The treaty does not apply to Flambard. To some of the most dangerous traitors of all the provisions of the late treaty did not apply. The Bishop of Durham had lost nothing in the cause of Duke Robert. He had been imprisoned, and his temporalities had been seized, on the ground of his old offences, before Robert’s claims had been heard of. He had no claims to restoration, nor did he as yet find any favour. Death of Gilbert Bishop of Lisieux. August, 1101. He went back to Normandy, and there, in his banishment to his native land, he found means to provide for himself at the cost of one of its bishoprics. Gilbert Maminot, the skilful leech whom the Conqueror had placed in the see of Lisieux,[1051] died in August, while Duke Robert was in England. Fulcher, Flambard’s brother, holds the see. June 1102-January 1103. The see was not filled till the next June, when it was given to Flambard’s brother Fulcher, who was consecrated and held the bishopric with a good reputation for liberality till his death seven months later. Then Flambard caused the see to be bestowed on a young son of his own, Thomas by name. As far as a not very intelligible account can be made out, Thomas remained unconsecrated, while his father received the revenues. Flambard receives the revenues under cover of his son. It was not till after Henry’s conquest of Normandy that a more regular appointment to the bishopric was made.[1052]

Banishment of the Earl of Surrey. Earl William of Warren too paid the penalty of rebellion, rebellion aggravated by personal gibes against the King. If our accounts are correct, he was disinherited so soon that he went away to Normandy in company with Duke Robert. He is said to have had other companions in the same case.[1053] He was afterwards restored at Robert’s intercession; but the chronology is confused, and we may guess that his fall did not happen quite so soon as is said. If he did suffer forfeiture directly after the treaty, it must have been on some other ground, and not that of taking Robert’s side during the quarrel, which would have been covered by the treaty. On Earl William chastisement had a good effect; His restoration. he came back to be a loyal subject and special friend of King Henry during the rest of his reign.[1054]

Henry’s rewards and punishments. Other dangerous persons were got rid of one by one, as occasion served. Henry rewarded bountifully all who served him faithfully; but no enemy escaped him; no traitor avoided forfeiture or heavy fines.[1055] Forfeiture came before long on some men who were, after the earls, among the greatest of the men of Norman birth in England. Banishment of Robert Malet; of Robert of Pontefract. Such was Robert Malet, son of the gossip of King Harold, a man great in the east of England. Such was one equally great in the north, Robert of Pontefract, the son of Ilbert of Lacy. Charges were brought against them in the King’s court, and forfeiture and banishment followed.[1056] In another case we know the exact nature of the charge, nor can we condemn the punishment, except so far as it was turned to the private advantage of a favourite. Private war unlawful in England. It was our boast in England that we needed not the Truce of God, that, alike before and after King William came into England, private war, the dearest privilege of the continental noble, was always a crime against the law.[1057] Ivo of Grantmesnil harries his neighbours’ lands. But now Ivo of Grantmesnil, the rope-dancer of Antioch, took upon him to bring the licence of Normandy into England, and to lay waste the lands of some of his neighbours. This was a deed which could not be passed by in the days of the King who had come to make peace in the land. His trial, and conviction. A trial, and a huge fine on conviction, followed.[1058] Ivo, on the verge of ruin, betook himself to Count Robert of Meulan. He asks help of Robert of Meulan. Bargain between them. Let the Count reconcile him to the King, and he would again go to the crusade, and try to wipe out the shame of his former pilgrimage.[1059] A bargain was struck; Count Robert was to give Ivo five hundred marks towards his journey to Palestine, and was in return to take possession of all Ivo’s lands for fifteen years. Then they were to go back to his son Ivo, now a child, who was to marry the Count’s niece, the daughter of the Earl of Warwick.[1060] The elder Ivo went on his second crusade with his wife, the daughter of Gilbert of Ghent, and died on his pilgrimage. With him ended the short-lived greatness of the house of Grantmesnil in England. The inheritance of his father and grandfather passed away from the younger Ivo to swell the fortunes of the chief counsellor of the King.[1061]

Origin of the earldom of Leicester. The subtlety of the Count of Meulan was famous, and it enabled him to change his fifteen years’ possession of the lands of Ivo of Grantmesnil into a great hereditary earldom. A chief part of Ivo’s position came from his relations to the town of Leicester. Ivo’s relations with Leicester. He had succeeded his father as Sheriff of the shire and farmer of the royal revenues. He was also castellan of the fortress above the Soar, the fortress which the elder Eadmund won back for England and for Christendom,[1062] where a mound older than Æthelflæd[1063] looks down on the church of Robert of Meulan and the hall of Simon the Righteous. Other lords in Leicester. But the lordship of the house of Grantmesnil over the old Danish borough was not complete; besides the King and the Bishop of Lincoln, some rights in Leicester belonged to Earl Simon of Northampton.[1064] Robert Earl of Leicester. 1103. The cunning Count of Meulan contrived to unite all claims in himself, and became the first of the Earls of Leicester,[1065] that title which has passed to so many names, and which has drawn to itself alike the glory of a Montfort and the shame of a Dudley. Dies, 1118. Earl Robert kept his office and his prosperity for the remaining fifteen years of his life, and then died, fifty-two years after the great battle, with the wrongs of Ivo of Grantmesnil upon his conscience.[1066] Married, as we have seen, somewhat late in life,[1067] he was the father of two sons, both of whom were brought up with such care that they could, while still young, hold logical disputations with cardinals.[1068] Of these brothers, Robert, the elder, became a prosperous Earl of Leicester in England, while his brother Waleran became an unlucky Count of Meulan beyond the sea.[1069] Of one of his daughters we have already heard as helping to swell the irregular household of King Henry.[1070] The Earl himself remained the King’s counsellor, keeping on friendly terms with Anselm, while cleaving steadfastly to the ancient law of England in the matter of investitures.[1071] He too was an ecclesiastical benefactor, though on no very great scale. His college at Leicester. 1107. He founded or restored a college of canons within the castle of Leicester, where the small church of his building may still be seen embedded in the greater fabric into which it has grown.[1072] Its endowments transferred to Leicester abbey. 1143. But the greater part of its endowments were taken by the second Earl Robert to enrich the abbey of our Lady of his own foundation, the abbey where a more famous cardinal than those with whom its founder had disputed 1530. came to lay his bones.[1073]

