as the greatest calamity that could befall her niece: she predicted that, CAMEOXIV. if Edith persisted in it, only misery could arise from it; and when she found her determined, tried to prove her to be already bound by the promises of a nun.

She

Here Christina went too far: a court was held by Archbishop Anselm, and it was fully proved that the Lady Edith was under no vows. was declared free to marry, and in a short time became the wife of Henry, changing her own Saxon name to the Norman Matilda, or Maude. In the first year of her marriage, when Henry was anxious to win the favour of the English, he conformed so much to their ways that the scornful Normans used to call him and his young wife by the Saxon names of Godric and Godiva. The Saxons thus were willing to stand by King Henry, all excepting the sailors, who were won by Robert's spirit of enterprise, and deserting, with their whole fleet, went to Normandy, and brought Robert and his army safe to Portsmouth.

This happened just as Edith Maude had given birth to her first child, at Winchester. Robert was urged to assault the city; but he refrained, declaring such would be an unknightly action towards his sister-in-law and her babe. Henry soon came up with his forces, the brothers held a conference, and, as usual, Robert was persuaded to give up his rights, and to make peace.

For the next four years Robert continued in Normandy, leading a gay and careless life at first with his beautiful Sybilla; but she soon died, leaving an infant son, and thenceforward his affairs grew worse and worse, as he followed only the impulse of the moment. From riot and drunkenness he fell into fits of devotion, fasting, weeping, and praying; his poverty so great that he was at one time obliged to lie in bed for want of garments to wear; and his dukedom entirely uncared for, fields left uncultivated, and castles which were dens of robbers.

The Normans begged that some measures might be taken for their relief, and King Henry came, and with Robert's consent set things on a better footing; but meanwhile he was secretly making arrangements with the barons for the overthrow of his brother. In two years' time he had tempted over almost every baron to desert the cause of their master, and in 1106 prepared to wrest the dukedom from him. The unfortunate Robert came to him at Northampton, almost alone, forced himself into his presence, and told him he would submit everything to him, if he would only leave him the state and honour due to his birth. Henry turned his back on him, muttering some answer which Robert could not hear, and which he would not repeat. In a passion Robert reproached him with his ill faith and cruel grasping temper, left him hastily, and returned to Rouen, to make a last sad struggle for his inheritance.

He placed his child in the Castle of Falaise, obtaining a promise from the garrison that they would give up their trust to no summons but his own, or that of a trusty knight called William de Ferrières. Hardly a vassal would rally round him in his dire distress; his only supporters

Marriage of Henry,

1101.

CAMEOXIV.

The Battle of Tenchebray, 1106.

Conquest of
Normandy.

were two outlawed barons, whom Henry had driven out of England for their violence, and besides these there were two faithful friends of his youth, whose swords had always been ready in his cause, except in the unhappy war against his father. One was Helie de St. Saen, the other was Edgar Etheling, who quitted his peaceful home, and all the favour he enjoyed in England, as uncle to the queen, to bear arms for his despoiled and injured friend.

Henry invaded Normandy, and all the nobles came over to his side. Robert met him before the Castle of Tenchebray, and the two armies prepared for battle the next day. In the evening a hermit came to the English camp, his head strewn with ashes, and a cord about his waist. He conjured Henry to cease from this unnatural war with a brother who had been a soldier of the Cross, "his brow still shining with traces of the crown of Jerusalem," and prevailed so far as to gain permission to go and propose terms of peace to the Duke of Normandy. On coming into his presence, the hermit begged to kiss the feet which had trodden the pavement of the Holy Sepulchre, and then exhorted Robert to be contented with the kingdom reserved for him in heaven. Не declared Henry's terms very hard ones; but the Duke would have accepted them, but that he was required to own himself vanquished ; and against this his haughty spirit revolted. He cast aside all offers of accommodation, and prepared for battle.

The fight of Tenchebray took place on St. Michael's Eve, 1106, the day forty years since the Battle of Hastings; and when the Saxons in Henry's army turned Robert's Normans to flight, they rejoiced as if they were wiping out the memory of the defeat of Harold. Yet in the vanquished army was their own Etheling, the darling of England, who was made prisoner together with the unfortunate Robert, and led before Henry. It was the last battle in which the two friends fought side by side; the disinherited prince had fought for the son of the despoiler for the last time, and soon they were to part to spend the many remaining years of their lives in a far different manner.

Robert was made to summon the surrender of Rouen, and Ferrières was sent to receive Falaise, and the little William, heir of Normandy; but the faithful garrison would not yield till Henry had conducted thither the Duke himself, who called on them to surrender, lest the castle should be taken by the wicked outlaw De Belesme. Little William was brought to the King, and his tears and caresses for a moment touched Henry's heart so far that he gave the child into the charge of Helie de St. Saen, Robert's faithful friend, and husband of his illegitimate daughter.

It was the last time Robert of Normandy saw the face of his only child. The boy went to Arques with the faithful Helie, while Robert was sent to England, and imprisoned in Cardiff Castle. At first he was honourably treated, and allowed to indulge in hunting and other amusements; but he made an attempt to escape, and was only recaptured in consequence of his horse having plunged into a bog, whence he could

Imprisonment of Robert.

not extricate himself. After this he was more closely guarded, and it is CAMEOXIV. said that his eyes were put out; but there is reason to hope that this may not be true. He was under the charge of Robert, an illegitimate son of Henry, who had married Amabel Fitzaymon, heiress of Gloucester, and who was a noble, high-minded chivalrous person, likely to do all in his power to cheer his uncle's captivity.

