Makers of History

 William the Conqueror

 BY

 JACOB ABBOTT

 WITH ENGRAVINGS

 NEW YORK AND LONDON HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 1902

 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and forty-nine, by

 HARPER & BROTHERS, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York. 

 Copyright, 1877, by JACOB ABBOTT. 

PREFACE. 

In selecting the subjects for the successive volumes of this series, ithas been the object of the author to look for the names of those greatpersonages whose histories constitute useful, and not merelyentertaining, knowledge. There are certain names which are familiar, asnames, to all mankind; and every person who seeks for any degree ofmental cultivation, feels desirous of informing himself of the leadingoutlines of their history, that he may know, in brief, what it was intheir characters or their doings which has given them so widely-extendeda fame. This knowledge, which it seems incumbent on every one to obtainin respect to such personages as Hannibal, Alexander, Cæsar, Cleopatra, Darius, Xerxes, Alfred, William the Conqueror, Queen Elizabeth, and MaryQueen of Scots, it is the design and object of these volumes tocommunicate, in a faithful, and, at the same time, if possible, in anattractive manner. Consequently, great historical names alone areselected; and it has been the writer's aim to present the prominent andleading traits in their characters, and all the important events intheir lives, in a bold and free manner, and yet in the plain and simplelanguage which is so obviously required in works which aim at permanentand practical usefulness. 

 CONTENTS. 

 Chapter Page

 I. NORMANDY 13

 II. BIRTH OF WILLIAM 31

 III. THE ACCESSION 51

 IV. WILLIAM'S REIGN IN NORMANDY 72

 V. THE MARRIAGE 96

 VI. THE LADY EMMA 119

 VII. KING HAROLD 142

 VIII. PREPARATIONS FOR THE INVASION 164

 IX. CROSSING THE CHANNEL 189

 X. THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS 212

 XI. PRINCE ROBERT'S REBELLION 242

 XII. THE CONCLUSION 265

 ENGRAVINGS. 

 Page

 MAP--THE SITUATION OF NORMANDY 14

 WILLIAM AND ARLOTTE 40

 WILLIAM'S ESCAPE 77

 THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY 102

 THE RESCUE 127

 HAROLD'S INTERVIEW WITH EDWARD 147

 WILLIAM RECEIVING TOSTIG'S TIDINGS 166

 MAP--NORMANDY 190

 THE NORWEGIANS AT SCARBOROUGH 218

 WILLIAM'S HORSE STEPPING ON THE EMBERS 281

WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

CHAPTER I. 

NORMANDY. 

A. D. 870-912

The Norman Conquest. --Claim of William to the throne. --The right of thestrongest. --Map of Normandy. --The English Channel. --Nature of the Frenchcoast. --Nature of the English coast. --Northmen and Danes. --Characterof the Northmen. --Their descendants. --The Dukes of Normandy. --Thefirst duke, Rollo. --History of Rollo. --His rendezvous on the Scottishcoast. --Expedition of Rollo. --His descent upon Flanders. --Difficultiesencountered. --Rollo passes the Straits of Dover. --Charles theSimple. --Defeated by Rollo. --Treaty of peace. --Its conditions. --Thethree ceremonies. --Rollo's pride. --Kissing the king's foot. --The baptismand marriage. --Rollo's peaceful and prosperous reign. --Descriptionof Normandy. --Scenery. --Hamlets. --Chateaux. --Peasantry. --Publicroads. --Rouen. --Its situation. --The port of Rouen. --Its name of Le Havrede Grace. --Intermingling of races. --Superiority of the Norman stock. 

One of those great events in English history, which occur at distantintervals, and form, respectively, a sort of bound or landmark, to whichall other events, preceding or following them for centuries, arereferred, is what is called the Norman Conquest. The Norman Conquestwas, in fact, the accession of William, duke of Normandy, to the Englishthrone. This accession was not altogether a matter of military force, for William claimed a _right_ to the throne, which, if not altogetherperfect, was, as he maintained, at any rate superior to that of theprince against whom he contended. The rightfulness of his claim was, however, a matter of little consequence, except so far as the moralinfluence of it aided him in gaining possession. The right to rule was, in those days, rather more openly and nakedly, though not much morereally, than it is now, the right of the strongest. 

Normandy, William's native land, is a very rich and beautiful provincein the north of France. The following map shows its situation:

[Illustration: MAP OF ENGLAND AND PART OF FRANCE, SHOWING THE SITUATIONOF NORMANDY. ]

It lies, as will be seen upon the map, on the coast of France, adjoiningthe English Channel. The Channel is here irregular in form, but may be, perhaps, on the average, one hundred miles wide. The line of coast onthe southern side of the Channel, which forms, of course, the northernborder of Normandy, is a range of cliffs, which are almost perpendiculartoward the sea, and which frown forbiddingly upon every ship that sailsalong the shore. Here and there, it is true, a river opens a passage foritself among these cliffs from the interior, and these river mouthswould form harbors into which ships might enter from the offing, were itnot that the northwestern winds prevail so generally, and drive such acontinual swell of rolling surges in upon the shore, that they choke upall these estuary openings, as well as every natural indentation of theland, with shoals and bars of sand and shingle. The reverse is the casewith the northern, or English shore of this famous channel. There theharbors formed by the mouths of the rivers, or by the sinuosities of theshore, are open and accessible, and at the same time sheltered from thewinds and the sea. Thus, while the northern or English shore has been, for many centuries, all the time enticing the seaman in and out overthe calm, deep, and sheltered waters which there penetrate the land, thesouthern side has been an almost impassable barrier, consisting of along line of frowning cliffs, with every opening through it choked withshoals and sand-banks, and guarded by the rolling and tumbling of surgeswhich scarcely ever rest. 

It is in a great measure owing to these great physical differencesbetween the two shores, that the people who live upon the one side, though of the same stock and origin with those who live upon the other, have become so vastly superior to them in respect to naval exploits andpower. They are really of the same stock and origin, since both Englandand the northern part of France were overrun and settled by what iscalled the Scandinavian race, that is, people from Norway, Denmark, andother countries on the Baltic. These people were called the _Northmen_in the histories of those times. Those who landed in England aregenerally termed _Danes_, though but a small portion of them came reallyfrom Denmark. They were all, however, of the same parent stock, andpossessed the same qualities of courage, energy, and fearless love ofadventure and of danger which distinguish their descendants at thepresent day. They came down in those early times in great militaryhordes, and in fleets of piratical ships, through the German Ocean andthe various British seas, braving every hardship and every imaginabledanger, to find new regions to dwell in, more genial, and fertile, andrich than their own native northern climes. In these days they evincethe same energy, and endure equal privations and hardships, in huntingwhales in the Pacific Ocean; in overrunning India, and seizing itssources of wealth and power; or in sallying forth, whole fleets ofadventurers at a time, to go more than half round the globe, to dig forgold in California. The times and circumstances have changed, but therace and spirit are the same. 

Normandy takes its name from the Northmen. It was the province of Francewhich the Northmen made peculiarly their own. They gained access to itfrom the sea by the River Seine, which, as will be seen from the map, flows, as it were, through the heart of the country. The lower part ofthis river, and the sea around its mouth, are much choked up with sandand gravel, which the waves have been for ages washing in. Theirincessant industry would result in closing up the passage entirely, were it not that the waters of the river must have an outlet; and thusthe current, setting outward, wages perpetual war with the surf andsurges which are continually breaking in. The expeditions of theNorthmen, however, found their way through all these obstructions. Theyascended the river with their ships, and finally gained a permanentsettlement in the country. They had occupied the country for somecenturies at the time when our story begins--the province being governedby a line of princes--almost, if not quite, independentsovereigns--called the _Dukes of Normandy_. 

The first Duke of Normandy, and the founder of the line--the chieftainwho originally invaded and conquered the country--was a wild andhalf-savage hero from the north, named _Rollo_. He is often, in history, called Rollo the Dane. Norway was his native land. He was a chieftain bybirth there, and, being of a wild and adventurous disposition, hecollected a band of followers, and committed with them so many piraciesand robberies, that at length the king of the country expelled him. 

Rollo seems not to have considered this banishment as any very greatcalamity, since, far from interrupting his career of piracy andplunder, it only widened the field on which he was to pursue it. Heaccordingly increased the equipment and the force of his fleet, enlistedmore followers, and set sail across the northern part of the GermanOcean toward the British shores. 

Off the northwestern coast of Scotland there are some groups ofmountainous and gloomy islands, which have been, in many differentperiods of the world, the refuge of fugitives and outlaws. Rollo madethese islands his rendezvous now; and he found collected there manyother similar spirits, who had fled to these lonely retreats, some onaccount of political disturbances in which they had become involved, andsome on account of their crimes. Rollo's impetuous, ardent, andself-confident character inspired them with new energy and zeal. Theygathered around him as their leader. Finding his strength thusincreasing, he formed a scheme of concentrating all the force that hecould command, so as to organize a grand expedition to proceed to thesouthward, and endeavor to find some pleasant country which they couldseize and settle upon, and make their own. The desperate adventurersaround him were ready enough to enter into this scheme. The fleet wasrefitted, provisioned, and equipped. The expedition was organized, armsand munitions of war provided, and when all was ready they set sail. They had no definite plan in respect to the place of their destination, their intention being to make themselves a home on the first favorablespot that they should find. 

They moved southward, cruising at first along the coast of Scotland, andthen of England. They made several fruitless attempts to land on theEnglish shores, but were every where repulsed. The time when theseevents took place was during the reign of Alfred the Great. ThroughAlfred's wise and efficient measures the whole of his frontier had beenput into a perfect state of defense, and Rollo found that there was nohope for him there. He accordingly moved on toward the Straits of Dover;but, before passing them, he made a descent upon the coast of Flanders. Here there was a country named Hainault. It was governed by a potentatecalled the Count of Hainault. Rollo made war upon him, defeated him inbattle, took him prisoner, and then compelled the countess his wife toraise and pay him an immense sum for his ransom. Thus he replenishedhis treasury by an exploit which was considered in those days verygreat and glorious. To perpetrate such a deed now, unless it were on a_very_ great scale, would be to incur the universal reprobation ofmankind; but Rollo, by doing it then, not only enriched his coffers, butacquired a very extended and honorable fame. 

For some reason or other, Rollo did not attempt to take permanentpossession of Hainault, but, after receiving his ransom money, andreplenishing his ammunition and stores, he sailed away with his fleet, and, turning westward, he passed through the Straits of Dover, andcruised along the coast of France. He found that the country on theFrench side of the channel, though equally rich and beautiful with theopposite shore, was in a very different state of defense. He entered themouth of the Seine. He was embarrassed at first by the difficulties ofthe navigation in entering the river; but as there was no efficientenemy to oppose him, he soon triumphed over these difficulties, and, once fairly in the river, he found no difficulty in ascending toRouen. [A]

[Footnote A: See the map at the commencement of this chapter. ]

In the mean time, the King of France, whose name was Charles, and whois generally designated in history as Charles the Simple, began tocollect an army to meet the invader. Rollo, however, had made himselfmaster of Rouen before Charles was able to offer him any effectualopposition. Rouen was already a strong place, but Rollo made itstronger. He enlarged and repaired the fortifications, builtstore-houses, established a garrison, and, in a word, made all thearrangements requisite for securing an impregnable position for himselfand his army. 

A long and obstinate war followed between Rollo and Charles, Rollo beingalmost uniformly victorious in the combats that took place. Rollo becamemore and more proud and imperious in proportion to his success. He drovethe French king from port to port, and from field to field, until hemade himself master of a large part of the north of France, over whichhe gradually established a regular government of his own. Charlesstruggled in vain to resist these encroachments. Rollo continuallydefeated him; and finally he shut him up and besieged him in Parisitself. At length Charles was compelled to enter into negotiations forpeace. Rollo demanded that the large and rich tract on both sides of theSeine, next the sea--the same, in fact, that now constitutesNormandy--should be ceded to him and his followers for their permanentpossession. Charles was extremely unwilling thus to alienate a part ofhis kingdom. He would not consent to cede it absolutely and entirely, soas to make it an independent realm. It should be a _dukedom_, and not aseparate _kingdom_, so that it might continue still a part of his ownroyal domains--Rollo to reign over it as a duke, and to acknowledge ageneral allegiance to the French king. Rollo agreed to this. The war hadbeen now protracted so long that he began himself to desire repose. Itwas more than thirty years since the time of his landing. 

Charles had a daughter named Giselle, and it was a part of the treaty ofpeace that she should become Rollo's wife. He also agreed to become aChristian. Thus there were, in the execution of the treaty, threeceremonies to be performed. First, Rollo was to _do homage_, as it wascalled, for his duchy; for it was the custom in those days forsubordinate princes, who held their possessions of some higher and morestrictly sovereign power, to perform certain ceremonies in the presenceof their superior lord, which was called doing homage. These ceremonieswere of various kinds in different countries, though they were allintended to express the submission of the dependent prince to thesuperior authority and power of the higher potentate of whom he held hislands. This act of homage was therefore to be performed, and next to thehomage was to come the baptism, and after the baptism, the marriage. 

When, however, the time came for the performance of the first of theseceremonies, and all the great chieftains and potentates of therespective armies were assembled to witness it, Rollo, it was found, would not submit to what the customs of the French monarchy required. Heought to kneel before the king, and put his hands, clasped together, between the king's hands, in token of submission, and then to kiss hisfoot, which was covered with an elegantly fashioned slipper on suchoccasions. Rollo would do all except the last; but that, noremonstrances, urgencies, or persuasions would induce him to consent to. 

