The Norman Conquest (45 page)

and the king granted his request and sent for him. King Malcolm and his sister again gave countless treasures to him and to all his men, and sent him once more from their domain in great state. The sheriff of York came to meet him at Durham, and accompanied him the whole way, and arranged for food and fodder to be obtained for him in every castle they came to, until they came across the sea to the king.

Here indeed was proof that the English were conscious of the Conqueror’s chivalry, for in earlier times no sane ætheling would have surrendered in this way for fear of execution. William, by contrast, was the very model of chivalrous courtesy. Edgar was received ‘with great ceremony, and he then remained at the king’s court there, and accepted such privileges as he granted him’.
³⁴

The clearest indication of improved Anglo-Norman relations, however, is a new revolt that erupted in 1075. Although often ranked with earlier rebellions against the Conqueror, this revolt differed in the important respect that its leaders were French rather than English. The prime mover, it seems, was a young man called Ralph de Gael, who was by birth and upbringing a Breton (Gaël was his lordship in Brittany). The Bretons in general were not popular with the Normans, but Ralph’s father (also named Ralph) had been one of the Continental courtiers of Edward the Confessor, and had been rewarded after the Conquest with the earldom of East Anglia, vacated by the death of Gyrth Godwineson. By 1069, if not before, Ralph senior was dead and Ralph junior had arrived in England to take up his father’s title. Very soon he was plotting rebellion.
³⁵

And he was not alone. The new earl of East Anglia found a willing co-conspirator in Roger, earl of Hereford, son and successor (in England) of no less a person than William fitz Osbern. The two young men cemented their alliance, probably in the spring of 1075, when Ralph married Roger’s sister, Emma – the wedding took place at Exning, near Newmarket in Suffolk, and it was there that the plot was hatched. ‘That bride-ale’, said the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ‘led many to bale.’
³⁶

Precisely what their grievances were is impossible to say. John of Worcester says that William had forbidden the marriage to take place, which might be construed as a reason, albeit a weak one, were it not for the fact that the Chronicle says that, on the contrary, the king had approved the match. Orderic Vitalis puts a long list of complaints into the mouths of the two earls, most of which are either familiar (e.g. William’s bastardy) or clearly the chronicler’s own (e.g. the invasion of England had been unjust). There may, however, be something in Orderic’s ventriloquism when he makes the earls say that lands given out soon after the Conquest had been either wholly or partially confiscated. Immediately after his coronation the Conqueror had appointed new earls on the existing English model. Odo of Bayeux, William fitz Osbern and the older Earl Ralph had taken over the vast commands vacated by the Godwinesons, with authority in each case stretching across several counties. Yet when the king came to create his own earldoms a short while later – for example, at Shrewsbury and at Chester – they were smaller affairs, based on a single shire, and thus closer in extent to a Continental county. What appears to have happened in the case of both Roger and Ralph is that, when they succeeded to their father’s estates, their scope of their authority was much reduced, bringing their old ‘super-earldoms’ into line with William’s more modest model. We can see from a letter of Lanfranc that Roger in particular was angered by the fact that royal sheriffs were holding pleas within his earldom, the obvious inference being that this had not happened during the time of his father.
³⁷

Whatever their grievances, the two earls were clearly trading on the assumption that any rebellion against the Conqueror would be supported by the English. That much is suggested by their decision to approach the last Englishman of any power and standing. Earl Waltheof was a guest at the wedding in Exning and it was there
that he was invited to join the conspiracy. According to Orderic, Roger and Ralph held out the prospect of a kingdom split three ways, with one man taking the crown and the other two ruling as dukes – an altogether unlikely story, given that we know from other sources that the plotters had appealed for help from the Danes. Yet Orderic is surely correct to assume that the point of the rebellion was to get rid of William. As the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle puts it, ‘they plotted to drive their royal lord out of his kingdom’.
³⁸

