But it was well to come to an understanding with King Henry, Count Geoffrey, and Duke William of Aquitaine, in case a time should come when their interests and those of England would be the same.But the deaths of all those princes must have put an end to all hopes of common action between England and any Gaulish power.The Emperor Henry also, the firm ally of England, was dead.It was now clear that, if England should ever have to withstand a Norman attack, she would have to withstand it wholly by her own strength, or with such help as she might find among the kindred powers of the North.
William's great continental conquest is drawing nigh; but between the campaign of Varaville and the campaign of Le Mans came the tardy papal confirmation of William's marriage.The Duke and Duchess, now at last man and wife in the eye of the Church, began to carry out the works of penance which were allotted to them.The abbeys of Caen, William's Saint Stephen's, Matilda's Holy Trinity, now began to arise.Yet, at this moment of reparation, one or two facts seem to place William's government of his duchy in a less favourable light than usual.The last French invasion was followed by confiscations and banishments among the chief men of Normandy.
Roger of Montgomery and his wife Mabel, who certainly was capable of any deed of blood or treachery, are charged with acting as false accusers.We see also that, as late as the day of Varaville, there were Norman traitors.Robert of Escalfoy had taken the Angevin side, and had defended his castle against the Duke.He died in a strange way, after snatching an apple from the hand of his own wife.
His nephew Arnold remained in rebellion three years, and was simply required to go to the wars in Apulia.It is hard to believe that the Duke had poisoned the apple, if poisoned it was; but finding treason still at work among his nobles, he may have too hastily listened to charges against men who had done him good service, and who were to do him good service again.
Five years after the combat at Varaville, William really began to deserve, though not as yet to receive, the name of Conqueror.For he now did a work second only to the conquest of England.He won the city of Le Mans and the whole land of Maine.Between the tale of Maine and the tale of England there is much of direct likeness.
Both lands were won against the will of their inhabitants; but both conquests were made with an elaborate show of legal right.
William's earlier conquests in Maine had been won, not from any count of Maine, but from Geoffrey of Anjou, who had occupied the country to the prejudice of two successive counts, Hugh and Herbert.
He had further imprisoned the Bishop of Le Mans, Gervase of the house of Belleme, though the King of the French had at his request granted to the Count of Anjou for life royal rights over the bishopric of Le Mans.The bishops of Le Mans, who thus, unlike the bishops of Normandy, held their temporalities of the distant king and not of the local count, held a very independent position.The citizens of Le Mans too had large privileges and a high spirit to defend them; the city was in a marked way the head of the district.
Thus it commonly carried with it the action of the whole country.
In Maine there were three rival powers, the prince, the Church, and the people.The position of the counts was further weakened by the claims to their homage made by the princes on either side of them in Normandy and Anjou; the position of the Bishop, vassal, till Gervase's late act, of the King only, was really a higher one.
Geoffrey had been received at Le Mans with the good will of the citizens, and both Bishop and Count sought shelter with William.
Gervase was removed from the strife by promotion to the highest place in the French kingdom, the archbishopric of Rheims.The young Count Herbert, driven from his county, commended himself to William.
He became his man; he agreed to hold his dominions of him, and to marry one of his daughters.If he died childless, his father-in-law was to take the fief into his own hands.But to unite the old and new dynasties, Herbert's youngest sister Margaret was to marry William's eldest son Robert.If female descent went for anything, it is not clear why Herbert passed by the rights of his two elder sisters, Gersendis, wife of Azo Marquess of Liguria, and Paula, wife of John of La Fleche on the borders of Maine and Anjou.And sons both of Gersendis and of Paula did actually reign at Le Mans, while no child either of Herbert or of Margaret ever came into being.
If Herbert ever actually got possession of his country, his possession of it was short.He died in 1063 before either of the contemplated marriages had been carried out.William therefore stood towards Maine as he expected to stand with regard to England.