And yet it was not a very unusual sign or token of politicalsubordination to sovereign power in those days. The pope had exacted iteven of an emperor a hundred years before; and it is continued by thatdignitary to the present day, on certain state occasions; though in thecase of the pope, there is embroidered on the slipper which the kneelingsuppliant kisses, a _cross_, so that he who humbles himself to thisceremony may consider, if he pleases, that it is that sacred symbol ofthe divine Redeemer's sufferings and death that he so reverently kisses, and not the human foot by which it is covered. 

Rollo could not be made to consent, himself, to kiss King Charles'sfoot; and, finally, the difficulty was compromised by his agreeing to doit by proxy. He ordered one of his courtiers to perform that part of theceremony. The courtier obeyed, but when he came to lift the foot, he didit so rudely and lifted it so high as to turn the monarch over off hisseat. This made a laugh, but Rollo was too powerful for Charles to thinkof resenting it. 

A few days after this Rollo was baptized in the cathedral church atRouen, with great pomp and parade; and then, on the following week, hewas married to Giselle. The din of war in which he had lived for morethan thirty years was now changed into festivities and rejoicings. Hetook full and peaceable possession of his dukedom, and governed it forthe remainder of his days with great wisdom, and lived in greatprosperity. He made it, in fact, one of the richest and most prosperousrealms in Europe, and laid the foundations of still higher degrees ofgreatness and power, which were gradually developed after his death. Andthis was the origin of Normandy. 

It appears thus that this part of France was seized by Rollo and hisNorthmen partly because it was nearest at hand to them, being accessiblefrom the English Channel through the River Seine, and partly on accountof its exceeding richness and fertility. It has been famous in every ageas the garden of France, and travelers at the present day gaze upon itspicturesque and beautiful scenery with the highest admiration andpleasure. And yet the scenes which are there presented to the view arewholly unlike those which constitute picturesque and beautiful ruralscenery in England and America. In Normandy, the land is not inclosed. No hedges, fences, or walls break the continuity of the surface, butvast tracts spread in every direction, divided into plots and squares, of various sizes and forms, by the varieties of cultivation, like a vastcarpet of an irregular tesselated pattern, and varied in the color by athousand hues of brown and green. Here and there vast forests extend, where countless thousands of trees, though ancient and venerable inform, stand in rows, mathematically arranged, as they were plantedcenturies ago. These are royal demesnes, and hunting grounds, and parksconnected with the country palaces of the kings or the chateaux of theancient nobility. The cultivators of the soil live, not, as in America, in little farm-houses built along the road-sides and dotting the slopesof the hills, but in compact villages, consisting of ancient dwellingsof brick or stone, densely packed together along a single street, fromwhich the laborers issue, in picturesque dresses, men and womentogether, every morning, to go miles, perhaps, to the scene of theirdaily toil. Except these villages, and the occasional appearance of anancient chateau, no habitations are seen. The country seems a vastsolitude, teeming everywhere, however, with fertility and beauty. Theroads which traverse these scenes are magnificent avenues, broad, straight, continuing for many miles an undeviating course over theundulations of the land, with nothing to separate them from the expanseof cultivation and fruitfulness on either hand but rows of ancient andvenerable trees. Between these rows of trees the traveler sees aninterminable vista extending both before him and behind him. In England, the public road winds beautifully between walls overhung with shrubbery, or hedge-rows, with stiles or gateways here and there, revealing hamletsor cottages, which appear and disappear in a rapid and endlessly variedsuccession, as the road meanders, like a rivulet, between its beautifulbanks. In a word, the public highway in England is beautiful; in Franceit is grand. 

The greatest city in Normandy in modern times is Rouen, which issituated, as will be seen by referring to the map at the commencement ofthis chapter, on the Seine, half way between Paris and the sea. At themouth of the Seine, or, rather, on the northern shore of the estuarywhich forms the mouth of the river, is a small inlet, which has beenfound to afford, on the whole, the best facilities for a harbor that canbe found on the whole line of the coast. Even this little port, however, is so filled up with sand, that when the water recedes at low tide itleaves the shipping all aground. The inlet would, in fact, probablybecome filled up entirely were it not for artificial means taken toprevent it. There are locks and gateways built in such a manner as toretain a large body of water until the tide is down, and then thesegates are opened, and the water is allowed to rush out all together, carrying with it the mud and sand which had begun to accumulate. Thishaven, being, on the whole, the best and most commodious on the coast, was called _the_ harbor, or, as the French expressed it in theirlanguage, _le havre_, the word _havre_ meaning harbor. In fact, the namewas in full _le havre de grace_, as if the Normans considered it amatter of special good luck to have even such a chance of a harbor asthis at the mouth of their river. The English world have, however, dropped all except the principal word from this long phrase ofdesignation, and call the port simply Havre. 

 * * * * *

From Rollo the line of Dukes of Normandy continued in uninterruptedsuccession down to the time of William, a period of about a hundred andfifty years. The country increased all the time in wealth, inpopulation, and in prosperity. The original inhabitants were not, however, expelled; they remained as peasants, herdsmen, andagriculturists, while the Norman chieftains settled over them, holdingseverally large estates of land which William granted them. The racesgradually became intermingled, though they continued for many centuriesto evince the superior spirit and energy which was infused into thepopulation by the Norman stock. In fact, it is thought by many observersthat that superiority continues to the present day. 

CHAPTER II. 

BIRTH OF WILLIAM. 

A. D. 912-1033

Castle at Falaise. --Present ruins of the castle. --Scenery of the townand castle. --Wall and buildings. --Watch-towers. --Sentinels. --Enchantingprospect. --Chronological history of the Norman line. --Rollo. --WilliamI. , second duke. --Richard I. , third duke. --Richard II. , fourthduke. --Richard III. , fifth duke. --Intrigues of Robert. --He becomesthe sixth duke. --Robert and Henry. --William's mother. --Robert'sfirst meeting with Arlotte. --He is captivated. --Robert sendsfor Arlotte. --Scruples of her father. --Arlotte sent to thecastle. --Robert's affection for her. --Birth of William. --The nurse'sprediction. --William's childhood. --He is a universal favorite. --Robertdetermines to visit the Holy Land. --Dangers of the journey. --He makesWilliam his heir. --Surprise of the assembly. --The nobles do homage toWilliam. --William is taken to Paris. --He is presented to the Frenchking. 

Although Rouen is now very far before all the other cities of Normandyin point of magnitude and importance, and though Rollo, in his conquestof the country, made it his principal head-quarters and his mainstronghold, it did not continue exclusively the residence of the dukesof Normandy in after years. The father of William the Conqueror wasRobert, who became subsequently the duke, the sixth in the line. Heresided, at the time when William was born, in a great castle atFalaise. Falaise, as will be seen upon the map, is west of Rouen, and itstands, like Rouen, at some distance from the sea. The castle was builtupon a hill, at a little distance from the town. It has long sinceceased to be habitable, but the ruins still remain, giving a picturesquebut mournful beauty to the eminence which they crown. They are oftenvisited by travelers, who go to see the place where the great hero andconqueror was born. 

The hill on which the old castle stands terminates, on one side, at thefoot of the castle walls, in a precipice of rocks, and on two othersides, also, the ascent is too steep to be practicable for an enemy. Onthe fourth side there is a more gradual declivity, up which the fortresscould be approached by means of a winding roadway. At the foot of thisroadway was the town. The access to the castle from the town wasdefended by a ditch and draw-bridge, with strong towers on each side ofthe gateway to defend the approach. There was a beautiful stream ofwater which meandered along through the valley, near the town, and, after passing it, it disappeared, winding around the foot of theprecipice which the castle crowned. The castle inclosures were shut inwith walls of stone of enormous thickness; so thick, in fact, they were, that some of the apartments were built in the body of the wall. Therewere various buildings within the inclosure. There was, in particular, one large, square tower, several stories in height, built of whitestone. This tower, it is said, still stands in good preservation. Therewas a chapel, also, and various other buildings and apartments withinthe walls, for the use of the ducal family and their numerous retinueof servants and attendants, for the storage of munitions of war, and forthe garrison. There were watch-towers on the corners of the walls, andon various lofty projecting pinnacles, where solitary sentinels watched, the livelong day and night, for any approaching danger. These sentinelslooked down on a broad expanse of richly-cultivated country, fieldsbeautified with groves of trees, and with the various colors presentedby the changing vegetation, while meandering streams gleamed with theirsilvery radiance among them, and hamlets of laborers and peasantry werescattered here and there, giving life and animation to the scene. 

We have said that William's father was Robert, the sixth Duke ofNormandy, so that William himself, being his immediate successor, wasthe seventh in the line. And as it is the design of these narratives notmerely to amuse the reader with what is entertaining as a tale, but toimpart substantial historical knowledge, we must prepare the way for theaccount of William's birth, by presenting a brief chronological view ofthe whole ducal line, extending from Rollo to William. We recommend tothe reader to examine with special attention this brief account ofWilliam's ancestry, for the true causes which led to William's invasionof England can not be fully appreciated without thoroughly understandingcertain important transactions in which some members of the family ofhis ancestors were concerned before he was born. This is particularlythe case with the Lady Emma, who, as will be seen by the followingsummary, was the sister of the third duke in the line. The extraordinaryand eventful history of her life is so intimately connected with thesubsequent exploits of William, that it is necessary to relate it infull, and it becomes, accordingly, the subject of one of the subsequentchapters of this volume. 

_Chronological History of the Norman Line. _

ROLLO, first Duke of Normandy. 

From A. D. 912 to A. D. 917. 

It was about 870 that Rollo was banished from Norway, and a few yearsafter that, at most, that he landed in France. It was not, however, until 912 that he concluded his treaty of peace with Charles, so as tobe fully invested with the title of Duke of Normandy. 

He was advanced in age at this time, and, after spending five years insettling the affairs of his realm, he resigned his dukedom into thehands of his son, that he might spend the remainder of his days in restand peace. He died in 922, five years after his resignation. 

WILLIAM I. , second Duke of Normandy. 

From 917 to 942. 

William was Rollo's son. He began to reign, of course, five years beforehis father's death. He had a quiet and prosperous reign of abouttwenty-five years, but he was assassinated at last by a political enemy, in 942. 

RICHARD I. , third Duke of Normandy. 

From 942 to 996. 

He was only ten years old when his father was assassinated. He becameinvolved in long and arduous wars with the King of France, whichcompelled him to call in the aid of more Northmen from the Baltic. Hisnew allies, in the end, gave him as much trouble as the old enemy, withwhom they came to help William contend; and he found it very hard to getthem away. He wanted, at length, to make peace with the French king, andto have them leave his dominions; but they said, "That was not what theycame for. "

Richard had a beautiful daughter, named Emma, who afterward became avery important political personage, as will be seen more fully in asubsequent chapter. 

Richard died in 996, after reigning fifty-four years. 

RICHARD II. , fourth Duke of Normandy. 

From 996 to 1026. 

Richard II. Was the son of Richard I. , and as his father had beenengaged during his reign in contentions with his sovereign lord, theKing of France, he, in his turn, was harassed by long-continuedstruggles with his vassals, the barons and nobles of his own realm. He, too, sent for Northmen to come and assist him. During his reign therewas a great contest in England between the Saxons and the Danes, andEthelred, who was the Saxon claimant to the throne, came to Normandy, and soon afterward married the Lady Emma, Richard's sister. Theparticulars of this event, from which the most momentous consequenceswere afterward seen to flow, will be given in full in a future chapter. Richard died in 1026. He left two sons, Richard and Robert. William theConqueror was the son of the youngest, and was born two years beforethis Richard II. Died. 

RICHARD III. , fifth Duke of Normandy. 

From 1026 to 1028. 

He was the oldest brother, and, of course, succeeded to the dukedom. Hisbrother Robert was then only a baron--his son William, afterward theConqueror, being then about two years old. Robert was very ambitious andaspiring, and eager to get possession of the dukedom himself. He adoptedevery possible means to circumvent and supplant his brother, and, as issupposed, shortened his days by the anxiety and vexation which he causedhim; for Richard died suddenly and mysteriously only two years after hisaccession. It was supposed by some, in fact, that he was poisoned, though there was never any satisfactory proof of this. 

ROBERT, sixth Duke of Normandy. 

From 1028 to 1035. 

Robert, of course, succeeded his brother, and then, with thecharacteristic inconsistency of selfishness and ambition, he employedall the power of his realm in helping the King of France to subdue hisyounger brother, who was evincing the same spirit of seditiousness andinsubmission that he had himself displayed. His assistance was of greatimportance to King Henry; it, in fact, decided the contest in his favor;and thus one younger brother was put down in the commencement of hiscareer of turbulence and rebellion, by another who had successfullyaccomplished a precisely similar course of crime. King Henry was verygrateful for the service thus rendered, and was ready to do all in hispower, at all times, to co-operate with Robert in the plans which thelatter might form. Robert died in 1035, when William was about elevenyears old. 

And here we close this brief summary of the history of the ducal line, as we have already passed the period of William's birth; and we return, accordingly, to give in detail some of the particulars of that event. 

[Illustration: WILLIAM AND ARLOTTE. ]

 * * * * *

Although the dukes of Normandy were very powerful potentates, reigning, as they did, almost in the character of independent sovereigns, over oneof the richest and most populous territories of the globe, and thoughWilliam the Conqueror was the son of one of them, his birth wasnevertheless very ignoble. His mother was not the wife of Robert hisfather, but a poor peasant girl, the daughter of an humble tanner ofFalaise; and, indeed, William's father, Robert, was not himself the dukeat this time, but a simple baron, as his father was still living. Itwas not even certain that he ever would be the duke, as his olderbrother, who, of course, would come before him, was also then alive. Still, as the son and prospective heir of the reigning duke, his rankwas very high. 