But in assuming that the English would automatically rise up and join them, the earls badly miscalculated. What the events of 1075 prove, above all else, is that there was no further appetite for rebellion among the natives. Earl Waltheof, according to John of Worcester, quickly came to his senses and confessed all to Lanfranc. Whether this was true or not, the archbishop soon discovered that castles were being strengthened and troops raised against the king. His response can be charted from a series of letters he sent soon afterwards to Roger of Hereford. At first Lanfranc tried to appease the earl, reminding him of his father’s outstanding loyalty, informing him that his dispute with the king’s sheriffs would be investigated, and offering to meet him in person so that they could discuss matters further. Evidently this olive branch was rejected, for the archbishop’s next letter begins, ‘I grieve more than I can say at the news I hear of you.’ Roger was again reminded of his father’s great integrity and urged to come and talk his problems over. But the rebel could not be persuaded, and so Lanfranc changed his attitude entirely. ‘I have cursed and excommunicated you and all your adherents’, he says in his final letter, adding ‘I can free you from this bond of anathema only if you seek my lord the king’s mercy.’
³⁹

In the meantime the king’s more warlike lieutenants in England were marshalling forces with which to crush the rebellion – forces which, in every account, bear witness to extensive Anglo-Norman co-operation. According to John of Worcester the rebels raised by Earl Roger in Herefordshire were prevented from crossing the River Severn by armies under the command of Bishop Wulfstan of Worcester and Abbot Æthelwig of Evesham, along with ‘a great multitude of people’. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells us that Earl Ralph and his men were similarly frustrated in East Anglia, because ‘the castle garrisons in England [i.e. the Normans] and all the local people [i.e. the English] came against them and prevented them from doing anything’. John of Worcester adds that Ralph was camped
at Cambridge when he encountered ‘a large force of English and Normans’, ready for battle, while Orderic maintains that a battle actually took place at the nearby manor of Fawdon, in the course of which the rebels were routed by ‘an English army’.
⁴⁰

And so the ill-conceived revolt of the earls was thwarted. Ralph fled back to his base in Norfolk and from there took ship to Brittany, leaving his new wife and his Breton followers to defend the mighty royal castle at Norwich. This suggests he was hoping to return, either with fresh forces raised on the Continent or in the company of his Danish allies. But after a long siege – three months, if Orderic is to be believed – Emma and the rest of the Norwich garrison sought terms of surrender. In exchange for a promise of life and limb, they agreed to leave England and never to return. ‘Glory be to God on high,’ wrote Lanfranc to his royal master, ‘your kingdom has been purged of its Breton filth.’
⁴¹

As the archbishop’s letter implies, William was still in Normandy at the time of the surrender. Earlier in the crisis he had evidently been ready to cross the Channel, but Lanfranc had dissuaded him (‘You would be offering us a grave insult were you to come to our assistance’, the king was firmly told). William did return soon afterwards, however, having discovered that in one respect the rebels’ plan had met with success. ‘The Danes are indeed coming, as the king has told us,’ wrote Lanfranc to the bishop of Durham that autumn, ‘so fortify your castle with men, weapons and stores: be ready.’ But this too turned out to be a passing storm. A fleet of 200 Danish ships in due course arrived but, says the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ‘they dared not fight with King William’, and contented themselves with plundering York before returning home.
⁴²

William was therefore able to spend Christmas at Westminster, dealing with the rebellion’s aftermath. ‘There all the Bretons who were at the wedding feast were sentenced’, says the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. ‘Some of them were blinded, and some of them were banished.’ Tough sentences, as one would expect for men who had plotted treason, but note that, in keeping with proper chivalric practice, none of them were executed. Roger of Hereford, who was captured soon after the king’s return, was sentenced to lose his lands and liberty, but not his life. Like Earl Morcar, he would spend the rest of his days in prison, contemplating the folly of rebelling against William the Bastard.
⁴³

That left Earl Waltheof, who had been implicated in the rebellion but to a degree that was uncertain, even to contemporaries. According to both the Chronicle and John of Worcester, the earl was essentially innocent. Forced to swear an oath while at the wedding, he had immediately gone to Lanfranc for absolution, and then, on the archbishop’s advice, crossed to Normandy to seek similar forgiveness from the king. By contrast, in Orderic’s account (which seems in many respects less reliable), Waltheof was made party to the plot, disapproved of it, but told no one. Thus, although he did not participate in the rebellion, he could be charged with the crime of concealment.