Here Robert from time to time heard of his son: first, how Henry had sent messengers to seize him when St. Saen was absent from Arques; but happily they came on a Sunday morning, when the child was at church, and the servants, warned in time, carried him off to meet their brave master. Then Helie chose to forfeit lands and castle rather than give up his trust, and conducted his little brother-in-law from court to court, wherever he could hope for security, till young William was grown up, and raised an army, with the aid of Louis of France and Foulques of Anjou, to recover his inheritance and rescue his father. But Foulques was detached from the alliance by the betrothal of his daughter to Henry's son William, and the battle of Brenville ruined the hopes of William of Normandy. Next Robert learnt that the male line of the Counts of Flanders had failed, and his son, as the representative of Matilda, the Conqueror's wife, had been owned as the heir of that rich country. Shortly after, the captive Duke was one morning found weeping. He had had a dream, he said, in which he had seen his son dying of a wound in the hand. The tidings came in due time that William had been accidentally pierced by the point of a lance in the hand, the wound had mortified, and he expired at the end of a week. The prisoner still lived on till, in the twenty-eighth year of his captivity, death at length released him. There is a story of his having starved himself to death in a fit of anger, because Henry had sent him a robe after wearing it once; but this is very improbable. Robert had reached a great age, and his was a character which was likely to be much improved when absent from temptation and with time for thought. He lies buried in Gloucester Cathedral, under an effigy carved in bog oak, with the legs crossed, in memory of his crusade, but unfortunately painted in such a manner as entirely to spoil its effect.

Edgar Etheling was soon allowed to ransom himself, and retiring to his own estates, lived there in peace. His niece, the good Queen Maude, lived on in the English Court, trying to imitate her mother in her charities, and being, like her, much beloved by the poor, to whose wants she ministered with her own hands, while her youngest brother David, then a gay-tempered youth, used to laugh at her for such mean toils, as he called them. No help, such as her father had given St. Margaret, did Maude receive from her husband; she had only the pain of watching his harshness, cruelty, and hypocrisy, during the eighteen years of her marriage. She died in 1118, leaving three childrenMaude, already married to the Emperor of Germany, and William and Richard. William Etheling is reported to have been as proud as his sister Maude, and to have talked of using the churl Saxons as beasts of

|

Death of

Robert,

1134.

Death of good Queen Maude,

1118.

CAMEO XIV.

Edgar
Etheling,

1159

burden. But there are stories more in his favour. He seemed generously disposed towards his cousin, the son of Robert; and he met his death in an attempt to save life, so that it may be hoped that he was not entirely unworthy of the good old name of Etheling, which he bore as heir to the throne.

Our Etheling Edgar lived on in peace through all the troublous times of Stephen, without again appearing in history, till his death is noted in 1159, ninety-three years after the Norman Conquest.

It has been the fashion to call him a fool and a coward; and no doubt the ambitious men who broke oath after oath, and scrupled at no violence, so esteemed one whose right was the inheritance over which they quarrelled. Whether he was a fool may be answered by showing that, after he was fourteen, his name was never once brought forward by factious men for their own purposes; that he conducted a treaty with Scotland, and restored his nephew to the throne: and whether he was a coward no one can ask who has heard of him hastening to attack the Saracens of Apulia, invading warlike Scotland, leading the English to scale the walls of Jerusalem, and, lastly, fighting in a cause that could only be desperate, in a battle that must be lost, where he had no personal interest, and only came to aid a distressed and injured friend. No one can inquire into the history of the last of the race of Alfred without acknowledging in him one of the most perfect examples of true chivalry, in inviolate adherence to his word, and in redressing of grievances, for which his good sword was ever ready, though for his own rights it was never drawn, nor was one drop of English blood shed that Edgar Etheling might reign.

CAMEO XV.

THE COUNTS OF ANJOU.

(888-1142.)

HAVING traced the ancestry of our Norman kings from the rocks of CAMEO XV. Norway and the plains of Neustria, let us, before entering on the new race which succeeded them, turn back to the woodland birth-place of the house of Plantagenet, on the banks of the Loire.

The first ancestor to whom this branch of our royal line can be traced is Torquatus, a native of Rennes in Brittany, and keeper of the forest of Nid de Merle in Anjou, for the Emperor Charles the Bald. Of Roman Gallic blood, and of honest faithful temper, he was more trusted by his sovereign than the fierce Frank warriors who scarcely owned their prince to be their superior; and in after times the counts and kings his descendants were proud of deriving their lineage from the stout Woodman of the Blackbird's nest.

His son Tertullus distinguished himself in battle, and died early, leaving an only son, named Ingelger, who was godson to the Countess de Gastinois, and was brought up in her castle, the school of chivalry and "courtoisie" to the young vassals of the county.

The lady was heiress of Gastinois in her own right, and as the monarch had the power of disposing of his wards in marriage, she had been obliged to give her hand to the seneschal of Charles the Bald, a person whom she much disliked. One morning her husband was found dead in his bed; and his nearest relation, whose name was Gontran, accusing her of having murdered him, laid claim to her whole inheritance.

The cause was brought before Charles the Bald, at Chateau Landon; and Gontran offered to prove his words by the ordeal of battle, taking off his gauntlet, and throwing it down before the emperor. Unless the countess could find a champion to maintain her innocence, or unless Gontran was overthrown in single combat, she would be completely ruined, adjudged a .murderess, and forced to hide her disgrace in a convent. None of the knights present would undertake her cause; and after gazing round at them in despair, she fainted away.

Anjou.

Legend of
Ingelger.