Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/613

Robert of Meulan marries his daughter.

Robert of Flanders and Stephen of Chartres.

The brothers from Boulogne;

Eustace,

Baldwin, his sons. His daughter Isabel or Elizabeth he gave in marriage to Count Robert of Meulan, by this time no very youthful bridegroom.^[1] Among princes of greater power, but of less lofty birth, the foreign allies of the Norman house were represented by the younger Count Robert of Flanders, nephew of the Conqueror's queen, and by Stephen Count of Chartres and Blois, husband of the Conqueror's noblest child, and father of a king of England and of a bishop of an English see more personally eminent than his royal brother. Rotrou of Mortagne and Walter of Saint Valery went from the border lands so closely connected with Norman history. In Everard of Puiset we hear the name of a house which was in the next century to become famous in England on the throne of Saint Cuthberht, the throne at that moment empty and widowed by the death of William of Saint-Calais. And from a house most hateful to England, but which had received no small share of the spoils of England, went forth three brethren, one of whom was to show himself the worthiest, and to be placed the highest, in the crusading host. Eustace of Boulogne, a prince beyond the sea but in England lord of lands scattered from Mendip to the Kentish and East-Saxon shores,^[2] marched with his two brothers, both of whom were to reign as kings in the Holy City. The part of Baldwin in the enterprise had been already foreshadowed in visions told in the hall of Conches.^[3] Visions were hardly needed to foretell the

1. The marriage is recorded by Orderic (vii. 23 D). There is a letter of Bishop Ivo of Chartres addressed to the clergy of Meulan and to all persons within the archdeaconry of Poissy. He denounces the intended marriage on the ground of kindred, and bids them send the letter to the Count of Meulan. The kindred is said to be "nec ignota, nec remota;" but it consisted in this, that Robert and Isabel had a common forefather removed by four degrees from Robert and five from Isabel. Robert was thus, as we should have expected, a generation older than his wife.
2. See N. C. vol. iv. pp. 130, 166, 744.
3. See above, p. 269.