CHAP. VIII. According to one version, the ransom consisted only of gold and silver, the spoil or contribution of the monasteries of his Duchy. Others however assert that it was nothing short of the cession of Bourdeaux and other cities, and an engagement to pay tribute for the rest of his dominions. Three days after this hard bought deliverance, William died. Immediately afterwards, or, according to some accounts, in the course of the year before, Geoffrey married Agnes, the step-mother of his victim, the widow of William's father, William the Fifth or the Great. The marriage was, on some ground or other, branded as incestuous, and it was this imprisonment of William and this marriage with Agnes which, we are told, gave rise in against his some way to Geoffrey's rebellion against his father and to the discord between Fulk and his second wife Hildegardis the mother of Geoffrey. Geoffrey rebels father. 1033. of Odo of Chartres. The imprisonment of William of Aquitaine evidently made a deep impression upon men's minds at the time; but it was the standing war with the house of Chartres which brought Anjou into direct collision with Normandy, and thereby, at a somewhat later time, into connexion Last days with England. The last energies of Odo were mainly directed to objects remote from Anjou, and even from Chartres and Blois. He was one of the party which opposed the succession of King Henry, and in so doing he must have crossed the policy of Henry's great champion Duke Robert. In a war with the King which followed with King Odo was unsuccessful,1 but his mind was now set upon Henry. 1034. greater things. Already Count of Champagne, he aimed at restoring the great frontier state between the Eastern tempt on the King and the Western Franks, at reigning as King of Burgundy, Burgundy. of Lotharingia, perhaps of Italy. After meeting for a 1033. while with some measure of success, he was at last defeated His war His at dom of 1 See the Chronicle in Duchesne, Rer. Franc. Scriptt. iv. 97. 2 REIGN OF GEOFFREY MARTEL. 3 275 His defeat 1037. But the sons of His sons bald. and slain by Duke Gozelo, the father of Godfrey of whom CHAP. VIII. we have already heard,' in a battle near Bar in the Upper and death Lotharingia. His great schemes died with him. His at Bar. sons were only Counts and not Kings, and their father's dominions were divided between them. both brothers obtained settlements in grandson of one of them figures largely in English history. Stephen reigned in Champagne; his son Odo married a sister of the Conqueror, and was one of the objects of his brother-in-law's bounty in England. Theobald inherited Blois and Chartres. His son Stephen married William's daughter Adela, and thereby became father of a King of the English. But at present we have to deal with Count Their wars with King Theobald as a vassal of France at variance with his over- Henry and lord, as a neighbour of Anjou inheriting the hereditary Geoffrey. enmity of his forefathers. Touraine, part of which was already possessed by Geoffrey, and, above all, the metropolitan city of Tours, were ever the great objects of Angevin ambition. It was a stroke of policy on the part of Henry, when he formally deprived the rebel Theobald of that famous city, and bestowed it by a royal grant on the Count of Geoffrey Anjou.5 Geoffrey was not slow to press a claim at once Tours as a fresh and most plausible. He advanced on the city to grant from assert his rights by force. Saint Martin, we are specially imprisons told, favoured the enterprise. The brothers resisted in 1044. 1 See above, p. 97. 4 6 2 See Appendix X. 3 See Appendix U. "Ex volun Fulk (p. 233) describes the cession made by Theobald to Geoffrey, and adds, "Pars autem alia Turonici pagi sibi contigerat possessione paternâ." We have seen that the Counts of Anjou held Amboise and Loches. 5 This grant is distinctly asserted, not only by Fulk (u. s. tate Regis Henrici accepit donum Turonicæ civitatis ab ipso Rege"), but also by R. Glaber (v. 2), followed by Gesta Cons. 256; "Contigit ut.. Rex, ablato ab iisdem dominio Turonicæ urbis, daret illud Gozfredo cognomento Tuditi, filio scilicet Fulconis jam dicti Andegavorum comitis." The Norman writers of course know nothing of all this, and make Geoffrey an unprovoked aggressor. 6 R. Glaber (v. 2) describes Geoffrey's victory and the captivity of with receives Henry, and Theobald. CHAP. VIII. Vain. Stephen was put to flight; Theobald was taken prisoner, and was compelled, like William of Aquitaine, to obtain his freedom by the surrender of the city.1 William helps King Henry Geoffrey. 1048. Both French and Angevin writers agree in describing Geoffrey as taking possession of Tours with the full consent of King Henry. Yet in the first glimpse of Angevin affairs given us by our Norman authorities, the relations between the King of the French and the Count of Anjou are set forth in an exactly opposite light. Geoffrey is engaged in a rebellious war against Henry, and the Duke against of the Normans simply comes to discharge his feudal duty to his lord, and to return the obligation incurred by the King's prompt and effectual help at Val-ès-dunes.2 These two accounts are in no way inconsistent; in the space of four years the relations between the King and so dangerous a vassal as Geoffrey may very well have changed. Henry may well have found that it was not sound policy to foster the growth of one whose blows might easily be extended from Counts to Kings. The campaign which followed is dwelt on at great length by our Norman authorities and is cut significantly short by the Angevins. Personal In its course, we are told, William gained the highest exploits of William. reputation. The troops of Normandy surpassed in number the united contingents of the King and of all his other vassals.3 The Duke's courage and conduct were preTheobald, and adds, "Nulli dubium est, beato Martino auxiliante, qui illum pie invocaverat, suorum inimicorum victorem exstitisse." 