William of Warenne was now restored to the royal favor, and recovered his earldom. And the duke, having given full satisfaction in all that was demanded of him, was allowed to return to Normandy, a greater object of contempt than ever among his subjects.[48] It can hardly be doubted that from this moment the king had formed a deliberate project of depriving him of his duchy and of reuniting Normandy to England. Step by step Robert was paving the way to his own destruction, while Henry with equal sureness was preparing himself for the final triumph. Whatever prestige the duke had brought back with him from the Crusade must long since have been dissipated. He had failed lamentably in his attempt to gain the English crown, he had failed to oust an ever encroaching enemy from the strongholds of his duchy, he had failed to subdue his most powerful and lawless subject, Robert of Bellême. He had placed no check upon the anarchy of private war, he had wasted his fortune upon base associates and barren enterprises, and he had alienated the Norman church.

Since the duke’s return from the Crusade, government in Normandy seems to have been almost in abeyance. Nothing could more surely have lost Robert the support of the church than the unrestrained anarchy and disorder which prevailed. Yet there were other grounds on which he was found wanting by the clergy. While dissipating his treasure upon unworthy favorites and unscrupulous courtiers, he had few favors to bestow upon religious foundations. Only a single charter by the duke has survived from the period after his return from the Crusade, a grant of a fair and a market in the village of Cheux to the monks of Saint-Étienne of Caen.[49]

But the church had greater and more positive grievances against Robert Curthose. His peace and friendship with Robert of Bellême were an unpardonable offence; and by granting lucrative rights over the bishopric of Séez to this turbulent vassal,[50] the duke had aroused enemies whose influence against him was to prove disastrous in the crisis of 1105. As has already been explained,[51] Serlo, bishop of Séez, and Ralph, abbot of Saint-Martin of Séez, deemed it intolerable longer to endure the oppression of the tyrant; and going into voluntary exile, they sought an asylum in England, where they were warmly welcomed by Henry I.[52] The value which the king attached to the support and services of Abbot Ralph may perhaps be judged by the fact that he was promoted to the see of Rochester in 1108 and made archbishop of Canterbury in 1114; and it is no mere chance that it was Bishop Serlo who was to welcome King Henry and his invading army in Normandy in 1105, and to preach the sermon which was to stand as the public justification of the king’s action in dispossessing his brother of the duchy.[53]

But the duke had sinned further against the church through the practice of simony. A peculiarly flagrant case occurred in 1105 in connection with the abbey of Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives. Upon the death of Abbot Fulk, the duke sold the abbacy for one hundred and forty-five marks of silver to a certain Robert, a wicked monk of Saint-Denis, who like a devouring wolf drove out the monks, built a stronghold in the sacred precincts of the monastery, and garrisoned it with armed retainers whom he hired out of profits derived from the sale of ecclesiastical ornaments belonging to the abbey.[54]

More notorious still, and more fatal to the good name of the duke, was the situation which arose in the bishopric of Lisieux upon the death of Gilbert Maminot in August 1101. At first Ranulf Flambard, the notorious bishop of Durham, succeeded in gaining the vacant see for his brother Fulcher, who, in spite of his illiteracy, had some commendable qualities; and since he lived but a few months after his consecration, no active protest was raised against him.[55] But upon his death, Flambard resorted to a more scandalous measure and obtained the see for his son Thomas, a youth some twelve years of age.[56] The duke invested the boy with the sacred office, at the same time agreeing that, if he should die, another of Flambard’s sons, who was still younger, should succeed to the bishopric.[57] And meanwhile Flambard himself administered the affairs of the see, “not as bishop but as steward.”[58]

So matters stood for some three years, until in 1105 the great canonist and reformer, Ivo of Chartres, intervened, and through his immense influence elevated what had hitherto been but a flagrant local abuse into an affair of something like European importance. He wrote to the Norman bishops demanding that they put an end to such a scandal.[59] Meanwhile, the serious danger in which Robert Curthose stood of losing his duchy brought him for a moment to his senses, and, at the urgent warning of the archbishop of Rouen and of the bishop of Évreux, he had Flambard and his sons ejected from the see, and gave orders for a canonical election.[60] The choice of the clergy fell upon William, archdeacon of Évreux, a worthy man, who went at once to the metropolitan and demanded consecration;[61] and Ivo of Chartres wrote to congratulate the Norman bishops upon having purged the church of the ‘dirty boys’ who had been thrust into the sacred office.[62] But now new complications arose. It so happened that William Bonne-Ame, archbishop of Rouen, was then under sentence of excommunication, and therefore incompetent to install the new bishop elect. Accordingly, the latter wrote Bishop Ivo to inquire whether under the circumstances he might legitimately receive consecration from the suffragans of the excommunicated archbishop. Ivo confessed himself unable to answer the question, and referred the bishop elect to Rome to deal directly with the Holy See.[63]