Christmas Gemót. 1101–1102. King Henry had thus overthrown several of his open or secret enemies, and he doubtless wore his crown at the Christmas Gemót at Westminster with a greater feeling of safety. But the greatest work of all had still to be done. There was still one man in England whose presence was utterly inconsistent with the rule of any king whose mind was to give peace to his kingdom. Danger from Robert of Bellême. Peace, in Henry’s sense of the word, could not be in a land where Robert of Bellême was, to say the least, the mightiest man after the King. Henry knew his man; he knew that, sooner or later, the struggle must come between himself and such a subject. The King watches him. For a whole year he kept his eye upon the Earl of Shropshire and all his doings. Spies sent from the King watched all that he did; every blameworthy act was carefully reported and set down in writing.[1074] A bulky volume, one would think, must have been added to the library of the learned King. At last the moment came when Henry thought that it was time to act, and the form of action which he took was one which followed more than one precedent in earlier reigns. Easter Gemót. April 6, 1102. The Easter Gemót was to be held at Winchester. The King summoned Earl Robert to appear before the Assembly, and to answer openly on forty-five distinct charges of offences done either against the King or against his brother the Duke.[1075] Robert asks a licence to be accompanied by his men. We do not read that Robert, like others in the like case on earlier occasions, demanded a safe-conduct to go and to return; but we do read that he demanded—​and it is implied that the demand was an usual one—​a licence to come accompanied by his men. The licence is given. They were to serve, we may suppose, either as compurgators or as defenders by the strong hand, as things might turn out.[1076] The demand was granted; Earl Roger set forth; the King and his barons were waiting for his coming at Winchester; but he came not. Robert does not come. On the road he changed his mind; he knew that the result of any legal trial must be against him; he deemed, and doubtless with truth, that he would be safer in his own strong castles than he could be in the King’s court. He fled, we are told, breathless and afraid, a description which does not savour much of the fierce lord of Bellême. But at any rate the King’s messenger had to report that the Earl of Shropshire had gone elsewhere, and was not on his way to obey the King’s summons.[1077] The King’s proclamation. Henry did not hurry; he put forth a proclamation, declaring that the Earl, lawfully charged with various crimes, had not come to make his defence, and that, if he did not come at once to do right—​to abide his trial—​he would be declared an outlaw.[1078] He again summons Robert, who refuses to come. Along with the issue of the public proclamation, the King, clearly anxious to give no occasion for any man to say that the Earl had been harshly or informally treated, sent him a second personal summons to appear before the Assembly. This time Robert directly refused to come,[1079] and open war broke out. The war begins. The work of King Henry, as we have already heard, was to destroy the ungodly within his kingdom.[1080] He had to begin by doing that useful work on an offender whose ungodliness was on the grandest scale of all.

Greatness of Robert’s possessions. The overweening greatness of the house of Montgomery or Bellême, and the personal energy of its members, is shown in the range both of warfare and of negotiation which was opened by what was in its beginning a mere legal process on the part of the King of the English against an offending subject. We must always remember that, whatever Robert was at Shrewsbury or at Montgomery, at Bellême he was something more than an ordinary vassal of either king or duke. His acquisition of Ponthieu. He had lately increased his continental power by taking possession of the county of Ponthieu, the inheritance of his son, who bore the name of his own maternal grandfather, the terrible William Talvas.[1081] The Earl of Shrewsbury was thus entitled to deal with princes as one of their own order. His brothers Arnulf and Roger. He and the two best known of his brothers, those whom we have already seen leagued with him, Arnulf of Montgomery, lord of Pembroke, and Roger of Poitou, once lord of the land between Mersey and Ribble, were now again firmly joined together against the King.[1082] Wide range of warfare and negotiation. And they contrived to draw no small part of Northern Europe into a partnership in their private quarrel. That Robert of Bellême should be able to get together a large body of Welsh allies is in no way wonderful. He was indeed the sternest enemy of their nation; Welsh alliance of Robert. but, among that divided people, enmity on the part of one tribe or dynasty was a claim to support on the part of another, and all tribes and dynasties forgot every enmity and every wrong when there was a chance of harrying the fields and homes of the Saxon. Welsh allies of the rebel Earl play an important part in the story, and the more distant powers of Ireland and Norway are also brought within its page.

