England under the Angevin Kings, Volume INorgate, Kate
History
England under the Angevin Kings, Volume I
Norgate, Kate
Anjou, House of; England -- Civilization -- 1066-1485; Great Britain -- History -- Angevin period, 1154-1216
From that moment Henry’s position in England was secured; but all his
remonstrances failed to make his indolent elder brother fulfil his part
of their compact. The traitors whom Henry expelled from England only
carried their treason over sea to a more congenial climate, and the
helpless, heedless duke looked passively on while Robert of Bellême,
William of Mortain the banished earl of Cornwall, and their fellows
slaked their thirst for vengeance upon King Henry by ravaging the
Norman lands of those who were faithful to him in England.[32] Their
victims, as well as Henry himself, began to see that his personal
intervention alone could re-establish order in the duchy. On his
appearance there in 1104 he was joined by all the more reasonable
among the barons. For the moment he was pacified by fresh promises of
amendment on Robert’s part, and by the cession of the county of Evreux;
but he knew that all compromise had become vain; and in the last week
of Lent 1105 he landed again at Barfleur in the full determination of
making himself master of Normandy. His Norman partisans rallied round
him at once,[33] and he was soon joined by two valuable allies, Elias
count of Maine and his intended son-in-law, the young count Geoffrey
of Anjou.[34] It was they who won for Henry his first success, the
capture of Bayeux.[35] Warned by the fate of this unhappy city, which
was burnt down, churches and all, Caen surrendered at once, and Henry
thus came into possession of the Norman treasury. A siege of Falaise
failed through the unexplained departure of Count Elias,[36] and the
war dragged slowly on till Henry, now busy in another quarter with
negotiations for the return of S. Anselm, went back at Michaelmas to
England. Thither he was followed first by Robert of Bellême, then by
Robert of Normandy,[37] both seeking for peace; but peace had become
impossible now. Next summer Henry was again in Normandy, reconciled to
S. Anselm, released from anxieties at home, free to concentrate all his
energies upon the final struggle. It was decided with one blow. As he
was besieging the castle of Tinchebray on Michaelmas Eve Duke Robert
at the head of all his forces approached and summoned him to raise the
siege. He refused, “preferring,” as he said, “to take the blame of a
more than civil war for the sake of future peace.” But when the two
hosts were drawn up face to face, the prospect of a battle seemed too
horrible to be endured, composed as they were of kinsmen and brothers,
fathers and sons, arrayed against each other. The clergy besought
Henry to stay his hand; he listened, pondered, and at length sent a
final message to his brother. He came, he said, not wishing to deprive
Robert of his duchy or to win territories for himself, but to answer
the cry of the distressed and deliver Normandy from the misrule of one
who was duke only in name. Here then was his last proposition: “Give
up to me half the land of Normandy, the castles and the administration
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