463 – Finding Out

in America, we're celebrating Thanksgiving, which is honestly one of my favorite holidays.

Because while there are historical elements as to where it came from, at its core, it's just a feasting holiday.

And like feasting holidays throughout history, that means it's mostly about community and strengthening bonds.

You gather together, you appreciate the people in your lives, and then you eat far too much.

It's the kind of thing that Penda did.

Now, granted, there were more warriors taking oaths of fealties at his feasts than there will be at my house, and rather than rings, I'll be handing out sausage rolls.

But the basic gist is there.

Community, bonds, fellowship.

And so it makes me really happy that I carved out a little time to release an episode today, because community is important.

And I am so thankful for the kind and welcoming community that's grown up around this silly little little project of ours.

It's been incredible to be part of the pleasantry, and you guys have completely changed my life, and I can't thank you enough for that.

So I wanted to say it at the opening of the show.

Alright, speaking of that show, let's get to it.

Welcome to the British History Podcast.

My name is Jamie, and this is episode 463.

Finding out.

This show is ad-free due to member support, and as a way of thanking members for keeping the show independent, I offer members-only content, including extra episodes and rough transcripts, and you can get instant access to all the members' extras by signing up for membership at thebritishhistorypodcast.com for about the price of a latte per month.

And thank you very much to Shankar, Sally, and Heather for signing up already.

After Robert kicked Henry out of Rouen, the Duke tried to restabilize his position in Normandy.

And his first move was to make an alliance with Robert of Balem.

Now remember, Balem was one of, if not the, cruelest and most ruthless nobles of his time.

Famously so.

Everybody knew this about Balem.

And I don't mean that he was rude or something.

I mean he had a fondness for torture.

This guy was awful, even by the standards of his own time and culture.

But he also had a lot of power, particularly military power.

And I guess Robert decided that allying himself with Hannibal Lecter was preferable to standing alone against whatever the hell Rufus and Henry had been cooking up.

But Balem, of course, had a price for that alliance.

You'll probably remember that the Balem family, like most awful families, were absolutely entangled in multiple blood feuds.

And one of them was with the Giroi dynasty.

Now this dynasty had been doing quite well for itself, having become very large and influential through a series of successful political marriages.

And one of these marriages gained them the castle of Corsi.

And Balem wanted Robert's help in

liberating that castle, you know, so he could give it to him.

And you heard that right.

Balem, who had just been released from prison for treason and who had a reputation for cruelty and viciousness, wanted Duke Robert's help in seizing yet another castle from one of his rivals.

And Robert must have really wanted this alliance, because even though Balem was an entire parade of red flags, the Duke ordered his men to muster and marched upon Corsi Castle alongside Balem.

And this was a large army.

It was also apparently a spooky looking army because the image of it marching survives in our records.

We have the writings of a priest who was working at Saint-Aubin de Bonneval who watched it pass him on the road.

Though the priest at the time didn't think he was looking at a mortal army.

Instead, when he first looked at it, he thought he was watching Heliquin's hunt, which is also known as the wild hunt.

And members are probably getting deja vu right now because we discussed this specific record in one of our members' episodes where we were discussing the wild hunt.

And if you haven't heard it or need a refresher, that episode is still there.

But the gist here is that this poor priest thought he was watching the devil lead an army straight out of hell.

But no, it wasn't an army of the damned.

It was just a bunch of Norman knights led by Bel

you know, I take it back.

This was definitely an army of the damned.

But they weren't ghosts.

At least not yet.

Anyway, this terrifying army being led by Saint-I-I-Mean Belem eventually reached and besieged Corsi Castle.

And this is how the Duke got his alliance.

But that's not all he got.

You see, the Garoy dynasty was enormous.

And by siding with Belem, Duke Robert also acquired their animosity.

Now, obviously this started with the owner of that castle, but then it went down to the many, many extended family members of this dynasty, which included the powerful Grand Meniles.

So

great job, Short Pants.

This was a real smart move on your part.

And it gets worse because this siege was noticed across the channel.

It turns out King Rufus heard about the incident almost immediately.

and it's quite possible he learned of it from Richard of Courcy or Hugh de Grandmanil since they very likely sent messengers to the English king begging for help.