Just at this time the Welsh seem to have been stronger and more united than usual. We have seen that their momentary subjugation after the death of Earl Hugh of Shropshire had led to a successful movement while his successor was busy on the continent.[1083] Revolt in Gwynedd. The men of Gwynedd could not bear Norman rule; whether it took the form of law or of unlaw, it was equally against the grain. Their leader now was Owen son of Edwin, who, we are told, had been the first to bring the French into Mona.[1084] Settlement of Gruffydd and of Cadwgan and his brothers. This was before the end of the year of Earl Hugh’s death; it was in the next year that Cadwgan and Gruffydd came back from their Irish shelter.[1085] The phrase of the Welsh writer, that they came to terms with “the French,” must be understood as referring to their relations with Robert of Bellême. Cadwgan kept Ceredigion and a part of Powys, for which he and his brothers Jorwerth and Meredydd became the men of the Earl of Shropshire. Gruffydd seems to have held Anglesey as a wholly independent prince; there is at least no mention of vassalage in his case.[1086] Robert calls on the Welsh for help; Earl Robert now called on his British vassals to help him in his struggle with the King. As there is no sign that they had become the men either of King Henry or of any earlier king, the law of Salisbury did not apply to them. his gifts and promises. The promises of Robert of Bellême were splendid; so were his gifts; he almost seems to have won the help of the Britons by a promised restoration of complete freedom to their country.[1087] In the allies thus drawn to his banners he professed the most boundless trust. He put into their hands—​so the Welsh writer tells us—​his wealth and his cattle, perhaps also, what a Norman lord would specially value, the horses of noble breed which he had brought over from Spain, and whose race flourished in the land of Powys long after.[1088] A great and motley host was thus got together, which entered zealously into the cause of the Earl, and did not pass by so good an opportunity of finding great spoil.[1089]

Arnulf’s dealings with Murtagh. Meanwhile the Earl’s brother Arnulf at once strengthened the castle of Pembroke and looked further for allies than the land of Ceredigion and Powys. By the hands of his steward at Pembroke, Gerald of Windsor, he sent to Ireland to King Murtagh, to ask for the king’s daughter in marriage and for help in the struggle.[1090] Negotiation with Magnus. From what followed, and from the connexion between Murtagh and Magnus, we can hardly doubt that the negotiations of Arnulf reached to Norway as well as to Ireland, and that Magnus himself was a party to the course which was at once followed by Murtagh. Murtagh sends his daughter to Arnulf. The Irish king promised his daughter to the lord of Pembroke, in some sort his neighbour, and actually sent her to her affianced husband on board a great fleet designed to support the rebel cause.[1091]

King Henry had thus plenty of foes to strive against in his work of bringing back the reign of law and order in his kingdom. Henry’s negotiation with Duke Robert. But he too could negotiate beyond sea; he could stir up a diversion against the Count of Bellême and Ponthieu, which might do something to weaken the power of the Earl of Shropshire and lord of Arundel. The King sent letters to his brother Duke Robert, setting forth how Earl Robert had incurred forfeiture in the dominions of both of them, and how he had treasonably refused to appear in the general Assembly of England. He called on his brother to do as he was doing himself, and to smite the man who was a traitor to both his lords with the vengeance that was his due.[1092] The Duke attempted something after his fashion, that is his fashion in Normandy and not his fashion in Syria. The man who had been foremost in the crusading host had on his native soil sunk again into the feeble and half-hearted ruler whom we knew of old. Duke Robert besieges Vignats. Yet he did make an attempt to subdue the castles which held out for Robert of Bellême in the land of Hiesmes. He laid siege to Vignats, a castle lying south-east of Falaise, on a height looking to the north, not far from one of the tributaries of the Dive. It was an old possession of the house of Talvas, and in the next generation it became the site of an abbey of Benedictine nuns.[1093] It was now held on behalf of Robert of Bellême by a captain named Gerard of Saint Hilary. The garrison, if their state of mind is rightly described, wished the besiegers to make a fierce assault that they might have an excuse for surrendering without dishonour.[1094] But, under the generalship of Duke Robert on Norman ground, no fierce assault followed. Treason of Robert of Montfort and others. There were even traitors in the Duke’s camp. Robert of the Norman Montfort, whom we have heard of in the wars of Maine,[1095] and other lords in the Duke’s army, being, it would seem, in league with the rebels, burned their quarters and fled, no man pursuing them. They even constrained the loyal part of the army to flee with them.[1096] Victory of the besieged. It was not wonderful then that the garrison of Vignats plucked up heart, made a vigorous sally, and chased the voluntary fliers with loud shouts.[1097] A war followed, in which the whole land of Hiesmes was laid waste. Not only Vignats, but Fourches, Argentan, and Château-Gonthier further down the river, were all held by the rebels. Ravage of the Hiesmes. The loyal lords on both sides of the Oudon, Robert of Grantmesnil, the other son of the old Sheriff of Leicestershire, his brother-in-law Hugh of Mont-Pizon, and his other brother-in-law, Robert of Courcy, strove in vain to defend their lands. But the rebels were too strong for them, and the whole of that district of Normandy was laid waste with havoc of every kind.[1098]

Robert of Bellême strengthens his castles. Works at Bridgenorth. King Henry managed matters better in his island. The rebel Earl put all his castles in a state of defence. Arundel, Shrewsbury, and Tickhill, were all garrisoned, all supplied with provisions. So too was the Castle by the Bridge, where, as well as at Careghova, the works, still, it would seem, not wholly finished, were pressed on by day and night.[1099] The King’s plans. The King had to choose which fortress he would attack first. His plan seems to have been first to cut off Robert’s outlying possessions, before he made any attack on the strongholds of his power on the Welsh border. He besieges Arundel. And, first of all, he led his force—​the host of England it is emphatically called—​to the siege of the Earl’s great South-Saxon castle, that which lay open to the chance of help from the supporters of the rebel cause in Normandy.[1100] The King marched to Arundel; he set up, after the usual fashion, two evil neighbours to keep the fortress in check.[1101] He then gave part of his army leave of absence while the work of blockade went on.[1102] Truce with the besieged. The zeal of the defenders of Arundel in the cause of their rebel lord does not seem to have been strong; but they had a keen sense either of the honour of soldiers or of the duty of vassals. This last, to be sure, was a mistaken sense, according to the laws of England, above all according to the great law of Salisbury. They craved a truce, during which they might ask Earl Robert either to send them help or to give them leave to surrender. Robert was far away in his Mercian earldom, busy on two works. Robert and Arnulf harry Staffordshire. The defences of Bridgenorth were strengthening day by day, and Robert and Arnulf, at the head of their Gal-Welsh and Bret-Welsh forces—​it is significantly hinted that Englishmen had no share in the evil work—​were harrying the neighbouring parts of Staffordshire. A great booty of cattle, and some human captives, were carried off into Wales, the price of the help given by Cadwgan and his brother.[1103] The messengers from Arundel found their lord at some stage of these employments, and set forth to him the danger in which they stood from the King’s leaguer. Terms of the surrender of Arundel. Mournful, but feeling himself unable to send help to so distant a post, Robert of Bellême gave his garrison of Arundel full leave to make what terms they could with the King.[1104] They surrendered at once and with great joy; but they honourably stipulated that their lord Earl Robert should be allowed to go safe into Normandy. The King received them graciously and rewarded them with rich gifts.[1105] Arundel passed into the royal hands, to become in the next reign the seat of a more abiding earldom in the hands of the famous houses of Aubigny and Fitzalan, and to pass through them to the more modern, but perhaps more English, line of Howard.[1106]