The circumstances of Robert's first acquaintance with the tanner'sdaughter were these. He was one day returning home to the castle fromsome expedition on which he had been sent by his father, when he saw agroup of peasant girls standing on the margin of the brook, washingclothes. They were barefooted, and their dress was in other respectsdisarranged. There was one named Arlotte, [B] the daughter of a tanner ofthe town, whose countenance and figure seem to have captivated the youngbaron. He gazed at her with admiration and pleasure as he rode along. Her complexion was fair, her eyes full and blue, and the expression ofher countenance was frank, and open, and happy. She was talking joyouslyand merrily with her companions as Robert passed, little dreaming of theconspicuous place on the page of English history which she was tooccupy, in all future time, in connection with the gay horseman who wasriding by. 

[Footnote B: Her name is spelled variously, Arlette, Arlotte, Harlotte, and in other ways. ]

The etiquette of royal and ducal palaces and castles in those days, asnow, forbade that a noble of such lofty rank should marry a peasantgirl. Robert could not, therefore, have Arlotte for his wife; but therewas nothing to prevent his proposing her coming to the castle and livingwith him--that is, nothing but the law of God, and this was an authorityto which dukes and barons in the Middle Ages were accustomed to pay verylittle regard. There was not even a public sentiment to forbid this, fora nobility like that of England and France in the Middle Ages stands sofar above all the mass of society as to be scarcely amenable at all tothe ordinary restrictions and obligations of social life. And even tothe present day, in those countries where dukes exist, public sentimentseems to tolerate pretty generally whatever dukes see fit to do. 

Accordingly, as soon as Robert had arrived at the castle, he sent amessenger from his retinue of attendants down to the village, to thefather of Arlotte, proposing that she should come to the castle. Thefather seems to have had some hesitation in respect to his duty. It issaid that he had a brother who was a monk, or rather hermit, who liveda life of reading, meditation and prayer, in a solitary place not farfrom Falaise. Arlotte's father sent immediately to this religiousrecluse for his spiritual counsel. The monk replied that it was right tocomply with the wishes of so great a man, whatever they might be. Thetanner, thus relieved of all conscientious scruples on the subject bythis high religious authority, and rejoicing in the opening tide ofprosperity and distinction which he foresaw for his family through thebaron's love, robed and decorated his daughter, like a lamb for thesacrifice, and sent her to the castle. 

Arlotte had one of the rooms assigned her, which was built in thethickness of the wall. It communicated by a door with the otherapartments and inclosures within the area, and there were narrow windowsin the masonry without, through which she could look out over the broadexpanse of beautiful fields and meadows which were smiling below. Robertseems to have loved her with sincere and strong affection, and to havedone all in his power to make her happy. Her room, however, could nothave been very sumptuously furnished, although she was the favorite in aducal castle--at least so far as we can judge from the few glimpses weget of the interior through the ancient chroniclers' stories. One storyis, that when William was born, his first exploit was to grasp a handfulof straw, and to hold it so tenaciously in his little fist that thenurse could scarcely take it away. The nurse was greatly delighted withthis infantile prowess; she considered it an omen, and predicted thatthe babe would some day signalize himself by seizing and holding greatpossessions. The prediction would have been forgotten if William had notbecome the conqueror of England at a future day. As it was, it wasremembered and recorded; and it suggests to our imagination a verydifferent picture of the conveniences and comforts of Arlotte's chamberfrom those presented to the eye in ducal palaces now, where carpets ofvelvet silence the tread on marble floors, and favorites repose undersilken canopies on beds of down. 

The babe was named William, and he was a great favorite with his father. He was brought up at Falaise. Two years after his birth, Robert's fatherdied, and his oldest brother, Richard III. , succeeded to the ducalthrone. In two years more, which years were spent in contention betweenthe brothers, Richard also died, and then Robert himself came intopossession of the castle in his own name, reigning there over all thecities and domains of Normandy. 

William was, of course, now about four years old. He was a bright andbeautiful boy, and he grew more and more engaging every year. Hisfather, instead of neglecting and disowning him, as it might have beensupposed he would do, took a great deal of pride and pleasure inwitnessing the gradual development of his powers and his increasingattractiveness, and he openly acknowledged him as his son. 

In fact, William was a universal favorite about the castle. When he wasfive and six years old he was very fond of playing the soldier. He wouldmarshal the other boys of the castle, his playmates, into a littletroop, and train them around the castle inclosures, just as ardent andaspiring boys do with their comrades now. He possessed a certainvivacity and spirit too, which gave him, even then, a great ascendencyover his playfellows. He invented their plays; he led them in theirmischief; he settled their disputes. In a word, he possessed atemperament and character which enabled him very easily and strongly tohold the position which his rank as son of the lord of the castle sonaturally assigned him. 

A few years thus passed away, when, at length, Robert conceived thedesign of making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. This was a plan, not ofhumble-minded piety, but of ambition for fame. To make a pilgrimage tothe Holy Land was a romantic achievement that covered whoeveraccomplished it with a sort of sombre glory, which, in the case of aprince or potentate, mingled with, and hallowed and exalted, hismilitary renown. Robert determined on making the pilgrimage. It was adistant and dangerous journey. In fact, the difficulties and dangers ofthe way were perhaps what chiefly imparted to the enterprise itsromance, and gave it its charms. It was customary for kings and rulers, before setting out, to arrange all the affairs of their kingdoms, toprovide a regency to govern during their absence, and to determine upontheir successors, so as to provide for the very probable contingency oftheir not living to return. 

As soon, therefore, as Robert announced his plan of a pilgrimage, men'sminds were immediately turned to the question of the succession. Roberthad never been married, and he had consequently no son who was entitledto succeed him. He had two brothers, and also a cousin, and some otherrelatives, who had claims to the succession. These all began to maneuveramong the chieftains and nobles, each endeavoring to prepare the way forhaving his own claims advanced, while Robert himself was secretlydetermining that the little William should be his heir. He said nothingabout this, however, but he took care to magnify the importance of hislittle son in every way, and to bring him as much as possible intopublic notice. William, on his part, possessed so much personal beauty, and so many juvenile accomplishments, that he became a great favoritewith all the nobles, and chieftains, and knights who saw him, sometimesat his father's castle, and sometimes away from home, in their ownfortresses or towns, where his father took him, from time to time, inhis train. 

At length, when affairs were ripe for their consummation, Duke Robertcalled together a grand council of all the subordinate dukes, and earls, and barons of his realm, to make known to them the plan of hispilgrimage. They came together from all parts of Normandy, each in asplendid cavalcade, and attended by an armed retinue of retainers. Whenthe assembly had been convened, and the preliminary forms andceremonies had been disposed of, Robert announced his grand design. 

As soon as he had concluded, one of the nobles, whose name and title wasGuy, count of Burgundy, rose and addressed the duke in reply. He wassorry, he said, to hear that the duke, his cousin, entertained such aplan. He feared for the safety of the realm when the chief ruler shouldbe gone. All the estates of the realm, he said, the barons, the knights, the chieftains and soldiers of every degree, would be all without ahead. 

"Not so, " said Robert: "I will leave you a master in my place. " Then, pointing to the beautiful boy by his side, he added, "I have a littlefellow here, who, though he is little now, I acknowledge, will growbigger by and by, with God's grace, and I have great hopes that he willbecome a brave and gallant man. I present him to you, and from this timeforth I give him _seizin_[C] of the Duchy of Normandy as my known andacknowledged heir. And I appoint Alan, duke of Brittany, governor ofNormandy in my name until I shall return, and in case I shall notreturn, in the name of William my son, until he shall become of manlyage. "

[Footnote C: Seizin, an ancient feudal term denoting the inducting of aparty to a legal possession of his right. ]

The assembly was taken wholly by surprise at this announcement. Alan, duke of Brittany, who was one of the chief claimants to the succession, was pleased with the honor conferred upon him in making him at once thegovernor of the realm, and was inclined to prefer the present certaintyof governing at once in the name of others, to the remote contingency ofreigning in his own. The other claimants to the inheritance wereconfounded by the suddenness of the emergency, and knew not what to sayor do. The rest of the assembly were pleased with the romance of havingthe beautiful boy for their feudal sovereign. The duke saw at once thatevery thing was favorable to the accomplishment of his design. He tookthe lad in his arms, kissed him, and held him out in view of theassembly. William gazed around upon the panoplied warriors before himwith a bright and beaming eye. They knelt down as by a common accord todo him homage, and then took the oath of perpetual allegiance andfidelity to his cause. 

Robert thought, however, that it would not be quite prudent to leave hisson himself in the custody of these his rivals, so he took him with himto Paris when he set out upon his pilgrimage, with view of establishinghim there, in the court of Henry, the French king, while he shouldhimself be gone. Young William was presented to the French king, on aday set apart for the ceremony, with great pomp and parade. The kingheld a special court to receive him. He seated himself on his thronein a grand apartment of his palace, and was surrounded by his noblesand officers of state, all magnificently dressed for the occasion. Atthe proper time, Duke Robert came in, dressed in his pilgrim's garb, and leading young William by the hand. His attendant pilgrim knightsaccompanied him. Robert led the boy to the feet of their commonsovereign, and, kneeling there, ordered William to kneel too, to dohomage to the king. King Henry received him very graciously. He embracedhim, and promised to receive him into his court, and to take the bestpossible care of him while his father was away. The courtiers werevery much struck with the beauty and noble bearing of the boy. Hiscountenance beamed with an animated, but yet very serious expression, as he was somewhat awed by the splendor of the scene around him. Hewas himself then nine years old. 

CHAPTER III. 

THE ACCESSION. 

A. D. 1035-1040

Robert departs on his pilgrimage. --He visits Rome andConstantinople. --Robert's illness. --Litter bearers. --Death ofRobert. --Claimants to the crown. --Theroulde. --William's militaryeducation. --The Earl of Arques. --William proclaimed duke. --Thepilgrim knights. --They embrace William's cause. --Debates in thecouncil on the propriety of William's return. --William's return toNormandy. --Its effects. --William's accomplishments. --Impression uponthe army. --Claimants in the field. --Iron rule of the nobles. --Almosta quarrel. --Interview between William and Henry. --Henry'sdemand. --William's indignation. --Henry destroys one of William'scastles. --Difficulties which followed. --War with Henry. --William rescuesFalaise. --William received with acclamations. --Punishment of thegovernor. --The Earl of Arques. --Advance of Henry. --A dangerousdefile. --Henry's order of march. --William's ambuscade. --Itssuccess. --Pretended flight of the Normans. --Disarray of theFrench. --Rout of the French. --William's embassage to Henry. --Thecastle at Arques taken. --William crowned at Falaise. 

After spending a little time at Paris, Robert took leave of the king, and of William his son, and went forth, with a train of attendantknights, on his pilgrimage. He had a great variety of adventures, whichcan not be related here, as it is the history of the son, and not of thefather, which is the subject of this narrative. Though he traveledstrictly as a pilgrim, it was still with great pomp and parade. Aftervisiting Rome, and accomplishing various services and duties connectedwith his pilgrimage there, he laid aside his pilgrim's garb, and, assuming his proper rank as a great Norman chieftain, he went toConstantinople, where he made a great display of his wealth andmagnificence. At the time of the grand procession, for example, by whichhe entered the city of Constantinople, he rode a mule, which, besidesbeing gorgeously caparisoned, had shoes of gold instead of iron; andthese shoes were purposely attached so slightly to the hoofs, that theywere shaken off as the animal walked along, to be picked up by thepopulace. This was to impress them with grand ideas of the rider'swealth and splendor. After leaving Constantinople, Robert resumed hispilgrim's garb, and went on toward the Holy Land. 

The journey, however, did not pass without the usual vicissitudes of solong an absence and so distant a pilgrimage. At one time Robert wassick, and, after lingering for some time in a fever, he so far recoveredhis strength as to be borne on a litter by the strength of other men, though he could not advance himself, either on horseback or on foot; andas for traveling carriages, there had been no such invention in thosedays. They made arrangements, therefore, for carrying the duke on alitter. There were sixteen Moorish slaves employed to serve as hisbearers. This company was divided into sets, four in each, the severalsets taking the burden in rotation. Robert and his attendant knightslooked down with great contempt on these black pagan slaves. One day thecavalcade was met by a Norman who was returning home to Normandy afterhaving accomplished his pilgrimage. He asked Duke Robert if he had anymessage to send to his friends at home. "Yes, " said he; "tell them yousaw me here, on my way to Paradise, carried by sixteen _demons_. "

Robert reached Jerusalem, and set out on his return; and soon afterrumors came back to Paris that he had died on his way home. The accountsof the manner of his death were contradictory and uncertain; but thefact was soon made sure, and the news produced every where a greatsensation. It soon appeared that the brothers and cousins of Robert, whohad claimed the right to succeed him in preference to his son William, had only suspended their claims--they had not abandoned them. They beganto gather their forces, each in his own separate domain, and to prepareto take the field, if necessary, in vindication of what they consideredtheir rights to the inheritance. In a word, their oaths of fealty toWilliam were all forgotten, and each claimant was intent only on gettingpossession himself of the ducal crown. 

