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CHAP. VIII. Sarthe, strongly fortified with a ditch and a palisade, divided the Norman from the Cenomannian territory.1

offered to

This bridge now served as a barrier against a Duke of

the Normans attacking his own town from the CenoInsults mannian side. The defenders of the bridge, whether William at Angevins or disaffected Normans, received the Duke Alençon. with the grossest personal insult. They spread out skins

1296.

and leather jerkins, and beat them, shouting, "Hides, hides for the Tanner."2 The Duke of the Normans had acted a merciful and generous part towards the rebels of Val-ès-dunes and Brionne; but the grandson of Fulbert of Falaise could not endure the jeers thus thrown on his descent by the spindle-side. In the eyes of princes, anything like a personal insult, whether offered to themselves or to their belongings, is commonly deemed far more unpardonable than a real injury. The one act of cruelty which stains the reign of our great Edward is the slaughter of the inhabitants of Berwick in revenge for a jesting and not very intelligible ballad sung against him from the walls. So now William swore, according to his fashion,

1 William of Jumièges (vii. 18) merely says, "In quodam municipio trans flumen posito." Wace is much fuller (9440 et seqq.);

"Alençon est sor Sartre asiz,

Iloec devize le païz;

Normanz sunt devers li chastel,
Et ultre l'ewe sunt Mansel."

He then goes on to describe the bridge and its defences.

2 Will. Gem. vii. 18. "Pelles enim et renones ad injuriam Ducis verberaverant, ipsumque pelliciarium despective vocitaverant, eo quod parentes matris ejus pelliciarii exstiterant." So Wace, 9458;

"Willeame unt asez convicié ;

Plusurs feiz li unt hucié;

La pel, la pel al parmentier,

Pur ceo ke à Faleize fu nez,

U peletiers aveit asez;

Li unt cel mestier reprocé,
E par cuntraire è par vilté."

Wace seems to wish to evade the Duke's actual kindred with the professors of the unsavoury craft.

3 Annales Angliæ et Scotia, ap. Riley, Rishanger, p. 373. The words

were

"Kyng Edward, wanne þu havest Berwic, pike pe,
Wanne þu havest geten, dike be."

Cf. Peter Langtoft, ii. 272 (Hearne). Compare Edward's wrath against the

WILLIAM'S CRUELTIES AT ALENÇON.

He kept his word.

285

by the Splendour of God,1 that the men who thus mocked CHAP. VIII. him should be dealt with like a tree whose branches are cut off by the pollarding-knife.2 A vigorous assault was made upon the bridge. Houses were unroofed, and the timbers were thrown into the fosse.3 Fire was set to the mass; the wood was dry, the flame spread, the palisades and gates were burned down, and William was master of the bridge, and with it of the He takes town of Alençon. The castle still held out. The Con- and mutiqueror, faithful to his fearful oath, now gave the first of lates his that long list of instances of indifference to human suffering which have won for him a worse name than many parts of his character really deserve. Thirty-two of the offenders were brought before him; their hands and feet were cut off, and the dismembered limbs were thrown over the walls of the castle, as a speaking menace to its

Londoners at the battle of Lewes on account of the insults which they had offered to his mother. Rishanger (Halliwell), 12, 32. Compare also William's own indignation at the insults offered to him at Exeter (Will. Malms. ii. 248), though he seems to have been in a much less savage mood there than he was at Alençon. In like manner the wrath of Philip an Charles of Burgundy was specially aroused against the people of Dinant on account of the insinuations against the Duchess Isabella thrown out in the cries of the besieged. See Kirk, i. 346, 362, 368. Compare also the indignation of James the Second at the indignities offered to him by the fishermen (Macaulay, i. 569), and that of William the Third at Sir John Fenwick's impertinence to the Queen (Ib. iv. 34).

1 Roman de Rou, 9466;

"Jura par la resplendor Dé,

Co ert suvent sun serement."

2 This very expressive formula comes from Wace, 9468;

"S'il pot cels prendre, malement

Lur sera cel dit achaté :

Des membres serunt esmundé.

3 Roman de Rou, 9477.

Ne porterunt ne pié ne puing,

Ne ne verrunt ne preus ne luing."

4 Will. Gem. vii. 18. "Illusores vero coram omnibus infra Alencium consistentibus manibus privari jussit et pedibus. Nec mora, sicut jusserat, triginta duo debilitati sunt." So Roman de Rou, 9489 et seqq. William of Poitiers is silent altogether both as to the vengeance and as to the insult. Neither subject was perhaps altogether agreeable to a professed panegyrist. But William cuts the whole story of Alençon very short.

the town,

prisoners.

surrenders.

1

CHAP. VIII. defenders. The threat did its work; the garrison surrendered, bargaining only for safety for life and limb.2 Alençon, tower and town, was thus taken so speedily that William's panegyrist says that he might renew the boast of Cæsar, "I came; I saw; I conquered." Leaving a garrison in Alençon, the Duke hastened back to Domfront Domfront, the fame of his conquest and of his cruelty going before him. The man before whom Alençon had fallen, before whom the Hammer of Anjou had fled without striking a blow, had become an enemy too fearful for the men of Domfront to face. They surrendered on terms somewhat more favourable than those which had been granted to the defenders of the castle of Alençon; they were allowed to retain their arms as well as their lives and limbs.5 William entered Domfront, and displayed the banner of Normandy over the donjon." The town henceforth became a standing menace on the side of Normandy against Maine, and it formed, together with Alençon, the main defence of the southern frontier 1 Roman de Rou, 9493;

"El chastel fist li piés geter
Por cels dedenz espoanter."