The surrender of Arundel took away all fear lest any help should come to Robert of Bellême from his Norman partisans. But before the King made any movement towards the lands on the Severn, he marched far to the north-east, to the lands watered by the tributaries of the northern Ouse, on the borders of Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire. Surrender of Tickhill. Here the mound of Tickhill was still held for the rebel Earl, and the new gate-house of his predecessor’s building still frowned defiance in the teeth of any advancing enemy.[1107] But Tickhill proved yet an easier conquest than Arundel. It needed no Malvoisin, no messages sent to Shrewsbury or Bridgenorth, to persuade its garrison to surrender. Question of the King’s presence. According to one version, the siege was not even deemed worthy of the royal presence. While Henry himself marched to the greater enterprise at Bridgenorth, a spiritual lord was deemed to be captain enough for the siege of Tickhill. Action of Robert Bloet. The work to be done there was entrusted to the hands of Bishop Robert of Lincoln.[1108] According to another version, which is perhaps not quite inconsistent with the other, the King himself appeared before Tickhill, and the garrison at once marched forth with all readiness to meet their natural lord--cynehlaford to Normans and Englishmen alike, cynehlaford above all to Yorkshiremen, if he was really born in their shire—​and received him with all fitting joy.[1109] Later history of Tickhill. The castle of Tickhill or Blyth passed back again for a while to the kinsfolk of its former owner, and afterwards became a possession of the Crown.[1110] A collegiate chapel was founded within its walls by the first Queen Eleanor, and in the reign of her son Richard the ground between Tickhill and Blyth became the special scene of fantastic displays of chivalrous rashness.[1111] There was no licensed tournament-ground at Tickhill or elsewhere in the days of the King who made peace for man and deer.[1112]

Henry’s Shropshire campaign. Autumn, 1102. The more distant possessions of the rebel Earl were thus brought under the King’s obedience. The peace of King Henry reigned in Sussex, in Yorkshire, and in Nottinghamshire. Now came the time for attacking the special strongholds of Robert’s own earldom; the stage of attacking himself was to come last of all. After the surrender of Arundel and Tickhill, the King allowed his men a breathing-time;[1113] then, in the course of the autumn, he gathered together the forces of all England for the final overthrow of the rebellion. Robert of Bellême at Shrewsbury. Defence of Bridgenorth. Robert of Bellême had chosen his capital of Shrewsbury as the post which he would defend himself. His new fortress of Bridgenorth he placed in the hands of three chosen captains, at the head of eighty mercenary knights, attended doubtless by a fitting following of lower degree.[1114] Of the three leaders, Robert son of Corbet—​a name which was to become abiding in those parts—​was a hereditary follower of the house of Montgomery; The three captains. Robert son of Corbet. he appears in Domesday as the holder of a large estate under Earl Roger.[1115] To another captain, Robert de Nova Villa, we have no certain clue; Neuvevilles and Newtons abound in Normandy and England; he may or he may not have been a forefather of the historic Nevilles. Robert Neville? Wulfgar the huntsman. The third awakens more interest; his name seems to be English; he is Wulfgar the huntsman.[1116] Nor is there the slightest reason to think that Robert of Bellême would reject the services of a born Englishman in any post, if the man himself seemed likely to suit his purpose. These three, with the regular force at their command, had to defend the Castle by the Bridge; Action of the Welsh princes. the Welsh princes, Cadwgan and Jorwerth, with their less disciplined bands, were planted in the neighbourhood, to annoy the King’s troops, as they might find occasion.[1117]

Robert of Bellême seizes the land of William Pantulf. But, while Earl Robert knew how to make use of the services of Robert the son of Corbet, he had the folly to make an enemy of another old follower of his father. He had already, for what cause we are not told, seized the lands of William Pantulf, who appears in Domesday as holding under Earl Roger a great estate in Shropshire, a small one in Staffordshire, and an empty house in the town of Stafford.[1118] He rejects his services. He was a tried and valiant warrior, and he now, forgetting his late wrongs, offered his services to the son of his old benefactor in his time of need. William Pantulf joins the King. Earl Robert thrust him aside with scorn, on which William betook himself to the King, by whom his merits were better valued. Henry had known him of old, and now gladly received him. He commands at Stafford; William Pantulf was sent at the head of two hundred knights, to command the castle of Stafford, a castle which had risen and fallen in the days of the Conqueror, and which must have by this time risen again.[1119] The local knowledge and interest of William Pantulf in the two neighbouring shires seems to have stood him in good stead. his services. He acted vigorously against the lord who had scorned him, and no one, we are told, did more towards bringing about the final overthrow of the proud Earl.[1120]