During this unexpected delay, Flambard executed another ‘tergiversation.’ He induced the duke, in return for a great sum, to confer the bishopric upon one of his clerks, a certain William de Pacy.[64] Again the venerable Ivo wrote to the archbishop of Rouen and the bishop of Évreux to protest against this new introduction of uncleanness into the church which they had so recently purged, and to warn them that unless they acted with vigor to correct this latest abuse, he would bring the “filthy, fetid rumor to the apostolic ears” to their no small disadvantage.[65] The threat was not without avail. William de Pacy was summoned to Rouen to answer before the metropolitan for his conduct, and was able to make no defence. He freely admitted that he had received the bishopric neither by election of clergy and people nor by the free gift of the duke. Judgment upon him, however, was suspended—perhaps because the archbishop was still under sentence of excommunication—and he was sent to Rome, there to be condemned for simony.[66] Bishop Ivo wrote to the Pope setting forth in detail the whole course of the disgraceful business.

But now Ivo of Chartres went a step farther. He had put the full weight of the great moral influence which he exerted in Europe upon the Norman bishops. He had laid the scandal of Lisieux before the Pope. He now turned his gaze across the English Channel. Writing to Robert of Meulan, King Henry’s trusted minister, he again protested against the disgraceful intrusion of Ranulf Flambard into the see of Lisieux. He urged him to use his well known influence with the king to induce him to do whatever he could for the liberation of the oppressed church, lest those who had welcomed Henry’s intervention in the affairs of Normandy, and had predicted that good would come of it, “should willy-nilly change the serenity of their praise into clouds of vituperation.” “For,” said he, “kings are not instituted that they may break the laws, but that, if the destroyers of laws cannot otherwise be corrected, they may strike them down with the sword.”[67] Could even a more scrupulous monarch than Henry I have resisted such a call to arms?[68]

As a returned crusader, Robert Curthose might possibly have looked to the Holy See for some support against his enemies. Indeed, he had done so. Before embarking upon the invasion of England in 1101, he had written to the Pope complaining that Henry had violated his oath in assuming the English crown; and Pascal had felt constrained to write Anselm a mild letter[69] in which he recognized the special obligations of the papacy to one who had labored “in the liberation of the church of Asia.” He asked Anselm to join with the legates he was sending in mediating between the warring brothers, ‘unless peace had already been made between them.’[70] But at best this was only a perfunctory and belated recognition of an inconvenient obligation, and Pascal can hardly have seriously expected to influence the situation in Duke Robert’s favor.

And as time elapsed, the attitude of Pascal did not become more favorable to the duke. In the summer of 1105 the relations between the papacy and Henry I suddenly improved greatly, and from that time rapid progress was made towards a definite settlement of the investiture controversy in England.[71] This removed the last possible consideration which might have induced the Pope to support the duke against the king in Normandy. Moreover, a fragment of Pascal’s correspondence with Robert Curthose, which has recently been brought to light,[72] reveals the fact that at this very time the Pope was engaged in an investiture struggle with the duke. We would gladly know more of this controversy, but this single surviving letter is enough to show that the Pope had complained that, contrary to the law of the church, Robert was performing investitures with staff and ring; that, treating the church not as the spouse of Christ but as a handmaiden, he was giving her over to be ruled by usurping enemies. Probably Pascal referred to the notorious scandals of Lisieux and of Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives. Something also of the duke’s reply may be gathered from the papal letter. Taking his stand upon the rights and customs of his ancestors, he had boldly claimed for himself the right of investiture. This was sound ducal policy, but it would not be accepted in Rome from such a prince as Robert Curthose. It could only serve to complete the breach between the ex-crusader and the Holy See and leave the duke without support in his hour of need.

Meanwhile, in what striking contrast with the weak and blundering policy of Robert Curthose, were the careful, methodical preparations which Henry I was making for the struggle upon which he had determined! With him all was wisdom, foresight, largeness of view, self-control.

