Page:Cambridge Medieval History Volume 3.pdf/151

108 favourable for taking their revenge. A plot was set on foot by them with Odo, the king's youngest brother, the object of which was, briefly, to replace Henry on the throne by Odo. The king contrived to baffle their calculations. Odo, surrounded in a castle, was taken prisoner and immured at Orleans; Stephen was completely routed and put to flight; his ally, the Count of Vermandois, was made prisoner; and finally, against Theobald the king enlisted the help of the Count of Anjou, Geoffrey Martel, by granting him in advance the investiture of Tours which he left it to him to conquer.

On all sides the monarchy had again lost ground. Burgundy had been lost, and it had been necessary to cede the French Vexin to the Duke of Normandy, who had been one of the king's most faithful supporters, as a reward for his services; and finally, the handing over of Tours to Count Geoffrey Martel, who got possession of it in 1044, meant an extension of the Angevin principality, which before long would become dangerous. Moreover the king came out of the crisis so much weakened that, for the future, he had perforce to play a very minor part. While all his feudatories strove without ceasing to round off their territories, he either lived in a pitiable fashion inside his narrow domain, or else interfered in the struggles between his vassals, supporting now one and now another, as need seemed to suggest; such was his poor and his only attempt at a policy.

It was in the west of France that the events of most real importance occurred. Two powers, whose struggles were to occupy the whole of the second half of Henry I's reign, found themselves opposed, namely, the Angevin power and the Norman.

Since the middle of the tenth century, the Counts of Anjou had never ceased to extend their borders at the expense of their neighbours. The terrific Fulk Nerra (987-1040) had throughout his life struggled to bind to one another and to his own lands the new possessions in the midst of Touraine which his predecessors had succeeded in acquiring, as well as to surround Tours with a circle which grew daily narrower. In 994 or 995 he had reached Langeais; about 1005 Montrichard and Montbazon; in 1016 he had inflicted a tremendous defeat on Odo II, Count of Blois, on the plains of Pontlevoy; next year he had built a fortress at Montboyau at only a few miles distance from Tours; in 1026 he had surprised the stronghold of Saumur which for more than a century had been in the hands of the Counts of Blois. Geoffrey Martel, his son (1040-1060), had boldly pushed on the enterprise; taking advantage of the hostility of the new Count of Blois, Theobald III, to King Henry, he had, as we have seen, secured the investiture of Tours from the latter and had proceeded to lay siege to the town. In vain had Theobald and his brother Stephen attempted to raise the blockade; Geoffrey Martel had offered the battle at Nouy, near the village of St-Martin-le-Beau, and here again the Count of Anjou had won a striking victory. Theobald,