Relation of Normans and English. And now we get one of our most instructive pictures of the time, and of the difference of feeling among men of the time. We distinctly see the difference of feeling between Normans and English. But they are no longer labelled as Normans and English, as they were only a year before. They are spoken of simply as different classes in one army. Six-and-thirty years after the day of Senlac, we are but seldom dealing with the men who fought for Harold or for William; we have come to their sons or even their grandsons. Division of feeling in the army. But the great men of the army and the small men, of whom the former class would be all but wholly Norman, while the latter would be Normans and English intermingled in various proportions, had quite different views as to the proper policy for King Henry to follow. And King Henry’s own views agreed with the views of the small men, and not with the views of the great. Siege of Bridgenorth. The King builds a Malvoisin. The army was gathered before Bridgenorth, and a regular siege was opened. The King brought up his engines of war; he built a fort to check the approach of any relief to the castle[1121]—​was it on Oldbury, was it on the northern side, beyond the surviving gate of the town, or did it guard the river from the opposite side of the bridge? The siege lasted three weeks;[1122] and the course of events shows that it cannot have been at any very late stage of it that King Henry found that he had in his camp two widely different classes of men. There were in it men who were working honestly in his service, men who strove heartily for his success, knowing that the interests of King and people were the same. There were also men there to whom the interests of their own order were dearer than those of either King or people, and who feared that the overthrow of the power of the Earl of Shropshire might tend to the lessening of their own power, perhaps of their own possessions. We have seen the same division of feeling before the walls of Rochester;[1123] we now see it beneath the cliff of Bridgenorth. The great men lean to Robert of Bellême. The earls and great men of the kingdom who were in the army came together in separate consultations. They argued that it was not for their interest that the power of Robert of Bellême should be utterly broken. If the King dealt so with the greatest of his nobles, he might deal in the like sort with the rest, and might tread them under his feet like servants and handmaidens.[1124] It would suit them far better to bring about a peace between the King and the Earl. It would have been, one may guess, a peace by which Robert of Bellême should keep his earldom and the castles within his earldom, but should leave to the King the castles and lands which the King had already won. In this way they would put an end to disputes, and would make both the King and the Earl their debtors.[1125]

The smaller men, Normans and English, faithful to the King. So reasoned the great men, the Norman nobles, the men to most of whom Robert of Bellême was a countryman and a comrade, and none of whom were likely to have felt the grip of his iron claws[1126] in their own persons. So reasoned not the sons of the soil; so reasoned not men of any race who were lowly enough to feel that in the power of the King—​that is in Henry’s days, the power of law—​lay their only hope of shelter against smaller oppressors. Meeting of the nobles. The great men came together in a field—​perhaps in the meadows beside the Severn—​and there held a parliament with the King—​a meeting, one might say, of the Witan from which the land-sitting men were shut out—​and earnestly pressed peace upon the King.[1127] Henry’s own feelings were clearly the other way; and those who were shut out from the counsels of the great ones now came to his help. Gathering of the mass of the army. Three thousand men of the mass of the army, men seemingly of the shire most nearly concerned, who were stationed on one of the neighbouring hills, knew, by whatever means, the counsel of the leaders, and were minded to have their voice in the matter too.[1128] If the King chose to hold a military Gemót, an assembly of the armed nation,[1129] they had a right to be heard as well as men of higher degree. At Rochester too the English soldiers had spoken their minds; but to the Red King they must have spoken them through an interpreter. But Henry knew the tongue of his people, and we may fancy him not unwilling to listen to counsels which he could hear and weigh, while the mass of those of whom he had reason to be jealous understood not what was said. Appeal of the army to the King. A vigorous speech, which doubtless fairly represents the feelings of the moment, is put into the mouths of the three thousand or their leaders; “Lord King Henry, trust not those traitors. They do but strive to deceive you, and to take away from you the strength of kingly justice. Why do you listen to them who would have you spare the traitor and leave unpunished the conspiracy of those who seek your death? Behold we all stand by you faithfully; we are ready to serve and help you in all things. Attack the castle vigorously; shut in the traitor on all sides, and make no peace with him till you have him alive or dead in your hands.”[1130] The speakers do not call, as the English before Rochester called in the case of Odo, for the judicial death of the traitor. Henry’s faith pledged for Robert’s life. The faith of Henry was pledged to the garrison of Arundel that Robert of Bellême should be allowed to go safe into Normandy.[1131] But the three thousand clearly cherished a hope, perhaps that Robert’s own men might turn against him, certainly that, when Bridgenorth should fall and Shrewsbury should be beleagued, then some lucky bolt from an arrow or a mangonel might light on him before the time of surrender came, or, best of all for those who had felt his iron claws, that he might fall beneath one of their own axes in a sally or a storm.

Henry seeks to detach the Welsh from Robert. The King listened to the counsels of his advisers of lower degree, but of more honest hearts. King and people were one, and the designs of the traitors in the camp were brought to naught.[1132] First of all, Henry determined to weaken the strength of Robert, and no doubt to relieve his own army from a never-ending annoyance, by detaching the Welsh force from the cause of the rebels. Dealings of William Pantulf with Jorwerth. William Pantulf, who was doubtless well known to the Britons, acted as the King’s agent with Jorwerth son of Bleddyn. We are not told why he was thought more easy to win over than his brothers; but it seems plain that the negotiation was carried on with him only, unknown to Cadwgan and Meredydd.[1133] Henry’s great promises to Jorwerth. The King invited Jorwerth to his presence, with the assurance that he would do more for him than Earl Robert and his brothers could do.[1134] Jorwerth came; the gifts of King Henry were acceptable; his promises were magnificent indeed. As long as Henry lived—​it was wise not to bind his successor—​the British prince should have, free of all homage and all tribute, Powys, Ceredigion, half Dyfed with the castle of Pembroke, the vale of Teifi, Kidwelly, and Gower.[1135] Such a dominion would give its holder a seaboard on two seas; it would leave under English rule little beyond the central and southern lands of Brecheiniog, Gwent, and Morganwg, and the outlying land of Pembroke, which would thus be most distinctly “Little England beyond Wales.” We are not told what was to be the fate of Cadwgan when Jorwerth received this great inheritance; but Jorwerth himself naturally caught at such a prospect. Jorwerth makes the Welsh change sides. And it seems that his power over his countrymen was so great that, while his brothers knew nothing of what was going on, Jorwerth was able to turn the whole British force which had come to the Earl’s help to the side of the King. The Welshmen now harried the lands of the Earl and his friends instead of those of his enemies, and carried off a vast booty.[1136] In any case the lands of some one were harried, and for the Britons that was doubtless enough.