And that?

Well that's all the invitation that Rufus needed here.

Though honestly he was already assembling his fleet at Dover, but Robert's distraction with this siege was definitely a bonus, not to mention an incentive to get things moving quickly.

Now, unfortunately, we don't have a detailed accounting of this fleet, nor of the army that it was carrying.

For example, we don't know if he conscripted the English, and if so, how he did that.

And we don't know if the terms of service that the king could call upon were valid for a cross-channel incursion into Normandy.

We don't even know how logistics were handled, nor how the army was supplied.

We basically know nothing, which is wild considering that cross-channel invasions like these were pretty rare during this era, and this was a really big event.

But here we are with our only detailed records of this point coming from charters that were drafted during the fleet assembly.

But when we look at the witness lists, we do get some clues as to what was going on.

Because there, we see a bunch of nobles, sheriffs, and other members of court.

I mean, eight earls were present, including Robert of Moulin and Roger de Montgomery.

We also see members of the Garoya dynasty, as well as their extended members from the Grand Maniles and the Courcy families in attendance, which obviously makes a lot of sense there.

And while many of these members of court were there because, you know, it was court, I'm guessing there was also a sizable chunk who were also there because they they were planning on making the crossing into Normandy alongside Rufus.

Unfortunately, though, there's no little star sticker or anything next to the names telling us who was planning on going on this field trip and who was staying home.

Instead, all we know is that about a month into the siege of Corsi, a massive fleet landed about 200 kilometers to the northeast of the Ducal Army at the port city of O.

And riding aboard that fleet was an equally enormous army and King William Rufus himself.

Now this was a terrifying development for a variety of reasons.

I mean obviously a large army invading is always bad news.

But there was also the fact that Rufus chose Upper Normandy as his landing site.

This was the center of Robert's ducal authority.

Or at least it was supposed to be.

Because clearly it wasn't.

I mean Rufus and his army were landing right here.

And even worse, Ooh seemed to welcome him right in.

They seemed so friendly to Rufus in fact that this city was immediately serving as the headquarters of the invasion.

That cash-forward charm offensive that he'd been waging had won over a lot of barons in the region.

But the Red King's plans were focused on far more than just the barons.

Because when Rufus crossed the channel, he brought supplies with him, specifically a ton of treasure for use and bribes.

Literally barrels of silver pennies were brought.

And once he was ensconced in Oo,

Rufus made it known that if there were any Normans looking to improve their financial situation, well, they should come and see him.

And this was Normandy.

So it wasn't long before Ooh was absolutely overflowing with knights, soldiers, and other mercenaries.

And Orderic claims that it wasn't just Normans who were taking up Rufus on his offer.

He tells us that Frenchmen, Breton, and even Flemings were also joining his camp.

And this rapid growth of King Rufus' army had the desired effect.

The barons of Normandy were spooked.

Well, the barons of Normandy who weren't already siding with Rufus were spooked.

The other barons were pretty excited about the whole thing, to be honest.

Meanwhile, at the Ducal siege camp, you can imagine the mood that was setting in.

This was bad, and it was a crisis that needed an immediate response.

And so Robert released Corsi from his siege, and he prepared to counter this threat with what remained of his loyalists.

However, precisely what Robert and his ducal forces did is largely shrouded in mystery.

Orderick and the other chroniclers get real quiet on this one.

But we do have one record from Simeon of Durham who does tell us a little bit of what might have been going on.

Though this is Simeon, and he typically is mostly focused on the activities of the Bishop of Durham.

Do you remember the Bishop of Durham?

That was the guy who drove Rufus absolutely insane with all of his legal delays and bad faith demands and then ended up joining the court of Duke Robert after it all was said and done?

Well, according to Simeon, a ducal army advanced upon a fortified town that was garrisoned by Rufus's supporters and they besieged it.

Now this sounds entirely plausible.

But then we're told that just as the town was about to fall, the bishop of Durham decided to get involved.

And remember, he was a part of Robert's council, so he would have carried a lot of authority and weight with the army.

And we're told he used that authority to convince the ducal forces to pull back and withdraw from the siege, right when they were on the brink of victory.