2 Will. Gem. vii. 18. "Custodes autem castelli tam severam austeritatem Ducis cognoscentes timuerunt, et ne similia paterentur, ilico portas aperuerunt, Ducique castellum reddiderunt, malentes illud reddere quain cum suorum periculo membrorum tam gravia tormenta tolerare." Wace (9500) makes the terms

"Quitement aler s'en porreient;

Salvs lur membres è salvs lur cors."

So William of Malmesbury (iii. 231); “Alentini se dedidere, pacti membrorum salutem." But he had not mentioned the mutilation.

3 Will. Pict. 89. "Oppidum enim naturâ, opere, atque armaturâ munitissimum adeo currente proventu in ejus manum venit ut gloriari his verbis liceret, Veni, Vidi, Vici."

• Ib.

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'Percutit citissime hic rumor Danfrontinos. Diffidentes itaque alius clipeo se liberandos post fugam famosissimi bellatoris Gaufredi Martelli," &c.

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DOMFRONT SURRENDERS.

287

of the Duchy. If William undertook the war to dis- CHAP. VIII. charge his feudal duty towards King Henry, he certainly did not lose the opportunity for permanently strengthening his own dominions. In fact, in our Norman accounts, the King of the French has long ago slipped away from the scene, and the Count of Chartres has vanished along with him. William and Geoffrey remain the only figures in the foreground. The Duke, having secured his frontier, William marched, seemingly without resistance, into the undoubted Ambrières. territory of Maine; he there fortified a castle at Ambrières, and returned in triumph to Rouen.1

fortifies

The men of Alençon had jeered at the grandson of the Tanner; but the sovereign who so sternly chastised their jests was determined to show that the baseness of his mother's origin in no way hindered him from promoting his kinsmen on the mother's side. If one grandson of Fulbert wore the ducal crown of Normandy, another already wore the mitre of Bayeux; and another great promotion, almost equivalent to adoption into the ducal house, was now to be bestowed upon a third. The county William of Mortain-Moritolium in the Diocese of Avranches2-ling; was now held by William, surnamed Warling, son of Malger, a son of Richard the Fearless and Gunnor.3 He his conwas therefore a first cousin of William's father, a descen- the ducal dant of the ducal stock as legitimate as any other branch family. of it. We have not heard his name in the accounts of any

1 Will. Gem. vii. 18; Roman de Rou, 9631.

2 This Moretolium or Moretonium must be carefully distinguished from Mauritania, Moretonia, or Mortagne-en-Perche, in the Diocese of Seez.

3 William of Jumièges (vii. 19) merely calls him "Willelmus cognomento Werlencus, de stirpe Richardi Magni." Orderic (660 B) calls him "Guillelmum cognomento Werlengum, Moritolii Comitem, filium Malgerii Comitis," and Malger appears as an uncle of Duke Robert in Will. Gem. vi. 7. "Willelmus Comes de Mauritonio" signs a charter in Delisle, Preuves 30, which must therefore be older than 1055, the date which Delisle gives.

the War

nexion with

CHAP. VIII. of the former disturbances; but it is clear that he might, like so many others, have felt himself aggrieved by the Robert the accession of the Bastard. Among the knights in Count Bigod. William's service was one, so the story runs, who bore a name hitherto unknown to history, though not unknown to legend and fanciful etymology, but a name which was to become more glorious on English ground than the names of Fitz-Osbern and Montgomery. The sons of Robert the Bigod1 were to rule where Harold now held his Earldom, and his remote descendant was to win a place in English history worthy of Harold himself, as the man who wrested the freedom of England from the greatest of England's later Kings. The patriarch of that great house was now a knight so poor that he craved leave of his lord to leave. his service, and to seek his fortune among his countrymen who were carving out for themselves lordships and principalities in Apulia. The Count bade him stay where he was; within eighty days he, Robert the Bigod, would be able, there in Normandy, to lay his hands on whatever He charges good things it pleased him. In such a speech treason with trea- plainly lurked; and Robert, whether out of duty to his sovereign or in the hope of winning favour with a more powerful master, determined that the matter should come to the ears of the Duke. The Bigod was The Bigod was a kinsman of Richard of Avranches, the son of Thurstan the rebel of

William

son.

1 Will. Gem. vii. 19. “Quidam tiro de familiâ suâ nomine Robertus Bigot." The name Bigod or Bigot, which we have already seen (see above, p. 199) applied as a term of contempt for the Normans, has been connected with Rolf's " English" (see vol. i. p. 608) oath, “Ne se bigoth." Chron. Tur. ap. Duchesne, iii. 360.

2 For the famous dialogue between Edward the First and the Earl Marshal Roger Bigod, see Walter of Hemingburgh, ii. 121 (ed. Hamilton). Could we suppose that the King and the Earl spoke in English, one might see in the King's oath (" Per Deum, Comes, aut ibis aut pendebis") and the Earl's retort (“Per idem juramentum, O Rex, nec ibo nec pendebo") an allusion to the punning derivation of the name Bigod just mentioned. That Edward could speak English easily appears from Walter of Hemingburgh, i. 337.

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