Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/527

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success. He marched westward, and attacked La Houlme. The castle surrendered; the lord of the Peak, with eight hundred men, became the prize of the Duke's unusual display of vigour.

The war went on; each side burned the towns and took the men of the other side. But the tide had for the moment decidedly turned against the Red King. The loss of Argentan and La Houlme, with their commanders and their large garrisons, was a serious military blow. The payment of their ransoms might be a still more serious financial blow. And the payment of a ransom, by which he only got back again what he had had before, would be less satisfactory to the mind of Rufus than the payment of bribes and wages by which he had a hope of gaining something fresh. The hoard at Winchester seems at last to have been running low; but when William Rufus was king and when he had Randolf Flambard to his minister, there could be no lack of ways and means to fill it again. Specially heavy were the gelds laid on England both in this year and in the following. And money was gained by one device which surely would have come into the head of no king and no minister save those by whom it actually was devised. A great levy was ordered; King William sent over his bidding that twenty thousand Englishmen should come over to help the King in Normandy. Englishmen had by this time got used to service

after that.]æt Hulme." Florence makes it the special exploit of Robert; "Comes vero Rotbertus castellum quod Holm nuncupatur obsedit, donec Willelmus Peverel et dccc. homines, qui id defendebant, illi se dederent."]*
 * [Footnote: says nothing of Philip's coming to Longueville, he may mean his return