1 On the captivity of Theobald, see Fulk, p. 233; Gesta Cons. (largely after R. Glaber), 256; Chronn. Andd. a. 1044, ap. Labbe, i. 276, 287; Will. Pict. 86; Will. Gem. vii. 18; Will. Malms. iii. 231. R. Glaber is also followed by Hugo Flav. (Labbe, i. 186; Pertz, viii. 403). 2 Will. Pict. 82. "Vicissitudinem post hæc ipse Regi fide studiosissimâ reddidit, rogatus ab eo auxilium contra quosdam inimicissimos ei atque potentissimos ad officiendum." This writer is very confused in his chronology of the war, placing the details about Domfront and Alençon at a long distance from this passage, which seems to record the beginning of hostilities. 3 Ib. "Cernebant Francigenæ, quod invidia non cerni vellet, exercitum WILLIAM HELPS HENRY AGAINST GEOFFREY. 277 eminent, and they won him the first place in the King's CHAP. VIII. counsels.1 But on one point Henry had to remonstrate with his valiant ally. He was forced, says the panegyrist, to warn both William himself and the chief Norman leaders against the needless exposure of so precious a life.2 William never shrank from danger at any time of his life, and we may be sure that, at this time of his life especially, he thoroughly enjoyed the practice of war in all its forms. But William's impulses were already under the control of his reason. He knew, no doubt, as well as any man that to plunge himself into needless dangers, and to run the risk of hairbreadth scapes, was no part of the real duty of a prince or a general. But he also knew that it was mainly by exploits of this kind that he must dazzle the minds of his own generation, and so obtain that influence over men which was needful for the great schemes of his life. In any other point of view, one would say that it was unworthy of William's policy to win the reputation of a knight-errant at the expense of making for himself a lasting and dangerous enemy in the Count of Anjou. Maine The undisputed dominions of the two princes nowhere Position of touched each other. But between them lay a country under closely connected both with Normandy and with Anjou, Geoffrey. deductum e Normanniâ solâ regio majorem, omnique collegio, quantum adduxerant vel miserant Comites plurimi." 1 Will. Pict. 83. "Rex ei quam libenter proponebat consultanda, et maxima quæque ad ejus gerebat sententiam, anteponens in perspicientiâ consulti melioris cum omnibus." 2 Ib. "Unicum id redarguebat, quod nimium periculis objectabat se, ac plerumque pugnam quæritabat, decurrens palam cum denis aut paucioribus. Normannos etiam primates obsecrabat, ne committi prælium vel levissimum ante municipium aliquod paterentur; metuens videlicet occasurum virtutem ostentando, in quo regni præsidium firmissimum et ornamentum splendidissimum reponebat." 3 William of Poitiers' explanation of William's rashness (83) is not very clear; "Cæterum quæ velut immoderatam fortitudinis ostentationem multopere dissuadebat Rex atque castigabat, ea nos fervidæ atque animosæ tati aut officio adscribimus." Count 1015. Hugh. 1036. CHAP. VIII. and over which both William and Geoffrey asserted rights. This was the County of Maine, a district which was always said to have formed part of the later acquisitions of Rolf,1 but of which the Norman Dukes had never taken practical possession. The history of the Cenomannian city and province will be more fittingly sketched at another stage of William's career; it is enough to say here that Geoffrey was now practical sovereign of Maine, in the character of protector, guardian, or conqueror of the young Count Hugh, the son of the famous Herbert, surnamed Wake-thedog. William and Geoffrey thus became immediate neighbours, and Geoffrey, with the craft of his house, knew how The fort to strike a blow where William was weakest. Two chief fortresses guarded the frontier between Maine and Norand Alen- mandy. Each commanded its own valley, its own approach into the heart of the Norman territory; each watched over a stream flowing from Norman into Cenomannian ground. These were Domfront towards the western, and Alençon towards the eastern, portion of the frontier. Domfront commanded the region watered by the Mayenne and its tributaries, while Alençon was the key of the valley of the Sarthe, the keeper of the path which led straight to the minster of Seez and to the donjon of Falaise. Of these two strongholds, Alençon stood on Norman, Domfront on Cenomannian soil.3 But Norman writers maintained that resses of Domfront çon. 1 See vol. i. p. 175. 2 Gesta Dom. Ambasiens. ap. D'Achery, iii. 273. "Quidam Comes pernimium juvenis Herbertus, cognomento Erigilans Canem." See Palgrave, iii. 240. 3 One might fancy from the words of William of Jumièges (vii. 18), Cœpit Normanniam rapinis vehementer demoliri, intra Danfrontis castrum seditiosis custodibus immissis," that Domfront was now Norman. But it is clear from William of Poitiers (86) that it was, as a town of Maine, in Geoffrey's possession at the beginning of the war; "Willelmus . . adibat cum exercitu terram Andegavensem, ut reddens talionem primo abalienaret Gaufredo Damfrontum, post reciperit Alentium." So William of Malmesbury (iii. 231), “Damfruntum, quod erat tunc |