the shape of an agreement to drive him out of all his territories and divide the spoil between themselves. Their joint attack soon brought him to bay in his mightiest stronghold, the rock crowned by the abbey of S. Michael-in-Peril-of-the-Sea, commonly called Mont-Saint-Michel. Henry threw himself into the place with as many knights as were willing to share the adventure; the brethren of the abbey did their utmost to help, and for fifteen days the little garrison, perched on their inaccessible rock, held out against their besiegers.[9] Then hunger began to thin their ranks; nothing but the inconsistent generosity of Robert saved them from the worse agonies of thirst;[10] one by one they dropped away, till Henry saw that he must yield to fate, abide by his father’s counsel, and wait patiently for better days. He surrendered; he came down from the Mount, once again a landless and homeless man; and save for one strange momentary appearance in England as a guest at the Red King’s court,[11] he spent the greater part of the next two years in France and the Vexin, wandering from one refuge to another with a lowly train of one knight, three squires, and one chaplain.[12] He was at length recalled by the townsmen of Domfront, who, goaded to desperation by the oppressions of their lord Robert of Bellême, threw off his yoke and besought Henry to come and take upon himself the duty of defending them, their town and castle, against their former tyrant. “By the help of God and the suffrages of his friends,” as his admiring historian says,[13] Henry was thus placed in command of his father’s earliest conquest, the key of Normandy and Maine, a fortress scarcely less mighty and of far greater political importance than that from which he had been driven. He naturally used his opportunity for reprisals, not only upon Robert of Bellême, but also upon his own brothers;[14] and by the end of two years he had made himself of so much consequence in the duchy that William Rufus, again at war with the duke, thought it time to secure his alliance. The two younger brothers met in England, and when Henry returned in the spring of 1095 he came as the liegeman of the English king, sworn to fight his battles and further his interests in Normandy by every means in his power.[15] [6] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 665. [7] _Ib._ p. 672. Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. v. c. 392 (Hardy, pp. 616, 617). [8] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 690. Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. v. c. 392 (Hardy, pp. 617, 618). [9] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 697. [10] Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. iv. c. 310 (Hardy, pp. 491, 492). [11] See Freeman, _William Rufus_, vol. i. pp. 293, 295, 305; vol. ii. pp. 535, 536. [12] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 697. [13] _Ib._ p. 698. [14] _Ib._ pp. 698, 706, 722.