Henry’s dealings with the captains at Bridgenorth. Having thus relieved himself of the enemy who hung upon his flanks, Henry began to deal directly with the defenders of Bridgenorth. Three of the leaders—​we may safely guess that Roger son of Corbet, Robert of Neville, and Wulfgar, are the three meant—​were invited to the King’s presence. They doubtless had a safe-conduct for that once; but they had to take back an ugly message to their comrades. The King swore in the hearing of all men that, unless they surrendered the castle within three days, he would hang every man of the garrison that he could catch.[1137] The three captains, whose necks were in as much danger as those of their followers, began to consult for their own safety. Mediation of William Pantulf. They asked William Pantulf, as their neighbour, to act as a mediator between them and the King.[1138] At their request, he came to them, and made them a set speech on the duty of surrendering the castle to the lawful king. And his eloquence was backed by one special argument which shows that, in one point at least, Henry had made some progress in the school of Rufus. William was commissioned to swear in the King’s name that submission should be rewarded by an addition to the estates of each of the captains of lands of a hundred pounds’ worth.[1139] The captains promise to surrender. Moved, we are told, by a sense of the common good, the captains agreed, and, to avoid all further danger, submitted to the King’s will.[1140] They were allowed to send a message to Earl Robert to say that they could hold out no longer against the invincible power of King Henry.[1141]

Position of Robert. Robert of Bellême was now nearly at the end of his hopes and of his wits. His distant castles were lost; Bridgenorth, his own work, his newest work, was as good as lost; William Pantulf, able and active, had turned against him; his Welsh allies had failed him; Cadwgan and Meredydd were still at his side;[1142] but they were useless guests now that Jorwerth had turned the whole power of the Britons to the other side. He still held Shrewsbury; but it was hard to defy the strength of the whole kingdom from within the walls of a single fortress. His dealings with Ireland and Norway. In his despair, he caught at the hope of making his peace with the King;[1143] he caught also at the most distant chances of stirring up enemies against the King. The Britons had proved a broken reed; he would try the Irish and the Northmen. The Irish fleet was said to be actually coming; Arnulf goes to Ireland. Arnulf was sent, or went of his own accord, to hasten the pace of these new allies, who, beside such help as they might give to Robert, were to bring Arnulf himself a wife who might one day give him a crown. But as Arnulf took his own men with him, Robert was yet further weakened by his going.[1144] At this moment one more chance seemed to offer itself. Magnus in Anglesey. The Norwegian King was once more afloat, and that for the last time. His course was much the same as on his former voyage. He sailed by the Orkneys and the Sudereys to Man, and thence once more to Anglesey.[1145] His castle-building in Man. Here, we are told, he busied himself in cutting down timber for the repair of certain castles in Man which he had formerly destroyed. It must have been at this stage of the voyage of Magnus that Earl Robert sent a message craving help at his hands. It must have cost Robert somewhat of an effort to ask help of the slayer of his brother, Robert vainly asks help of Magnus. and, unless we attribute to the Norwegian King a general interest in confusion everywhere, it is hard to see on what ground Magnus could be expected to help Robert of Bellême against King Henry. The Northman refused all help. Failure of the Irish scheme. It would seem too that the Irish alliance came to nothing; one version at least makes this the moment when the daughter of Murtagh was given to Sigurd the son of Magnus, and not to Arnulf of Montgomery.[1146] Robert of Bellême left alone. Every chance of help far and near had failed the once mighty lord of so many lands and castles; his old friends had turned against him; his strivings to win new friends had failed. As far as England was concerned, Earl Robert seemed to be left alone on the mound of Shrewsbury.