In the mean time, William himself was at Paris, and only eleven years ofage. He had been receiving a careful education there, and was a veryprepossessing and accomplished young prince. Still, he was yet but amere boy. He had been under the care of a military tutor, whose namewas Theroulde. Theroulde was a veteran soldier, who had long been inthe employ of the King of France. He took great interest in his youngpupil's progress. He taught him to ride and to practice all theevolutions of horsemanship which were required by the tactics of thosedays. He trained him, too, in the use of arms, the bow and arrow, thejavelin, the sword, the spear, and accustomed him to wear, and toexercise in, the armor of steel with which warriors were used, in thosedays, to load themselves in going into battle. Young princes likeWilliam had suits of this armor made for them, of small size, which theywere accustomed to wear in private in their military exercises andtrainings, and to appear in, publicly, on great occasions of state. These dresses of iron were of course very heavy and uncomfortable, butthe young princes and dukes were, nevertheless, very proud and happy towear them. 

While William was thus engaged in pursuing his military education inParis, several competitors for his dukedom immediately appeared inNormandy and took the field. The strongest and most prominent among themwas the Earl of Arques. His name was William too, but, to distinguishhim from the young duke, we shall call him Arques. He was a brother ofRobert, and maintained that, as Robert left no lawful heir, he wasindisputably entitled to succeed him. Arques assembled his forces andprepared to take possession of the country. 

It will be recollected that Robert, when he left Normandy in setting outon his pilgrimage, had appointed a nobleman named Alan to act as regent, or governor of the country, until he should return; or, in case heshould never return, until William should become of age. Alan had acouncil of officers, called the council of regency, with whose aid hemanaged the administration of the government. This council, with Alan attheir head, proclaimed young William duke, and immediately began to actin his name. When they found that the Earl of Arques was preparing toseize the government, they began to assemble their forces also, and thusboth sides prepared for war. 

Before they actually commenced hostilities, however, the pilgrim knightswho had accompanied Robert on his pilgrimage, and who had beenjourneying home slowly by themselves ever since their leader's death, arrived in Normandy. These were chieftains and nobles of high rank andinfluence, and each of the contending parties were eager to have themjoin their side. Besides the actual addition of force which these mencould bring to the cause they should espouse, the moral support theywould give to it was a very important consideration. Their having beenon this long and dangerous pilgrimage invested them with a sort ofromantic and religious interest in the minds of all the people, wholooked up to them, in consequence of it, with a sort of veneration andawe; and then, as they had been selected by Robert to accompany him onhis pilgrimage, and had gone on the long and dangerous journey with him, continuing to attend upon him until he died, they were naturallyregarded as his most faithful and confidential friends. For these andsimilar reasons, it was obvious that the cause which they should espousein the approaching contest would gain a large accession of moral powerby their adhesion. 

As soon as they arrived in Normandy, rejecting all proposals from otherquarters, they joined young William's cause with the utmost promptitudeand decision. Alan received them at once into his councils. An assemblywas convened, and the question was discussed whether William should besent for to come to Normandy. Some argued that he was yet a mere boy, incapable of rendering them any real service in the impending contest, while he would be exposed, more perhaps than they themselves, to betaken captive or slain. They thought it best, therefore, that he shouldremain, for the present, in Paris, under the protection of the Frenchking. 

Others, on the other hand, contended that the influence of William'spresence, boy as he was, would animate and inspire all his followers, and awaken every where, throughout the country, a warm interest in hiscause; that his very tenderness and helplessness would appeal stronglyto every generous heart, and that his youthful accomplishments andpersonal charms would enlist thousands in his favor, who would forget, and perhaps abandon him, if he kept away. Besides, it was by no meanscertain that he was so safe as some might suppose in King Henry'scustody and power. King Henry might himself lay claims to the vacantduchy, with a view of bestowing it upon some favorite of his own, inwhich case he might confine young William in one of his castles, in anhonorable, but still rigid and hopeless captivity, or treacherouslydestroy his life by the secret administration of poison. 

These latter counsels prevailed. Alan and the nobles who were with himsent an embassage to the court of King Henry to bring William home. Henry made objections and difficulties. This alarmed the nobles. Theyfeared that it would prove true that Henry himself had designs onNormandy. They sent a new embassage, with demands more urgent thanbefore. Finally, after some time spent in negotiations and delays, KingHenry concluded to yield, and William set out on his return. He was nowabout twelve or thirteen years old. His military tutor, Theroulde, accompanied him, and he was attended likewise by the embassadors whomAlan had sent for him, and by a strong escort for his protection by theway. He arrived in safety at Alan's head-quarters. 

William's presence in Normandy had the effect which had been anticipatedfrom it. It awakened every where a great deal of enthusiasm in hisfavor. The soldiers were pleased to see how handsome their youngcommander was in form, and how finely he could ride. He was, in fact, avery superior equestrian for one so young. He was more fond, even, thanother boys of horses; and as, of course, the most graceful and thefleetest horses which could be found were provided for him, and asTheroulde had given him the best and most complete instruction, he madea fine display as he rode swiftly through the camp, followed by veterannobles, splendidly dressed and mounted, and happy to be in his train, while his own countenance beamed with a radiance in which nativeintelligence and beauty were heightened by the animation and excitementof pride and pleasure. In respect to the command of the army, of coursethe real power remained in Alan's hands, but every thing was done inWilliam's name; and in respect to all external marks and symbols ofsovereignty, the beautiful boy seemed to possess the supreme command;and as the sentiment of loyalty is always the strongest when the objectwhich calls for the exercise of it is most helpless or frail, Alan foundhis power very much increased when he had this beautiful boy to exhibitas the true and rightful heir, in whose name and for whose benefit allhis power was held. 

Still, however, the country was very far from becoming settled. The Earlof Arques kept the field, and other claimants, too, strengthenedthemselves in their various castles and towns, as if preparing toresist. In those days, every separate district of the country was almosta separate realm, governed by its own baron, who lived, with hisretainers, within his own castle walls, and ruled the land around himwith a rod of iron. These barons were engaged in perpetual quarrelsamong themselves, each plundering the dominions of the rest, or makinghostile incursions into the territories of a neighbor to revenge somereal or imaginary wrong. This turbulence and disorder prevailed everywhere throughout Normandy at the time of William's return. In thegeneral confusion, William's government scarcely knew who were hisfriends or his enemies. At one time, when a deputation was sent to someof the barons in William's name, summoning them to come with theirforces and join his standard, as they were in duty bound to do, theyfelt independent enough to send back word to him that they had "too muchto do in settling their own quarrels to be able to pay any attention tohis. "

In the course of a year or two, moreover, and while his own realmcontinued in this unsettled and distracted state, William becameinvolved in what was almost a quarrel with King Henry himself. When hewas fifteen years old, which was two or three years after his returnfrom Paris to Normandy, Henry sent directions to William to come to acertain town, called Evreux, situated about half way between Falaise andParis, and just within the confines of Normandy, [D] to do homage to himthere for his duchy. There was some doubt among William's counselorswhether it would be most prudent to obey or disobey this command. Theyfinally concluded that it was best to obey. Grand preparations wereaccordingly made for the expedition; and, when all was ready, the youngduke was conducted in great state, and with much pomp and parade, tomeet his sovereign. 

[Footnote D: See map at the commencement of chapter ix. ]

The interview between William and his sovereign, and the ceremoniesconnected with it, lasted some days. In the course of this time, Williamremained at Evreux, and was, in some sense, of course, in Henry's power. William, having been so long in Henry's court as a mere boy, accustomedall the time to look up to and obey Henry as a father, regarded himsomewhat in that light now, and approached him with great deference andrespect. Henry received him in a somewhat haughty and imperious manner, as if he considered him still under the same subjection as heretofore. 

William had a fortress or castle on the frontiers of his dukedom, towardHenry's dominions. The name of the castle was Tellières, and thegovernor of it was a faithful old soldier named De Crespin. William'sfather, Robert, had intrusted De Crespin with the command of the castle, and given him a garrison to defend it. Henry now began to make complaintto William in respect to this castle. The garrison, he said, werecontinually making incursions into his dominions. William replied thathe was very sorry that there was cause for such a complaint. He wouldinquire into it, and if the fact were really so, he would have the evilimmediately corrected. Henry replied that that was not sufficient. "Youmust deliver up the castle to me, " he said, "to be destroyed. " Williamwas indignant at such a demand; but he was so accustomed to obeyimplicitly whatever King Henry might require of him, that he sent theorder to have the castle surrendered. 

When, however, the order came to De Crespin, the governor of the castle, he refused to obey it. The fortress, he said, had been committed to hischarge by Robert, duke of Normandy, and he should not give it up to thepossession of any foreign power. When this answer was reported toWilliam and his counselors, it made them still more indignant thanbefore at the domineering tyranny of the command, and more disposed thanever to refuse obedience to it. Still William was in a great measure inthe monarch's power. On cool reflection, they perceived that resistancewould then be vain. New and more authoritative orders were accordinglyissued for the surrender of the castle. De Crespin now obeyed. He gaveup the keys and withdrew with his garrison. William was then allowed toleave Evreux and return home, and soon afterward the castle was razed tothe ground. 

This affair produced, of course, a great deal of animosity andirritation between the governments of France and Normandy; and wheresuch a state of feeling exists between two powers separated only by animaginary line running through a populous and fertile country, aggressions from one side and from the other are sure to follow. Theseare soon succeeded by acts of retaliation and revenge, leading, in theend, to an open and general war. It was so now. Henry marched hisarmies into Normandy, seized towns, destroyed castles, and, where he wasresisted by the people, he laid waste the country with fire and sword. He finally laid siege to the very castle of Falaise. 

William and his government were for a time nearly overwhelmed with thetide of disaster and calamity. The tide turned, however, at length, andthe fortune of war inclined in their favor. William rescued the town andcastle of Falaise; it was in a very remarkable manner, too, that thisexploit was accomplished. The fortress was closely invested with Henry'sforces, and was on the very eve of being surrendered. The story is, thatHenry had offered bribes to the governor of the castle to give it up tohim, and that the governor had agreed to receive them and to betray histrust. While he was preparing to do so, William arrived at the head of aresolute and determined band of Normans. They came with so sudden anonset upon the army of besiegers as to break up their camp and forcethem to abandon the siege. The people of the town and the garrison ofthe castle were extremely rejoiced to be thus rescued, and when theycame to learn through whose instrumentality they had been saved, andsaw the beautiful horseman whom they remembered as a gay and happychild playing about the precincts of the castle, they were perfectlyintoxicated with delight. They filled the air with the wildestacclamations, and welcomed William back to the home of his childhoodwith manifestations of the most extravagant joy. As to the traitorousgovernor, he was dealt with very leniently. Perhaps the general feelingof joy awakened emotions of leniency and forgiveness in William'smind--or perhaps the proof against the betrayer was incomplete. They didnot, therefore, take his life, which would have been justly forfeited, according to the military ideas of the times, if he had been reallyguilty. They deprived him of his command, confiscated his property, andlet him go free. 

After this, William's forces continued for some time to make headsuccessfully against those of the King of France; but then, on the otherhand, the danger from his uncle, the Earl of Arques, increased. The earltook advantage of the difficulty and danger in which William wasinvolved in his contests with King Henry, and began to organize hisforces again. He fortified himself in his castle at Arques, [E] and wascollecting a large force there. Arques was in the northeastern part ofNormandy, near the sea, where the ruins of the ancient castle stillremain. The earl built an almost impregnable tower for himself on thesummit of the rock on which the castle stood, in a situation soinaccessible that he thought he could retreat to it in any emergency, with a few chosen followers, and bid defiance to any assault. In andaround this castle the earl had got quite a large army together. Williamadvanced with his forces, and, encamping around them, shut them in. KingHenry, who was then in a distant part of Normandy, began to put his armyin motion to come to the rescue of Arques. 

[Footnote E: See map, chapter ix. ]

Things being in this state, William left a strong body of men tocontinue the investment and siege of Arques, and went off himself, atthe head of the remainder of his force, to intercept Henry on hisadvance. The result was a battle and a victory, gained undercircumstances so extraordinary, that William, young as he was, acquiredby his exploits a brilliant and universal renown. 

It seems that Henry, in his progress to Arques, had to pass through along and gloomy valley, which was bounded on either side by precipitousand forest-covered hills. Through this dangerous defile the long trainof Henry's army was advancing, arranged and marshaled in such an orderas seemed to afford the greatest hope of security in case of an attack. First came the vanguard, a strong escort, formed of heavy bodies ofsoldiery, armed with battle-axes and pikes, and other similar weapons, the most efficient then known. Immediately after this vanguard came along train of baggage, the tents, the provisions, the stores, and allthe munitions of war. The baggage was followed by a great company ofservants--the cooks, the carters, the laborers, the camp followers ofevery description--a throng of non-combatants, useless, of course, in abattle, and a burden on a march, and yet the inseparable andindispensable attendant of an army, whether at rest or in motion. Afterthis throng came the main body of the army, with the king, escorted byhis guard of honor, at the head of it. An active and efficient corps oflancers and men-at-arms brought up the rear. 

William conceived the design of drawing this cumbrous and unmanageablebody into an ambuscade. He selected, accordingly, the narrowest and mostdangerous part of the defile for the purpose, and stationed vastnumbers of Norman soldiers, armed with javelins and arrows, upon theslopes of the hill on either side, concealing them all carefully amongthe thickets and rocks. He then marshaled the remainder of his forcesin the valley, and sent them up the valley to meet Henry as he wasdescending. This body of troops, which was to advance openly to meet theking, as if they constituted the whole of William's force, were to fighta pretended battle with the vanguard, and then to retreat, in hopes todraw the whole train after them in a pursuit so eager as to throw theminto confusion; and then, when the column, thus disarranged, shouldreach the place of ambuscade, the Normans were to come down upon themsuddenly from their hiding-places, and complete their discomfiture. 

