Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/275

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in every way, by holding the castles of his principality, by winning friends and hiring mercenaries. He strengthened the castles of Coutances and Avranches, those of Cherbourg by the northern rocks and of Gavray in the southern part of the Côtentin. Among his counsellors and supporters were some men of note, as Richard of Redvers, and the greater name of the native lord of Avranches, Earl Hugh of Chester. Indeed all the lords of the Côtentin stood by their Count, save only the gloomy, and perhaps banished, Robert of Mowbray, Earl of Northumberland. That we find the lords of two English earldoms thus close together in a corner of Normandy shows how thoroughly the history of the kingdom and that of the duchy form at this moment one tale. While the Count and Ætheling was strengthened by such support, the land of Coutances and Avranches enjoyed another moment of peace and order, while the rest of Normandy was torn in pieces by the quarrels of Robert of Bellême and his like.

§ 2. The first Successes of William Rufus. 1090.

While the duchy of Normandy had thus become one scene of anarchy under the no-government of its nominal prince, the King of the English had been carefully watching the revolutions of his brother's dominions. He now deemed that the time had come to avenge the wrongs which he deemed that he had suffered at his brother's hands. He must have seen that he had not much to fear from a prince who had let slip