BATTLE OF VAL-ÈS-DUNES. his oath to smite William wherever he found him.1 169 The Duke welcomed the returning penitent, and Ralph rode back to his men. His detachment stood aside for a space till the two hosts were engaged in the thick of the battle. He then watched his opportunity, and made a vigorous charge on the side of the Duke. Such an auspicious reinforcement might well stir up the spirits of the young Duke and his followers. Every man was eager for battle. A fierce combat of cavalry began. We have heard of the infantry of the communes as appearing at the ducal muster, but we hear nothing of them in the battle. We hear nothing of the Norman archers, who were to win so terrible a renown upon a later field. All is one vast tourney; it is a struggle between two companies of mounted knights charging one another with shield, sword, and lance. The first great battle of William, like the first great battle of Alexander, was truly a battle of chivalry in every sense of the word, a hand to hand personal fight between mounted nobles on either side. On pressed the Duke, sword in hand, seeking out the perjured Viscounts, and shouting the war-cry of Normandy, "Dex aie." On the same side rose the shout of "Montjoye-Saint-Denys," the national war-cry of the French Kingdom. From the rebel host arose the names of various local saints, patrons of the castles and churches of the revolted leaders, Saint Sever, Saint Amand, and others of less renown.5 On the rebel left rode the men of the Bessin, on the right those of the Côtentin. The men of the peninsula thus came face to face with the royal troops; the King of the French, as in the old days of Lewis and Harold," had to meet in close fight with the fiercest and most unconquerable warriors of the Norman name. And well and bravely did King Henry do his duty on that one day of his life. Even in the Norman picture, it is around the King, rather than around the Duke, that the main storm of battle is made to centre. The knights now met on each side, lance to lance, 1 Examples of entrapping men to de struction by the literal fulfilment of an oath are common enough. This opposite case may be compared with Aurelian's way of discharging his oath when besieging Tyana; "Canem in hoc oppido non relinquam." The city was taken, and the Emperor slew all the dogs. Vopiscus, Aurelian, 22, 23 (Hist. Aug. ii. 472). 2 Arrian, vi. 11. 9. 'Aλλà πрòs гpaνίκῳ μὲν ξυνέβη μαχὴ ἱππική. iv. 8. II. ἡ ἱππομαχία ἡ ἐπὶ Γρανίκῳ. 3 Roman de Rou, 9074; Des Normanz meine grant compaigne, and, when their lances were shivered, sword to sword. There was no difference of tactics, no contrast between one weapon and another; the fight of Val-ès-dunes was the sheer physical encounter of horse and man, the mere trial of personal strength and personal skill in knightly exercises. The King, as in such a fight any man of common courage could not fail to do, exposed himself freely to danger; but as far as his personal adventures went, the royal share in the battle was somewhat unlucky. Once, if not twice, the King of the French, the over-lord of Normandy, was hurled from his horse by the thrust of a Norman lance. A knight of the Côtentin first overthrew him by a sudden charge. The exploit was long remembered in the rimes of his warlike province,' but the hero of it purchased his renown with his life. The King was unhurt, but the report of such an accident might easily spread confusion among his army. Like more renowned warriors before and after, like Eadmund at Sherstone, like William at Senlac, it was needful that he should show himself to his followers, and wipe out the misfortune by fresh exploits. Henry was therefore soon again in the thickest of the fight; but less fortunate than either Eadmund or William, the like mishap befell him a second time.3 The King presently encountered one of the three great chiefs of the rebellion; another thrust, dealt by the lance of Hamon, again laid Henry on the ground; but a well-timed stroke from a French Knight more than avenged this second overthrow; the Lord of Thorigny was carried off dead on his shield like an old Spartan. The King honoured his valiant adversary, and, by his express order, Hamon was buried with all fitting splendour before the Church of Our Lady at Esquai on the Orne.5 4 The King is thus made decidedly the most prominent figure in the 1 Roman de Rou, 9144; Ki abati le Rei de France." I have found the rime remembered in a Norman cottage, close by the field of Valès-Dunes. 