Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 25.djvu/449

 duchy that year. He returned to England in August. (For this expedition see ib. pp. 816–18;, p. 235; Versus Serlonis, Recueil des Historiens, xix. præf. xcj; , Angevin Kings, i. 11.)

On his return he laid a tax on the clergy, who kept their wives in disobedience to Anselm's canon, and, finding that it brought in little, extended it to all the secular clergy alike. A large number appeared before him at London in vestments and with bare feet, but he drove them from his presence. Then they laid their griefs before the queen, who burst into tears and said she dared not interfere (, iv. col. 457). Robert of Bellême came over to endeavour to obtain the king's pardon, and was sent back indignant at his failure. Duke Robert also came early in 1106 and found the king at Northampton; he failed to persuade the king to give up his conquests and make peace. Contrary to his usual custom, Henry held no court at Easter or Whitsuntide, and spent the one feast at Bath and the other at Salisbury. In July he again went over to Normandy. On 15 Aug. he had a satisfactory interview with Anselm at Bec, and the archbishop returned to England. At Caen he received a visit from Robert of Estouteville, one of the duke's party, who offered to surrender the town of Dives to him, proposing that he should go thither with only a few men. Henry did so, and found that a trap had been laid for him, for he was attacked by a large number. Nevertheless, his men routed their assailants and burnt both castle and monastery (, p. 819). He raised a fort outside Tinchebray, a town between Vire and Flers, belonging to the Count of Mortain, and stationed one of his lords there to blockade the place. As the count succeeded in introducing men and stores, and the siege made no progress, Henry appeared before the town in person. Robert and his army found him there on 2 Sept. Henry's army, which comprised allies from Anjou, Maine, and Brittany, had the larger number of knights, while Robert had more foot-soldiers. The clergy urged the king not to fight with his brother. Henry listened to their exhortations, and sent to Robert, representing that he was not actuated by greed or by a desire to deprive him of his dukedom, but by compassion for the people who were suffering from anarchy, and offering to be content with half the duchy, the strong places, and the government of the whole, while Robert should enjoy the revenues of the other half in idleness. Robert refused. Both armies fought on foot, with the exception of the duke's first line, and Henry's Breton and Cenomannian cavalry, which he placed at some little distance from his main body under the command of Count Elias. The Count of Mortain, who led the first line of the ducal army, charged the king's first line under Ranulf of Bayeux and shook without routing it. Then Elias with his cavalry fell on the flank of the duke's second line of foot, and cut down 225. Thereupon Robert of Bellême, who commanded the rear of the army, fled, and the whole of the duke's forces were scattered (ib. p. 821;, p. 235). The duke, the Count of Mortain, Robert of Estouteville, and other lords were made prisoners, and the battle completed the conquest of the duchy. It was regarded as an English victory, and a reversal of the battle of Hastings, fought almost on the same day forty years before, for it made Normandy a dependency of the English crown ( v. 398; Norman Conquest, v. 176). The war in Normandy helped on Henry's work of consolidating the Norman and English races in England, and this process was still further forwarded by his later wars with France. His subjects in England of either race were counted Englishmen as opposed to Normans or Frenchmen (Angevin Kings, i. 23, 24). Duke Robert was kept a prisoner until his death in 1134; there is no ground for the story current in the thirteenth century (Ann. Monast. ii. 50, iv. 15, 378) that he was blinded (, p. 823). Henry caused William of Mortain to be blinded, and kept him in prison until he died. In the middle of October he held a council of the Norman lords at Lisieux, in which he resumed the grants made by his brother, and ordered the destruction of all ‘adulterine’ or unlicensed castles, and at the same time held a council of the Norman church. In order to accustom the Norman lords to his rule he held a court at Falaise the following January, and it was there probably that he caused Robert of Montfort sur Risle to be tried for disloyalty and banished by legal process. In March he again held a council at Lisieux, and settled the affairs of the duchy, where he pursued the same policy as in England, depressing the baronage and protecting the lower classes from tyranny and violence (ib.).

He returned to England in Lent, and according to his custom held courts at Easter and Whitsuntide, the first at Windsor, the second at Westminster. On 1 Aug. he held a council at Westminster, at which the terms of the compromise between the crown and the papacy were finally settled [see under ]. The issue of the struggle was that the church was freed from the feudal character which had gradually, and especially in the reign of