Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/232

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we shall now see its working from the other side. The same men flit backwards and forwards from Normandy to England and from England to Normandy. But of warfare, public and private, during the reign of William Rufus and still more during the reign of Henry the First, Normandy rather than England is the chosen field. Without warfare of some kind a Norman noble could hardly live. And for that beloved employment Normandy gave many more opportunities than England. The Duke of the Normans, himself after all the man of a higher lord, could not be—at least no duke but William the Great could be—in his continental duchy all that the King of the English, Emperor in his own island, could be within his island realm. Private war was lawful in Normandy—the Truce of God itself implied its lawfulness; it never was lawful in England. And wars with France, wars with Anjou, the endless struggle in and for the borderland of Maine, went much further towards taxing the strength and disturbing the peace of the Norman duchy, than the endless strife on the Welsh and Scottish marches could go towards taxing the strength and disturbing the peace of the English kingdom. Normandy then will be our fighting-ground far more than England; but the fighting men will be the same in both lands.

The old companions of the Conqueror were by this time beginning to make way for a new generation. The rebellion of 1088 saw the last exploits of some of them. Yet others among them will still be actors for a while. Bishop Odo, cut off from playing any part in England, still plays a part in Normandy. The great border earls, Hugh of Chester and of Avranches, Roger of Shrewsbury and of Montgomery, die in the course of our tale, but not till we have something more to tell about both of them, and a good deal to tell about the longer-lived of the two. Their younger fellow, Robert of Mowbray, after becoming the