The presence of so great an ally, however, could not disguise the fact of the Conqueror’s defeat; and before the struggle was allowed to go to further extremes, influences were brought to bear upon the king which led to a reconciliation. After his humiliating discomfiture William had retired to Rouen.[50] Robert is said to have gone to Flanders,[51] though this seems hardly likely in view of his decisive victory over the royal forces. In any case, intermediaries now began to pass back and forth between them. Robert was very willing to make peace and be reconciled with his father. The barons, too, had little mind for a continuation of this kind of warfare. Robert’s rebellion had divided many a family, and it was irksome to the nobles to have to fight against “sons, brothers, and kinsmen.” Accordingly, Roger of Montgomery, Hugh of Gournay, Hugh of Grandmesnil, and Roger of Beaumont and his sons Robert and Henry went to the king and besought him to be reconciled with his son. They explained that Robert had been led astray by the evil counsels of depraved youth—were the ‘depraved youth’ in question the ‘sons and brothers’ of our respectable negotiators?—that he now repented of his errors and acknowledged his fault and humbly implored the royal clemency. The king at first remained obdurate and complained bitterly against his son. His conduct, he declared, had been infamous. He had stirred up civil war and led away the very flower of the young nobility. He had also brought in the foreign enemy; and, had it been in his power, he would have armed the whole human race against his father! The barons, however, persisted in their efforts. Conferences were renewed. Bishops and other men of religion, among them St. Simon of Crépy,[52] an old friend and companion of the Conqueror, intervened to soften the king’s heart. The queen, too, and ambassadors from the king of France, and neighboring nobles who had entered the Conqueror’s service all added their solicitations. And “at last the stern prince, giving way to the entreaties of so many persons of rank, and moved also by natural affection, was reconciled with his son and those who had been leagued with him.” With the consent of the assembled barons he renewed to Robert the grant of the succession to Normandy after his death, upon the same conditions as he had granted it on a former occasion at Bonneville.[53]