The friendly relations between the courts of France and England, established at the beginning of Henry’s reign by the state visit of Louis, the king designate of France, have already been remarked upon.[73] Henry I took good care to preserve and cultivate this diplomatic cordiality during the critical years of his struggle for Normandy. And, as will appear in the sequel, his efforts were abundantly rewarded when Prince Louis officially recognized his conquest of the duchy shortly after it was completed.[74] In the same spirit the king prepared for all eventualities on the side of Flanders. In the archives of the English exchequer there has been preserved an original chirograph of a treaty which he concluded, apparently in 1103, with Count Robert of Flanders.[75] By its terms the count bound himself, in exchange for an annual subsidy of four hundred marks, to furnish the king with a force of a thousand knights—for service in Normandy, among other places, be it noted—and to do his utmost to dissuade the king of France from any attack upon the king of England. Further, as the decisive struggle approached, Henry entered into agreements with the princes of Maine, Anjou, and Brittany for contingents to be furnished from those regions to his army for the conquest of Normandy. The record of the negotiations has not been preserved; but we shall meet with these contingents rendering effective service in the campaigns of 1105 and 1106.[76]

But Henry prepared himself against the duke not only by the careful manipulation of his relations with foreign powers; he spared no effort to undermine him in the duchy. His intervention in the war of the Breteuil succession and the marriage of his daughter Juliana to Eustace of Breteuil have already been alluded to.[77] A similar purpose must have prompted him to arrange the marriage of another of his natural daughters to Rotrou of Mortagne,[78] one of the chief enemies of Robert of Bellême, and an old companion in arms of Robert Curthose on the Crusade. Some hint, at least, of the nature of the pacification which Robert of Meulan was intended to make when he was sent to Normandy as the king’s special agent in 1103 may be gathered from the efforts which he made to procure the liberation of the ‘avaricious usurer,’ John of Meulan.[79] It can hardly be doubted that Henry was making free use of money in the corruption of the duke’s influential subjects and in the upbuilding of an English party in Normandy. And in this policy he was very successful. Not only were important Norman churchmen imploring his aid and working for his intervention; but many great nobles were either openly or secretly deserting the duke and offering their services to the English cause. The movement is well illustrated by the case of Ralph III of Conches. His father, Ralph II, had been among the Norman barons who upon the death of William Rufus had taken up arms and plundered the lands of Robert of Meulan at Beaumont.[80] He was certainly no friend of Henry I. But upon his death, probably in 1102,[81] his son saw new light. Crossing to England, he was cordially welcomed by the king, who granted him his father’s lands and the hand of an English heiress who was connected with the royal family.[82] Such a shining example was not lost upon other Norman barons who now deserted the duke and besought King Henry ‘with tears’ to come to the aid of the suffering church and of their wretched country.[83]

By the beginning of 1104, Henry I had acquired a strong party, both lay and ecclesiastical, in Normandy, which eagerly awaited his coming and stood ready to aid him in the overthrow of Robert Curthose and in the conquest of the duchy. He had never given up Domfront, and he apparently retained possession of certain strongholds in the Cotentin,[84] the treaty of Alton notwithstanding. Upon these he could rely as a secure base while his friends rallied around him after he had landed on Norman soil. Henry’s diplomacy, however, could not remove all enemies from his path, and he sometimes chose to defy them. William of Mortain, earl of Cornwall, had been among the duke’s most powerful supporters against the king in 1101. Yet, for some unexplained reason, he did not suffer the prompt banishment to which the Bellêmes and other traitors were condemned when the crisis of the invasion had passed. The king temporized and kept up at least an appearance of friendship. It is even intimated that in 1104 he sent the earl to Normandy to act on his behalf. However this may be, when William of Mortain arrived in Normandy, he worked against the king rather than for him, and, as a result, was promptly deprived of all his English honors.[85] The duke had gained at least one supporter who would not desert him.

The year 1104 was for Henry I a period of active preparation for an enterprise which he was not yet ready publicly to avow. His trusted agents were busy in Normandy preparing the way with English treasure. Gradually and quietly he was sending men and equipment to reënforce the garrisons of his Norman strongholds.[86] Indeed, if Ordericus Vitalis can be trusted,[87] Henry himself crossed the Channel with a fleet and paid a visit to Domfront and his castles in Normandy in great state, and was welcomed by Robert of Meulan, Richard earl of Chester, Stephen of Aumale, Henry of Eu, Rotrou of Mortagne, Robert Fitz Hamon, Robert de Montfort, Ralph de Mortimer, and many others who held estates in England and were ready to support him in an attack upon the duchy. The list shows strikingly the proportions to which the English party in Normandy had grown. Encouraged by his enthusiastic reception, the king is said to have taken a lofty tone in his dealings with the duke. He summoned him to a conference and lectured him upon his incompetence. Again, as the year before in England, he upbraided him for making peace with Robert of Bellême and for granting to him the domains of the Conqueror, contrary to their agreements. He charged him with abetting highwaymen and brigands, and with dissipating the wealth of his duchy upon the impudent scamps and hangers-on who surrounded him. He declared him neither a real prince nor a shepherd of his people, since he suffered the defenceless population to remain a prey to ravening wolves. This eloquent indictment, we are told, quite overwhelmed the duke. Though he placed the blame for his misdeeds upon his turbulent associates, he craved the king’s pardon and offered to compensate him by surrendering the homage of William of Évreux together with his county and his vassals. Henry accepted the offer, William of Évreux agreed, and a formal transfer of the homage was effected, the duke placing the count’s hands between the hands of the king. And with this reward for his pains, Henry returned to England “before winter,” doubtless more than ever convinced of the weakness of Robert Curthose and of the feasibility of his overthrow and of the conquest of the duchy.[88]

