SIEGE OF ALENÇON. "1 189 a Duke of the Normans attacking his own town from the Cenomannian side. The defenders of the bridge, whether Angevins or disaffected Normans, received the Duke with the grossest personal insult. They spread out skins and leather jerkins, and beat them, shouting, "Hides, hides for the Tanner." 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 (1296) 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, by the Splendour of God,3 that the men who thus mocked him should be dealt with like a tree whose branches are cut off by the pollarding-knife. He kept his word. A vigorous assault was made upon the bridge. Houses were unroofed, and the timbers were thrown into the fosse.5 Fire was set to the mass; the wood was dry, the flame spread, the palisades and gates were burned down, 66 Alençon est sor Sartre asiz, Iloec devize le païz; Normanz sunt devers li chastel, Et ultre l'ewe sunt Mansel." 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 He then goes on to describe the bridge and (Will. Malms. ii. 248), though he seems to its defences. 1 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 ; Li unt cel mestier reprocé, 2 Annales Angliæ et Scotiæ, ap. Riley, Rishanger, p. 373. The words were, "Kyng Edward, wanne þu havest Berwic, pike þe, Wanne þu havest geten, dike pe." Cf. Peter Langtoft, ii. 272 (Hearne). Compare Edward's wrath against the Londoners at the battle of Lewes on account of the have been in a much less savage mood and William was master of the bridge, and with it of the town of Alençon. The castle still held out. The Conqueror, faithful to his fearful oath, now gave the first of 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,1 and the dismembered limbs were thrown over the walls of the castle, as a speaking menace to its defenders.2 The threat did its work; the garrison surrendered, bargaining only for safety for life and limb.3 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, 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. 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 of the Duchy. If William undertook the war to discharge 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 1 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. 2 Roman de Rou, 9493; "El chastel fist li piés geter Por cels dedenz espoanter." 3 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 quam cum suorum periculo membrorum tam gravia tormenta tolerare." Wace (9500) makes the terms 66 '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. 4 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." 5 Ib. 66 Percutit citissime hic rumor Dan- “É li Dus fist sun gonfanon DOMFRONT SURRENDERS. 191 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, marched, seemingly without resistance, into the undoubted territory of Maine; he there fortified a castle at Ambrières, and returned in triumph to Rouen.1 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 of Mortain-Moritolium in the Diocese of Avranches 2. —was now held by William, surnamed Warling, son of Malger, a son of Richard the Fearless and Gunnor.3 He was therefore a first cousin of William's father, a descendant of the ducal stock as legitimate as any other branch of it. We have not heard his name in the accounts of any of the former disturbances; but it is clear that he might, like so many others, have felt himself aggrieved by the accession of the Bastard. Among the knights in Count 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 5 1055, the date which Delisle gives. 4 Will. Gem. vii. 19. "Quidam tiro de familia suâ nomine Robertus Bigot." The name Bigod or Bigot, which we have already seen (see above, p. 132) applied as a term of contempt for the Normans, has been connected with Rolf's "English" (see vol. i. p. 411) oath, "Ne se bigoth." Chron. Tur. ap. Duchesne, iii. 360. 5 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 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 good things it pleased him. In such a speech treason 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 a kinsman of Richard of Avranches, the son of Thurstan the rebel of Falaise,1 and Richard was now high in favour at the court of William. By his means Robert obtained an introduction to the Duke,2 and told him of the treasonable words of the Count of Mortain. William accordingly sent for his cousin, and charged him with plotting against the state. He had, the Duke told him, determined again to disturb the peace of the country, and again to bring about the reign of licence. But while he, Duke William, lived, the peace which Normandy so much needed should, by God's help, never be disturbed again.3 Count William must at once leave the country, and not return to it during the lifetime of his namesake the Duke. The proud Lord of Mortain was thus driven to do what his poor knight had thought of doing. He went to the wars in Apulia in humble guise enough, attended by a single esquire. The Duke at once bestowed the vacant County of Mortain on his halfbrother Robert, the son of Herlwin and Herleva. Of him we shall hear again in the tale of the Conquest of England. Thus, says our informant, did William pluck down the proud kindred of his father and lift up the lowly kindred of his mother.* This affair of William of Mortain is one of which we may well wish for further explanation. We are hardly in a position to judge of the truth or falsehood of the charge brought by Robert the Bigod against his lord.5 We have no statement from the other side; we have no defence from the Count of Mortain; all that we are told is that, when arraigned before the Duke, he neither confessed nor AFFAIR OF WILLIAM OF MORTAIN. 193 denied the charge.1 We need not doubt that William was honestly anxious to preserve his Duchy from internal disturbances. But in this case his justice, if justice it was, fell so sharply and speedily as to look very like interested oppression. It was impossible to avoid the suspicion that William the Warling was sacrificed to the Duke's wish to make a provision for his half-brother. We are not surprised to find that the charge of having despoiled and banished his cousin on frivolous pretences was brought up against William by his enemies in later times, and was not forgotten by historians in the next generation.2 The energy of William had thus, for the time, thoroughly quelled all his foes, and his Duchy seems for some years to have enjoyed as large a share of peace and prosperity as any state could enjoy in those troubled times. The young Duke was at last firmly settled in the ducal seat, and he now began to think of strengthening himself by a marriage into the family of some neighbouring prince. And he seems to have already made up his mind in favour of the woman who retained his love during the remainder of their joint lives, Matilda,3 the daughter of Baldwin, Count of Flanders. He must have been in treaty for her hand very soon after the Angevin war, as the marriage was forbidden by a decree of the Council of Rheims (1049). But the marriage itself did not take place till several years later (1053), and the negotiation opened so many questions, and was connected with so many later events, that I reserve the whole subject of William's marriage for a later chapter." William had to struggle through as many difficulties to obtain undisputed possession of his wife as he had to obtain undisputed possession of either his Duchy or his Kingdom. And he struggled for all three with the same deliberate energy, ever waiting his time, taking advantage of every opportunity, never cast down by any momentary repulse. His struggle for Normandy was now, for the time, over; he had fairly conquered his own Duchy and he had now only to defend it. His struggle for Matilda had already begun; a struggle almost as hard as the other, 1 Will. Gem. vii. 19. "Nec negare potuit, neque intentionem dicti declarare præsumpsit." 2 Ord. Vit. 534 B. "Ipse Guillelmum Guarlengum Moritolii Comitem pro uno verbo exhæredavit et de Neustrià penitus effugavit." This comes in the speech at the famous bride-ale of 1075, but the historian afterwards says in his own person (660 B), "Guillelmum cognomento Werlengum. pro minimis occasionibus de Neustriâ propulsaverat." VOL. II. 3 The grand old Teutonic name of Machthild had by this time become in Latin Mathildis, and in French mouths and in the mouths of Englishmen pronouncing French names, it became Mahtild, Mahault, Molde, Maud, and so forth. The name is familiar to students of Saxon history, and to the students, if there be any, of our own Ethelweard. See his Preface and that of Widukind. See above, p. 72, and vol. iii. c. xii. 5 See vol. iii. Appendix N. |