The Battle Abbey Roll. Vol. II.
by
The Duchess of Cleveland.

Prepared by Michael A. Linton
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Morton : Macy de Moritania held a barony in 1066; and in after times the name of Morton or Morteyne became widely spread. But I think this entry rather refers to the Conqueror's half-brother, Robert, the "Comes Moritoniensis" of Domesday, born of Herleva's marriage with Herluin de Conteville. When her base-born son became Duke of Normandy, he lost no opportunity of raising her kinsfolk from their humble estate, to the discomfiture and mortification of his haughty relatives on the father's side. Most of all he took pleasure in promoting his brothers to the level of the scornful nobles who looked down upon them; and on the exile of William the Warling, he bestowed upon Robert the county of Mortain.

Robert, we are told, "loved him much," and proved through life his faithful liegeman. William of Malmesbury describes him as of "a heavy, sluggish disposition," and wanting in decision of character; but he was not cruel, and had all the courage of his race in the field. He contributed one hundred and twenty vessels to the fleet that invaded England, and joined the expedition with all his knights and retainers, bringing "great aid." He is three times represented in the Bayeux Tapestry; first, sitting at meat on his brother's left hand, the evening after their landing; next, in council with him and Odo; and lastly, directing the building of the castellum erected at Hastings. According to tradition, the consecrated banner of St. Michael de Periculo Maris, brought from the monastery of the Mount in Normandy, was borne before him in the battle; during which, as Wace tells us, he never went far from the Duke's side. We may judge that he did his part well, for he was rewarded with the lion's share of the spoils of England. No other grant equalled, or even approached his in magnitude; for his possessions stretched across the whole breadth of the island, and reached the Land's End. With the title of Earl, he had the entire county of Cornwall (two manors and the church lands alone excepted) comprising two hundred and forty eight manors; fifty-four in Sussex, besides the borough of Pevensey; seventy-five in Devonshire, forty-nine in Dorsetshire, ten in Suffolk, twenty-nine in Buckinghamshire, thirteen in Hertfordshire, ten in Wiltshire, ninety-nine in Northamptonshire, and one hundred and ninety-six in Yorkshire, besides smaller grants in five other counties, making a grand total of seven hundred and ninety-seven lordships. One account—Dugdale's—carries the number up to eight hundred and two. He built a castle on the rock of Dunheved (now Launceston) as his chief seat in Cornwall: but he had another, with a market, at Trematon; a third fortress at Montagud, near Yeovil, in Somersetshire; and a fourth at Pevensey in Sussex, where he repaired the old Roman stronghold. There is little to record of him during the Conqueror's reign, beyond a successful repulse of the Danes in Lindsey, where he and the Count of Eu had been left in command; but in 1087 we find him pleading at the King's deathbed for the pardon and release of their brother Odo. William granted his petition with undisguised reluctance. "My brother Odo," he declared, "is not a man to be trusted; he is ambitious, prone to fleshly lusts, and of enormous cruelty. If set free he will bring confusion to the realm, and ruin to thousands." These dying words were prophetic. Odo rose in rebellion against the new King within a year of his accession; and Robert, being strongly opposed to the separation of the Duchy, where he still retained his county of Mortain, joined him in attempting to place Robert Courtheuse on the throne. The two brothers were besieged by Rufus in Pevensey Castle, and, after holding out for six weeks, surrendered themselves to the mercy of their nephew, and were banished the realm. "Perhaps Robert sailed away for the last time, a broken man, from the very spot where he had landed."—A. S. Ellis. His vast domains were forfeited, and according to the obituary of his father's abbey of Grestain in Normandy, where he was buried, he died in the following year. By his wife Matilda, the daughter of Earl Roger de Montgomerie, he had an only son William, and three daughters; Agnes, first offered in marriage to William de Grentemesnil, but afterwards the wife of Andre de Vitre; Denise, married to Guy de La Val; and Emma, married to William Count of Toulouse.

William, the heir, was restored to the greater part of his father's possessions, and the Earldom of Cornwall. But he remained a malcontent; for he expected, and audaciously demanded, his uncle Odo's great Earldom of Kent. It must have been he, and not, as Dugdale infers, his father, who, on the very day and hour that William Rufus died "by the glance of an arrow" in the New Forest, saw the apparition described by Matthew Paris. He himself was hunting in another part of the forest, and had lost sight of his attendants, when, in a lonesome place, he was confronted by "a very great black Goat, bearing the King all black and naked and wounded through the midst of his Brest. And adjuring the Goat by the Holy Trinity to tell what that was he so carried, he answered, 'I am carrying your King to Judgment: yea, that Tyrant, William Rufus; for I am an evil spirit and the Revenger of the malice he bore to the Church of God: and it was I that did cause this his slaughter, the Protomartyr of England, St. Alban, commanding me so to do, who complained to God of him for his grievous oppressions in this Isle of Britain, which he first hallowed.'"

The black goat conveyed these tidings of deliverance to most unwilling ears: for the Earl had hated and envied Henry Beauclerk from childhood, and could ill endure to see him ascend the throne. Before long, he was openly in arms against him, and, espousing the cause of Duke Robert as his father had done, was punished as he had been for his treason—deprived of his title and estates, and sent out of the kingdom. He then raised the standard of revolt in Normandy; was besieged by the King in his castle of Tinchebrai: and led the van with determined valour in the decisive battle fought beneath its walls. But he was worsted, taken prisoner, and carried to the Tower of London, where he spent the rest of his life in captivity. His eyes were put out by the King's order. No one can tell how or when he died: and Dugdale "can find no mention of either Wife or issue that he had."