Thence, at the Angevins’ approach, he descended to meet them in the plain, on S. Benedict’s day, March 21, 1061. The duke’s army, including as it did the whole forces of Gascony and Aquitaine, must have far outnumbered that of the brother-counts; but there was treason in the southern ranks; the standard-bearers were the first to flee, and their flight caused the rout of the whole ducal host.[496] Saintes threw open its gates to the Angevin victor;[497] but its loss was only delayed. Next year the duke of Aquitaine blockaded the city till sword and famine compelled the garrison to surrender;[498] and from that moment Saintonge was lost to the count of Anjou. [495] _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 126. See note C at end of chapter. [496] Chron. S. Maxent. a. 1061 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 402). _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), pp. 126–130. See note C at end of chapter. [497] _Gesta Cons._ (as above), p. 130. [498] Chron. S. Maxent. a. 1062 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 403). Meanwhile a change fraught with far graver consequences had undone Geoffrey Martel’s work in the north. The conqueror of Le Mans was scarcely in his grave when Maine flung off the yoke and called upon the son of her late count Hugh to come home and enjoy his own again. It was however but a shadowy coronet that she could offer now; her independence had received a fatal shock; and, to increase the difficulty of his position, Herbert II. was still a mere boy, without a friend to guide and protect him except his mother, Bertha of Blois. Bertha saw at once that his only chance of saving his father’s heritage from the shame of subjection to Anjou was to throw himself on the honour of the duke of Normandy; to William therefore, as overlord, Herbert commended himself and his county, on the terms of the old grant made to Hrolf by King Rudolf.[499] The commendation was accompanied by an agreement that Herbert should in due time marry one of William’s daughters; but there seems to have been a foreboding that the boy-count’s life was not to be a long one, for it was further provided that if he died without children Maine should revert in full property to William;[500] and a marriage was also arranged between William’s eldest son Robert and Herbert’s sister Margaret, whereby in the next generation the rights of the “man” and his lord, of the house of Hrolf and the house of Herbert Wake-Dog, might be united.[501] [499] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._, p. 487). Will. Poitiers (_ibid._), p. 189. [500] Will. Poitiers, as above. [501] Ord. Vit. as above.