Duke of Maine

“ While we have been following the fates of England, Normandy, Scotland, and Wales, much of high interest has been going on in Maine which had no connexion with the affairs of any part of Britain, and which had but little influence on Norman affairs either. But now that England and Normandy have again a common ruler, the affairs of England, or at least the affairs of her King, have again a close connexion with the affairs of Maine. We have now therefore to take up the tale of that noble city and county from the days when we had to tell of Duke Robert’s campaign before Ballon and Saint Cenery. ”

“ He is busy making a collection of snuffboxes at Sceaux, and does not even know there is anything afoot. It is for the Duchess du Maine. Ah, there is a woman! Not beautiful, perhaps, but charming, and what a spirit! Orleans has not only assumed the regency, he has also deprived the Duke du Maine of his right to succeed to the throne. ”

“ Maine. The citizens of Le Mans were alert and rebellious, and Duke William’s preoccupation with the conquest of England offered them a unique opportunity to strike a blow for independence. Accordingly, in 1069, they rose in revolt [48] and overthrew the Norman domination more quickly even than it had been established by Duke William in 1063. During the following three years Maine passed through a turbulent era, which—interesting as it is for both local and general history—hardly concerns the life of Robert Curthose ”

“ They have terrified the nations, and have laid
the bravest low,
But intimidate a woodsman up in Maine? Why,
bless you, no!
Merely misty apparitions or some sad ancestral
spook
Serve to terrify a maiden or to warn a death-
marked duke.
But the P. I. scoffs their terrors, though he’ll
never venture loose
’Mongst the ha’nts that roam the woodlands in
the weird domains of Spruce. ”

“ That old woman must surely think herself immortal, for she still hopes to reign, though at the age of eighty-three years. The Duc du Maine's affair is a severe blow for her. She is, nevertheless, not without hope, and it is said not excessively grieved. This fills me with anxiety, for I know too well how expert the wicked old hussy is in the use of poison.
The first President of Mesmes ought to be friendly towards the Duc du Maine, to whom he is indebted for the office he holds. The Duke keeps all his places ”

“ Negotiations with Hugh. We are to suppose that the negotiations with the house of Este were going on during the year when Count Fulk contrived to keep Maine outwardly quiet. But when the quarrel between William and Robert broke out, when Normandy was divided and dismembered, the Angevin over-lord’s influence gave way. The time for action was clearly come. Revolt of Maine. 1090. Le Mans and all Maine now openly rose against the Norman dominion. Duke Robert’s garrisons were driven out; [489] the Cenomannian 198 land was again free. Invitation to Hugh. ”

“ The Duke and Duchess of Maine are often at Seaux, a fine House but a little Distance from Paris, on the high Road to Orleans, built by John Baptist Colbert. Here they have always a gay Court. This Duchess is so much in Love with the Arts and Sciences, that all Men of Letters look on her as their Patroness ”

“ Thus Maine gets in his text an undue prominence, which may possibly account for a statement of his 525 which follows, and which has nothing at all like it anywhere else. The King and the Duke are going to attack Maine the very first thing after the conclusion of the treaty; only they are hindered by the campaign against Henry; “Ergo uterque dux ingentes moliebantur conatus ut Cinomannis invaderent; sed obstitit jam paratis jamque profecturis Henrici fratris minoris animositas.”
It may be needful to point out that the Chronicle really does mention Maine; for Mr. ”

“ Herbert formally became Duke William’s vassal for the county of Maine, and agreed that, if he should die childless, the duke should succeed him in all his rights and possessions. And further, a double marriage alliance was arranged, according to which William promised the count one of his infant daughters, and Robert Curthose was affianced to Herbert’s sister, Margaret of Maine. ”

“ It has been suggested that Henry I, while declining to aid the Norman garrison at Le Mans, was already secretly negotiating with Helias of La Flèche with a view to obtaining his aid against Robert Curthose. [26] But there is no evidence of any such negotiations; and since it is not until several years later that Maine and Anjou appear as active supporters of the king against the duke, this hypothesis seems unwarrantable. In the autumn of 1100, Henry was in no position to interfere in continental affairs. ”

