Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/337

 will, claims the right to shut out a weaker prince or people from the seaboard which nature has designed for them.

Besides Cherbourg, the Red King demanded the island fortress of Saint Michael's Mount, the abbey in peril of the sea. Otherwise he seems to have claimed nothing in the west of Normandy. Robert might reign, if he could, over the lands which his father had brought into submission on the day of Val-ès-Dunes. Nor were the great cessions which Robert made to be wholly without recompence. It might be taken for granted that the Duke whose territories were thus cut off was to have some compensation in another shape out of the wealth of England. So it was; vast gifts were given by the lord of the hoard at Winchester to the pauper prince at Rouen. But he was not to be left without territorial compensation also. William not only undertook to bring under Robert's obedience all those who were in arms against him throughout Normandy; he further undertook to win back for him all the dominions which their father had ever held, except those lands which, by the terms of the treaty, were to fall to William himself. This involved a very considerable enlargement of Robert's dominions, besides turning his nominal rule into a reality in the lands where he was already sovereign in name. It was aimed at lands both within and without the bounds of the Norman duchy. Maine, city and county, was again in revolt against its Norman lords. By this clause of the treaty William bound himself to recover Maine for Robert. This obligation he certainly never even attempted to fulfil. He did not meddle with Maine till the Norman lord and the English King were again one. Then the recovery of