851-877 Plantagenet's lineage, till the forfeiture incurred by King John, an unjust exercise of justice. 840-870 1390 14 Rich. II. 876, &c. Transac Loire country. Nevertheless the loss of Normandy did not sever Britanny from England. Breton Dukes continued Earls and Peers of this realm: the royal house of Dreux, the sons of France, rejoiced in this conjunction of honours; nor was the connexion finally dissolved, until Richard of Bourdeaux's Parliament inflicted a statutory deprivation upon the valiant Jean de Montfort. Few historical symbols are more suggestive than the single shield over the Altar table of the Yorkshire Richmond, the pane corroded and darkened by the blast, the shower and the sunbeam, displaying in obscurely-transparent tints the chequée of gold and azure with the bordure of gules and the canton ermine the token of that union. § 42. Many important dispositions were tions in the effected by Charles in the Loire country. It was the policy of this unfairly depreciated Sovereign, to recruit the failing ranks of the false and degenerate Frankish aristocracy, by calling up to his Peerage the wise, the able, the honest and the bold of ignoble birth. It is a moot point to what extent the aristocratic principle originally extended amongst the antient Franks; but Charlesle-Chauve was very obviously inclined against the exclusiveness claimed by the noble lineages. We know that Louis-le-débonnaire incurred much odium by equalizing gentle and simple through 840-888 the medium of the Church; and we believe that 851-877 Charles-le-Chauve attempted a similar levelling in the civil hierarchy. The implacable opposition raised against him, the slanders and vituperations heaped upon him by the Chroniclers, most probably result from this cause. He sought to surround himself with new men, the men without ancestry; and the earliest historian of the House of Anjou both describes this system, and affords the most splendid example of the theory adopted by the king. the Planta Pre-eminent amongst these parvenus was Origin of Torquatus or Tortulfus, an Armorican peasant, a genets. very rustic, a backwoodsman, who lived by hunting and such like occupations, almost in solitude, cultivating his "quillets," his cueillettes of land, and driving his own oxen, harnessed to his plough. the Fo Torquatus entered or was invited into the Torquatus service of Charles-le-Chauve, and rose high in his rester. Sovereign's confidence: a prudent, a bold, and a good man. Charles appointed him Forester of the forest called "the Blackbird's Nest," the nid du merle, a pleasant name, not the less pleasant for its familiarity. This happened during the conflicts with the Northmen. Torquatus served Charles strenuously in the wars, and obtained great authority: another Cincinnatus, according to the old-fashioned classical comparisons much employed by the monkish Chroniclers. 851-877 Tertullus, son of Torquatus, inherited his father's energies, quick and acute, patient of fatigue, 870-877 ambitious and aspiring; he became the liege-man son of Tor- of Charles; and his marriage with Petronilla the Tertullus, quatus, Petronilla, Hugh l'Abbé. married King's cousin, Count Hugh the Abbot's daughter, daughter of introduced him into the very circle of the royal family. Château-Landon and other Benefices in the Gastinois were acquired by him, possibly as the lady's dowry. Seneschal also was Tertullus of the same ample Gastinois territory. 870-888 Ingelger, Ingelger, son of Tertullus and Petronilla, son of Ter- appears as the first hereditary Count of Anjou tullus, the ditary Anjou. first here- Outre-Maine,-Marquis, Consul or Count of AnCount of jou, for all these titles are assigned to him. Yet the ploughman Torquatus must be reckoned as the primary Plantagenet: the rustic Torquatus founded that brilliant family, who, encreasing in dignity, influence, and power, afford a most remarkable exemplification of ancestorial talent, perpetuated from generation to generation. When the monk of Marmoutier dedicates his Gesta Consulum Andegavensium to king Henry, who ruled from the furthest border of Scotland to the Pyrennees, he invites his royal patron to exult in his plebeian progenitor's original humility. That such an appeal could be made to Henry Fitz-Empress, affords a noble proof of his intellectual grandeur. County of § 43. Thus arose one of the greatest Grandsfiefs of Capetian France. Chartres, afterwards Pacific set the North couraged le-Chauve. united to Blois, was created by an analogous 851-877 though not identical process: the builder was compelled to deal with such materials as he 870-888 found, and Charles-le-Chauve sought to profit tlement of equally by the Northmens depression and by the men enremoval of Robert-le-Fort. The occasional na- by Charlestional apostasy of those Franks who conformed to the ethos, if not the religion, of the Northmen, enrolling themselves in the pirate ranks, was much more than compensated by the influence which the Romanized Franks and Gauls,-French men in fact,-exercised upon the invaders. Many of the Northmen were wearied of their piracy. The Romane tongue fascinated the Northmen: the comforts of France attracted them, religion subdued them. Their disposition was pliable, adaptable, cheerful, and though fierce, not inherently blood-thirsty. However dilapidated the old venerable Romerige might be, that effete Empire held a station in dignity and honour, higher beyond all compare than the more vigorous Jarldoms, Isles, and Kingdoms of the North. perpetuated her monarchy by vanquishing her conquerors: the gift was not withdrawn from her. Rome A considerable portion of the Danes, consenting to be baptized, settled themselves in the land; and these converts, multiplying in the Northern parts of the Empire, and stigmatized as "pseudochristians," were viewed with more anxiety than edification. Facts and presumptions support the 851-877 inference that they married with the French women, they could scarcely find any others, 875-877 for it was impossible that their vessels could bring over many female passengers. From the beginning, Rollo and his kinsmen always took consorts or companions from French families, or those Danish families who had received a thoroughly French education. Such alliances are evidences of the general usage; and the rapid extinction of the Norsk or Danish language, must be accepted as the consequence and cause of the intermixture of races, by which the Scandinavians were so speedily absorbed in the general mass of population. Hastings, otherwise Alstingus, obtained from Charles-le-Chauve the county of Chartres. He did not, however, remain there; for not having any children, and being otherwise troubled, he returned to Denmark, having sold his Benefice to Gerlo, also called Thibaut, Rollo's kinsman, father of Thibaut the centenarian, Thibaut Count of Blois, who is moreover sometimes Chartres, called "le Vieux," but whose conduct earned for him the more odiously characteristic epithets of "le Tricheur," or "le Fourbe," by which he is generally known in history; though his father, if we are to judge from the only anecdote preserved concerning him, deserved them quite as well. 890 Gerlo, otherwise Thibaut, died about 918. 875-876 Transactions in § 44. In Charlemagne's lineage gifts became snares, talents were unprofitable, noble tendensumption cies refracted from their right direction, and Italy. As. |