The sojourn of William on the continent in 1072 carries us out of England and Normandy into the general affairs of Europe.Signs may have already showed themselves of what was coming to the south of Normandy; but the interest of the moment lay in the country of Matilda.Flanders, long the firm ally of Normandy, was now to change into a bitter enemy.Count Baldwin died in 1067; his successor of the same name died three years later, and a war followed between his widow Richildis, the guardian of his young son Arnulf, and his brother Robert the Frisian.Robert had won fame in the East; he had received the sovereignty of Friesland--a name which takes in Holland and Zealand--and he was now invited to deliver Flanders from the oppressions of Richildis.Meanwhile, Matilda was acting as regent of Normandy, with Earl William of Hereford as her counsellor.Richildis sought help of her son's two overlords, King Henry of Germany and King Philip of France.Philip came in person;the German succours were too late.From Normandy came Earl William with a small party of knights.The kings had been asked for armies;to the Earl she offered herself, and he came to fight for his bride.
But early in 1071 Philip, Arnulf, and William, were all overthrown by Robert the Frisian in the battle of Cassel.Arnulf and Earl William were killed; Philip made peace with Robert, henceforth undisputed Count of Flanders.
All this brought King William to the continent, while the invasion of Malcolm was still unavenged.No open war followed between Normandy and Flanders; but for the rest of their lives Robert and William were enemies, and each helped the enemies of the other.
William gave his support to Baldwin brother of the slain Arnulf, who strove to win Flanders from Robert.But the real interest of this episode lies in the impression which was made in the lands east of Flanders.In the troubled state of Germany, when Henry the Fourth was striving with the Saxons, both sides seem to have looked to the Conqueror of England with hope and with fear.On this matter our English and Norman authorities are silent, and the notices in the contemporary German writers are strangely unlike one another.But they show at least that the prince who ruled on both sides of the sea was largely in men's thoughts.The Saxon enemy of Henry describes him in his despair as seeking help in Denmark, France, Aquitaine, and also of the King of the English, promising him the like help, if he should ever need it.William and Henry had both to guard against Saxon enmity, but the throne at Winchester stood firmer than the throne at Goslar.But the historian of the continental Saxons puts into William's mouth an answer utterly unsuited to his position.He is made, when in Normandy, to answer that, having won his kingdom by force, he fears to leave it, lest he might not find his way back again.Far more striking is the story told three years later by Lambert of Herzfeld.Henry, when engaged in an Hungarian war, heard that the famous Archbishop Hanno of Koln had leagued with William BOSTAR--so is his earliest surname written--King of the English, and that a vast army was coming to set the island monarch on the German throne.The host never came; but Henry hastened back to guard his frontier against BARBARIANS.By that phrase a Teutonic writer can hardly mean the insular part of William's subjects.
Now assuredly William never cherished, as his successor probably did, so wild a dream as that of a kingly crowning at Aachen, to be followed perhaps by an imperial crowning at Rome.But that such schemes were looked on as a practical danger against which the actual German King had to guard, at least shows the place which the Conqueror of England held in European imagination.
For the three or four years immediately following the surrender of Ely, William's journeys to and fro between his kingdom and his duchy were specially frequent.Matilda seems to have always stayed in Normandy; she is never mentioned in England after the year of her coronation and the birth of her youngest son, and she commonly acted as regent of the duchy.In the course of 1072 we see William in England, in Normandy, again in England, and in Scotland.In 1073 he was called beyond sea by a formidable movement.His great continental conquest had risen against him; Le Mans and all Maine were again independent.City and land chose for them a prince who came by female descent from the stock of their ancient counts.This was Hugh the son of Azo Marquess of Liguria and of Gersendis the sister of the last Count Herbert.The Normans were driven out of Le Mans; Azo came to take possession in the name of his son, but he and the citizens did not long agree.He went back, leaving his wife and son under the guardianship of Geoffrey of Mayenne.Presently the men of Le Mans threw off princely rule altogether and proclaimed the earliest COMMUNE in Northern Gaul.Here then, as at Exeter, William had to strive against an armed commonwealth, and, as at Exeter, we specially wish to know what were to be the relations between the capital and the county at large.The mass of the people throughout Maine threw themselves zealously into the cause of the commonwealth.
But their zeal might not have lasted long, if, according to the usual run of things in such cases, they had simply exchanged the lordship of their hereditary masters for the corporate lordship of the citizens of Le Mans.To the nobles the change was naturally distasteful.They had to swear to the COMMUNE, but many of them, Geoffrey for one, had no thought of keeping their oaths.
Dissensions arose; Hugh went back to Italy; Geoffrey occupied the castle of Le Mans, and the citizens dislodged him only by the dangerous help of the other prince who claimed the overlordship of Maine, Count Fulk of Anjou.
