandy would have been hailed by Henry as exactly falling in with the interests of the suzerain power. Instead of the one strong and united state which had hitherto cut him off from the whole coast from Britanny to Ponthieu, there was now a chance of the establishment of two or three small principalities, each insignificant in itself, and all probably hostile

His

probable motives.

1 We learn the place of meeting from Orderic (372 A); "Unde coactus juvenis Dux Pexeium convolavit, ibique pronus ad pedes Henrici Regis corruit, et ab eo contra malefidos proceres et cognatos auxilium petivit." So Roman de Rou, 8942;

"Par pleintes ke Willame fist,

E par paroles ke il dist,

Fist li Reis asembler son ost."

Other writers are less eager to set forth William's humiliation. William of Jumièges (vii. 17) says, "Necessitate coactus Henricum Francorum Regem expetiit pro subveniendi obtentu." The Brevis Relatio (ap. Giles, Scriptt. 3) says simply, "Contulit se ad Regem Francia." William of Poitiers (81) slurs over William's application to the King, and takes no further notice of Henry's share in the campaign, beyond adding, after his account of the battle, "Interfuit huic prælio Franciæ Rex Henricus, victrici caussæ auxilians.'