The judges, says Orderic, could not agree on a verdict, and the earl was held at Winchester for several months until they reached a decision. Clearly the worst that could happen would be that, like Earl Roger, he would remain in captivity forever, but Orderic says it was generally supposed that Waltheof would be released. He was, after all, married to the king’s niece. The earl may even have hoped that, as in the case of Edgar Ætheling, his timely surrender might count in his favour and enable his rehabilitation.
⁴⁴

If so he was gravely disappointed. Six months later, judgement was finally passed on Waltheof, who was found to be as guilty as any of the other conspirators. His sentence, however, was different. As Orderic explains, Roger of Hereford was a Norman and had hence been judged ‘by the laws of the Normans’. Waltheof on the other hand was an Englishman and was sentenced according to ‘the law of England’. On the morning of 31 May 1076, while the city’s other inhabitants were still asleep, the earl was led out of Winchester to the top of St Giles Hill and beheaded. Despite Orderic’s description of his prayers and tears, it is difficult to feel a great deal of sympathy for Waltheof – here, after all, was a man who had recently arranged the murders of his political rivals as they were sitting down to enjoy their evening meal. By his own actions, the last English earl had proved the chronicler’s point that the conquerors and the conquered did indeed play by different rules. Yet while such differences existed, there can have been little hope of reconciliation.
⁴⁵

16

Ravening Wolves

I
n the summer of 1076, with Earl Roger in prison and Earl Waltheof dead, the Conqueror crossed the Channel in pursuit of the one remaining conspirator, the elusive Earl Ralph. This might suggest a thoroughness on William’s part bordering on the obsessive, but Ralph was no wandering exile. Back in his native Brittany, the earl had ensconced himself in the castle of Dol, from where he and his men were able to menace Normandy’s western marches. And not just
his
men either: local chronicles reveal that some of the garrison had been supplied by the count of Anjou. Ralph, in other words, was in league with the king’s other enemies on the Continent, which raises the possibility that this had been the case even before his rebellion in England, and thereby casts that rebellion in a new and more serious light. Like Edgar Ætheling before him, Ralph may have been part of a wider plot to topple William from power, orchestrated by the count of Anjou, the count of Flanders and the king of France.
¹

If anything William seems to have underestimated the scale of the threat. In September 1076 he advanced into Brittany, terrorizing Ralph’s lordship and subjecting Dol to a sustained siege. But the defenders proved more resolute than anticipated and held out for many weeks. Then, with the onset of winter, the king of France came to their aid, surprising William and forcing him into what sounds at best like a hasty retreat, if not quite a total rout. ‘King William went away’, says the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ‘and lost both men and horses and incalculable treasure.’ It was the first recorded setback of the Conqueror’s military career. Fifty years later, Orderic
Vitalis saw it as the workings of divine justice, with God punishing William for Waltheof’s death.
²

During the remainder of 1077, therefore, peace negotiations took place with both France and Anjou, with William for once in the uncomfortable position of not having the upper hand. No doubt significantly, the summer and autumn of that year saw the dedication of several major new churches in the duchy, including the king’s own foundation of St Stephen’s in Caen. Perhaps William was worried about divine displeasure and was seeking to make amends. What he was certainly seeking was an alternative means of advertising the full extent of his power. The dedication of St Stephen’s was attended not just by the king, the queen and all the magnates then in Normandy; also there by special arrangement were the most powerful Norman barons from England, as well as Archbishop Lanfranc and Thomas, the archbishop of York. Here was an attempt, surely, to remind Continental observers that the Normans, although preoccupied in many cases with affairs in England, were far more powerful as a result of their Conquest, and, although divided by the Channel, were not divided in their loyalties. Unfortunately, it was not true in every instance, and least of all within William’s own family.
³