feeling he punishes a whole body of men for the offence of one. To
lay waste the lands of Bec for the rebuke of Lanfranc was like an
ordinary prince of the time; it was unlike William, if he had not
been stirred up by a censure which touched his wife as well as
himself. But above all, the bargain between William and Lanfranc
is characteristic of the man and the age. Lanfranc goes to Rome to
support a marriage which he had censured in Normandy. But there is
no formal inconsistency, no forsaking of any principle. Lanfranc
holds an uncanonical marriage to be a sin, and he denounces it. He
does not withdraw his judgement as to its sinfulness. He simply
uses his influence with a power that can forgive the sin to get it
forgiven.

While William's marriage was debated at Rome, he had to fight hard
in Normandy. His warfare and his negotiations ended about the same
time, and the two things may have had their bearing on one another.
William had now to undergo a new form of trial. The King of the
French had never put forth his full strength when he was simply
backing Norman rebels. William had now, in two successive
invasions, to withstand the whole power of the King, and of as many
of his vassals as the King could bring to his standard. In the
first invasion, in 1054, the Norman writers speak rhetorically of
warriors from Burgundy, Auvergne, and Gascony; but it is hard to
see any troops from a greater distance than Bourges. The princes
who followed Henry seem to have been only the nearer vassals of the
Crown. Chief among them are Theobald Count of Chartres, of a house
of old hostile to Normandy, and Guy the new Count of Ponthieu, to
be often heard of again. If not Geoffrey of Anjou himself, his
subjects from Tours were also there. Normandy was to be invaded on
two sides, on both banks of the Seine. The King and his allies