Henry’s visit had given a further shock to the duke’s prestige, and his return to England was followed by a renewed outbreak of anarchy and disorder in the duchy. Robert of Bellême and William of Mortain, in high indignation at the new advantages which the king had gained, began to attack his adherents, and such was the harrying and burning and wholesale murder which ensued that many of the unarmed peasants fled into France with their wives and children.[89] Robert Fitz Hamon, lord of Torigny and Creully, one of the duke’s chief supporters in 1101, had thrown in his lot with the king, and his treason against the duke had been of so black a character as to render him particularly odious among loyal subjects and to arouse intense indignation against him. He now took to plundering the countryside, and as he was harrying the Bessin, Gontier d’Aunay and Reginald of Warenne with the forces from Bayeux and Caen managed to cut him off and surround him in the village of Secqueville. He sought refuge in the church tower, but the sanctuary did not protect him; for the church was burned, and he was taken prisoner. As his captors led him away to Bayeux, they had great difficulty to keep him from the hands of the mob which crowded after them, shouting

Such were the chaotic conditions in Normandy as they are depicted for us in the spring of 1105. Yet we should beware of exaggeration. They may not have been general. Indeed, they probably were not. Our evidence, at best, is but fragmentary, and it rests in the main upon the testimony of Ordericus Vitalis, who was no friend of Robert Curthose, and who dwelt in the debatable region of the south, where the lawless elements were most unbridled, and where the disturbing influence of English aggression had made most headway. Even though we accept at its face value the testimony concerning the diocese of Séez, the Bessin, and the Cotentin, it seems reasonable, in the absence of such evidence for other parts of the duchy, to conclude that conditions elsewhere were almost certainly better.

It is impossible to form anything like a complete picture of the state of the defences of the duchy upon the eve of the English invasion. Robert of Bellême and William of Mortain, by far the most powerful of the duke’s supporters, were still in undisputed possession of their hereditary Norman dominions. Robert d’Estouteville had charge of the duke’s troops and castles in the pays de Caux.[91] Hugh de Nonant was in command at Rouen.[92] His nephew Gontier d’Aunay was charged with the defence of Bayeux;[93] and, apparently, Enguerran, son of Ilbert de Lacy, with that of Caen.[94] Others of the duke’s chief supporters were Reginald of Warenne,[95] brother of the earl of Surrey, and William of Conversano,[96] brother of the late Duchess Sibyl. The ducal forces were evidently too weak to offer effectual resistance in the open. Robert’s hope lay in the strength of his fortresses; and it appears that he made a spirited effort to put them in a state of defence, though his financial resources were near exhaustion. Wace is specific with regard to the works which were undertaken at Caen. In his day, it was still possible to trace one of the great trenches which had been dug

and which was connected with the waters of the Orne. So long as the duke could raise money by laying taxes upon the burgesses, he hired mercenaries, and for the rest he made promises. But his exactions only served to stir up the townsmen against him, without being in any way adequate to keep his forces together. In a steady stream they deserted to the king, and the helpless duke could only remark characteristically:

Meanwhile, Henry I, having fitted out his expedition for the invasion of Normandy, crossed the Channel in Holy Week 1105,[98] and landed without opposition at Barfleur in the Cotentin; and on Easter eve he found quarters in the village of Carentan.[99]

Then, according to the account of Ordericus Vitalis, there followed an amazing piece of acting. The venerable Serlo, bishop of Séez, “first of the Normans to offer his services to the king,” came to Carentan to celebrate Easter in the royal presence. Clothing himself in his sacred vestments, he entered the church. And while he sat awaiting the assembling of the people and of the king’s followers before beginning the service, he observed that the church was filled with all sorts of chests and utensils and various kinds of gear which the peasants had brought in for protection from the war and anarchy which were devastating the Cotentin. It was probably in the main from pillage by the king’s forces that the frightened peasantry were seeking protection,[100] but this fact did not prevent the facile bishop from making the scene before him his point of departure for a ringing appeal to arms, and for a public justification of Henry’s attack upon Normandy. Observing the king with a group of his nobles seated humbly among the peasants’ panniers at the lower end of the church, Serlo heaved a deep sigh for the misery of the people and rose to speak.

