Duke's duty, as the ruler of the land, as a faithful son of Holy Church, to put an end to the tyranny of this usurper, and to give to all his dominions the blessing of lawful government at the hand of their lawful prince.
Affairs of Maine.
Helias and Hildebert.
But the overthrow of the house of Talvas was not
the only work to which Odo stirred up his nephew.
There was another enterprise to be undertaken before
the great lord of the Cenomannian border could be
safely attacked. These early days of Robert lead us
on at once to that side of the continental wars and
continental policy of Rufus which seems to have drawn
to itself the smallest amount of English interest at the
time,[1] but which is that on which we are now led to
look with a deeper interest than any other. Before
Robert could safely attack Bellême, he must make sure
of Le Mans and of all Maine. Every mention of that
noble city, of its counts and its bishops, its renowned
church, and its stout-hearted citizens, has a charm which
is shared by no other spot between the Loire and the
Channel. And at no stage of its history did the Cenomannian
state stand forth with greater brilliancy than in
the last days of its independent being, when Le Mans
had Helias to its count and Hildebert to its bishop.
Those days are still parted from us by a few years; but
the advice given by Odo to Robert brings us to the beginning
of the chain of events which leads straight to
them. The historian of William Rufus must now begin
to look forward to the days when Rufus, like his
father, tried his strength against the valiant men of
the Cenomannian land and city, and tried it at a time
- ↑ The only entry which the Chronicler has on Rufus' wars in Maine is the short one in 1099 (more was said about the expedition of the elder William in 1063), but some parts of the Norman war are given in great detail.
