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.After the marriage the Earls of Norfolk and Herefordseparated to raise their forces and bring them together, whenthey believed they would be too strong for any force which REBELScould be raised to act against them.They counted on the CHAP.unpopularity of the and on the king s difficultiesabroad which would prevent his return to England.The kingdid not return, but their other hope proved fallacious.BishopWulfstan of Worcester and Abbot Ethelwy of bothEnglish prelates, with some Norman help, cut off the line ofcommunication in the west, and Earl Roger could not forcehis way through.The two justiciars, William of Warenneand Richard of Bienfaite, after summoning the earls to answerin the king s court, with the aid of Bishop Odo and the Bishopof Coutances, who was also a great English baron, raised anarmy of English as well as and went to meet EarlRalph, who was marching westwards.Something like abattle took place, but the rebels were easily defeated.Ralphfled back to Norwich, but it did not seem to him wise to stopthere.Leaving his wife to stand a siege in the castle, hesailed off to hasten the assistance which had already beenasked for from the Danes.A Danish fleet indeed appearedoff the coast, but it did nothing beyond making a plunderingraid in Yorkshire.Emma, the new-made wife of Earl Ralph,seems to have been a good captain and to have had a goodgarrison.The utmost efforts of the king s forces could nottake the castle, and she at last surrendered only on favourableterms.She was allowed to retire to the continent with herforces.The terms which were granted her, as they are madeknown in a letter from Lanfranc to William, are especiallyinteresting as giving us one of the earliest glimpses we haveof that extensive dividing out of land to under-vassals, theprocess of subinfeudation, which must already have takenplace on the estates granted to the king s tenants in chief.A clear distinction was made between the men who wereserving Ralph because they held land of him, and those whowere merely mercenaries.Ralph s vassals, although theywere in arms against Ralph s lord, the king, were thoughtto be entitled to better terms, and they secured them moreeasily than those who served him for money.Ralph andEmma eventually lived out the life of a generation of thosedays, on Ralph s Breton estates, and perished together in thefirst crusade.Their fellow-rebels were less fortunate.Roger surrendered LATER YEARSCHAP.himself to be tried by the king s court, and was condemnedaccording to the Norman law, we are told, to the forfeitureof his estates and to imprisonment at the king s pleasure.From this he was never released.The family of William sdevoted guardian, Osbern, and of his no less devoted friend,William Osbern, disappears from English history withthe fall of this imprudent representative, but not from thecountry, It has been reserved for modern scholarship coprove the interesting fact of the continuance for generationsof the male line of this house, though in minor rank and posi-tion, through the marriage of the son of Earl Roger, with theheiress of Abergavenny in The fate of Waltheofwas even more pathetic because less deserved.He had nopart in the actual rebellion.Whatever he may have swornto do, under the influence of the earls of stronger character,he speedily repented and made confession to Lanfranc as tohis spiritual adviser.Lanfranc urged him to cross at onceto Normandy and make his confession to the king himself.William received him kindly, showed no disposition to regardthe fault as a serious one, and apparently promised him hisforgiveness.Why, on his return to England, he should havearrested him, and after two trials before his court shouldhave allowed him to be executed, according to English law, we do not surely know.The hatred of his wife Judith, theking s niece, is plainly implied, but is hardly enough toaccount for so radical a departure from William s usualpractice in this the only instance of a political execution inhis reign.English sympathy plainly took the side of theearl.The monks of the abbey at Crowland, which he hadfavdured in his lifetime, were allowed the possession of hisbody.Soon miracles were wrought there, and he became,in the minds of monks and people, an unquestioned martyrand saint.This was the end of William s troubles in England whichhave any real connexion with the Conquest.Malcolm ofScotland invaded Northumberland once more, and harriedthat long-suffering region, but without result; and an armyof English barons, led by the king s son Robert, which re-turned the invasion soon after, was easily able to force theRound, pp.ff. OFking of the to renew his acknowledgment of subjection CHAP.to England.The of Bishop of Durham, tokeep his own in order, led to a local riot, inwhich the bishop many of his officers and clergy weremurdered, and was avenged in his usual pitiless styleby king s brother Odo.William himself invaded Waleswith a large received submissions, and opened the wayfor the extension of the English settlements in that country.The great ambition of Bishop and the increase of wealthand power which had come to him through the generosity ofhis brother, led him to hope for still higher things, and hedreamed of becoming pope.This was not agreeable toWilliam, and may even have seemed dangerous to him whenthe bishop began to collect his friends and vassals for anexpedition to Italy.Archbishop Lanfranc, who had notfound his brother prelate a comfortable neighbour in Kent,suggested to the king, we are told, the exercise of his feudalrights against him as his baron.The scene must have beena dramatic one, when in a session of the Williamordered his brother s arrest, and when no one ventured to exe-cute the order laid hands upon him himself, exclaiming thathe arrested, not the Bishop of but the Earl of Kent
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