generation, "joined the English."[1] And for them the King of the English was open-handed. Into the hoard at Winchester the wealth of England flowed in the shape of every kind of unlawful exaction. Out of it it flowed as freely to enable the new subjects of King William to strengthen the defences of their castles and to hire mercenaries to defend them.[2]
Helias of Saint-Saens.
He marries Robert's daughter.
His descent.
He has Caux as his wife's dowry.
Position of Saint-Saens.
During all this time Duke Robert himself does not seem
to have thought of striking a blow. But there was one
man at least between Seine and Somme who was ready
both to give and to take blows on his behalf. Robert
had given one of his natural children, a daughter born,
to him in his wandering days,[3] in marriage to Helias,
lord of Saint-Saens.[4] Helias, like so many of the Norman
nobles, came of a house which had risen to importance
through the loves of Gunnor and Richard the
Fearless.[5] A daughter of one of Gunnor's sisters married
Richard Viscount of Rouen, and became the mother
of Lambert of Saint-Saens, the father of Helias.[6] Helias
and the daughter of Robert had thus a common, though
distant, forefather in the father of Gunnor. With his
wife Helias received a goodly dowry, nothing less, we
are told, than the whole land of Caux.[7] Helias' own
lordship of Saint-Saens lies on the upper course of the
- ↑ Ord. Vit. 681 A. "Robertus Aucensium comes, et Gauterius Gifardus et Radulfus de Mortuomari, et pene omnes qui trans Sequanam usque ad mare habitabant, Anglicis conjuncti sunt."
- ↑ Ib. "De regiis opibus ad muniendas domos suas armis et satellitibus copiosam pecuniam receperunt."
- ↑ See N. C. vol. iv. p. 644.
- ↑ Ord. Vit. 681 A. "Robertus dux contra tot hostes repagulum paravit, filiamque suam quam de pellice habuerat, Heliæ filio Lamberti de Sancto Sidonio conjugem dedit."
- ↑ N. C. vol, i. p. 253.
- ↑ Will. Gem. viii. 37.
- ↑ Ord. Vit. 681 B. "Archas cum Buris et adjacente provincia in maritagio tribuit, ut adversariis resisteret Calegiique comitatum defenderet. Ille vero jussa viriliter complere cœpit."
