The "good men." of speaking, as in many other phrases in our own and other tongues, the word "good" means rank and office rather than moral goodness. Yet the latter idea is not wholly absent; the name would hardly be given to men who were engaged in a cause which the writer wholly condemned. The "good men" here spoken of must have been mainly Normans, with Earl Robert of Mowbray at their head. Earl Robert was not likely to have won much love from the English people. Yet he passed for a "good man," when he did his duty for England, when he guarded the land and drove back the Scottish invader. Of any wish to put Malcolm in the place of either the elder or the younger William we see no trace at any stage of our story. Beyond this emphatic sentence, we get no details. As in so many other cases, if conquest was the object of Malcolm's expedition, plunder was the only result.
William and Robert in England. August, 1091.
Relations between Robert and Malcolm.
The news of this harrying of the northern part of his
kingdom brought King William back from Normandy in
the course of August. With him, as we have said, came
Robert and Henry. Why was the Duke's presence needed?
One account hints that his coming had some reference
to the actors in the late rebellion, some of whom at least
were now restored to their estates.[1] Another version
speaks of an old friendship between Robert and Malcolm;[2]
and there was a tie of spiritual affinity between
- [Footnote: fyrde ongean sændon and hine gecyrdon." Did they not go in their own
persons?]
- ↑ See above, p. 282. The words of Orderic (701 A) are odd; "Guillelmus rex . . . cum Roberto fratre suo pacem fecerat, ipsumque contra infidos proditores qui contra regem conspiraverant secum duxerat." This surely cannot mean the Scots; it must mean the rebels of three years before. Robert cannot have been brought to act in any way against them; yet the words of Orderic must have a confused reference to some real object of his coming.
- ↑ Will. Malms. iv. 311. "Satagente Roberto comite, qui familiarem jamdudum apud Scottum locaverat gratiam, inter Malcolmum et Willelmum concordia inita." See Appendix P.