The plan was well laid, and wisely and bravely executed; and it was mosttriumphantly successful in its result. The vanguard of Henry's army weredeceived by the pretended flight of the Norman detachment. Theysupposed, too, that it constituted the whole body of their enemies. Theypressed forward, therefore, with great exultation and eagerness topursue them. News of the attack, and of the apparent repulse with whichthe French soldiers had met it, passed rapidly along the valley, producing every where the wildest excitement, and an eager desire topress forward to the scene of conflict. The whole valley was filled withshouts and outcries; baggage was abandoned, that those who had charge ofit might hurry on; men ran to and fro for tidings, or ascended eminencesto try to see. Horsemen drove at full speed from front to rear, and fromrear on to the front again; orders and counter orders were given, whichnobody would understand or attend to in the general confusion and din. In fact, the universal attention seemed absorbed in one general andeager desire to press forward with headlong impetuosity to the scene ofvictory and pursuit which they supposed was enacting in the van. 

The army pressed on in this confused and excited manner until theyreached the place of ambuscade. They went on, too, through this narrowpassage, as heedlessly as ever; and, when the densest and most powerfulportion of the column was crowding through, they were suddenlythunderstruck by the issuing of a thousand weapons from the heights andthickets above them on either hand--a dreadful shower of arrows, javelins, and spears, which struck down hundreds in a moment, andoverwhelmed the rest with astonishment and terror. As soon as this firstdischarge had been effected, the concealed enemy came pouring down thesides of the mountain, springing out from a thousand hiding-places, asif suddenly brought into being by some magic power. The discomfiture ofHenry's forces was complete and irremediable. The men fled every wherein utter dismay, trampling upon and destroying one another, as theycrowded back in terrified throngs to find some place of safety up thevalley. There, after a day or two, Henry got together the scatteredremains of his army, and established something like a camp. 

It is a curious illustration of the feudal feelings of those times inrespect to the gradation of ranks, or else of the extraordinary modestyand good sense of William's character, that he assumed no airs ofsuperiority over his sovereign, and showed no signs of extravagantelation after this battle. He sent a respectful embassage to Henry, recognizing his own acknowledged subjection to Henry as his sovereign, and imploring his protection! He looked confidently to him, he said, foraid and support against his rebellious subjects. 

Though he thus professed, however, to rely on Henry, he really trustedmost, it seems, to his own right arm; for, as soon as this battle wasfairly over, and while the whole country was excited with theastonishing brilliancy of the exploit performed by so young a man, William mounted his horse, and calling upon those to follow him whowished to do so, he rode at full speed, at the head of a smallcavalcade, to the castle at Arques. His sudden appearance here, with thenews of the victory, inspirited the besiegers to such a degree that thecastle was soon taken. He allowed the rebel earl to escape, and thus, perhaps, all the more effectually put an end to the rebellion. He wasnow in peaceable possession of his realm. 

He went in triumph to Falaise, where he was solemnly crowned with greatceremony and parade, and all Normandy was filled with congratulationsand rejoicings. 

CHAPTER IV. 

WILLIAM'S REIGN IN NORMANDY. 

A. D. 1040-1060

A lapse of twenty years. --Conspiracy of Guy of Burgundy. --The foolor jester. --Meetings of the conspirators. --Final plans of theconspirators. --Discovered by Galet. --Galet sets out in search ofWilliam. --He finds him asleep. --William's flight. --His narrowescape. --William is recognized. --Hubert's castle. --Hubert'ssons. --Pursuit of the conspirators. --Defeat of the rebels. --Theirpunishment. --Curious incident. --Coats of armor. --Origin ofheraldry. --Rollo de Tesson. --Keeping both oaths. --Changingsides. --Character of the ancient chieftains. --Their love ofwar. --Ancient castles. --Their interior construction. --Nothingrespectable for the nobility but war. --Rebellions. --Insulting allusionsto William's birth. --The ambuscade. --Its failure. --Insults of thegarrison. --Indignation of William. --William's campaign in France. --Hispopularity. --William's prowess. --True nature of courage. --Anambuscade. --William's bravery. --William's victory. --Applause of theFrench army. --William firmly seated on his throne. --His new projects. 

From the time of William's obtaining quiet possession of his realm tohis invasion of England, a long period intervened. There was a lapse ofmore than twenty years. During this long interval, William governed hisduchy, suppressed insurrections, built castles and towns, carried onwars, regulated civil institutions, and, in fact, exercised, in a veryenergetic and successful manner, all the functions of government--hislife being diversified all the time by the usual incidents which markthe career of a great military ruler of an independent realm in theMiddle Ages. We will give in this chapter a description of some of theseincidents. 

On one occasion a conspiracy was formed to take his life by secretassassination. A great chieftain, named Guy of Burgundy, William'suncle, was the leader of it, and a half-witted man, named Galet, whooccupied the place of jester or fool in William's court, was the meansof discovering and exposing it. These jesters, of whom there was alwaysone or more in the retinue of every great prince in those days, wereeither very eccentric or very foolish, or half-insane men, who weredressed fantastically, in gaudy colors and with cap and bells, and werekept to make amusement for the court. The name of William's jester wasGalet. 

Guy of Burgundy and his fellow-conspirators occupied certain gloomycastles, built in remote and lonely situations on the confines ofNormandy. Here they were accustomed to assemble for the purposeof concocting their plans, and gathering their men and theirresources--doing every thing in the most cunning and secret manner. Before their scheme was fully ripe for execution, it happened thatWilliam made a hunting excursion into the neighborhood of theirterritory with a small band of followers--such as would be naturally gottogether on such a party of pleasure. Galet, the fool, was among them. 

As soon as Guy and his fellow-conspirators learned that William was sonear, they determined to precipitate the execution of their plan, andwaylay and assassinate him on his return. 

They accordingly left their secret and lonely rendezvous among themountains one by one, in order to avoid attracting observation, andwent to a town called Bayeux, through which they supposed that Williamwould have to pass on his return. Here they held secret consultations, and formed their final plans. They sent out a part of their number, insmall bands, into the region of country which William would have tocross, to occupy the various roads and passes, and thus to cut off allpossibility of his escape. They made all these arrangements in the mostsecret and cautious manner, and began to think that they were sure oftheir prey. 

It happened, however, that some of William's attendants, with Galet thefool among them, had preceded William on his return, and had reachedBayeux[F] at the time when the conspirators arrived there. Thetownspeople did not observe the coming of the conspirators particularly, as many horsemen and soldiers were coming and going at that time, andthey had no means of distinguishing the duke's friends from his enemies;but Galet, as he sauntered about the town, noticed that there were manysoldiers and knights to be seen who were not of his master's party. This attracted his attention; he began to watch the motions of thesestrangers, and to listen, without seeming to listen, in order to catchthe words they spoke to each other as they talked in groups or passedone another in the streets. He was soon satisfied that some mischiefwas intended. He immediately threw aside his cap and bells, and hisfantastic dress, and, taking a staff in his hand, he set off on foot togo back as fast as possible in search of the duke, and give him thealarm. He found the duke at a village called Valonges. He arrived thereat night. He pressed forward hastily into his master's chamber, halfforcing his way through the attendants, who, accustomed to the libertieswhich such a personage as he was accustomed to take on all occasions, made only a feeble resistance to his wishes. He found the duke asleep, and he called upon him with a very earnest voice to awake and ariseimmediately, for his life was in danger. 

[Footnote F: See map, chapter ix. ]

William was at first inclined to disbelieve the story which Galet toldhim, and to think that there was no cause to fear. He was, however, soonconvinced that Galet was right, and that there was reason for alarm. Hearose and dressed himself hastily; and, inasmuch as a monarch, in thefirst moments of the discovery of a treasonable plot, knows not whom totrust, William wisely concluded not to trust any body. He went himselfto the stables, saddled his horse with his own hand, mounted him, androde away. He had a very narrow escape; for, at the same time, whileGalet was hastening to Valonges to give his master warning of hisdanger, the conspirators had been advancing to the same place, and hadcompletely surrounded it; and they were on the eve of making an attackupon William's quarters at the very hour when he set out upon hisflight. William had accordingly proceeded only a little way on his routebefore he heard the footsteps of galloping horses, and the clanking ofarms, on the road behind him. It was a troop of the conspirators coming, who, finding that William had fled, had set off immediately in pursuit. William rode hastily into a wood, and let them go by. 

[Illustration: WILLIAM'S ESCAPE. ]

He remained for some time in his hiding-place, and then cautiouslyemerged from it to continue his way. He did not dare to keep the publicroad, although it was night, but took a wild and circuitous route, inlanes and bypaths, which conducted him, at length, to the vicinity ofthe sea. Here, about day-break, he was passing a mansion, supposing thatno one would observe him at so early an hour, when, suddenly, heperceived a man sitting at the gate, armed and equipped, and in anattitude of waiting. He was waiting for his horse. He was a noblemannamed Hubert. He recognized William immediately as the duke, andaccosted him in a tone of astonishment, saying, "Why, my lord duke, isit possible that this is you?" He was amazed to see the ruler of therealm out at such an hour, in such a condition, alone, exhausted, hisdress all in disorder from the haste with which he had put it on, andhis steed breathless and covered with dust, and ready, apparently, todrop down with fatigue and exhaustion. 

William, finding that he was recognized, related his story. It appeared, in the end, that Hubert held his own castle and village as a tenant ofone of the principal conspirators, and was bound, according to thefeudal ideas of the time, to espouse his landlord's cause. He toldWilliam, however, that he had nothing to fear. "I will defend yourlife, " said he, "as if it were my own. " So saying, he called his threesons, who were all athletic and courageous young men, and commanded themto mount their horses and get ready for a march. He took William intohis castle, and gave him the food and refreshment that he needed. Thenhe brought him again into the court-yard of the house, where Williamfound the three young horsemen mounted and ready, and a strong and fleetsteed prepared for himself. He mounted. Hubert commanded his sons toconduct the prince with all dispatch to Falaise, without traveling atall upon the highway or entering a town. They took, accordingly, astraight course across the country--which was probably then, as now, nearly destitute of inclosures--and conducted William safely to hiscastle at Falaise. 

In the course of the morning, William's pursuers came to Hubert'scastle, and asked if the duke had been seen going by. Hubert replied inthe affirmative, and he mounted his steed with great readiness to go andshow them the road which the fugitive had taken. He urged them to ridehard, in hopes of soon overtaking the object of their pursuit. Theydrove on, accordingly, with great impetuosity and ardor, under Hubert'sguidance; but, as he had purposely taken a wrong road, he was onlyleading them further and further astray. Finally they gave up the chase, and Hubert returned with the disappointed pursuers to his fortress, William having in the mean time arrived safely at Falaise. 

The conspirators now found that it was useless any longer to attempt toconceal their plans. In fact, they were already all exposed, and theyknew that William would immediately summon his troops and come out toseize them. They must, therefore, either fly from the country or attemptan open rebellion. They decided on the latter--the result was a civilwar. In the end, William was victorious. He took a large number of therebels prisoners, and he adopted the following very singular plan forinflicting a suitable punishment upon them, and at the same timeerecting a permanent monument of his victory. He laid out a public roadacross the country, on the line over which he had been conducted by thesons of Hubert, and compelled the rebels to make it. A great part ofthis country was low and marshy, and had been for this reason avoided bythe public road, which took a circuitous course around it. The rebelprisoners were now, however, set at work to raise a terrace orembankment, on a line surveyed by William's engineers, which followedalmost exactly the course of his retreat. The high road was then laidout upon this terrace, and it became immediately a public thoroughfareof great importance. It continued for several centuries one of the mostfrequented highways in the realm, and was known by the name of theRaised Road--_Terre levée_--throughout the kingdom. In fact, the remainsof it, appearing like the ruins of an ancient rail-road embankment, exist to the present day. 

In the course of the war with these rebels a curious incident occurredat one of the battles, or, rather, is said to have occurred, by thehistorians who tell the story, which, if true, illustrates verystrikingly the romantic and chivalrous ideas of the times. Just as thebattle was commencing, William perceived a strong and finely-equippedbody of horsemen preparing to charge upon the very spot where hehimself, surrounded by his officers, was standing. Now the armor worn byknights in battle in those times covered and concealed the figure andthe face so fully, that it would have been impossible even foracquaintances and friends to recognize each other, were it not that theknights were all accustomed to wear certain devices upon some part oftheir armor--painted, for instance, upon their shields, or embroideredon little banners which they bore--by means of which they might beknown. These devices became at length hereditary in the greatfamilies--sons being proud to wear, themselves, the emblems to which thedeeds of their fathers had imparted a trace of glory and renown. Thedevices of different chieftains were combined, sometimes, in cases ofintermarriage, or were modified in various ways; and with these minorchanges they would descend from generation to generation as the familycoat of arms. And this was the origin of heraldry. 

