Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 48.djvu/357

 kingdom and duchy under the ‘more tractable’ duke. Robert promised to help them ‘if they would make a beginning;’ but all the help he sent them on their rising in the spring of 1088 was a fleet, which was defeated in an attempt upon Pevensey. He himself was ‘kept at home by sloth and love of ease.’ In six months he had squandered the whole of his father's treasure. He now asked his brother Henry [see ] for a loan, and when this was refused, sold him the Cotentin and its dependencies—a third part of the duchy—for 3,000l. When Henry, in company with Robert of Bellême [q. v.], returned from a visit to England in the summer, the duke, persuaded that they had been plotting against him with Rufus, imprisoned them both, by the advice of Bishop Odo. Urged by the same counsellor, he next led an army to Le Mans; the citizens and most of the nobles of Maine did homage to him; a few barons who held out in the castle of Ballon surrendered in September. He then, with their help, besieged Bellême's castle of St. Cénery, starved it into surrender, blinded its commandant, and mutilated some of the garrison. Shortly afterwards, however, he released Bellême himself, on the persuasion of the latter's father. Bellême now became first of the three chief counsellors of the duke; and his influence for evil, whether it were backed or not by the third, William of Arques, more than counterbalanced the influence for good of the second, Edgar Atheling [q. v.]

In 1089 Rufus prepared to invade Normandy. Robert called in the help of Philip of France, who joined him at the siege of La Ferté, but was bought off by Rufus (cf. Rer. Gall. Scriptt. xii. 636, note a, with Engl. Chron. a. 1090, and l. iv. c. 307). In the meantime Maine had won its independence, and set up a count of its own; while Henry, whom Robert had released from prison, was fighting for his own hand in the Cotentin. The discovery of a plot to betray Rouen to William drove Robert to make alliance with Henry; and to Henry he was chiefly indebted for the failure of that plot, 3 Nov. 1090. At the approach of William's troops the duke rushed forth from the citadel to support his adherents. But his friends persuaded him that his life was too precious to be risked in a street fight, so he slipped away across the Seine, and waited in a church till the tumult was suppressed by his constable and his brother Henry. Then he returned, and was with difficulty induced to punish the conspirators. In January 1091 he went to help Bellême in besieging the castle of Courcy; but as his sympathies were—in this case very justly—on the other side, he ‘took no pains to press the siege.’ At the end of the month he was called away to meet Rufus. At Rouen or at Caen the two brothers made a treaty; by one of its clauses they agreed to drive Henry out of Normandy and divide his lands between them. They besieged him at mid-Lent in the Mont St. Michel, and in a fortnight he surrendered. An incident of the siege illustrates what William of Malmesbury calls ‘the mildness of Duke Robert.’ The garrison lacked water; Henry appealed to the duke to ‘fight against them by the valour of his troops, not by the power of the elements.’ Robert bade his sentinels allow Henry's men to fetch water unmolested; and when Rufus asked how he expected to overcome his enemies if he thus supplied their needs, he answered, ‘Shall I leave our brother to die of thirst? Where shall we get another brother if we lose him?’ In August Robert accompanied William to England, to meet Malcolm of Scotland, from whom William claimed homage. Malcolm declared that whatever submission he owed was due not to William, but to Robert, alluding probably to something which had passed at Abernethy in 1072. Robert spent three days in the Scottish camp by the Forth, and, with Eadgar's help, brought Malcolm to some sort of agreement with Rufus. On 23 Dec. Robert and Eadgar returned to Normandy together.

The late treaty had left a large part of Normandy in William's hands; it had also pledged him to reconquer, for Robert, Maine and the Vexin. At Christmas 1093 Robert called upon William to fulfil these engagements. William went to Normandy in March 1094, and met Robert twice, but refused to do anything; so another war began. With the help of Philip of France Robert besieged and took Argentan; thence he went on alone to take La Houlme. Philip rejoined him there, and they marched upon Longueville, intending to besiege Rufus himself at Eu. But Rufus bribed Philip to withdraw, while William of Breteuil bribed Robert to turn aside and help him in a private feud against the lord of Bréherval. Next year (1095) Bellême terrorised him into leading an armed force against Robert, son of Geroy, a special object of Bellême's hatred. Better counsellors, however, persuaded the duke to try his powers of conciliation, and he arranged a compromise which put an end to an exceedingly troublesome feud.

In 1096 Robert took the cross, and pledged his duchy to the English king for five years