Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/355

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passage for himself and his garrison. William, already tired of a siege in which he had made little progress and which had cost him many men and horses, gladly accepted the terms. Henry, still Ætheling, though no longer Count, marched forth from his island stronghold with all the honours of war. We are to suppose that, according to the terms of the treaty, the King took possession of the Mount itself, and the Duke of the rest of Henry's former county. William stayed on the mainland, in the parts of Normandy which had been ceded to him, for full six months, having his head-quarters at Eu. In August the affairs of his island kingdom called him back again; and, strange to say, both his brothers went with him as his guests and allies.

At this moment the past and the future alike lead us to look with more interest on the fates of the dispossessed Ætheling than on those of any other of the actors in our story. But there is at first sight some little difficulty in finding out what those fates were. From our English authorities we could only gather that Henry was in England before the end of the year in which the siege took place, and that three years later he was again beyond sea, in favour with William and at enmity with Robert. From other writers we get a version, which