Now the body of horsemen that were advancing to the charge, as abovedescribed, had each of them his device upon a little flag or bannerattached to their lances. As they were advancing, William scrutinizedthem closely, and presently recognized in their leader a man who hadformerly been upon his side. His name was Rollo de Tesson. He was one ofthose who had sworn fealty to him at the time when his father Robertpresented him to the council, when setting out upon his pilgrimage. William accordingly exclaimed, with a loud voice, "Why, these are myfriends!" The officers and the soldiers of the body-guard who were withhim, taking up the cry, shouted "_Friends! friends!_" Rollo de Tessonand the other knights, who were slowly coming up, preparing to chargeupon William's party, surprised at being thus accosted, paused in theiradvance, and finally halted. Rollo said to the other knights, whogathered around him, "I _was_ his friend. I gave my oath to his fatherthat I would stand by him and defend him with my life; and now I havethis morning sworn to the Count of Cotentin"--the Count of Cotentin wasthe leader of the rebellion--"that I would seek out William on thebattle-field, and be the first to give him a blow. I know not what todo. " "Keep both oaths, " replied one of his companions. "Go and strikehim a gentle blow, and then defend him with your life. " The whole troopseconded this proposal by acclamation. Rollo advanced, followed by theother knights, with gestures and shouts denoting that they were friends. He rode up to William, told him that he had that morning sworn to strikehim, and then dealt him a pretended blow upon his shoulder; but as boththe shoulder and the hand which struck it were armed with steel, theclanking sound was all the effect that was produced. Rollo and histroop--their sworn obligation to the Count of Cotentin being thusfulfilled--turned now into the ranks of William's soldiery, and foughtvaliantly all day upon his side. 

Although William was generally victorious in the battles that he fought, and succeeded in putting down one rebellion after another withpromptness and decision, still, new rebellions and new wars wereconstantly breaking out, which kept his dominions in a continual stateof commotion. In fact, the chieftains, the nobles, and the knights, constituting the only classes of society that exercised any influence, or were regarded with any respect in those days, were never contentedexcept when actively employed in military campaigns. The excitements andthe glory of war were the only excitements and glory that theyunderstood, or had the means of enjoying. Their dwellings were greatfortresses, built on the summits of the rocks, which, howeverpicturesque and beautiful they appear as _ruins_ now, were very gloomyand desolate as residences then. They were attractive enough when theirinmates were flying to them for refuge from an enemy, or were employedwithin the walls in concentrating their forces and brightening up theirarms for some new expedition for vengeance or plunder, but they werelonely and lifeless scenes of restlessness and discontent in times ofquietness and peace. 

It is difficult for us, at this day, to conceive how destitute of allthe ordinary means of comfort and enjoyment, in comparison with a moderndwelling, the ancient feudal castles must have been. They were placed insituations as nearly inaccessible as possible, and the naturalimpediments of approach were increased by walls, and gates, and ditches, and draw-bridges. The door of access was often a window in the wall, tenor fifteen feet from the ground, to which the inmates or their friendsmounted by a ladder. The floors were of stone, the walls were naked, theceiling was a rudely-constructed series of arches. The apartments, too, were ordinarily small, and were arranged one above another, in thesuccessive stories of a tower. Nor could these cell-like chambers beenlivened by the wide and cheerful windows of modern times, which notonly admit the light to animate the scene within, but also afford to thespectator there, wide-spread, and sometimes enchanting views of thesurrounding country. The castle windows of ancient days were, on thecontrary, narrow loop-holes, each at the bottom of a deep recess in thethick wall. If they had been made wide they would have admitted tooeasily the arrows and javelins of besiegers, as well as the wind andrain of wintery storms. There were no books in these desolate dwellings, no furniture but armor, no pleasures but drinking and carousals. 

Nor could these noble and valiant knights and barons occupy themselvesin any useful employment. There was nothing which it was respectable forthem to do but to fight. They looked down with contempt upon all theindustrial pursuits of life. The cultivation of farms, the rearing offlocks and herds, arts, manufactures, and commerce--every thing of thissort, by which man can benefit his fellow-man, was entirely beneaththem. In fact, their descendants to the present day, even in England, entertain the same ideas. Their younger sons can enter the army or thenavy, and spend their lives in killing and destroying, or in awaiting, in idleness, dissipation, and vice, for orders to kill and destroy, without dishonor; but to engage in any way in those vast and magnificentoperations of peaceful industry, on which the true greatness and gloryof England depend, would be perpetual and irretrievable disgrace. Ayoung nobleman can serve, in the most subordinate official capacity, onboard a man-of-war, and take pay for it, without degradation; but to_build_ a man-of-war itself and take pay for it, would be to compel hiswhole class to disown him. 

It was in consequence of this state of feeling among the knights andbarons of William's day that peace was always tedious and irksome tothem, and they were never contented except when engaged in battles andcampaigns. It was this feeling, probably, quite as much as any settledhostility to William's right to reign, that made his barons so eager toengage in insurrections and rebellions. There was, however, after all, a real and deep-seated opposition to William's right of succession, founded in the ideas of the day. They could not well endure that one ofso humble and even ignominious birth, on the mother's side, should bethe heir of so illustrious a line as the great dukes of Normandy. William's enemies were accustomed to designate him by opprobriousepithets, derived from the circumstances of his birth. Though he waspatient and enduring, and often very generous in forgiving otherinjuries, these insults to the memory of his mother always stung himvery deeply, and awakened the strongest emotions of resentment. Oneinstance of this was so conspicuous that it is recorded in almost allthe histories of William that have been written. 

It was in the midst of one of the wars in which he was involved, thathe was advancing across the country to the attack of a strong castle, which, in addition to the natural strength of its walls andfortifications, was defended by a numerous and powerful garrison. Soconfident, in fact, were the garrison in their numbers and power, thatwhen they heard that William was advancing to attack them, they sent outa detachment to meet him. This detachment, however, were not intendingto give him open battle. Their plan was to lay in ambuscade, and attackWilliam's troops when they came to the spot, and while they were unawareof the vicinity of an enemy, and off their guard. 

William, however, they found, was not off his guard. He attacked theambuscade with so much vigor as to put the whole force immediately toflight. Of course the fugitives directed their steps toward the castle. William and his soldiers followed them in headlong pursuit. The end was, that the detachment from the garrison had scarcely time, after makinggood their own entrance, to raise the draw-bridges and secure thegates, so as to keep their pursuers from entering too. They did, however, succeed in doing this, and William, establishing his troopsabout the castle, opened his lines and commenced a regular siege. 

The garrison were very naturally vexed and irritated at the bad successof their intended stratagem. To have the ambuscade not only fail of itsobject, but to have also the men that formed it driven thusignominiously in, and so narrowly escaping, also, the danger of lettingin the whole troop of their enemies after them, was a great disgrace. Toretaliate upon William, and to throw back upon him the feelings ofmortification and chagrin which they felt themselves, they mounted thewalls and towers, and shouted out all sorts of reproaches and insults. Finally, when they found that they could not make mere wordssufficiently stinging, they went and procured skins and hides, andaprons of leather, and every thing else that they could find that wasconnected with the trade of a tanner, and shook them at the troops oftheir assailants from the towers and walls, with shouts of merriment andderision. 

William was desperately enraged at these insults. He organized anassaulting party, and by means of the great exertions which theexasperation of his men stimulated them to make, he carried some of theoutworks, and took a number of prisoners. These prisoners he cut topieces, and then caused their bloody and mangled limbs and members tobe thrown, by great slings, over the castle walls. 

At one time during the period which is included within the limits ofthis chapter, and in the course of one of those intervals of peace andquietness within his own dominions which William sometimes enjoyed, theKing of France became involved in a war with one of his own rebellioussubjects, and William went, with an army of Normans, to render him aid. King Henry was at first highly gratified at this prompt and effectualsuccor, but he soon afterward began to feel jealous of the universalpopularity and renown which the young duke began soon to acquire. William was at that time only about twenty-four years old, but he tookthe direction of every thing--moved to and fro with the utmostcelerity--planned the campaigns--directed the sieges, and by hispersonal accomplishments and his bravery, he won all hearts, and was thesubject of every body's praises. King Henry found himself supplanted, in some measure, in the regard and honorable consideration of hissubjects, and he began to feel very envious and jealous of his rival. 

Sometimes particular incidents would occur, in which William's featsof prowess or dexterity would so excite the admiration of the army thathe would be overwhelmed with acclamations and applause. These weregenerally exploits of combat on the field, or of escape from pursuerswhen outnumbered, in which good fortune had often, perhaps, quite asmuch to do in securing the result as strength or courage. But in thosedays a soldier's good luck was perhaps as much the subject of applauseas his muscular force or his bravery; and, in fact, it was as deservedlyso; for the strength of arm, and the coolness, or, rather, the ferocityof courage, which make a good combatant in personal contests on abattle-field, are qualities of brutes rather than of men. We feel aspecies of respect for them in the lion or tiger, but they deserve onlyexecration when exercised in the wantonness of hatred and revenge by managainst his brother man. 

One of the instances of William's extraordinary success was thefollowing. He was reconnoitering the enemy on one occasion, accompaniedonly by four or five knights, who acted as his attendants andbody-guard. The party were at a distance from the camp of the enemy, andsupposed they were not observed. They were observed, however, andimmediately a party of twelve chosen horsemen was formed, and orderedto ride out and surprise them. This detachment concealed themselves inan ambuscade, at a place where the reconnoitering party must pass, andwhen the proper moment arrived, they burst out suddenly upon them andsummoned them to surrender. Twelve against six seemed to render bothflight and resistance equally vain. William, however, advancedimmediately to the attack of the ambuscaders. He poised his long lance, and, riding on with it at full speed, he unhorsed and killed theforemost of them at a blow. Then, just drawing back his weapon to gatherstrength for another blow, he killed the second of his enemies in thesame manner. His followers were so much animated at this successfulonset, that they advanced very resolutely to the combat. In the meantime, the shouts carried the alarm to William's camp, and a strong partyset off to rescue William and his companions. The others then turned tofly, while William followed them so eagerly and closely, that he andthey who were with him overtook and disabled seven of them, and madethem prisoners. The rest escaped. William and his party then turned andbegan to proceed toward their own camp, conveying their prisoners intheir train. 

They were met by King Henry himself at the head of a detachment of threehundred men, who, not knowing how much necessity there might be forefficient aid, were hastening to the scene of action. The sight ofWilliam coming home victorious, and the tales told by his companions ofthe invincible strength and daring which he had displayed in the suddendanger, awakened a universal enthusiasm, and the plaudits and encomiumswith which the whole camp resounded were doubtless as delicious andintoxicating to him as they were bitter to the king. 

It was by such deeds, and by such personal and mental characteristics asthese, that William, notwithstanding the untoward influences of hisbirth, fought his way, during the twenty years of which we have beenspeaking, into general favor, and established a universal renown. Hecompletely organized and arranged the internal affairs of his ownkingdom, and established himself firmly upon the ducal throne. His mindhad become mature, his resources were well developed, and his soul, always ambitious and aspiring, began to reach forward to the grasping ofsome grander objects of pursuit, and to the entering upon some widerfield of action than his duchy of Normandy could afford. During thisinterval, however, he was married; and, as the circumstances of hismarriage were somewhat extraordinary, we must make that event thesubject of a separate chapter. 

CHAPTER V. 

THE MARRIAGE. 

A. D. 1045-1052

Political importance of a royal marriage. --William's views in regardto his marriage. --His choice. --Matilda's genealogy. --Her relationshipto William. --Matilda's accomplishments. --Her embroidery. --Matilda'sindustry. --The Bayeux tapestry. --The designs. --Uncouthdrawing. --Preservation. --Elements of decay. --Great age of the Bayeuxtapestry. --Specimens of the designs of the Bayeux tapestry. --Marriagenegotiations. --Matilda's objections. --Matilda's refusal. --Her attachmentto Brihtric. --Matilda's attachment not reciprocated. --Her thirst forrevenge. --William and Matilda's consanguinity. --An obstacle to theirmarriage. --Negotiations with the pope. --Causes of delay. --William'squarrel with Matilda. --The reconciliation. --The marriage. --Rejoicingsand festivities. --Residence at Rouen. --Ancient castles andpalaces. --Matilda's palace. --Luxury and splendor. --Mauger, archbishop ofRouen. --William and Matilda excommunicated. --Lanfranc sent to negotiatewith the pope. --His success. --Conditions of Lanfranc's treaty. --Theirfulfillment. --William and Matilda's children. --Matilda's domesticcharacter. --Objects of William's marriage. --Baldwin, Count ofFlanders. --The blank letter. --Baldwin's surprise. 

One of the most important points which an hereditary potentate has toattend to, in completing his political arrangements, is the question ofhis marriage. Until he has a family and an heir, men's minds areunsettled in respect to the succession, and the various rival candidatesand claimants to the throne are perpetually plotting and intriguing toput themselves into a position to spring at once into his place ifsickness, or a battle, or any sudden accident should take him away. Thisevil was more formidable than usual in the case of William, for the menwho were prepared to claim his place when he was dead were all secretlyor openly maintaining that their right to it was superior to his whilehe was living. This gave a double intensity to the excitement with whichthe public was perpetually agitated in respect to the crown, and keptthe minds of the ambitious and the aspiring, throughout William'sdominions, in a continual fever. It was obvious that a great part ofthe cause of this restless looking for change and consequent planning topromote it would be removed if William had a son. 

It became, therefore, an important matter of state policy that the dukeshould be married. In fact, the barons and military chieftains who werefriendly to him urged this measure upon him, on account of the greateffect which they perceived it would have in settling the minds of thepeople of the country and consolidating his power. William accordinglybegan to look around for a wife. It appeared, however, in the end, that, though policy was the main consideration which first led him tocontemplate marriage, love very probably exercised an importantinfluence in determining his choice of the lady; at all events, theobject of his choice was an object worthy of love. She was one of themost beautiful and accomplished princesses in Europe. 

