rivals of Blois. He crushed King Robert’s last hope of reunion with Bertha by sending twelve armed men to assassinate at a hunting-party, before his royal master’s eyes, the king’s seneschal or _comes palatii_ Hugh of Beauvais who was the confidant of his cherished scheme.[331] It is a striking proof not only of the royal helplessness but also of the independence and security which Fulk had already attained that his crime went altogether unpunished and even uncensured save by one bishop,[332] and almost immediately after its commission he could again venture on leaving his dominions under the regency of his brother Maurice, while he set off upon another long journey which the legendary writers of Anjou, by some strange confusion between their own hero and the Emperor Otto III., make into a mission of knight-errantry to deliver the Pope from a tyrant named Crescentius, but which seems really to have been a second pilgrimage to Holy Land.[333] He came back to find the storm which had so long been gathering on his eastern border on the point of breaking at last. [320] 11th lesson of the Beaulieu Office, Salies, _Foulques-Nerra_, p. 528. “Stultus a proprio expellitur alodo.” [321] “Ut semper curiose agebat,” R. Glaber, l. ii. c. 4 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. x. p. 15). [322] _Ibid._ (pp. 15, 16). [323] He was born October 14, 1006, according to Chronn. Vindoc. and S. Flor. Salm. ad ann. (Marchegay, _Eglises_, pp. 164, 187). The Chron. S. Serg. (_ib._ p. 134) gives the same day, but makes the year 1007; the Chron. S. Maxent. (_ib._ p. 387) places the event on April 12, 1005. The Chron. S. Albin. (_ib._ p. 22) gives no day, but confirms the two first-named authorities for the year, 1006. [324] _Hist. S. Flor. Salm._ (Marchegay, _Eglises_), p. 260. [325] R. Glaber, as above (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. x. p. 16). Cf. _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_, p. 107). [326] “Fulco Nerra, cui consuetudo fuit Animas Dei jurare,” begins his history in the _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 89. [327] R. Glaber, l. ii. c. 4 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. x. p. 17). See also a bull of Pope John XVIII. in Migne’s _Patrologia_, vol. cxxxix., cols. 1491, 1492; and two of Sergius IV., _ib._ cols. 1525–1527. [328] R. Glaber, as above (p. 16). [329] _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 99. This writer copies the whole story of Beaulieu from R. Glaber. [330] See note B at end of chapter. [331] R. Glaber, l. iii. c. 2 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. x. p. 27). [332] Fulbert of Chartres; see his letter to Fulk, _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. x. pp. 476, 477. [333] See note C at end of chapter.