William on the continent. November, 1097-April, 1099.
Affairs of Southern Italy.
Siege of Capua. with the letter of his own subject. But the answer was not speedy in coming. Its bearer was the trusty clerk William of Warelwast, of whom we have already heard more than once. The King's business did not now call for the same haste as it had done when the same man was sent to find out who was the true Pope.[1] Much happened before he came. Amongst other things, not a few travellers came from England and Normandy, bringing with them fresh and fresh reports of the evil doings of the King, some of which we have already heard of. William was now in Normandy. He crossed at Martinmas,[2] and spent the whole of the next year in the wars of France and Maine. He did not come back to England till the Easter of the year following that.[3] It was now that he played at Rouen the part of a missionary of the creed of Moses.[4] But he kept his eye upon England also; for to this time is assigned the story of the fifty Englishmen who so enraged the blaspheming King by proving their innocence by the ordeal.[5] Nor was it merely rumours of William's doings at home which found their way into Italy from Normandy and England. While the King was devising his answer to the Pope, his emissaries were busy in other parts of the peninsula. The affairs of the Normans in their two great settlements are always joining in one stream. While Bohemund and Tancred were on their Eastern march, the reigning princes of their house, Roger of Apulia and Roger of Sicily, were carrying on their schemes of advancement west of Hadria. Their armies now lay before Capua. Meanwhile Anselm had with-*