She was the daughter of a great potentate who ruled over the country ofFlanders. Flanders lies upon the coast, east of Normandy, beyond thefrontiers of France, and on the southern shore of the German Ocean. Herfather's title was the Earl of Flanders. He governed his dominions, however, like a sovereign, and was at the head of a very effectivemilitary power. His family, too, occupied a very high rank, and enjoyedgreat consideration among the other princes and potentates of Europe. Ithad intermarried with the royal family of England, so that Matilda, thedaughter of the earl, whom William was disposed to make his bride, wasfound, by the genealogists, who took great interest in those days intracing such connections, to have descended in a direct line from thegreat English king, Alfred himself. 

This relationship, by making Matilda's birth the more illustrious, operated strongly in favor of the match, as a great part of the motivewhich William had in view, in his intended marriage, was to aggrandizeand strengthen his own position, by the connection which he was about toform. There was, however, another consanguinity in the case which had acontrary tendency. Matilda's father had been connected with the Normanas well as with the English line, and Matilda and William were in someremote sense cousins. This circumstance led, in the sequel, as willpresently be seen, to serious difficulty and trouble. 

Matilda was seven years younger than William. She was brought upin her father's court, and famed far and wide for her beauty andaccomplishments. The accomplishments in which ladies of high rank soughtto distinguish themselves in those days were two, music and embroidery. The embroidery of tapestry was the great attainment, and in this art theyoung Matilda acquired great skill. The tapestry which was made in theMiddle Ages was used to hang against the walls of some of the moreornamented rooms in royal palaces and castles, to hide the naked surfaceof the stones of which the building was constructed. The cloths thussuspended were at first plain, afterward they began to be ornamentedwith embroidered borders or other decorations, and at length ladieslearned to employ their own leisure hours, and beguile the tedium of thelong confinement which many of them had to endure within their castles, in embroidering various devices and designs on the hangings intended fortheir own chambers, or to execute such work as presents for theirfriends. Matilda's industry and skill in this kind of work werecelebrated far and wide. 

The accomplishments which ladies take great pains to acquire in theirearly years are sometimes, it is said, laid almost entirely aside aftertheir marriage; not necessarily because they are then less desirous toplease, but sometimes from the abundance of domestic duty, which allowsthem little time, and sometimes from the pressure of their burdens ofcare or sorrow, which leave them no heart for the occupations ofamusement or gayety. It seems not to have been so in Matilda's case, however. She resumed her needle often during the years of her weddedlife, and after William had accomplished his conquest of England, sheworked upon a long linen web, with immense labor, a series of designsillustrating the various events and incidents of his campaign, and thework has been preserved to the present day. 

At least there is such a web now existing in the ancient town of Bayeux, in Normandy, which has been there from a period beyond the memory ofmen, and which tradition says was worked by Matilda. It would seem, however, that if she did it at all, she must have done it "as Solomonbuilt the temple--with a great deal of help;" for this famous piece ofembroidery, which has been celebrated among all the historians andscholars of the world for several hundred years by the name of the_Bayeux Tapestry_, is over four hundred feet long, and nearly two feetwide. The wet is of linen, while the embroidery is of woolen. It was allobviously executed with the needle, and was worked with infinite laborand care. The woolen thread which was used was of various colors, suitedto represent the different objects in the design, though these colorsare, of course, now much tarnished and faded. 

The designs themselves are very simple and even rude, evincing verylittle knowledge of the principles of modern art. The specimens on thefollowing page, of engravings made from them, will give some idea of thechildish style of delineation which characterizes all Matilda's designs. Childish, however, as such a style of drawing would be considered now, it seems to have been, in Matilda's days, very much praised and admired. 

[Illustration: PLOWING. From the Bayeux tapestry. ]

[Illustration: SOWING. From the Bayeux tapestry. ]

We often have occasion to observe, in watching the course of humanaffairs, the frailty and transitoriness of things apparently mostdurable and strong. In the case of this embroidery, on the contrary, weare struck with the durability and permanence of what would seem to bemost frail and fleeting. William's conquest of England took place in1066. This piece of tapestry, therefore, if Matilda really worked it, is about eight hundred years old. And when we consider how delicate, slender, and frail is the fibre of a linen thread, and that the variouselements of decay, always busy in the work of corrupting and destroyingthe works of man, have proved themselves powerful enough to waste awayand crumble into ruin the proudest structures which he has everattempted to rear, we are amazed that these slender filaments have beenable to resist their action so long. The Bayeux tapestry has lastednearly a thousand years. It will probably last for a thousand years tocome. So that the vast and resistless power, which destroyed Babylon andTroy, and is making visible progress in the work of destroying thePyramids, is foiled by the durability of a piece of needle-work, executed by the frail and delicate fingers of a woman. 

We may have occasion to advert to the Bayeux tapestry again, when wecome to narrate the exploits which it was the particular object of thishistorical embroidery to illustrate and adorn. In the mean time, wereturn to our story. 

The matrimonial negotiations of princes and princesses are alwaysconducted in a formal and ceremonious manner, and through theintervention of legates, embassadors, and commissioners without number, who are, of course, interested in protracting the proceedings, so as toprolong, as much as possible, their own diplomatic importance and power. Besides these accidental and temporary difficulties, it soon appearedthat there were, in this case, some real and very formidable obstacles, which threatened for a time entirely to frustrate the scheme. 

Among these difficulties there was one which was not usually, in suchcases, considered of much importance, but which, in this instance, seemed for a long time to put an effectual bar to William's wishes, andthat was the aversion which the young princess herself felt for thematch. She could have, one would suppose, no personal feeling ofrepugnance against William, for he was a tall and handsome cavalier, highly graceful and accomplished, and renowned for his bravery andsuccess in war. He was, in every respect, such a personage as would bemost likely to captivate the imagination of a maiden princess in thosewarlike times. Matilda, however, made objections to his birth. She couldnot consider him as the legitimate descendant and heir of the dukes ofNormandy. It is true, he was then in possession of the throne, but hewas regarded by a large portion of the most powerful chieftains in hisrealm as a usurper. He was liable, at any time, on some sudden change offortune, to be expelled from his dominions. His position, in a word, though for the time being very exalted, was too precarious and unstable, and his personal claims to high social rank were too equivocal, tojustify her trusting her destiny in his hands. In a word, Matilda'sanswer to William's proposals was an absolute refusal to become hiswife. 

These ostensible grounds, however, on which Matilda based her refusal, plausible as they were, were not the real and true ones. The secretmotive was another attachment which she had formed. There had been sentto her father's court in Flanders, from the English king, a young Saxonembassador, whose name was Brihtric. Brihtric remained some little timeat the court in Flanders, and Matilda, who saw him often at the variousentertainments, celebrations, and parties of pleasure which werearranged for his amusement, conceived a strong attachment to him. He wasof a very fair complexion, and his features were expressive andbeautiful. He was a noble of high position in England, though, ofcourse, his rank was inferior to that of Matilda. As it would have beendeemed hardly proper for him, under the circumstances of the case, tohave aspired to the princess's hand, on account of the superiority ofher social position, Matilda felt that it was her duty to make known hersentiments to him, and thus to open the way. She did so; but she found, unhappy maiden, that Brihtric did not feel, himself, the love which hehad inspired in her, and all the efforts and arts to which she wasimpelled by the instinct of affection proved wholly unavailing to callit forth. Brihtric, after fulfilling the object of his mission, tookleave of Matilda coldly, while _her_ heart was almost breaking, and wentaway. 

As the sweetest wine transforms itself into the sharpest vinegar, so thewarmest and most ardent love turns, when it turns at all, to the mostbitter and envenomed hate. Love gave place soon in Matilda's heart toindignation, and indignation to a burning thirst for revenge. Theintensity of the first excitement subsided; but Matilda never forgot andnever forgave the disappointment and the indignity which she hadendured. She had an opportunity long afterward to take terrible revengeon Brihtric in England, by subjecting him to cruelties and hardshipsthere which brought him to his grave. 

In the mean time, while her thoughts were so occupied with thisattachment, she had, of course, no heart to listen favorably toWilliam's proposals. Her friends would have attached no importance tothe real cause of her aversion to the match, but they felt the force ofthe objections which could justly be advanced against William's rank, and his real right to his throne. Then the consanguinity of the partieswas a great source of embarrassment and trouble. Persons as nearlyrelated to each other as they were, were forbidden by the Roman Catholicrules to marry. There was such a thing as getting a dispensation fromthe pope, by which the marriage would be authorized. William accordinglysent embassadors to Rome to negotiate this business. This, of course, opened a new field for difficulties and delays. 

The papal authorities were accustomed, in such cases, to exact as theprice, or, rather, as the condition of their dispensation, some grant orbeneficial conveyance from the parties interested, to the Church, suchas the foundation of an abbey or a monastery, the building of a chapel, or the endowment of a charity, by way as it were, of making amends tothe Church, by the benefit thus received, for whatever injury the causeof religion and morality might sustain by the relaxation of a divinelaw. Of course, this being the end in view, the tendency on the part ofthe authorities at Rome would be to protract the negotiations, so asto obtain from the suitor's impatience better terms in the end. Theembassadors and commissioners, too, on William's part, would have nostrong motive for hastening the proceedings. Rome was an agreeableplace of residence, and to live there as the embassador of a royal dukeof Normandy was to enjoy a high degree of consideration, and to besurrounded continually by scenes of magnificence and splendor. Then, again, William himself was not always at leisure to urge the businessforward by giving it his own close attention; for, during the periodwhile these negotiations were pending, he was occupied, from time totime, with foreign wars, or in the suppression of rebellions among hisbarons. Thus, from one cause and another, it seemed as if the businesswould never come to an end. 

In fact, a less resolute and determined man than William would havegiven up in despair, for it was seven years, it is said, before theaffair was brought to a conclusion. One story is told of the impetuousenergy which William manifested in this suit, which seems almostincredible. 

It was after the negotiations had been protracted for several years, and at a time when the difficulties were principally those arisingfrom Matilda's opposition, that the occurrence took place. It was atan interview which William had with Matilda in the streets of Bruges, one of her father's cities. All that took place at the interview is notknown, but in the end of it William's resentment at Matilda's treatmentof him lost all bounds. He struck her or pushed her so violently asto throw her down upon the ground. It is said that he struck herrepeatedly, and then, leaving her with her clothes all soiled anddisheveled, rode off in a rage. Love quarrels are often the means ofbringing the contending parties nearer together than they were before, but such a terrible love quarrel as this, we hope, is very rare. 

Violent as it was, however, it was followed by a perfect reconciliation, and in the end all obstacles were removed, and William and Matilda weremarried. The event took place in 1052. 

The marriage ceremony was performed at one of William's castles, on thefrontiers of Normandy, as it is customary for princes and kings to bemarried always in their own dominions. Matilda was conducted there withgreat pomp and parade by her parents, and was accompanied by a largetrain of attendants and friends. This company, mounted--both knights andladies--on horses beautifully caparisoned, moved across the country likea little army on a march, or rather like a triumphal processionescorting a queen. Matilda was received at the castle with distinguishedhonor, and the marriage celebrations, and the entertainmentsaccompanying it, were continued for several days. It was a scene ofunusual festivity and rejoicing. 

The dress both of William and Matilda, on this occasion, was veryspecially splendid. She wore a mantle studded with the most costlyjewels; and, in addition to the other splendors of his dress, Williamtoo wore a mantle and a helmet, both of which were richly adorned withthe same costly decorations. So much importance was attached, in thosedays, to this outward show, and so great was the public interest takenin it, that these dresses of William and Matilda, with all the jewelrythat adorned them, were deposited afterward in the great church atBayeux, where they remained a sort of public spectacle, the property ofthe Church, for nearly five hundred years. 

From the castle of Augi, where the marriage ceremonies were performed, William proceeded, after these first festivities and rejoicings wereover, to the great city of Rouen, conducting his bride thither withgreat pomp and parade. Here the young couple established themselves, living in the enjoyment of every species of luxury and splendor whichwere attainable in those days. As has already been said, the interiors, even of royal castles and palaces, presented but few of the comforts andconveniences deemed essential to the happiness of a home in moderntimes. The European ladies of the present day delight in their suites ofretired and well-furnished apartments, adorned with velvet carpets, andsilken curtains, and luxuriant beds of down, with sofas and couchesadapted to every fancy which the caprice of fatigue or restlessness mayassume, and cabinets stored with treasures, and libraries of embellishedbooks--the whole scene illuminated by the splendor of gas-lights, whosebrilliancy is reflected by mirrors and candelabras, sparkling with athousand hues. Matilda's feudal palace presented no such scenes asthese. The cold stone floors were covered with mats of rushes. Thewalls--if the naked masonry was hidden at all--were screened by hangingsof coarse tapestry, ornamented with uncouth and hideous figures. Thebeds were miserable pallets, the windows were loop-holes, and the castleitself had all the architectural characteristics of a prison. 

Still, there was a species of luxury and splendor even then. Matilda hadsplendid horses to ride, all magnificently caparisoned. She had dressesadorned most lavishly with gold and jewels. There were troops of valiantknights, all glittering in armor of steel, to escort her on herjourneys, and accompany and wait upon her on her excursions of pleasure;and there were grand banquets and carousals, from time to time, in thelong castle hall, with tournaments, and races, and games, and othermilitary shows, conducted with great parade and pageantry. Matilda thuscommenced her married life in luxury and splendor. 