The hearts of all the faithful, he said, should mourn for the distresses of the church and for the wretchedness of the people. The Cotentin was laid waste and depopulated. For lack of a governor all Normandy was a prey to thieves and robbers. The church of God, which ought to be a place of prayer, was now, for want of a righteous defender, turned into a storehouse for the peasants’ belongings. There was no room left in which to kneel reverently or to stand devoutly before the Divine Majesty because of the clutter of goods which the helpless rustics for fear of plunderers had brought into the Lord’s house. And so, where government failed, the church had perforce become the refuge of a defenceless people. Yet not even in the church was there security; for that very year, in Serlo’s own diocese of Séez, Robert of Bellême had burned the church of Tournay to the ground, and men and women to the number of forty-five had perished in it. Robert, the king’s brother, did not really possess the duchy or rule his people as a duke who walked in the path of justice. He was an indolent and an abandoned prince, who had made himself subservient to William of Conversano, Hugh de Nonant, and Gontier d’Aunay. He had dissipated the wealth of his fair duchy in vanity and upon trifles. Often he fasted till three in the afternoon for lack of bread. Often he dared not rise from bed and attend mass for want of trousers, stockings, and shoes; for the buffoons and harlots who infested his quarters had carried them off during the night while he lay snoring in drunkenness; and then they impudently boasted that they had robbed the duke. So, the head languishing, the whole body was sick, and a prince without understanding had placed the whole duchy in peril. Let the king arise, therefore, in God’s name, and obtain his paternal inheritance with the sword of justice. Let him snatch his ancestral possessions from the hands of base men. Let him give rein to his righteous anger, as did David of old, not from any worldly desire for territorial aggrandizement, but for the defence of his ‘native soil.’[101]

Moved by this stirring appeal, the king gravely arose. “In the Lord’s name,” he said, “I will rise to this labor for the sake of peace, and with your aid I will seek peace for the church.” Robert of Meulan and other barons present applauded the momentous decision.

And now, behold another wonder! King Henry had become the defender of the church. In order that his virtue might appear the more transcendent, he was now to join the ranks of the reformers of morals. The venerable Serlo, resuming his discourse, proceeded to harangue the king and his suite upon the evils of the outlandish fashions which had recently been taken up in high society, to the great scandal of the clergy and of decent Christians. Like obdurate sons of Belial, the men of fashion had taken to dressing their hair like women and to wearing things like scorpion’s tails at the extremities of their feet, so that they resembled women because of their effeminacy, and serpents by reason of their pointed fangs. This kind of men had been foretold a thousand years before by St. John the Divine, under the figure of locusts. Let the king offer his subjects a laudable example, in order that they might see in his person a model by which to regulate their own.

Again Henry was convinced by episcopal eloquence and readily assented to Serlo’s proposal. The bishop had come prepared. Amid a general consternation which may well be imagined, he drew shears from his wallet and proceeded to crop the royal locks. Robert of Meulan was the next victim to be sacrificed to the bishop’s reforming zeal. And by this time the rest of the royal household and the congregation, anticipating a positive order from the king, began to vie with one another as to which should be shorn first; and soon they were trampling under foot as vile refuse the locks which a few moments before they had cherished as their most precious possessions.[102]

The reader may, perhaps, be left to judge for himself as to the amount of credibility to be attached to the highly colored and obviously strongly prejudiced narrative of Ordericus Vitalis which has here been paraphrased. It clearly has a significance of its own, quite apart from the question of strict historical veracity. The speech of Bishop Serlo, as we have it, is, of course, not his at all, but a literary creation of the monk of Saint-Évroul. Yet it must pretty faithfully represent the contemporary point of view of the Norman clergy and of royal apologists generally. It sets forth the king’s ‘platform,’ to borrow a very modern term, and contains the grounds on which contemporaries attempted to justify what was in reality an unjustifiable act of aggression. Moreover, in spite of much imaginary coloring, there must be a certain residuum of truth in Ordericus’s narrative, which illustrates again in a striking manner the extreme care and almost endless detail with which Henry I prepared his way for the conquest of Normandy. In spite of the mediaeval trappings, there is something almost modern about this elaborate attempt to manipulate public opinion and to crystallize a party. Further, it is not a little significant that the Easter scene at Carentan could have been enacted at all. That Henry should have been able to land an invading army at Barfleur, advance without opposition to an unprotected village, and there delay at will in all security, is a striking proof of the defenceless condition of the duchy. The duke’s sole reliance was in his strongholds. There is no evidence that he had any force assembled to oppose the invader in the open.

