three of his children were likely to be found arrayed against himself. He might wish, also, to ascertain clearly where he could place trust and confidence, in order that he might not be betrayed in the moment of need; and he might think it necessary to increase his forces very greatly before he ventured to encounter either of the enemy's armies. Henry was not wholly inactive, however; but finding that the number of his vassals on whom he could rely, would by no means furnish a sufficient body of troops to encounter his enemies in the field, he had recourse to that evil expedient which he had condemned so strongly in the case of Stephen. His exact economy, good management and rigid dealing with his inferior officers, placed great wealth at his disposal; and no difficulty was found at that period in meeting with large bodies of military adventurers, ready to sell the service of their swords to any one who had gold to offer. These people were generally called Brabançois, or Brabançons, the Duchy of Brabant being the country from which they principally came at the time the custom first began to be adopted; and thirty thousand of these men, of determined courage and much military experience, were speedily engaged in the service of the King of England. They were in general held in great abhorrence by the people of any country in which they made war; for their circumstances and habits rendered them even more unsparing and active in the trade of plunder and butchery than the ordinary soldiery of the day, though they were not celebrated for gentleness or humanity. For some time after the Brabançois had joined the King of England, Henry still remained in the heart of Normandy without displaying any very great activity. He did indeed dispatch a body of the mercenaries into Britanny, for the purpose of repressing the revolt in that quarter, but their first efforts were not successful; and a number of Henry's partisans having been cut to pieces near the small town of St. James, the Brabançois were forced to retire from the Duchy. In the meanwhile the situation of Normandy, for some weeks, appeared to grow worse and worse. Aumale was taken with very great rapidity, and the Count or Earl of Albemarle,* who commanded there, has been suspected of treachery. Certain it is, that, to purchase his freedom, he agreed to give up to Prince Henry a number of other towns and castles which he possessed in Normandy. From the captured city of Aumale, the two Counts of Flanders and Boulogne marched on to the attack of Neufchatel and Driencourt, both of which places were very speedily taken; but the campaign, on their part, was now brought to an end by the death of the Count of Boulogne, who was wounded in the thigh by an arrow, and died shortly after; though no two writers, that I have * I know not whether this could be considered as an English title at that period. met with, agree as to the place where he received the wound which terminated his existence. Some say it was before the walls of Neufchatel; some, under those of Driencourt; and some declare that, after the fall of the latter city, the two Counts undertook another siege, at which the Count of Boulogne was killed.* It is certain however that the fatal event took place on St. James's day; and it was remarked, that on the very same day in a preceding year he had sworn fealty to Henry the Second. Whether from this coincidence, or from the voice of remorse in his own heart, I do not not know, but it would appear that the Count of Flanders regarded the death of his brother as an evident indication of God's displeasure, and determined to withdraw from the war between Henry and his sons; which the English monarch suffered him to do without any attempt to molest him. During the course of the preceding events, Henry had remained at Rouen, keeping up an appearance of perfect cheerfulness and equanimity, receiving all men who sought an audience of him with com *Hoveden, who must have been in Normandy at the time, does not mention Neufchatel, neither does Diceto. The former says, that the Count was killed before Driencourt. Matthew of Boulogne does not seem to have been a very amiable character. Not long before his death, according to D'Oudegherst, in 1171, he sent back his wife Mary, in right of whom alone he possessed the County of Boulogne, to the convent from which he had taken her, and married Eleanor, widow of the Count of Nevers, by whom he left no children. plaisance and good humour, employing himself with his ordinary business and recreations, and affecting to pursue his favorite sport of the chace with even more eagerness than ever. No sooner had the Count of Flanders retired to his own country, however, than the English monarch, who it would appear had been afraid to act against either of the hostile forces while they were within a few days' march of each other, roused himself like a lion waking from his sleep, and prepared to encounter the King of France, now left unsupported. Taking all the troops of Brabant that could be spared from the defence of the different fortresses, and collecting a large body of his own nobility-now tried by the test of adversity, and winnowed, as it were, from the chaff with which they had been lately mixed— he began his march for Verneuil with a numerous army of faithful, veteran and determined soldiers. Without pause or delay, he advanced till he reached the town of Conches, where he was met by deputies from Verneuil itself, giving him information of the state of that city. It was now considerably more than a month since the King of France had begun the siege; but Henry had entrusted the defence of Verneuil to two of his most determined and faithful friends, Hugh de Lacy and Hugh Beauchamp, and the resistance offered here was very different from that which the Count of Flanders had met with at Aumale. Scarcely any progress had been made by the be sieging army in destroying the fortifications of the town; but the strict blockade to which it had been subjected, had brought the evils of famine upon the garrison. In these circumstances, the two commanders had determined to capitulate upon certain conditions, and to surrender a part at least of the city at the end of three days, in case they were not succoured within that period, Louis giving them permission to send messengers to Henry, in order to demand speedy aid. It is probable that neither the French King nor the garrison of Verneuil imagined that Henry would attempt to relieve that city, though it was one of the most important bulwarks of his Norman frontier, consisting of several quarters, or burghs, as they were called, separate from each other, and each strongly fortified with walls, towers and moats. The news of this capitulation reached Henry at Conches, and, having been joined by a large reinforcement, he marched on rapidly to Breteuil on the Iton; at which place the Earl of Leicester possessed a castle, apparently separate from the town. Knowing that it was unable to resist the attack of a powerful army, that nobleman fled at the King's approach; and Henry, in punishment of his treason, burned the castle to the ground. Drawing up his army in battle array, with all his gallant followers eager for combat, the English monarch then marched on prepared to attack the King of France. He was surprised, how VOL. II. Ꭰ |