It's hard to know what motivated the bishop to do this.

But one thing we do know is that King Rufus really appreciated it.

Like a lot.

And he began to think much more kindly of the bishop once more.

So if I had to guess as to what was happening here, I'd say that the bishop was doing what pretty much all of the aristocracy of Normandy was doing.

He was rapidly switching sides based on whatever seemed most politically advantageous in the moment, and whoever seemed to have the upper hand.

And while the ducal siege might have been going well, it seems like whatever else the bishop saw in the campaign made him feel like Rufus was about to win, and that this siege would be a Pyrrhic victory at best.

So, you know, might as well switch sides in a dramatic way and try and reconcile with Rufus.

Because as we've seen throughout the 11th century, there's a lot of talk about honor and duty among the nobility.

But once the chips are down, they usually switch sides without a second thought, if they think it's going to benefit them in some way.

And then it's everybody else who gets to deal with the consequences of their fecklessness.

Nobles like Hellius of Sancen and Heroward the Wake, nobles who hold their ground regardless of where the wind is blowing, were the exceptions.

For the most part, there's no honor among thieves.

And with even the Bishop of Durham working to undercut the war effort, and so many nobles and knights joining King Rufus, not to mention the foreign soldiers from Flanders, France, and elsewhere, while the writing was on the wall.

And when we look at Orderic, we can see how bad it might have gotten for Robert.

Now, to be fair, Orderk stands alone in this description.

But that doesn't mean he was contradicted.

He wasn't.

Rather, it means that everyone else was pretty tight-lipped about what was going on here, while Orderic, being Orderic, decided to spill some tea.

And he tells us that Rufus was on a full-blown conquest and he had captured quite a bit of territory.

Orderic literally uses the term conquests.

And we're told that either through submission or violent seizure, the Red King was soon in control of a huge chunk of Normandy.

He claims that Rufus held more than 20 Norman towns in addition to the lands of nobles who had willingly joined his campaign.

And that group included Count Robert of Ou, Stephen of Umal, Gerard de Gournay, Ralph of Conch, Count Robert of Moulin, Walter Gifford, Philip of Briuse, and no surprise here, Richard of Courcy.

And this could explain why the other scribes, who don't go into this level of detail, still describe the ducal court in a state of absolute panic.

I mean, that would make sense.

That is a lot of territory, not to mention a lot of castles and garrisons, who were now under the control of King Rufus.

So it must have been clear to pretty much everyone that Duke Robert wasn't going to win this war in the field.

Too many nobles were siding with Rufus.

And as such, the king had a ridiculous number of soldiers and castles at his disposal.

And so, with limited options here, messengers were sent.

At least I assume they were.

And negotiations for a meeting were taking place.

At least, I assume they were.

And I say that because, again, our sources get real quiet.

But somehow, Duke Robert and King Rufus met in the capital city of Rouen, and they began to discuss terms.

Now, unfortunately, like everything else in this war, our scribes get almost secretive about these talks.

No accounts of the negotiations, discussions, differences, none of it's in any of the pages.

In fact, we don't even get a copy of the inevitable treaty that was hammered out at Rouen.

All we get are later chroniclers talking about it.

And our earliest version is in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

But when you put the accounts together, a picture does emerge.

And it's a bit of a surprise.

I mean, you would expect Rufus would be taking his brother to the cleaners here.

He obviously had the upper hand.

But instead, it seems like there was some sort of reconciliation.

And Orderic, bless him, actually just comes out and says this outright.

Quote, at last the two brothers met amicably at Rouen and were reconciled, their former quarrels being buried in oblivion, end quote.

And Orderk says a lot of things, but looking at the records of this treaty and all of its terms, it does look fairly well balanced.

and it does appear to be largely focused on restoring the bonds of their father's cross-channel empire.

To begin with, Rufus was granted lordship over the county of O,

as well as Facamp and Cherbourg.

He was also granted the continued lordship over the barons who had sided with him on this campaign.

Orderic then goes farther, telling us that Rufus was also granted to Maul and the lands of Gerard of Gournay and Ralph of Conch.

And that's a lot of territory that would now be answering to the King of England.

And O and Facamp, in particular, were both very important ports for cross-channel traffic.

