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By Root 559 0

emerged from two years'imprisonment and his jailer was none other than his powerful enemy Duke William of Normandy. Guy knew what it was like to be a helpless prisoner; and he had personal experience of the wrath of the Norman duke. It is one of the ironies of history that nowadays Guy of Ponthieu, like his cousin Count Eustace II of Boulogne, is often erroneously referred to as a 'Norman'. Ponthieu (still less Boulogne) had never been part of the lands ceded to the Vikings in 911 and it had never been part of Normandy. Its culture, history and ruling class were all quite separate from the much larger land of Normandy, lying just to the south and west. The people of Ponthieu were proud of their past. They sang heroic tales of how they had once resisted the pagans and they would have considered themselves as belonging to an older Gallic culture, one which was Christian hundreds of years before any Norseman had abandoned the religion of Odin and Thor.6 Guy of Ponthieu and Eustace of Boulogne were French, but on no account were they Normans.7

These were not merely matters of abstract nuance; they reflected a real hostility on the ground. The smaller territories of northern France had much to fear from the growing power of Normandy under its indomitable and headstrong duke. William had inherited the duchy of Normandy in 1035 while only a boy, but he outlived those who had idly scoffed at him and he had grown into a powerful and violent man. In Norman accounts 'France' is often distinguished from Normandy and the 'French' are portrayed as the natural enemies of the Normans. Together with lands such as Boulogne and Mantes, great Anjou to the south, and for much of the 1050s the French king himself, Ponthieu formed a block of powers hostile to Normandy. Duke William was a strong and fearless opponent;he also had luck on his side. He survived all attempts to depose him, both from within and without his duchy, and emerged with his authority not only intact but enhanced. In October 1053 Guy's elder brother, Count Enguerrand of Ponthieu, famous for his nobility and beauty, was killed fighting the Normans at Saint-Aubin-sur-Scie. Guy, as yet still in his teens, inherited the county but was himself captured by Normans in February 1054 when engaged in a similar venture at the town of Mortemer. It was in these circumstances that Count Guy of Ponthieu became Duke William's prisoner.

William did not kill Count Guy: instead he wanted to teach him a lesson, and in the process reduce Ponthieu to the status of a client state. For two years he held Guy in captivity at Bayeux.8 At long last he was released, in 1056, but only after he had sworn a humiliating oath of loyalty to his Norman enemy and in particular to provide the annual service of 100 knights. This did not make Guy a Norman; but it certainly curtailed his freedom of action. The oath was a primary bond in the society in which these men lived. It bound the swearer both in sanctity and honour. To break such an oath was to incur the wrath of God and, which was no less certain, though possibly more immediate, the wrath of William. Now more than eight years had passed, eight years during which Guy had kept out of harm's way and had been able once again to enjoy the kind of luxury that befitted the ruler of a small but prosperous French county. He stood to gain much from capturing Earl Harold, but if there was one person in the world that he feared, one person that he did not want to see flexing his muscles just now, one person that he would rather not pay him a visit at his castle at this particular, rather delicate juncture, it was Duke William of Normandy.

Guy feels a little tap at his elbow. One of his soldiers, standing by his throne, alerts him to the fact that two Norman knights have just arrived at the castle gate and wish to speak to him as a matter of urgency in the next scene. What can they know? What on earth do they want? What has brought them in such haste to the northerly castle of Beaurain, which is just about as far from Normandy as Guy could have taken Harold within his