There were some of the first nobles of the Côtentin who forsook their young duke for this rival who was hardly Norman at all, as they usually decided such points. His Norman descent was on the spindle side rather than the sword, to use the old distinction, and his mother's ancestors would not have prevented him in other days from being called almost a Frenchman. There is a tradition that Guy promised to divide the lands of Normandy with his allies, keeping only the old French grant to Rolf for himself, and this must have been the cause of the treason of the descendants of Rolf's and William Longsword's loyal colonists. It would amaze us to see the change in the life and surroundings of the feudal lords even in the years of William's minority. The leader of the barons in the revolt was the Viscount of Coutances, the son of that chief who had defeated Æthelred of England and his host nearly half a century before. He lived in a castle on the river Oune, near which he afterward built his great St. Saviour's Abbey. This was the central point of the insurrection, and from his tower Neal of St. [Pg202] Saviour could take a wide survey of his beautiful Côtentin country with its plough-land and pastures and forests, the great minster of Lessay, and the cliffs and marshes; the sturdy castles of his feudal lords scattered far and wide. There came to Saint Saviour's also Randolf of Bayeux, and Hamon of Thorigny and of Creuilly, and Grimbald of Plessis, and each of them made his fortress ready for a siege, and swore to defend Guy of Burgundy and to use every art of war and even treachery to subdue and disgrace William. I say "even treachery," but that was the first resort of these insurgents rather than the last. They had laid the deep plot to seize and murder him at Valognes, and Grimbald was to have struck the blow.