He, like a daring knight as he was, ran off with his (so some say) early love, Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald of France, a descendant of Charlemagne himself. Married up to Ethelwulf of England, and thus stepmother of Alfred the Great,--after his death behaving, alas for her! not over wisely or well, she had verified the saying:
“Nous revenons toujours À nos premiers amours,”
Charles, furious that one of his earls, a mere lieutenant and creature, should dare to marry a daughter of Charlemagne’s house, would have attacked him with horse and foot, fire and sword, had not Baldwin been the only man who could defend his northern frontier against the heathen Norsemen.
The Pope, as Charles was his good friend, fulminated against Baldwin the excommunication destined for him who stole a widow for his wife, and all his accomplices.
Baldwin and Judith went straight to Rome, and told their story to the Pope.
He, honest man, wrote to Charles the Bald a letter which still remains,--alike merciful, sentimental, and politic, with its usual ingrained element of what we now call (from the old monkish word “cantare”) cant. Of Baldwin’s horrible wickedness there is no doubt. Of his repentance (in all matters short of amendment of life, by giving up the fair Judith), still less. But the Pope has “another motive for so acting. He fears lest Baldwin, under the weight of Charles’s wrath and indignation, should make alliance with the Normans, enemies of God and the holy Church; and thus an occasion arise of peril and scandal for the people of God, whom Charles ought to rule,” &c., &c., which if it happened, it would be worse for them and for Charles’s own soul.
To which very sensible and humane missive (times and creeds being considered), Charles answered, after pouting and sulking, by making Baldwin _bona fide_ king of all between Somme and Scheldt, and leaving him to raise a royal race from Judith, the wicked and the fair.
This all happened about A.D. 863. Two hundred years after, there ruled over that same land Baldwin the Debonair, as “Marquis of the Flamands.”
Baldwin had had his troubles. He had fought the Count of Holland. He had fought the Emperor of Germany; during which war he had burnt the cathedral of Nimeguen, and did other unrighteous and unwise things; and had been beaten after all.