fruitless than the former; the brothers parted in greater anger than ever.[1] The Duke went back to Rouen; the King again took up his head-quarters at Eu.[2]
Castles held by the King.
La Houlme.
Argentan.
Again on Norman soil, William began to practise the
arts which had stood him in such stead in his former
enterprise on the duchy. He hired mercenaries; he
gave or promised money or lands to such of the chief
men of Normandy as were willing to forsake the allegiance
of Robert; he quartered his knights both in the
castles which he had hitherto held, and in those which
he won to himself by these means.[3] Some of these last
were very far from Eu. It shows how successful were
the arts of Rufus, how wide was the disaffection against
Robert, when we find castles, far away from one
another, far away from the seat of William's power
in eastern Normandy, but hemming in the lands in the
Duke's obedience on two dangerous frontiers, garrisoned
by the King's troops. We are reminded of the revival
of Henry's power in the Côtentin when we read
that the castle of La Houlme, at the junction of
the two rivers Douve and Merderet, lying south-east
from Valognes and nearly east from Saint Saviour, was
now held for William.[4] So was another stronghold
in quite another quarter, not far from the Cenomannian
border, the castle of Argentan on the upper course of the
Orne, to the south of the great forest of Gouffers. Two
- ↑ Chron. Petrib. 1094. "And forþam hi þa mid mycelon unsehte tocyrdon."
- ↑ The mention of the places comes from Florence; "Comes quidem Rotomagum perrexit; rex ad Owe rediit et in illo resedit."
- ↑ Flor. Wig. 1094. "Solidarios undique conduxit, aurum, argentum, terras, quibusdam primatum Normanniæ dedit, quibusdam promisit, ut a germano suo Rotberto deficerent, et se cum castellis suæ ditioni subjicerent: quibus ad velle suum paratis, per castella, vel quæ prius habuerat vel quæ nunc conduxerat, suos milites distribuit."
- ↑ The "castel æt Hulme" of the Chronicler is the castle of Hulmus, Le Homme, or L'Isle Marie. See Stapleton, ii. xxv, xxviii. It must not be confounded with the "pagus Holmensis" or "Holmetia regio" in the Hiesmois. See Stapleton, ii. xc, xcv, and Ord. Vit. 691 C.
