At length, in 1076, Richilde yielded to the inevitable, acknowledged the pretensions of the rival of her son, and accepted from him as dower the châtelaincy of Audenarde. Here she remained till the end of her days, occupying herself with prayer and good works in expiation for the bloody war which her disastrous policy had entailed. The life of the châtelaine of Audenarde was one long act of contrition for the sins of the Countess of Flanders. The conquest of Robert meant the conquest of the Karls, and the effect of their triumph was immediately observable in the changed policy of the government, not only at home but abroad. Their rights as free men were now acknowledged throughout the country, and their chiefs were received at Court on an equality with the feudal lords, henceforth we find them occupying high positions alike in Church and State. Erembald, a simple Karl of Furnes, was appointed Châtelain of Bruges--the highest civil appointment in Flanders. One of his sons received the provostship of the Collegiate Church of St. Donatian (Bruges), the first ecclesiastical preferment in the county--not a few of their daughters were wedded to the proudest of the feudal lords, and Robert's own son, Philip, Viscount of Ypres, did not think it beneath his dignity to take a Karline for his wife. The same policy was pursued during the reign of the Frisian's successor. Amongst the knights who followed Count Robert II. to Jerusalem were not a few Saxon chiefs. The names of some of them have come down to us--Siger of Ghistelles, Walter of Oudenburg, Engelram of Lillers, Erembald of Bruges, the mightiest of them all, and Erembald's son Robert, Count Robert's intimate friend and his most trusted servant. The influence of the Karls is distinctly traceable in the changed attitude of Flanders with regard to England. Baldwin had done all he could to strengthen William, Robert strained every nerve to oppose him. He would have brought back the line of Alfred, or restored the English throne to the house of the great Canute, had not the Conqueror been wily enough to circumvent him. Raised to supreme authority by the aid of Saxon Karls, Robert the Frisian could hardly have done otherwise than show himself friendly to the cause of their compatriots. Although, as we have seen, the victory of Bavichove, 1071, or rather the peace of Mayence five years later, had for the moment settled the question of Karlish freedom, there were still not wanting among the feudal lords men who envied the power and prosperity to which the Karls had attained, and who wished to reduce them to slavery. Their plans had been foiled by Robert I. and kept in check by Robert II., but when that prince fell at the siege of Meaux (thrown from his horse in a narrow lane and trampled I.--Genealogical Table of the Counts of Flanders from Baldwin I. to Baldwin V.