NOTE P. p. 116. The Revolt of William Busac

There is a good deal of obscurity about William Busac and his revolt. The story is told by no one except William of Jumièges (vii. 20); and, as he seems to put it instead of the far better known story of the revolt of William of Arques, which he tells out of its place (vii. 7), one is tempted to suppose that he has fallen into some confusion between the two revolts and the two Williams. But he tells his tale so clearly and straightforwardly that it is hardly possible to doubt it, unless it can be shown distinctly to contradict some better ascertained piece of history.

The father and brothers of William Busac, as described by William of Jumièges, are all well ascertained persons. But William expresses himself inaccurately when he says (vii. 20) that Count William of Eu was an “uterinus frater” of Richard the Good. He must here use the word “uterinus” vaguely in the sense of illegitimate; for an “uterinus frater,” strictly speaking, of Richard the Good would mean, not a natural son of Richard the Fearless, but a son of Gunnor by some father other than Richard. The only question is as to the time when Count William obtained the grant of Eu, and whether it was granted by his half-brother Richard the Good or by his great-nephew Duke William. The following passages may be referred to on this point, which does not greatly concern my history. Will. Gem. iv. 18, vii. 2, viii. 37; Stapleton, i. lvi.; Roman de Rou, 6123–6215, where a romantic story is told, which is followed by Le Bœuf, Ville d’Eu, p. 28; and Palgrave, iii. 45.

The strange thing is that in none of these accounts is there any mention of William Busac as a son of Count William, though there is of his brothers Robert and Hugh. Still it seems hardly possible wholly to reject William’s existence and his investiture with the County of Soissons, which is so clearly asserted by William of Jumièges, and which, from the further details given in the Art de Vérifier les Dates, must, I conceive, rest on other authorities which I have not at hand. The chief difficulty in the story itself is that it seems to be implied throughout that the castle of Eu was in the possession of William Busac at the time of his revolt. If William of Jumièges did not so distinctly make William Busac the second brother—“horum medius” between Robert and Hugh—I should have been inclined to think that William Busac was the eldest brother, that he inherited the County, and that Robert succeeded to it on William’s exile. But this view seems forbidden by the words “horum medius;” and we also find Robert’s name with the title of “Comes de Ou” attached to a charter drawn up “tempore quo discordia cœpit inter ipsum [Comitem Willelmum] et Henricum Regem Francorum.” (Cart. de Saint Bertin, Paris, 1840, p. 426. The signature of “Willelmus de Ou,” attached to an earlier charter on the same page, belongs of course to the elder William.) We must suppose then that William Busac contrived to occupy his brother’s castle by some underhand means and to defend it against the Duke.

In accepting the account of this revolt given by William of Jumièges I do not profess to fix its exact date, or to add any details beyond such as are found in his narrative. From the point at which he introduces the story, it would seem to have happened between the affair of William the Warling and the marriage of Duke William, that is, between 1048 and 1053. But, as William of Jumièges puts the courtship and marriage of William together as if there had been no delay between them (see above, p. 85), it is quite possible that he means to fix the revolt to 1049 or thereabouts. At any rate, the place which I have given to it in my narrative seemed to me the natural one for it, as it is the beginning of a series of events which is carried on in the more famous revolt of William of Arques, namely insurrections in Normandy abetted by the King of the French.

The way in which the story of William Busac is treated by modern writers is curious. See Licquet, ii. 126; La Butte, Histoire des Ducs de Normandie, i. 246, 249; and the local historian of Eu, M. Le Bœuf, p. 30. A still more amazing account will be found in Mr. Roscoe’s Life of William the Conqueror, p. 89, for which it would be well to give some more definite authority than “Walsingham; Wace; Chron. Sax.; Chron. de Nor.; W. Malms.; Mazeres.”

But the aberrations of smaller writers will not seem wonderful, when we read the strange and contradictory statements made by Sir Francis Palgrave, which I feel sure would not have been found in any but a posthumous work of that great scholar. He first (p. 50) tells us of Count Robert and his services at Mortemer, and of “Robert’s son William (in France called William Busac) enriched, like his father, by the spoils of the Anglo-Saxon, and, who came to a fearful end.” William Busac is here confounded with his nephew William “de Owe,” son of Count Robert, who was blinded and mutilated by William Rufus in 1096 (see Flor. Wig. in anno, and Palgrave, iv. 420). In a later passage (iii. 224) we read, “William, surnamed Busac, second son of William, Count of Arques, now revolted against the Duke.” If Sir Francis had written or dictated in Latin, I should have thought that “Arcensis” had been substituted for “Aucensis,” by the same editorial process which took “Lagam Regis Eadwardi” to be a misprint for “legem.”

William was succeeded in the County of Soissons by his sons John and Reginald, after whom the County passed to the descendants of his daughter Ramentrude, wife of Ivo of Nesle. Another son, Manasses, was in 1092 chosen Bishop of Cambray by the citizens in opposition to the clergy, and was translated to Soissons in 1103 (see Gest. Epp. Cam. Pertz, vii. 504).