Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/284

 *

in Maine and before Gerberoi; but that was merely to win back the lost possessions of the Norman Duke. Now the wealth and the arms of England were used to win castles beyond the sea for a prince whose possessions and whose titles up to that moment were purely English. In the history of England as a power—and the history of England as a power had no small effect on the history of the English as a people—the taking of Saint Valery is the beginning of a chain of events which leads on, not only to the fight of Tinchebray and the first loss of Rouen, but to the fight of Crecy and the fight of Chastillon, to the taking of Boulogne and the loss of Calais.

Saint Valery had, by the forced commendation of the still reigning Count Guy, passed under Norman superiority; but it was no part of the true Norman land. The first fortress within the Norman duchy which passed into the hands of Rufus was the castle of Aumale, standing just within the Norman border, on the upper course of the river of Eu. Its lord, the first of the great Norman nobles to submit to William and to receive his garrison into his castle, was Stephen, son of Count Odo of Champagne and of Adelaide, whole sister of the Conqueror, cousin-german therefore of the two contending princes. Aumale was won, as Saint Valery had been won, by cunning or by treasure. Stephen may simply have learned to see that it was better for him to have the same lord at Aumale and in Holderness, or his eyes may have been yet further enlightened by the brightness of

what he found in the Chronicles. I do not find any mention of the taking of Saint Valery, or of any possession of Walter of Saint Valery, anywhere except in the English writers. Walter, who is more than once mentioned by Orderic (724 B, 729 D) as a crusader, was of the house of the Advocates of Saint Valery of whom I have spoken elsewhere (N. C. vol. iii. pp. 131, 393).]
 * [Footnote: the force of a correction or as showing that Florence did not understand