Divisions in Bridgenorth; And yet for a moment one hope seemed left to him. The message of the three captains which announced the speedy surrender of Bridgenorth was premature. Roger, Robert, and Wulfgar, had promised more than they could do at the moment. There was a wide difference of interest between two classes of men who stood side by side on the height of Bridgenorth. the captains and the townsmen for surrender; The captains and the burgesses of the town—​for such a class had already in the space of four years sprung up at the gate of Earl Robert’s castle[1147]—​were of one mind, the mercenary soldiers were of another. The three captains, the townsmen, and doubtless any of the Earl’s soldiers of whatever rank who were English by birth or settlement, any who had any stake on English soil, were eager to come to terms with the King. So to do was their manifold interest and manifest duty; it was a special interest and duty of the captains who had promised so to do, and who looked for such rich rewards for so doing. the mercenaries wish to hold out. But to the mercenary soldiers of Earl Robert, professional fighting men picked out from many lands, things had another look. They had no stake in England; they cared nothing for King Henry and for the peace of his kingdom. The more the peace of England was likely to be disturbed, the better it would be for them. Any glimmering of duty which found a place in their minds would be a feeling of rude faithfulness to the master whom they served, the rebel Earl whose bread they had eaten. The mercenaries therefore cried out loudly against the submission to which, without taking them into their counsels, the captains and the townsmen had agreed. They seized their arms, and strove to hinder the carrying out of the surrender which had been promised.[1148] They are overpowered. But the captains, with the townsmen and the loyal party in the garrison, were too strong for them; they were themselves made prisoners and shut up within some one part of the castle.[1149] Surrender of Bridgenorth. The surrender was now carried out; the gates were opened; the royal troops marched up the path which led to the castle, and the banner of England again floated over the height crowned by the stronghold of Æthelflæd.[1150] The joy of the men of Bridgenorth was great, and on that day of deliverance no man was inclined to harshness. King Henry could honour the faithfulness of the Earl’s mercenaries to their own lord, even though that faithfulness was, in the eye of the law, treason to himself and his kingdom. The mercenaries march out with the honours of war. They were allowed to go forth with the honours of war, with their arms and their horses. Whither they went we are not told. They may even have entered the King’s service. The prudence of Henry might be trusted not to let them go anywhither where they were likely to be dangerous. And, as they came forth between the ranks of the besiegers, they were allowed to tell their tale in the hearing of all men. It was not, they said, to be turned to the shame of their calling that the Castle by the Bridge had been given up without a blow. They were guiltless; the deed was done by the guile of faithless captains and of unwarlike townsmen.[1151] King and people might admire, in truth there is something to admire, in the mistaken faithfulness of these men, even to an evil cause. But King and people had still work on their hands; the arch-enemy had still to be found, alive or dead, in the last stronghold which held out for him.

And now came the last act of the drama, the last stage of the struggle which was to make Henry truly king, and to give England three-and-thirty years of peace under his rule. Robert still holds Shrewsbury. With the news of the fall of Bridgenorth all hope passed away from the heart of Robert of Bellême. One strong fortress indeed was still his. Earl of the Mercians, Earl of Shropshire, he could call himself no longer; lord of Shrewsbury he still was, while he still kept the castle of his capital as the last abiding seat of rebellion. Shrewsbury castle. All the distinctive features of Shrewsbury in later times, town, churches, castle, abbey, were all there. On the neck of the peninsula girded by the Severn, on ground high in itself though lower than some points of the hill town behind it, the mound of Old-English days which had supplanted the old seat of British kingship, and which was now crowned by the fortress of his father, still was his.[1152] Its towers rose as high as the loftiest buildings of the town which they kept in awe; from their height he might look forth on the mountain land which had been won for his earldom by his father’s power; he might look down on the broad and rushing river, and on his father’s minster beyond its stream.[1153] But the mountain land, so lately his ally, had now turned against him; the stream of Severn brought no help to the beleaguered fortress; no prayers, we may be sure, went up for the son of Mabel from the altars whose guardians had seen the virtues and tasted the bounty of Adeliza. Despair of Robert. The stern earl, thus utterly forsaken, lost his fierce and defiant spirit; he groaned for sorrow; he knew not which way to turn for help or counsel.[1154] The King’s march to Shrewsbury. And soon he felt that his hour indeed was come, when he saw the royal banners draw near to his last stronghold. As soon as Bridgenorth had fallen, the march on Shrewsbury began. A mighty host it was which set forth on the errand of deliverance. Gathering of the English army. We take the figures as merely the conventional expression of a vast number, when we read that sixty thousand Englishmen gathered around the standard of King Henry of England.[1155] Zeal of the troops. They marched with a will, eager to meet the great oppressor face to face, to bring the last stronghold of wrong under the dominion of law, to join in their king’s work of rooting out the ungodly that were in the land. Englishmen had gone forth with a will to the siege of Rochester, perhaps to the siege of Bamburgh; but then they had gone forth at the bidding of a king who was wholly a stranger. Now they gathered around a king, born indeed of the foreign stock, but a king of their own choice, born on their own soil, cheering them on in their own tongue, a king whom they might well deem a truer Ætheling than the grandson of Ironside born in distant Hungary or than the son of Harold brought up among the wikings of the North. Nature of the road. The road by which they had to march was one which had dangers of its own. It was a road among hills, sometimes rough with stones; in one part it was for a mile’s space a mere hollow way, overhung by a thick wood, a path so narrow that two horses could hardly pass, a path which men called the Evil Hedge. Among the trees on either side archers might easily lurk, to the no small loss of the host which had to march between two fires.[1156] The road is cleared. The King accordingly first sent forward his pioneers to clear the way for his army and for all travellers along that road for ever. The wood was cut down on both sides, the path was widened, and the evil hedge became a broad road along which the great host of England could march in safety.[1157]

Along the new-made road King Henry marched to a bloodless conquest. He had no need to throw up a bank or to shoot an arrow against the mound and the towers of Shrewsbury. Robert sends to ask for peace. On his way he was met by an embassy from Earl Robert, asking for peace. The terms are not told us, but the answer implied that Robert still asked for terms. He may have hoped, shut out as he was from everything else, still to keep the capital of his earldom, perhaps as a means for one day winning back all that he had lost. The King refuses terms. But the King and his host were in no mood to listen to terms; they longed for the last attack on the arch-enemy. The answer, the decree, as we read it, of the armed Gemót, was that Robert of Bellême must hope for no mercy, unless he came and freely threw himself into the King’s hands.[1158] In that case, it will be remembered, the King’s word was pledged for his life and his safe passage to Normandy. Robert consulted the few friends whom he had left, and their advice at last bent his proud heart to an unconditional submission. Nine days had passed since the surrender of Bridgenorth[1159] when the royal force drew near to Shrewsbury. Robert submits at discretion. Robert of Bellême came forth in person to meet them; he knelt, we may suppose, before the King; he confessed his treason, and placed in the King’s hands the keys of Shrewsbury, city and castle. He thus gave up for ever his last English possession, the head of that great earldom which his father had received from the hands of the King’s father.[1160] As far as England was concerned, the lord of Bellême, a moment before lord of Shrewsbury, was a landless man. He is sent out of England. The King strictly kept his word to the suppliant; but he would not grant him the slightest favour beyond what his word bound him to. Robert was untouched in life and limb, he received a safe-conduct to the sea-shore, and he was allowed to keep his arms and horses, a needful defence in case of irregular attack.[1161] And so the land was free from its worst enemy; the devil of Bellême was cast out of the realm of England. Evil men no doubt were left behind; but none, we may believe, who would refuse to ransom his prisoners, for the mere pleasure of seeing them die of hunger or of torture.