King Henry had no need to hurry. While he delayed at Carentan, his supporters in Normandy rallied around him, and his forces gained greatly in strength. His landing at Barfleur had been the signal for further desertions among the duke’s vassals. English gold and silver were all-powerful.[103] Wace says the king had ‘bushels’ of the precious treasure. He carried it about with him in ‘hogsheads’ loaded upon carts, and by its judicious distribution among barons, castellans, and doughty warriors, he readily persuaded them to desert their lord the duke.[104] Meanwhile, Henry sent envoys to King Philip of France,[105] and summoned his allies, Geoffrey Martel and Helias of La Flèche, to join him with their Angevins and Manceaux.[106]

The military events of the campaign which followed are obscure, and can be traced with little chronological certainty. We hear of some sort of hostile encounter at Maromme near Rouen shortly after Easter, but we know nothing about it, save that a certain knight in the service of Robert d’Estouteville was slain.[107] The chief military undertaking of the campaign was undoubtedly the siege of Bayeux. Against Bayeux and its commander, Gontier d’Aunay, the king had a particular grievance because of the capture and imprisonment of his supporter Robert Fitz Hamon.[108] Accordingly, he assembled all his forces, including his allies from Maine and Anjou, and laid siege to Bayeux.[109] Gontier d’Aunay went out to meet him and promptly handed over his prisoner, Robert Fitz Hamon. He declined, however, to make any further concessions, and Henry refused to raise the siege.[110] But the garrison failed to justify the confidence which their commander had placed in them,[111] and, in an assault, Henry managed to fire the city.[112] A high wind carried the flames from roof to roof, and soon the whole place was swept by the conflagration. Bishop Odo’s beautiful cathedral and several other churches, the house of the canons attached to the cathedral, the house of a distinguished citizen named Conan, almost all the buildings in the town, in fact, except a few poor huts, were destroyed. Many of the inhabitants, who in their terror had fled to the cathedral, perished in the flames. The place was given over to be plundered by the Manceaux and the Angevins, and Gontier d’Aunay and many of the garrison were taken captive.[113]

Caen was the next important place to fall into Henry’s hands; but here no siege was necessary. The fate of Bayeux had spread consternation throughout the duchy, and served as a terrible warning of what might be expected, if resistance proved unsuccessful; and the burgesses of Caen had little love for the duke, who had made them feel the weight of his exactions. Accordingly, a conspiracy was formed among certain of the leading citizens, Enguerran de Lacy and the ducal garrison were expelled, and the town was basely surrendered to the English, to the intense indignation of the common people, among whom the duke appears to have been popular.[114] Robert Curthose was himself in Caen at the time, and, learning of the plot at the last moment, he fled headlong to the Hiémois. His attendants, who followed closely after him, were held up at the gate, and his baggage was rifled.[115] In grateful appreciation of this easy conquest, the king conferred the manor of Dallington, in England, upon the wealthy burgesses who had betrayed the second town of Normandy into his hands.[116]

Having gained possession of Bayeux and Caen, the king marched upon the strong castle of Falaise. But at this moment he temporarily lost the powerful support of the count of Maine. “At the request of the Normans,” it is not said of what Normans, Helias of La Flèche withdrew from the contest; and Henry found his forces so weakened that he was obliged to abandon the attack upon Falaise until the following year. Some desultory fighting occurred, however, in which one of the king’s knights, Roger of Gloucester, was mortally wounded by a shaft from a crossbow.[117] Almost simultaneously, apparently, with the operations about Falaise, Robert and Henry attempted to make peace. In the week of Pentecost (21-28 May), they met in conference at the village of Cintheaux near Falaise and endeavored for two days to arrive at an agreement. But the king was prepared to offer no terms which the duke could accept, and the negotiations were broken off.[118]

There was, indeed, no good reason why Henry should have made peace, except to gain time while he reëquipped himself for the completion of the enterprise upon which he had embarked. The sources speak specifically only of the conquest of Bayeux and of Caen during the campaign of 1105. Yet it is certain that the extension of the king’s domination through the influence of English gold and through the voluntary surrender of numerous minor strongholds had gone much further than this.[119] Eadmer, writing of the situation as he himself saw it in Normandy in July 1105, was able to say that almost all Normandy had been subjected to the king. The power of the duke had been reduced to such a point that hardly any one obeyed him or rendered him the respect due to a prince. Almost all the barons spurned his authority and betrayed the fealty which they owed him, while they ran after the king’s gold and silver and surrendered towns and castles on every side.[120] Yet with all his success, Henry was unable to complete the conquest of Normandy in a single campaign. Even hogsheads may be drained, and the method of waging war with gold and silver, as well as with the sword, had been costly. Before completing his task, he found it necessary to return to England and replenish his supplies.[121]