So that's a big give for Rufus.

And in exchange, Orderic tells us that Robert was given enormous gifts as part of this treaty.

And other records indicate that Robert was also given English properties, which would be consistent with how the House of Normandy tried to soothe cross-channel tensions and bind their fledgling empire together.

So we're seeing the breach between the brothers and between the dynasties that had found their loyalties split being sealed with land grants.

But that's not all.

Rufus also agreed to help Robert regain the lands that were lost during his short tenure as Duke.

Now, obviously, they weren't talking about the lands that Robert had just given Rufus.

No, what they were talking about here was Maine, as well as any other lands that had been wrested from his control.

And there were quite a lot of lands that had been wrested from Robert's control, especially in Western Normandy.

And do you remember who was governing Western Normandy?

Yeah, their other brother, Henry, who specifically wasn't at this meeting.

So that's not a good sign for young Hank.

Oh, and here's something else they agreed to.

Henry wasn't entitled to inherit anything.

In this agreement, if Robert died without a legitimate heir, then Rufus would inherit.

And if Rufus died without a legitimate heir, then Robert would inherit.

And as for Henry, well, Henry could go f himself.

The two brothers were so committed to this plan of disinheritance that they each set aside 12 guarantors for the treaty to ensure that its terms would be carried out.

Now again, we're not told what the brothers talked about or how the agreement was struck.

And we barely know anything about the war in general.

But you do get the sense that when Robert and Rufus met, they might have spent some time talking about Henry and comparing notes.

about what he said and did.

And I think it's worth pointing out here that even with the gaps in our record, when you look at the accounts of this period, one fact becomes startlingly clear about this family.

Henry had a long history of playing his brothers against each other.

And honestly, I wonder if Henry is actually responsible for this silence in the record and the lack of any copies of this treaty.

Because at the risk of spoiling things here, Henry will eventually find himself in a position to rewrite history a bit.

But basically, I think Henry was shady and was driving wedges for his own political benefit.

Once Rufus and Robert finally sat down and talked to each other, they came to the same conclusion and sought to fix that problem.

But Rufus and Robert weren't the only victims in this fraternal power struggle.

A lot of Norman lords had their English properties stripped from them because they sided with Robert during this multi-year power struggle.

And so, as part of this peace treaty, Rufus agreed to restore them to their lands.

Though, I'll be honest here, I wonder how seriously Rufus took this particular clause.

Because there were at least a few of Robert's supporters that Rufus clearly had no interest in restoring.

And Bishop Odo was probably at the top of that list.

Honestly, I have to imagine that Robert and Rufus both carefully avoided the subject of their uncle entirely, as he had fallen out of favor of both of them.

And I can't imagine either of them were willing to prolong this war to restore some Kentish lands to friggin Odo.

But in the end, this treaty appears to be fairly even.

Robert received an increase in security and authority through his brother's promised support in regaining control of Maine and various other lost lands.

He also obtained some wealth and some English properties.

And in exchange, Rufus gained control over important Norman ports, which would then allow him to continue to exercise influence over his home duchy.

And as many Norman aristocrats had cross-channel properties, the further enmeshment of ownership by leadership and the restoration of the nobles to their own cross-channel properties would hopefully provide further security in both Normandy and England, as it would disincentivize further war.

For Norman politics, this was about as sane and stable as it gets.

Which, you know, is shocking, given that this whole thing began with an invasion.

And there's one more clause in this treaty that seems to have also been made with the intent to increase security and stability.

You see, for some time now, Duke Robert's court was graced by the presence of Edgar the Atheling.

Do you remember Edgar the Atheling?

He was the heir to the House of Wessex and therefore a a claimant to the throne of England.

And over the years, he has popped up during various English rebellions against Norman rule.

But in general, his impact on history appears to be showing up to a successful grassroots insurrection, taking command of it, and then driving that insurrection into the ground.

Well, After that illustrious career of military failures, he eventually decided to permanently abandon his allies and strike a deal with William the Conqueror, where he agreed to drop his English ambitions in exchange for a stipend.

Now, after a little while, there was a fallout between Edgar and William, and so he took a trip to Italy.

