Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/285

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English gold. But the Red King had other means at his disposal, and it seems that other means were needed, if not to win, at least to keep Aumale. The defences of the castle were greatly strengthened at the King's cost, and it became a centre for further operations. "Therein he set his knights, and they did harms upon the land, in harrying and in burning." Other castles were soon added to the Red King's dominion. Count Robert of Eu, whom we have heard of alike at Mortemer and in Lindesey, the father of the man whom we have more lately heard of at Berkeley, still held the house where William the Great had received Harold as his guest, hard by the church where he had received Matilda as his bride. The Count had been enriched with lands in southern England; he is not recorded as having joined in his son's rebellion; and the lord of Eu now transferred the allegiance of his Norman county to the prince of whom he held his command on the rocks of Hastings. Aumale and Eu, two of the most important points on the eastern border of Normandy, are thus the first places which we hear of as receiving Rufus on the mainland. We shall hear of both names again, but in quite another kind of tale, before the reign of Rufus is over.

The next Norman noble to join the cause of William was another lord of the same frontier, who held a point of hardly less importance to the south of Eu and Aumale.castellariam de Hastinges."]