But before returning to England, Henry had a diplomatic problem of great importance to solve. Since 1103 Anselm had been living in exile, and the investiture controversy had been in abeyance. But the archbishop had at last grown restive and had decided to resort to the extreme measure of excommunicating the king. Rumor of the impending sentence spread throughout France, England, and Normandy, and caused not a little uneasiness.[122] In the midst of his struggle for Normandy with Robert Curthose, Henry could not but view this new danger with grave concern; and he never showed to better advantage than in the broad and statesmanlike way in which he met the crisis. Through the mediation of Ivo of Chartres and of the king’s sister, Countess Adela of Blois, a conference was arranged between him and the archbishop, to be held on 22 July at Laigle on the Norman frontier. There he received Anselm with the utmost courtesy, and, since he was in no position to drive matters to a rupture, he showed himself sincerely desirous of arriving at an amicable adjustment. Anselm, too, was disposed to compromise; and they were soon able to agree upon the broad lines of a final settlement of the long controversy. Messengers were despatched to Rome by both the king and the archbishop to secure the ratification of the Holy See.[123] The details of a formal concordat had yet to be arranged; but friendly relations were now completely restored between Henry and Anselm, and the ecclesiastical crisis was averted. In August[124] the king returned to England, “and what he had won in Normandy continued afterwards in peace and obedient to him, except those who dwelt anywhere near Count William of Mortain.”[125]

In point of fact, William of Mortain and Robert of Bellême appear to have been almost the only really powerful barons in Normandy who still supported the duke, and the loyalty even of the Bellême interests could probably have been shaken had the king so desired. Before Christmas Robert of Bellême paid a visit to England and sought an interview with the king. It would be hazardous to infer that he, too, was contemplating a desertion of the ducal cause; but whatever his mission, he failed to accomplish it, and, departing from the king’s Christmas court ‘unreconciled,’ he returned to Normandy.[126]

It was not long before the king had a more important visitor from beyond the sea. Early in 1106 Robert Curthose himself crossed the Channel, and, in an interview with the king at Northampton, besought him to restore the conquests which he had won from him in Normandy.[127] The duke must have felt his situation almost desperate, yet it is difficult to imagine what inducements he expected to offer, or how, in the light of his past experience, he could have dreamed of gaining a concession or any consideration from his unscrupulous brother. Henry could well afford to be obdurate, and he returned a flat refusal to the duke’s demands. Robert withdrew in anger, and returned to his duchy;[128] and Henry wrote immediately to Anselm, who was still in Normandy, announcing his own crossing for 3 May following. It is not quite easy to see why he should have stated in his letter that Robert had parted with him amicably,[129] but the ways of diplomacy are often obscure.

Robert Curthose now knew beyond all question what he had to expect, and, as formerly in the crisis of his struggle with William Rufus, he sought aid from without. If the unsupported statement of William of Malmesbury may be accepted, he appealed to his overlord, the king of France, and to Robert of Flanders in a conference at Rouen;[130] but the far-seeing diplomacy of Henry I had anticipated him,[131] and he was able to obtain no assistance.

Meanwhile, Henry had completed his preparations for a second invasion of Normandy, and “before August”[132] he crossed the Channel. He landed without opposition, but soon afterwards, apparently, an attempt was made to take him in an ambush. Abbot Robert of Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives, the notorious simoniac, entered into a secret compact with the duke and some of his barons at Falaise to betray the king into their hands. Then, while Reginald of Warenne and the younger Robert d’Estouteville, with a considerable body of knights, installed themselves in the fortress which the abbot had constructed within the precincts of his monastery, he paid a visit to the king at Caen and treacherously agreed to surrender the fortress to him, at the same time advising him to come quietly with but a few knights to take it, in order to avoid giving the alarm. But Henry did not ride blindly into the trap that was set for him. Placing himself at the head of a force of seven hundred horse, he came suddenly upon the monastery at daybreak after an all night’s ride; and, as soon as he had apprised himself of the true situation, he launched an instant attack, burned both the monastery and the fortress, and took Reginald of Warenne, Robert d’Estouteville, and many of their men captive. Reënforcements on their way from Falaise saw the conflagration and turned back in flight. The attempted ambush had been turned into a notable royal victory. The treacherous Abbot Robert was also taken. Thrown across a horse ‘like a sack,’ he was brought before the king, who expelled him from the land with the declaration that, if it were not for his sacred orders, he would have him torn limb from limb.[133]

As we have noted, the duke’s power was in the main confined to scattered strongholds such as Falaise and Rouen.[134] Through the open country Henry was able to move about practically at will. He went to Bec and had a cordial interview with Anselm (15 August). Much progress had been made towards the settlement of the investiture controversy since their meeting at Laigle the year before, and they were now completely reconciled. Anselm returned to England disposed to give the king his full support.[135] Every moral obstacle now seemed removed from Henry’s path.[136]