2 See vol. i. p. 260; iii. c. 15. Cf. vol. i. p. 184. William's overthrow was real, though his death was imaginary; in the case of Eadmund all was an invention of Eadric. But the effect on the army would be the same in all three cases. 3 The narrative in the Roman de Rou (9134-9207) clearly implies that Henry was overthrown twice, first by a nameless knight of the Côtentin, secondly by Hamon himself. At the same time there certainly is, as Mr. Taylor (p. 25) says, OVERTHROW OF KING HENRY. I7I picture, and, somewhat inglorious as were Henry's personal experiences that day, it is to him and his Frenchmen that the Norman poet does not scruple to attribute the victory. The fight appears throughout as a fight between Normans and Frenchmen.2 But the Duke of the Normans himself was not idle. If his royal ally was personally unlucky, it was on this day that William began that career of personal success, of good fortune in the mere tug of battle, which, till the clouded evening of his life, was as conspicuous as the higher triumphs of his military genius and his political craft. Men loved to tell how the young Duke slew with his own hand the beloved vassal of Randolf, Hardrez, the choicest warrior of Bayeux; how the veteran champion, in the pride of his might, rode defiant in the front rank; how the Duke rode straight at him, not justing with his lance as in a mimic tourney, but smiting hand to hand with the sword. The poet rises to an almost Homeric flight, when he tells us how William smote the rebel below the chin, how he drove the sharp steel between the throat and the chest, how the body fell beneath his stroke and the soul passed away.* The fortune of the day was now distinctly turning against the rebels; but had all of them displayed equal courage, the issue of the struggle might still have been unfavourable to King and Duke. Neal "Franceiz de tutes parz espeissent, 1 Roman de Rou, 9258; Si tiex les trovast li Reis tos, "Mais ço sai ke li Reis veinki." It is not wonderful that this line should be still more emphatically taken by a French writer (Duchesne, iv. 97); “Anno denique Incarnationis Dominicæ MXLVII. sæpe nominatus Rex Henricus cum tribus tantum millibus armatorum commisit bellum cum xxx. millibus Normannorum, eosque superavit, et venerabilem adolescentem Willelmum, magni Normannorum Principis Roberti filium, eis vi superposuit, quem exhæreditare volebant." So in Abbot Hugh's Chronicle (Pertz, viii. 402); "Willelmus, fraude suorum Normanniâ pulsus, Robertum Francorum expetivit Regem, qui, bello et manu validâ congressus, victis et prostratis Normannis, de traditoribus judicio dato, comitatum ei restituit." 2 Roman de Rou, 9173; "E Franceiz Normans envaïr, E Normanz torner è guenchir." So 9266; Normanz décheient è décreissent." We must remember that all the local feelings of Wace, a native of Jersey and Canon of Bayeux, would be on the side of the rebels, however much they might be balanced by loyalty to the memory of the Great William. 3 Benoît, 33660; "Hardrez uns chevalier hardiz, Preissiez d'armes e concuz." The anatomical precision of Wace These are spirited lines; so is the whole description of the battle; yet how feebly does the Romance of Gaul, even in this its earliest and most vigorous shape, sound beside the native ring of the Ludwigslied and the Song of Maldon. of Saint Saviour still fought among the foremost of the men of his peninsula, but the heart of his accomplice from Bayeux began to fail him. Randolf had seen his most cherished vassal fall by the hand of his young sovereign; his heart quailed lest the like fate should be his own; he feared lest Neal had fled; he feared that he was betrayed to the enemy; he repented that he had ever put on his helmet; it was sad to be taken captive, it was a still worse doom to be slain. The battle ceased to give him any pleasure;1 he gave way before every charge; he wandered in front and in rear; at last he lost heart altogether; he dropped his lance and his shield, he stretched forth his neck,2 and rode for his life. The cowards, we are told, followed him; but Neal still kept up the fight, giving and taking blows till his strength failed him. The French pressed upon him; their numbers increased, the numbers of the Norman lessened; some of his followers had fled, others lay dead and dying around him. At last the mighty lord of the Côtentin saw that all hope was lost. On the rising ground of Saint Lawrence the last blow seems to have been struck. The spot was afterwards marked by a commemorative chapel which was destroyed by the Huguenots in the religious wars. On