But eventually, the Conqueror died, and when that happened, Edgar decided to return to Normandy and throw his support behind Robert.

And since then, that's where he's been, serving as one of Robert's chief counselors.

Now, what Edgar could offer Robert his counsel is anyone's guess.

I mean, maybe it was the brilliant idea to ally with Balam.

I don't know.

But either way, that's where he's been.

But that time was up.

During these negotiations, Rufus pretty clearly brought up the issue of Edgar.

And for good reason.

I mean, there really was no reason for Edgar to be in this court other than as an implicit threat to Rufus's crown.

Because Edgar was literally a rival claimant.

And Rufus, as the second eldest living son of the guy who stole that crown, wasn't exactly on the most stable inheritance grounds to begin with.

And so, as part of the treaty, Edgar was told to pack his bags and get the hell out.

And as for where he should go, it appears the general opinion of the brothers was, don't know, don't care.

So Edgar headed north to visit some family members.

And Rufus was able to relax a bit, content in the knowledge that yet another threat to his rule had been taken off the board.

So yeah, honestly, when you look at this treaty, in many ways it was a win-win, not only for Rufus and Robert, but also for most of the noble class.

So long as that nobleman wasn't Edgar the Athling or Henry.

Because like Edgar, Henry lost big here.

Thanks to the terms of this this treaty, he was due to inherit nothing.

Not only that, but now his two older brothers were working together to restore Robert's lost lands.

And Henry didn't need to be a mind reader to see what they had in mind.

All he had to do was look at the terms of the treaty.

Because Robert had given Rufus command of Cherbourg, which was in western Normandy.

Henry's territory.

And Florence of Worcester adds that Mont Saint-Michel was also thrown in, which just happened to be Henry's personal fortress and primary headquarters.

So his brothers were stripping him of his properties.

And then just to make sure the job was done, they were also stripping him of any rights to inheritance as well.

That treaty that his brothers signed at Rouen was clearly drawn up to make the Norman aristocrats happy.

And it was also clearly drawn up to ensure that Henry would never be a Norman aristocrat.

And he wasn't about to take that lying down.

So Henry sent out messengers, informing his brothers that he was claiming, quote, some part of the ample territories of his glorious father, end quote.

And presumably, he meant Western Normandy.

The response that he got from Rouen was essentially, f you, Hank, you're not getting shit.

Now kindly pack your bags and f off.

But Henry went for option two.

You see, he had friends, and those friends had soldiers.

He also had quite a few Norman castles of his own, even if those pompous jackasses in Rouen pretended that they now belonged to Rufus or Robert.

And inside those castles were still Henry's people.

So it was go time.

Henry sent messengers to his allies in Normandy and Brittany, asking for their support.

And at the same same time, he fortified his castles in Coutons, Avranche, and elsewhere.

If his brothers wouldn't willingly give him his inheritance, then he'd just take it.

Now,

this might seem like an insane level of self-confidence.

A suicidal level of confidence, in fact.

I mean, Henry's big plan here was to directly challenge the King of England and the Duke of Normandy at the same time.

Crazy.

However,

Henry wasn't standing alone.

As I've mentioned in previous episodes, Henry was good at making friends and allies.

And while he may have seemed like the yapping chihuahua of the family, thanks to all of that diplomacy and gladhanding he'd been doing, Henry now also had a huge mastiff that was backing his mouth up.

And his name was Hugh Lupus.

Do you remember Hugh?

He was the Earl of Chester and a land magnate of Avranche.

But actually, he was way more than that.

You see, he had been one of Billy Konk's best friends.

And as a result, he was the recipient of just a metric butt ton of land grants.

This guy was one of the richest men in either Normandy or England, and he had vast estates in both.

He was so rich that even today, if you have a landlord in England, there's a good chance that they're descended from Hugh Lupus.

Just galactic levels of wealth.

And because this was feudal Europe, all of those lands he held meant he was also militarily powerful.

For example, do you remember Robert of Rivlin?

That was the guy who was instrumental in subduing North Wales.

Well, that was one of Hugh's guys.

Which means, yeah, Hugh was a big enough enough noble that his boys were involved in cross-border wars with Wales.