Meanwhile, or soon after,[137] the king began operations against the castle of Tinchebray. Adopting the well known expedient of the siegecraft of the period, he erected a counter fortress against the place, and installed in it Thomas de Saint-Jean with a garrison of knights and foot soldiers. Thereupon William of Mortain, lord of Tinchebray, collected forces which were more than a match for Thomas de Saint-Jean and his men, and threw food and necessary supplies into the stronghold.[138] But by this time the king had been powerfully reënforced with auxiliary troops from Maine and Brittany, under the command of Helias of La Flèche and of Alan Fergant,[139] and he began the siege of Tinchebray in earnest.[140]

Robert Curthose, now reduced to desperate straits, and urged on by the importunity of William of Mortain,[141] decided to stake all on the issue of a battle in the open.[142] Collecting all his forces, he marched upon Tinchebray and challenged the king to raise the siege or prepare for battle.[143] Again, as at Alton in 1101, the two brothers stood facing one another, about to engage in a fratricidal struggle. But again there were negotiations. Certain men of religion, the venerable hermit Vitalis among them, intervened to prevent the conflict.[144] The king, as always, was careful to justify himself before the public eye; and, if we can trust our authority, he offered terms of peace. Protesting loudly that he was actuated by no worldly ambition, but only by a desire to succor the poor and to protect the suffering church, he proposed that the duke surrender to him all the castles in Normandy and the whole financial and judicial administration of the duchy, reserving for himself one half of the revenues. Henry, on his side, would undertake to pay the duke, out of the English treasury, an annual subsidy equal to the other half of the Norman revenues; and, for the future, Robert might revel in feasts and games and all delights, in perfect security and in freedom from all care. Such terms, if indeed they were ever really proposed, were in themselves an insult. And, moreover, the duke had already had bitter experience of Henry’s devotion to treaties. The monk of Saint-Évroul, therefore, becomes quite incredible when he would have us believe that Robert laid these proposals seriously before his council, and insinuates that he was inclined to accede to them. In any case, the duke’s supporters rejected them with violent language, and negotiations were broken off.[145] Both sides now prepared for battle.

The sources are by no means clear, or in perfect accord, as to the exact disposition of the forces in the battle of Tinchebray; but the general plan of the engagement is clear,[146] as is also the very considerable numerical superiority which the king enjoyed.[147] The forces on either side were composed of both mounted knights and foot soldiers;[148] and, so far as it is possible to say from the evidence, they were arranged in columns of successive divisions, called acies, drawn up one behind another.[149] William of Mortain commanded the vanguard of the ducal forces, and Robert of Bellême the rear.[150] It is not clear what position the duke held in the battle formation.[151] Our information as to the disposition of the royal forces is fuller, but confusing. The first division, or acies, was composed in the main of foot soldiers from the Bessin, the Avranchin, and the Cotentin—probably under the command of Ranulf of Bayeux[152]—but they were supported by a considerable body of mounted knights. The second division, under the immediate command of King Henry, was likewise made up of both mounted knights and men fighting on foot, the latter in this case being the king in person and a considerable number of his barons who had dismounted in order to give greater stability to the line.[153] A further division of some sort may have been placed in reserve in the rear.[154] Most important of all, the auxiliary knights from Maine and Brittany, under the command of Helias of La Flèche and Alan Fergant, were stationed on the field at some distance to one side[155] in readiness for a strategic stroke at the proper moment.

The action was opened by William of Mortain, who charged at the head of Robert’s vanguard;[156] and for a time the ducal forces gained a considerable advantage and pushed the royal van back at several points. But they were unable to gain a decision; and while the opposing forces were locked together in a great mêlée of hand-to-hand encounters, the Bretons and the Manceaux charged impetuously from their distant position, and, falling upon the flank of the ducal forces, cut them in two and wrought great havoc among the foot soldiers.[157] Robert of Bellême, seeing which way the battle was going, saved himself by flight; and the forces of the duke thereupon dissolved in a general rout.[158]

Robert Curthose was captured by Waldric, the king’s chancellor, who, though a cleric, had taken his place among the knights in the battle.[159] The Bretons captured William of Mortain and were with some difficulty persuaded to surrender their prize to the king. Robert d’Estouteville, William de Ferrières, William Crispin, Edgar Atheling, and many others were also taken prisoners.[160] Henry pardoned some, including the Atheling, and set them at liberty, but others he kept in confinement for the rest of their lives.[161] A considerable number of the duke’s foot soldiers had been slain, and many more had been captured.[162] But the casualties among the king’s forces had been negligible. “Hardly two” of his men had been killed, while “only one,” Robert de Bonebos, had been wounded.[163] The battle had been joined at about nine o’clock in the morning, probably on the 29th of September[164] 1106. It had lasted “barely an hour,”[165] yet it deserves to rank among the decisive battles of the twelfth century, for it had settled the fate of Normandy and of Robert Curthose.