The work was done; the host of victorious Englishmen marched back to their homes.[1162] Joy at Robert’s overthrow. The joy of the land at the great deliverance was beyond words. The tyrant was overthrown, the King was now king indeed. The national joy is set before us as bursting forth in a kind of rhythmical song, which reminds us of those fragments of primæval poetry which remain imbedded in the history of the Hebrews. We hear the same strain as that which denounced woe to Moab and rejoiced in the undoing of the people of Chemosh,[1163] when Englishmen are described as gathering round their King, and shouting the hymn of victory. The song of deliverance. “Rejoice, King Henry, and give thanks to the Lord God, now that thou hast overthrown Robert of Bellême and hast driven him from the borders of thy kingdom.”[1164] Banishment of Arnulf and Roger. Nor was he driven forth alone. The King had good grounds for the banishment of his chief accomplices, his two brothers Arnulf and Roger, and for the seizure of their lands.[1165] The King’s hatred towards the whole family. His hatred towards the whole house of Montgomery, or rather towards the whole house of Talvas, had become so great that he would not endure that any member of it should hold lands or honours in his kingdom. Later history of Robert of Bellême. Robert of Bellême himself went over to Normandy, to raise new disturbances there. At a later time he was again twice to visit England, once as an ambassador, and again as a prisoner, a prisoner in a prison so strait that no man knew whether he lived or died.[1166] But his part, a part only of four years, as an English earl and perhaps the greatest of English land-owners, was played out for ever.

Death of Magnus. 1103. Of the other chief actors in the events of those four years, King Magnus died the year after the fall of Robert of Bellême, in his last and greatest attack on Ireland.[1167] A Giffard in his fleet. It awakens some interest when we read that he had in his host a stranger who bore the great Norman name of Giffard.[1168] Was he an accomplice, was he a messenger, of Earl Robert of Shropshire? Later history of Jorwerth. Towards the Welsh prince Jorwerth, who had done so much on both sides in the course of the rebellion, Henry was, according to the Welsh writers, far from keeping his word. War between Jorwerth and his brothers. It is not wonderful that enmity arose between Jorwerth and his brothers after his conduct during the siege of Bridgenorth. He seems to have waged open war with them in the King’s name. Meredydd imprisoned. For we are told that he seized his brother Meredydd and handed him over to the King or imprisoned him in a royal prison.[1169] Jorwerth cedes Ceredigion to Cadwgan. But with Cadwgan he made peace, giving up to him a large share of his promised dominions, namely the lands which Cadwgan had before held of Robert of Bellême, Ceredigion and part of Powys. It was perhaps this agreement with an enemy which offended Henry. The King does not fulfil his promises to Jorwerth. When Jorwerth came, seemingly to receive his grant from the King’s hands, he received nothing. Dyfed and the castle of Pembroke, far too precious a stronghold to be left in the hands of any Briton, was entrusted to a knight named Saer, from whom it afterwards passed to Gerald of Windsor, a man who had already bravely defended it, and whom the King had his own reasons for promoting.[1170] Grant of Gower and other lands to Howel. But the remainder of the promised possessions of Jorwerth, the vale of Teifi, Gower, and Kidwelly, were, by a breach of promise which must have been yet more galling, granted to another Welsh lord, Howel son of Goronwy.[1171] Jorwerth tried at Shrewsbury and imprisoned. 1103. The next year Jorwerth was summoned before an assembly at Shrewsbury, the place renowned for the trial of a more famous Welsh prince of later days. The choice of the place is characteristic of the reign of Henry, Gemóts held in various places under Henry. under whom national assemblies were held in various parts of the kingdom, and were no longer confined to the three places to which custom had confined them under Eadward, Harold, and the two Williams.[1172] Shrewsbury a former place of meeting. It was but a return to older custom; Shrewsbury had been the seat of more than one memorable assembly in earlier times;[1173] but this was the first time that Shrewsbury in its new form had seen a great national gathering; The earldom of Shrewsbury. it was the first assembly that had been held since the English mound had become the kernel of Earl Roger’s castle, and since Earl Roger’s abbey had arisen beyond the river. Earls had now passed away from Shrewsbury; no such title was heard again till the days of the famous Talbot, when it was in French and not in English ears that the name was terrible. After the four years’ rule of Robert of Bellême, there was doubtless much to settle in his former earldom and along the whole Welsh border. Trial of Jorwerth. In the assembly held for that end Jorwerth appeared and was put upon his trial. We should be well pleased to have as full an account of the proceedings against the British prince as we have of the proceedings against Bishop William of Durham. His conviction and imprisonment. But the story was not deemed worth recording by any English writer; the Welsh, who bitterly complain of the injustice of the court, tell us how, after a day’s pleading, Jorwerth was declared guilty and committed to prison.[1174] He was afterwards set free, and again played a part among his own people; His later history. but a patriotic Welsh chronicler laments that the hope, the fortitude, the strength, and the happiness of all the Britons failed them when Jorwerth was put in bonds.[1175]