So, with his confidence bolstered by his backers, Henry pressed on.

He had his fortresses prepared, he had his soldiers, he had his Breton and Norman allies, and most importantly, he had Hugh Lupus.

So it was time for war.

And Henry was right.

Hugh Lupus was incredibly powerful.

There were probably only one or two men in Normandy or England who held more power and wealth than he did.

But unfortunately for Henry and Hugh, Rufus was definitely one of those people who were more wealthy and powerful than Hugh.

And Hugh didn't get this rich by being stupid.

And this was definitely stupid.

I mean, Henry didn't even wait until Robert and Rufus were locked up in a conflict with with Maine, where they'd be stretched out and exhausted.

No, he just put a target on all of their heads while the Norman and English armies were still fresh and honestly were probably looking for something to do.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

And so Hugh sent his own messenger.

This one went to Rufus and Robert.

And he basically told them that he didn't want any part of this family conflict and that he was placing all of his castles and all of his adherents into their hands.

When this happened, the other barons, castellans, and adherents followed Hugh's lead and abandoned Henry.

The kid was good at making friends, but friendship isn't a suicide pact.

And so they were cashing out, and Henry suddenly found himself largely abandoned.

So he retreated to his fortress at Mont Saint-Michel, along with his household knights.

Now Mont Saint Michel is famous for being a natural fortress.

It sits atop a rocky outcropping surrounded on three sides by the sea, and it's only accessible by a treacherous sand bank.

So even though Henry only had a small group of supporters remaining, he still presented a significant challenge to the advancing royal ducal army.

But, challenge or no, Robert and Rufus came to test those defences defenses in March of 1091, and they laid siege to the castle.

Now, oddly, the poet Wace leaves a record saying that Robert and Rufus set up their headquarters in Genet and Avranche, respectively.

And that's surprising, because it takes about four to six hours to walk to Mont Saint-Michel from either location.

And besieging someone from 20 kilometers away just doesn't strike me as all that effective.

And since Wace is the only one who says this, and he sometimes embellished his account, I wonder if this is one of those occasions where he took his poetic license and ran with it.

Orderic, on the other hand, tells us that this siege was tight

tight enough to choke off the castle's access to fresh water and supplies.

And that feels much more likely to me.

But our most detailed accounts, or at least our most action packed accounts, come from William of Malmsbury.

And Malmesbury tells us that as the siege dragged on, as sieges often do, Rufus came out of his tent at one point and spotted a group of knights in the distance.

And they weren't his knights.

The enemy had broken the siege lines.

And they hadn't just broken them, they were flaunting it.

F

that.

So Rufus jumped on his horse and charged after him.

And he did this alone

because Rufus.

Now the knights noticed the advancing rider and they turned and attacked him, as knights will often do, and one of them cut the king's horse out from underneath him, while he was still at a full gallop.

The king's foot caught in the stirrup as his horse fell, and so he was dragged along by his steed as it tumbled and died.

Now Malmesbury tells us that this horse cost the king ten quid, which was just a ridiculous amount of money for a horse during this period.

Though we should remember that Malmesbury also really hated Rufus and he never missed an opportunity to tell us that he overpaid for things.

So who knows if the horse was really that expensive?

But it was definitely dead.

But the king was still alive.

having been saved from serious injury during the fall by his armor.

However, one of the enemy knights was now looking to fix that.

The knight dismounted and raised his sword to strike, as Rufus screamed out, stop you fool!

I am the king of England!

The knight, shocked by this, lowered his weapon and helped Rufus to his feet.

We're told the king then jumped onto another horse, which I assume he kind of just horse-jacked the guy who spared his life, and then demanded to know which of these knights was the one who had killed his horse.

And another knight from the company answered that it was him.

But he added that he didn't know he was attacking a king, he thought he was merely attacking a knight.

And Rufus thought this was hilarious and invited the knight to serve under him.

Now,

did this happen?

I don't know.

It isn't out of the question that a knight might halt his attack as soon as he realized who Rufus was.

They were serving Rufus's brother after all.

And on top of of that, Rufus was a king.

And the rules of war and what constitutes honorable combat can be a bit weird.

Though I will say that any time that Momsbury starts talking about the price of things, my eyebrow raises.

