A successful Defense

Count Elias [who opposed William Rufus] remained at Chateau-du-Loir with a considerable number of troops, and reserving himself for better times, waited the course of events. At least on Friday, the king sat down before Maiet [south of Mans], and ordered his troops to storm the castle the following day. But when Saturday came, and the soldiers were busy in putting on their armour, and preparing to make a vigorous assault

On the garrison, the king, by the advice of his counselors and for the glory of God, spared the enemy out of respect to the day of the Lord’s burial and resurrection, granting them a truce until Monday. The besieged took advantage of the interval to strengthen their defences, and to weaken the force of the bolts and stones hurled against them with a quantity of wicker baskets. They were resolute men, faithful to their lord, and determined to fight for him to the last extremity, so that their merit deserves commendation. The assailants had by excessive toil filled up the ditch surrounding the fortifications with great heaps of wood, and were openly engaged in making a road to the foot of the palisades supported by immense beams, when the garrison threw down vessels full of burning coals, and set fire to the heaps of combustible matter which had been collected for their injury, and, assisted by the summer heat, speedily reduced them to ashes. Both sides suffered very much in this assault, which took place on Monday, so that the king who was witness of it was much distressed. While he was tormented with rage and vexation because all his efforts to reduce the place proved fruitless, one of the garrison hurled a stone at him from the top of a turret, which by God’s mercy did not strike the king, but crushed the head of the soldier standing near him, so that his brains were mingled with his fractured skull. As he thus miserably perished in the king’s presence, the sounds of scornful laughter were heard from the garrison, who raised the loud and horrible cry: “There is fresh meat for the king; take it to the kitchen to be cooked for his supper.”

Source: Ordericus Vitalis. The Ecclesiastical History of England and Normandy. Bk. X, Ch. XV, pp. 242-43.