The Siege of Norwich Castle: A story of the last struggle against the ConquerorBlake, M. M. (Matilda Maria)
General
The Siege of Norwich Castle: A story of the last struggle against the Conqueror
Blake, M. M. (Matilda Maria)
Historical fiction; William I, King of England, 1027 or 8-1087 -- Fiction
Judith thought herself very lucky to have all the money and lands that
had belonged to Waltheof, and to be free of him, and made up her mind
to have a second husband according to her own taste. But she wished him
alive again when William made a present of her, possessions and all, to
one Simon de Senlis, a brave, but lame and deformed knight.
She refused to carry out the bargain, so William consoled De Senlis
with her daughter instead, together with all the lands and money; and
the Saxon chroniclers gloat over Judith's subsequent poverty and
sorrows. But we, looking back, now the years have rolled away, may pity
her, and see that the crime lay with those who treated a woman as a
chattel, and 'gave' her away to this man and that, without consulting
her welfare or her happiness, rather than with the woman so treated.
And Emma's brother, the son of William's staunchest vassal, how fared
he?
When the Conqueror passed the Straits after his attempt to reduce De
Guader at Dol, he called a great council of Norman barons to pass
judgment on the authors of the recent conspiracy. Ralph de Guader they
dispossessed of all his English property as absent and contumacious;
and Roger of Hereford, being a prisoner, was brought before them, and
condemned to lose all his lands, and to pass the rest of his days in
prison.
But William seems still to have had a soft place in his heart for the
son of his old friend, and sent him one Easter, according to the custom
of the Norman court, a complete suit of precious stuffs, a silk tunic
and mantle, and a close coat trimmed with foreign furs.
But Roger was full of pride and bitterness, and he took the rich
present and threw it on the fire.
When William heard how his gift had been received, he flew into a
mighty rage.
'The man is too proud who does such scorn to me,' he cried. 'He shall
never come out of my prison in my days, _par le splendeur Dex_!'
Nor did he; neither in the days of William Rufus. He died in prison.
But, in the reign of Henry I., his two sons won back a portion of their
father's possessions.
The lesser accomplices of the three great earls fared even worse.
At the council before mentioned, 'Man foredoomed all the Bretons that
were at the bride-ale at Norowic, some were blinded, some were driven
from the land, and some were put to shame. So were the king's traitors
brought low,' say the chronicles.
Truly a disastrous bridal!
Yet the bride and bridegroom, who risked so much for each other and
involved so many in ruin, were the most fortunate of those who attended
it.
Though Ralph lost his English estates, he had broad lands in his
mother's country, and lived with his hard-won consort in his castles of
Guader and Montfort. A son and a daughter were born to them. The son
succeeded to his father's Breton possessions, and the daughter, whom
one chronicler names Amicia, another Itta, married Earl Robert of
Leicester, and became a great English lady.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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