Norgate',[1] so that one is not surprised to read, on the next page, that, 'unluckily', she 'does not mention the date' of the attack on Norwich by the Flemings under Hugh Bigod, so that 'we are led to guess it from Blomfield' and 'Jordan de [sic] Fantome'.[2] Mr. Rye, therefore, cannot even have heard of the great rebellion against Henry II (1173–4).[3] He proceeds to assert that, according to ' Angevin Kings, i. 284', Hugh, 'who had but a few months before been foremost among the supporters of Stephen, seized Norwich Castle'. Yet on the opposite page (and on p. 8) we find this episode assigned to '1136' and 'F. Norgate' asserted by Mr. Rye to state that Stephen took the castle from Hugh[4] 'and gave the town and borough to his own third son, William de Blois', who died 'soon after the siege of Toulouse in 1168'[5] [sic]. Mr. Rye observes, quite gravely, that 'there is great confusion here'![6] Mrs. Armitage is carefully named 'Miss Armitage' throughout[7] in each reference to her valuable work on Early Norman Castles (1912). It is not, therefore, surprising that Freeman's critic should write:
Miss [sic] Armitage (loc. cit.) states that we find from Domesday that no less than 113 houses 'were destroyed for the site of the Castle', but I cannot trace any such entry (Norwich Castle, p. 8).
There is nothing to show to what passage ' loc. cit. ' refers, but on p. 173, where it is found, the author not only cites the Domesday entry, but actually prints it in extenso in a foot-note! Freeman himself does the same.[8] I have now sufficiently illustrated Mr. Rye's methods. When he asserts that 'Freeman's inaccuracies are indeed almost innumerable',[9] we can safely reply that his own inaccuracies are here incomparably worse: he wildly discharges his assertions in the hope, apparently, that no one will trouble to test their accuracy. Indeed, he has himself admitted that this is the method he employs; he tells us in an ingenuous passage that—
- ↑ p. 18.
- ↑ p. 19.
- ↑ It is, no doubt, not easy to follow the chronology in Miss Norgate's work, but in this case (ii. 155–6) she appends a foot-note, in which the capture of Norwich is assigned to 'this summer of 1174', and Jordan Fantome is charged with misdating it. Her 'map to illustrate the rebellion of 1173–4' will be found facing p. 149 of vol. ii.
- ↑ p. 18.
- ↑ The date of the Toulouse campaign was 1159 (not 1168). Mr. Rye states that—'By F. Norgate and others' William 'has been called the natural son of Stephen, but I think there is no warrant for this' (p. 18). This mistake has been sometimes made; but not, so far as I know, by Miss Norgate (see Angevin Kings, i. 430, 469).
- ↑ See pp. 18, 21. The fearful confusion here is due to Mr. Rye, who first deals with Hugh Bigod's retention of the castle against Stephen in '1136' (p. 18), then with its surrender to Henry II 'in 1155–6', and finally (p. 19) with its capture in '1174', after which he introduces its resistance to Stephen, early in his reign, all over again!
- ↑ pp. 5, 8, 12, 13, 17.
- ↑ Norman Conquest (19,11), iv. 67–8. Domesday repeats the phrase 'in occupatione castelli' (ii. 116).
- ↑ p. 37.