“ Thus they were able to offer formidable opposition to Norman aggression. But Duke William was determined not to let slip so good an opportunity of extending his dominion over Maine, and he took up the challenge with his accustomed vigor. A single campaign sufficed to accomplish his purpose. Walter of the Vexin and Biota, his wife, were taken and imprisoned at Falaise; and soon after they died—it is reported, as the result of poisoning. [28] The Manceaux were quickly defeated and reduced to submission, and Duke William entered Le Mans in triumph. ”

“ If Robert Curthose played any active part in the dispute with Count Fulk as to the right of patronage over the see of Le Mans, or in the siege of Sainte-Suzanne, or, indeed, if he had any actual share in the government of Maine during this period, the record of it has not been preserved. Whatever intention the king may have had of taking his son into a closer coöperation in the management of his affairs was evidently short-lived, and he continued to keep the exercise of all authority directly in his own hands. ”

“ Bellême now became first of the three chief counsellors of the duke; and his influence for evil, whether it were backed or not by the third, William of Arques, more than counterbalanced the influence for good of the second, Edgar Atheling [q. v.]
In 1089 Rufus prepared to invade Normandy. Robert called in the help of Philip of France, who joined him at the siege of La Ferté, but was bought off by Rufus (cf. Rer. Gall. Scriptt. xii. 636, note a, with Engl. Chron. a. 1090, and Will. Malm. l. iv. c. 307) . In the meantime Maine had won its independence, and set up a count of its own ”

“ The belief in no way commits us to the details of the local legend. Robert must have had an astonishingly keen sight if he could, from any window of the existing keep, judge of the whiteness of a pair of feet and ankles at the bottom of14 the rock. Nor does it at all follow that, if the present keep was standing at the time of William's birth, William was therefore born in it. The Duke's mistress would be just as likely to be lodged in some of the other buildings within the circuit of the castle as in the great square tower of defence. ”

“ The distressed nuns appear to have been patiently preserving the record of their grievances against the day when there should be a government and courts to which they could appeal with some prospect of obtaining redress.
Indeed, orderly government and the regular operation of courts of law seem to have been suspended almost entirely during Robert’s reign. With the exception of a fragment of a charter of donation in favor of Saint-Vincent of Le Mans, [194] no single record of an administrative or judicial act by the duke for Maine has been preserved. ”

“ During Robert’s absence on the Crusade, William Rufus had reasserted with the utmost vigor, but with questionable success, the Norman claim to rule in Maine. Against him Helias of La Flèche had maintained a stubborn resistance. And although towards the end of the Red King’s reign he had been forced to retire beyond the frontier into his own strongholds farther south, no sooner did he receive word of the king’s death than he pushed forward again and recovered Le Mans. ”

“ Probably the expedition was intended primarily as a formal progress for receiving the homage of the lords of Maine, for the county was disturbed by no general revolt at that time. Robert’s garrison still held the castle of Le Mans securely, and Bishop Hoël and the clergy and people of the city were loyal. ”

“ A few days after he had made peace with Bishop Hoël, he sold all his rights in Maine to Helias of La Flèche for 10,000 sous manceaux, and departed for Italy. [161] Count Helias now quickly gained the recognition and support of Hoël and of Fulk le Réchin, [162] and became henceforth the sole opponent of Norman rights in Maine. Hard fighting was yet in store for him against William Rufus, and only in the time of Henry I was he to obtain universal recognition ”

“ It was probably after these events that a truce was concluded between King William and Count Fulk at an unidentified place called “castellum Vallium,” [74] a truce which appears to have relieved the Conqueror from further difficulties in Maine until after his reconciliation with Robert Curthose. In 1081, however, taking advantage of the absence of the king and Robert in England, Fulk returned to the attack upon Maine; and this time his [34] efforts seem to have met with more success. Again laying siege to La Flèche, he took it and burned it. ”