its site it doubtless was that the valiant Neal at last turned and left the field, seemingly the last man of the whole rebel army. The rout now became general. The example of Randolf drew after it far more followers than the example of Neal. The rebels rode for their lives in small parties, the troops of the King and the Duke following hard upon them, and smiting them from the rear. From the ridge of Saint Lawrence they rode westward, to reach the friendly land of Bayeux; they rode by the Abbey of Fontenay and the quarries of Allemagne; but the flood of the Örne checked their course; men and horses were swept away by the stream, or were slaughtered by the pursuers in the attempt to cross; the mills of Borbillon, we are told, were stopped by the dead bodies.* The victory was a decisive one, and it was one which proved no 66 3 Ib. 9288. "En Béessin volent torner." Ib. 9295-8. In most of our accounts the Orne plays an important part in the destruction of the rebels. Will. Pict. 81. Absorbuit non paucos fluvius Olna equites cum equis." Will. Gem. vii. 17. "Rex cum Duce.. tantâ eos illico strage delevit, ut quos gladius non extinxit, Deo formidinem inferente, fugientes fluvius Olnæ absorberet." Will. Malms. iii. 230. “Multi fluminis Olnæ rapacitate intercepti, quod, in arcto locati, equos ad transvadandos vortices instimularent." VICTORY OF WILLIAM. 2 173 less decisive in its lasting results than it had been as a mere success on the field of battle. King Henry had done his work well and faithfully; he now went back to his own land, and left William to complete the reduction of his revolted subjects. One of them, the original author of the plot, still offered a long and vigorous resistance. Of the conduct of Guy of Burgundy in the field we hear nothing, except an incidental mention of a wound which he received there.1 Indeed, since the appearance of his three great Norman adherents, the Burgundian prince has nearly dropped out of sight. He now reappears, to receive from the Norman writers a vast outpouring of scorn on account of his flight from the field, though it does not appear to have been in any way more shameful than the flight of the mass of his Norman allies. At any rate he was not borne away in the reckless rush of his comrades towards the Orne. He escaped, with a large body of companions, in quite the opposite direction, to his own castle of Brionne on the Risle. There he took up a position of defence, and was speedily followed and besieged by Duke William. The castle of Brionne of those days was not the hillfortress, the shell of a donjon of that or of the next age, which now looks down upon the town and valley beneath. The stronghold of Count Guy had natural defences, but they were defences of another kind. The town itself seems to have been strongly fortified; but the point of defence which was most relied on at Brionne was the fortified hall of stone which stood on an island in the river. William had once brought his own native Falaise to yield to one vigorous assault; but at Brionne, though we are expressly told that the stream was everywhere fordable, the island fortress seems to have been deemed proof against any attacks of this kind. A regular siege alone could reduce it, and William was driven to practise all the devices of the military art of his day against his rebellious cousin. He built a castle, this time doubtless of wood, on each side of the river, and thus cut off the besieged 1 Ord. Vit. 657 B. "Guidonem vulneratum et de bello fugâ elapsum." 2 The only writer, I think, who introduces Guy personally in his account of the war is William of Malmesbury (iii. 230); "Cum his per totam Normanniam grassabatur prædo improbissimus, inani spe ad comitatum illectus." 3"E prœlio lapsus," says William of Jumièges; "vix elapsus," according to William of Malmesbury; while, in William of Poitiers, it rises to " turpissime elapsus." "Cum magno equitatu," says William of Poitiers (81). The description given by William of 6 Poitiers (u. s.) is remarkable; "Brionium contendit. Oppidum hoc, quum loci naturâ, tum opere inexpugnabile videbatur. Nam, præter alia firmamenta, quæ moliri consuevit belli necessitudo, aulam habet lapideam [cf. Orderic, 687 B] arcis usum pugnantibus præbentem, quam fluvius Risela nullo quidem tractu vadi impatiens circumfluit." This seems to show that the town had fortifications of its own; and this again suggests the question, what was the state of the point overhanging the town where the present castle stands? See Appendix S. See above, p. 135. |