Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/534

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which we are most at home. There is Ralph of Conches, Gerard of Gournay, Richard of Courcy. We hear now too of Philip of Braose, a name to become famous in more than one part of our island. And we find the names of men yet higher in power, and nearer to the ducal house. There is the first author of the late troubles, Count William of Eu, for the present still an adherent of Rufus, before long to be heard of in quite another character. With him stands Count Stephen of Aumale, also before long to play a part in our story wholly different from that which we find him playing now. And it is needless to say that Count Robert of Meulan was the Red King's servant in his Norman, as well as in his English character. Nor do we wonder to find in the same list—for he was Earl of Buckingham as well as lord of Longueville—the name of Walter Giffard, him who appeared as an aged man forty years before. He still lived, while, during this very year, more than one of the elder generation of the famous men of Normandy passed away. The father of the Count of Meulan, the old Roger of Beaumont, renowned so many years before alike in arms and in council, died on the Norman soil which he had guarded so well, and which he seems never to have left. He had for some years left the world, to become a monk in the monastery of Preaux of his father's rearing. His estates had passed to his son at Meulan, the mighty vassal of three lords. His younger son Henry had his lot cast in England, where, perhaps before this time, the Red King bestowed on him the earldom of Warwick. And, in the same year as the lord of Beaumont, died, far away in England, another Roger,