“ The revolt of the Manceaux took place soon after the death of Count Herbert; and since Geoffrey le Barbu supported the revolt, it seems natural to regard the homage as a final act in the general pacification, and to assign it to 1063. This is the view taken by Latouche (Maine, p. 35) as against Kate Norgate (England under the Angevin Kings, London, 1887, i, p. 217) , who places the homage before the revolt.
[33] Latouche, Maine, p. 34.
[34] E.g., [before 1066] charter by Duke William establishing collegiate canons at Cherbourg (Revue catholique de Normandie, x, pp. 46-50) ”

“ The hopes of William and Matilda were early centred upon their oldest son, and his initiation into the politics of his ambitious father was not long delayed. As the result of a revolution at Le Mans, the youthful Count Herbert II with his mother and his sister Margaret had been driven into exile, and the direct rule of Geoffrey Martel, count of Anjou, had been established in Maine. [19] William of Normandy, ever jealous of Angevin expansion, was not slow to realize what his policy should be in the light of these events. ”

“ He was made to believe that M. du Maine was utterly without ambition; like a good father of a family, solely occupied with his children, touched with the grandeur of his nearness to the King, simple, frank, upright, and one who after working at his duties all day, and after giving himself time for prayer and piety, amused himself in hunting, and drew upon his natural gaiety and cheerfulness, without knowing anything of the Court, or of what was passing! Compare this portrait with his real character, and we shall feel with terror what a rattlesnake was introduced into the King’s privacy. ”

“ The account of Ordericus Vitalis is confused, and the date (1064) which he gives is impossible. Ordericus, ii, pp. 101-103. The suit held before the ducal curia at Domfront, “cum Guillelmus, Normanniae comes, Cenomannicam urbem haberet adquisitam,” should probably be assigned to 1063 rather than to 1064. Bertrand de Broussillon, Maison de Laval, i, p. 41, no. 28.
[26] Herbert Éveille-Chien was grandfather of Herbert II. Biota, therefore, was aunt of Margaret, Robert Curthose’s fiancée. The genealogy of the counts of Maine in the eleventh century has at last been disentangled by Latouche. ”

“ Some days before the news transpired, the King, full of the enormity of what he had just done for his bastards, looked at them in his cabinet, in presence of the valets, and of D'Antin and D'O, and in a sharp manner, that told of vexation, and with a severe glance, suddenly thus addressed himself to M. du Maine:
"You have wished it; but know that however great I may make you, and you may be in my lifetime, you are nothing after me; and it will be for you then to avail yourself of what I have done for you, if you can." ”

“ Was he vile enough, in concert with M. du Maine, to open this gulf beneath our feet, to push us to our ruin, and by the fall of M. le Duc d'Orleans—the sole prince of the blood old enough to be Regent—to put M. le Duc du Maine in his place, from which to the crown there was only one step, as none are ignorant, left to be taken? It seems by no means impossible: M. du Maine, that son of darkness, was, judging him by what he had already done, quite capable of adding this new crime to his long list.
The mystery was, however, never explained. Maisons died before its darkness could be penetrated. ”

“ In the case of Mademoiselle de Tours, the Queen managed to conquer her dislike, and also sent for the Duc du Maine. Despite her affection for M. le Dauphin, she herself admitted that if Monseigneur had the airs of a gentleman, M. le Duc du Maine looked the very type of a king's son.
The Duc du Maine, Madame de Maintenon's special pupil, was so well trained to all the exigencies of his position and his rank, that such premature perfection caused him to pass for a prodigy. Than his, no smile could be more winning and sweet; no one could carry himself with greater dignity and ease. ”

“ William leaves Le Mans. The stay of William at Le Mans does not seem to have been long. The government of the city was put into the hands of Count William of Evreux and of Gilbert of Laigle. The royal tower, well provisioned, stocked with arms and with all needful things, was placed under the immediate command of Walter the son of Ansgar of Rouen. [602] General submission of Maine. The nobles of Maine now came in to make their submission and to receive the King’s garrisons into their castles. Among them were Count Geoffrey of Mayenne and the Viscount Ralph of Beaumont. ”