So I can't say if this actually was a real event or just some sort of medieval urban legend that was circulating about Rufus.

And interestingly, that's not the only story about this siege that Momsbury shares with us.

In another tale, we're told that the situation in Mont Saint-Michel had become pretty dire.

In particular, they were running short on fresh water and were at risk of dying of thirst.

And so Henry sent an envoy to Robert, asking him to allow for water to be brought in.

And he argued that the Ducal forces should want to win the day through force of arms and not like this.

Robert agreed and allowed water to be brought through the siege lines and into the castle.

When Rufus learned of this, he absolutely lost his mind.

And according to Malmsbury, he basically told Robert, how precisely do you intend to win a siege if you keep providing the enemy with food and drink?

To which Robert said, he's not the enemy.

He's our brother.

Do you really want to let your own brother die of thirst?

Yes!

That's how you win a siege, you jackass!

And if you ever find yourself frustrated with your family during the holidays, just take solace that you're not a part of this family.

Though I do love the idea of Rufus arguing in favor of fratricide for political purposes, because

that theme is going to come back up.

Anyway, Malmsbury goes on to tell us that Robert's reticence to commit fratricide absolutely enraged Rufus, and he decided that if Robert wasn't going to actually see the matter through, then f it, I'm Audi 5,000.

And so, with the Royal Army withdrawing, the siege was brought to an end.

So that's Malmsbury.

But I get the sense that he's dramatizing and spicing things up a bit.

And I feel like Orderic's account of this event, while less fun, is much more plausible.

He tells us that after a couple weeks of the siege, Henry's access to fresh water was basically nil.

And so he requested an honorable surrender.

And Rufus and Robert were all too happy to grant it.

They wanted to be rid of Henry and his nonsense and deal with their other crises instead.

So that's Orderic.

As for what really happened, I don't know.

I can't tell you which story is correct.

Maybe it was both.

Either way, though, sometime in probably April of 1091, Henry and his men marched out of Mont Saint-Michel.

And Orderic says that Henry then fled through Brittany and found his way to French Vexon, where he sought asylum as an exile.

And, with their scheming little brother handled, Robert and Rufus were now free to deal with their other issues.

And you might expect them to march on Maine next, right?

After all, that was part of the treaty, and Maine was still independent independent of Norman control at this point.

But they didn't march on Maine.

And that's probably because there were still multiple conflicts in Normandy that needed attention.

What had happened over the last few years was far more than just a fight between these three brothers.

The whole duchy had exploded into war.

And historian Frank Barlow argues that with Henry dealt with, Robert and Rufus proceeded to pacify Henry's lands and then moved on to the rest of Normandy.

And remember, there were a lot of conflicts that kicked up during this period because ducal power was weak and the Norman barons were taking advantage of it.

But now that the brothers were reconciled and Rufus had his army in the duchy supporting ducal authority, well, suddenly, bucking ducal authority and fighting internal wars began to seem like a bad idea.

And so things in Normandy rapidly settled down.

And you might be surprised that Rufus was so interested in promoting ducal authority.

I mean, he had been the source of a lot of this instability through his bribes and intelligence operations.

But things had changed.

And now that he was reconciled with Robert, and probably much more importantly, now that he was Robert's official heir, well, now he had a strong incentive to enforce ducal authority.

And so we see him taking actions in Normandy to solidify his brother's position.

We even see him taking part in a synod where the matter of ducal authority was discussed.

And this isn't because he was suddenly interested in supporting his brother.

I mean, if Malmsbury is to be believed, only weeks earlier, he'd been angrily insisting that they should force their other brother to die of thirst.

No, Rufus, quite clearly, was doing this because he had an eye on restoring his father's cross-channel empire.

And I would argue that he had been working towards that goal right from the start.

The only thing that's changed here were his tactics.

And so of course he was at the synod at Khan discussing ducal rights.

It was absolutely in his interest.

And then...

Shortly after that synod, a messenger arrived carrying news.

It turned out that when Edgar the Athling was kicked out of court and went to spend time with his family, what he meant was he was headed to the court of his brother-in-law, King Malcolm Canmore of Scotland, who had just invaded England.

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