Page:The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Giles).djvu/186

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168
THE ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE.
A.D. 1094.

court at Gloucester; and there came messengers to him out of Normandy, from his brother Robert, and they said that his brother renounced all peace and compact if the king would not perform all that they had stipulated in the treaty; moreover they called him perjured and faithless unless he would perform the conditions, or would go to the place where the treaty had been concluded and sworn to, and there clear himself. Then at Candlemas the king went to Hastings, and whilst he waited there for a fair wind, he caused the monastery on the field of battle[1] to be consecrated; and he took the staff from Herbert Losange,[2] bishop of Thetford.—After this, in the middle of Lent, he went over sea to Normandy. When he came thither he and his brother, earl Robert, agreed that they would meet in peace, and they did so, to the end that they might be reconciled, but afterwards, when they met, attended by the same men who had brought about the treaty, and had sworn to see it executed, these charged all the breach of faith upon the king; he would not allow this, neither would he observe the treaty, on which they separated in great enmity. And the king then seized the castle of Bures, and took the earl's men who were in it, and he sent some of them over to this country. And on the other hand the earl, with the assistance of the king of France, took the castle of Argences, in which he seized Roger the Poitou and seven hundred of the king's soldiers; and he afterwards took the castle of Hulme; and frequently did each burn the towns and take captive the people of his rival. Then the king sent hither and ordered out 20,000 Englishmen to aid him in Normandy, but when they reached the sea they were desired to return, and to give to the king's treasury the money that they had received; this was half a pound for each man, and they did so. And in Normandy, after this, the earl, with the king of France, and all the troops that they could collect, marched towards Eu, where king William then was, purposing to besiege him therein, and thus they proceeded until they came to Lune-

  1. Battle Abbey.
  2. Commonly called Herbert de Losinga. His letters are of much historical interest: they were supposed to be lost, until they were recently discovered by Robert Anstruther in the Brussels library, and published 8vo, Bruxellis, apud Vandale, et Londini apud D. Nutt.