In luxury and splendor, but not in peace. William had an uncle, whosename was Mauger. He was the Archbishop of Rouen, and was a dignitaryof great influence and power. Now it was, of course, the interest ofWilliam's relatives that he should not be married, as every increase ofprobability that his crown would descend to direct heirs diminishedtheir future chances of the succession, and of course undermined theirpresent importance. Mauger had been very much opposed to this match, and had exerted himself in every way, while the negotiations werepending, to impede and delay them. The point which he most strenuouslyurged was the consanguinity of the parties, a point to which it wasincumbent on him, as he maintained--being the head of the Church inNormandy--particularly to attend. It seems that, notwithstandingWilliam's negotiations with the pope to obtain a dispensation, theaffair was not fully settled at Rome before the marriage; and very soonafter the celebration of the nuptials, Mauger fulminated an edict ofexcommunication against both William and Matilda, for intermarryingwithin the degrees of relationship which the canons of the Churchproscribed. 

An excommunication, in the Middle Ages, was a terrible calamity. Theperson thus condemned was made, so far as such a sentence could effectit, an outcast from man, and a wretch accursed of Heaven. The mostterrible denunciations were uttered against him, and in the case of aprince, like that of William, his subjects were all absolved from theirallegiance, and forbidden to succor or defend him. A powerful potentatelike William could maintain himself for a time against the influence andeffects of such a course, but it was pretty sure to work more and morestrongly against him through the superstitions of the people, and towear him out in the end. 

William resolved to appeal at once to the pope, and to effect, by somemeans or other, the object of securing his dispensation. There was acertain monk, then obscure and unknown, but who afterward became a verycelebrated public character, named Lanfranc, whom, for some reason orother, William supposed to possess the necessary qualifications for thismission. He accordingly gave him his instructions and sent him away. Lanfranc proceeded to Rome, and there he managed the negotiation withthe pope so dexterously as soon to bring it to a conclusion. 

The arrangement which he made was this. The pope was to grant thedispensation and confirm the marriage, thus removing the sentence ofexcommunication which the Archbishop Mauger had pronounced, oncondition that William should build and endow a hospital for a hundredpoor persons, and also erect two abbeys, one to be built by himself, formonks, and one by Matilda, for nuns. Lanfranc agreed to these conditionson the part of William and Matilda, and they, when they came to beinformed of them, accepted and confirmed them with great joy. The ban ofexcommunication was removed; all Normandy acquiesced in the marriage, and William and Matilda proceeded to form the plans and to superintendthe construction of the abbeys. 

They selected the city of Caen for the site. The place of this city willbe seen marked upon the map near the northern coast of Normandy. [G] Itwas situated in a broad and pleasant valley, at the confluence of tworivers, and was surrounded by beautiful and fertile meadows. It wasstrongly fortified, being surrounded by walls and towers, whichWilliam's ancestors, the dukes of Normandy, had built. William andMatilda took a strong interest in the plans and constructions connectedwith the building of the abbeys. William's was a very extensive edifice, and contained within its inclosures a royal palace for himself, where, in subsequent years, himself and Matilda often resided. 

[Footnote G: See map, chapter ix. ]

The principal buildings of these abbeys still stand, though the wallsand fortifications of Caen are gone. The buildings are used now forother purposes than those for which they were erected, but they retainthe names originally given them, and are visited by great numbers oftourists, being regarded with great interest as singular memorials ofthe past--twin monuments commemorating an ancient marriage. 

The marriage being thus finally confirmed and acquiesced in, William andMatilda enjoyed a long period of domestic peace. The oldest child was ason. He was born within a year of the marriage, and William named himRobert, that, as the reader will recollect, having been the name ofWilliam's father. There was, in process of time, a large family ofchildren. Their names were Robert, William Rufus, Henry, Cecilia, Agatha, Constance, Adela, Adelaide, and Gundred. Matilda devoted herselfwith great maternal fidelity to the care and education of thesechildren, and many of them became subsequently historical personages ofthe highest distinction. 

The object which, it will be recollected, was one of William's maininducements for contracting this alliance, namely, the strengthening ofhis power by thus connecting himself with the reigning family ofFlanders, was, in a great measure, accomplished. The two governments, leagued together by this natural tie, strengthened each other's power, and often rendered each other essential assistance, though there was oneoccasion, subsequently, when William's reliance on this aid wasdisappointed. It was as follows:

When he was planning his invasion of England, he sent to Matilda'sbrother, Baldwin, who was then Count of Flanders, inviting him to raisea force and join him. Baldwin, who considered the enterprise asdangerous and Quixotic, sent back word to inquire what share of theEnglish territory William would give him if he would go and help himconquer it. William thought that this attempt to make a bargainbeforehand, for a division of spoil, evinced a very mercenary anddistrustful spirit on the part of his brother-in-law--a spirit which hewas not at all disposed to encourage. He accordingly took a sheet ofparchment, and writing nothing within, he folded it in the form of aletter, and wrote upon the outside the following rhyme:

 "Beau frère, en Angleterre vous aures Ce qui dedans escript, vous trouveres. "

Which royal distich might be translated thus:

 "Your share, good brother, of the land we win, You'll find entitled and described within. "

William forwarded the empty missive by the hand of a messenger, whodelivered it to Baldwin as if it were a dispatch of great consequence. Baldwin received it eagerly, and opened it at once. He was surprised atfinding nothing within; and after turning the parchment every way, invain search after the description of his share, he asked the messengerwhat it meant. "It means, " said he, "that as there is nothing writwithin, so nothing you shall have. "

Notwithstanding this witticism, however, some arrangement seemsafterward to have been made between the parties, for Flanders did, infact, contribute an important share toward the force which Williamraised when preparing for the invasion. 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE LADY EMMA. 

A. D. 1002-1052

William's claims to the English throne. --The Lady Emma. --Claimantsto the English throne. --Ethelred. --Ethelred subdued. --He flies toNormandy. --Massacre of the Danes. --Horrors of civil war. --Ethelred'styranny. --Emma's policy. --Emma's humiliation. --Ethelred invited toreturn. --Restoration of Ethelred and Emma. --War with Canute. --Ethelred'sdeath. --Situation of Emma. --Her children. --War with Canute. --Treatybetween Edmund and Canute. --Death of Edmund. --Accession ofCanute. --Canute's wise policy. --His treatment of Edmund'schildren. --Canute marries Emma. --Opposition of her sons. --Emma againqueen of England. --The Earl Godwin. --Canute's death. --He bequeathsthe kingdom to Harold. --Emma's plots for her children. --Herletter to them. --Disastrous issue of Alfred's expedition. --Histerrible sentence. --Edward's accession. --Emma wretched andmiserable. --Accusations against Emma. --Her wretched end. --Edmund'schildren. --Godwin. --Harold. --Plans of Edward. --Plots and counterplots. 

It is not to be supposed that, even in the warlike times of which we arewriting, such a potentate as a duke of Normandy would invade a countrylike England, so large and powerful in comparison to his own, withoutsome pretext. William's pretext was, that he himself was the legitimatesuccessor to the English crown, and that the English king who possessedit at the time of his invasion was a usurper. In order that the readermay understand the nature and origin of this his claim, it is necessaryto relate somewhat in full the story of the Lady Emma. 

By referring to the genealogy of the Norman line of dukes contained inthe second chapter of this volume, it will be seen that Emma was thedaughter of the first Richard. She was celebrated in her early years forher great personal beauty. They called her _the Pearl of Normandy_. 

She married, at length, one of the kings of England, whose name wasEthelred. England was at that time distracted by civil wars, wagedbetween the two antagonist races of Saxons and Danes. There were, infact, two separate dynasties or lines of kings, who were contending, allthe time, for the mastery. In these contests, sometimes the Danes wouldtriumph for a time, and sometimes the Saxons; and sometimes both raceswould have a royal representative in the field, each claiming thethrone, and reigning over separate portions of the island. Thus therewere, at certain periods, two kingdoms in England, both covering thesame territory, and claiming the government of the same population--withtwo kings, two capitals, two administrations--while the wretchedinhabitants were distracted and ruined by the terrible conflicts towhich these hostile pretensions gave rise. 

Ethelred was of the Saxon line. He was a widower at the time of hismarriage to Emma, nearly forty years old, and he had, among otherchildren by his former wife, a son named Edmund, an active, energeticyoung man, who afterward became king. One motive which he had in view inmarrying Emma was to strengthen his position by securing the alliance ofthe Normans of Normandy. The Danes, his English enemies, were Normans. The government of Normandy would therefore be naturally inclined totake part with them. By this marriage, however, Ethelred hoped to detachthe Normans of France from the cause of his enemies, and to unite themto his own. He would thus gain a double advantage, strengthening himselfby an accession which weakened his foes. 

His plan succeeded so far as inducing Richard himself, the Duke ofNormandy, to espouse his cause, but it did not enable Ethelred totriumph over his enemies. They, on the contrary, conquered _him_, and, in the end, drove him from the country altogether. He fled to Normandyfor refuge, with Emma his wife, and his two young sons. Their names wereEdward and Alfred. 

Richard II. , Emma's brother, who was then the Duke of Normandy, receivedthe unhappy fugitives with great kindness, although _he_, at least, scarcely deserved it. It was not surprising that he was driven from hisnative realm, for he possessed none of those high qualities of mindwhich fit men to conquer or to govern. Like all other weak-mindedtyrants, he substituted cruelty for wisdom and energy in his attempts tosubjugate his foes. As soon as he was married to Emma, for instance, feeling elated and strong at the great accession of power which heimagined he had obtained by this alliance, he planned a general massacreof the Danes, and executed it on a given day, by means of privateorders, sent secretly throughout the kingdom. Vast numbers of the Daneswere destroyed; and so great was the hatred of the two races for eachother, that they who had these bloody orders to obey executed them witha savage cruelty that was absolutely horrible. In one instance theyburied women to the waist, and then set dogs upon them, to tear theirnaked flesh until they died in agony. It would be best, in narratinghistory, to suppress such horrid details as these, were it not that ina land like this, where so much depends upon the influence of everyindividual in determining whether the questions and discussions whichare from time to time arising, and are hereafter to arise, shall besettled peacefully, or by a resort to violence and civil war, it is veryimportant that we should all know what civil war is, and to whathorrible atrocities it inevitably leads. 

Alfred the Great, when he was contending with the Danes in England, acentury before this time, treated them, so far as he gained advantagesover them, with generosity and kindness; and this policy whollyconquered them in the end. Ethelred, on the other hand, tried theeffect of the most tyrannical cruelty, and the effect was only to arousehis enemies to a more determined and desperate resistance. It was thephrensy of vengeance and hate that these atrocities awakened every whereamong the Danes, which nerved them with so much vigor and strength thatthey finally expelled him from the island; so that, when he arrived inNormandy, a fugitive and an exile, he came in the character of adethroned tyrant, execrated for his senseless and atrocious cruelties, and not in that of an unhappy prince driven from his home by thepressure of unavoidable calamity. Nevertheless, Richard, the Duke ofNormandy, received him, as we have already said, with kindness. He feltthe obligation of receiving the exiled monarch in a hospitable manner, if not on his own account, at least for the sake of Emma and thechildren. 

The origin and end of Emma's interest in Ethelred seems to have beenmerely ambition. The "Pearl of Normandy" had given herself to thismonster for the sake, apparently, of the glory of being the Englishqueen. Her subsequent conduct compels the readers of history to makethis supposition, which otherwise would be uncharitable. She nowmourned her disappointment in finding that, instead of being sustainedby her husband in the lofty position to which she aspired, she wasobliged to come back to her former home again, to be once moredependent, and with the additional burden of her husband himself, andher children, upon her father's family. Her situation was rendered evenstill more humiliating, in some degree, by the circumstances that herfather was no longer alive, and that it was to her brother, on whom hernatural claim was far less strong, that she had now to look for shelterand protection. Richard, however, received them all in a kind andgenerous manner. 

In the mean time, the wars and commotions which had driven Ethelredaway continued to rage in England, the Saxons gradually gainingground against the Danes. At length the king of the Danes, who hadseized the government when Ethelred was expelled, died. The Saxons thenregained their former power, and they sent commissioners to Ethelred topropose his return to England. At the same time, they expressed theirunwillingness to receive him, unless they could bind him, by a solemntreaty, to take a very different course of conduct, in the futuremanagement of his government, from that which he had pursued before. Ethelred and Emma were eager to regain, on any terms, their lost throne. They sent over embassadors empowered to make, in Ethelred's name, anypromises which the English nobles might demand; and shortly afterwardthe royal pair crossed the Channel and went to London, and Ethelred wasacknowledged there by the _Saxon_ portion of the population of theisland once more as king. 

The _Danes_, however, though weakened, were not yet disposed to submit. They declared their allegiance to _Canute_, who was the successor in the_Danish_ line. Then followed a long war between Canute and Ethelred. Canute was a man of extraordinary sagacity and intelligence, and also ofgreat courage and energy. Ethelred, on the other hand, proved himself, notwithstanding all his promises, incurably inefficient, cowardly, andcruel. In fact, his son Prince Edmund, the son of his first wife, wasfar more efficient than his father in resisting Canute and the Danes. Edmund was active and fearless, and he soon acquired very extensivepower. In fact, he seems to have held the authority of his father invery little respect. One striking instance of this insubordinationoccurred. Ethelred had taken offense, for some reason or other, at oneof the nobles in his realm, and had put him to death, and confiscatedhis estates; and, in addition to this, with a cruelty characteristic ofhim, he shut up the unhappy widow of his victim, a young and beautifulwoman, in a gloomy convent, as a prisoner. Edmund, his son, went to theconvent, liberated the prisoner, and made her his own wife. 

[Illustration: THE RESCUE. ]

With such unfriendly relations between the king and his son, who seemsto have been the ablest general in his father's army, there could belittle hope of making head against such an enemy as Canute the Dane. In fact, the course of public affairs went on from bad to worse, Emmaleading all the time a life of unceasing anxiety and alarm. At length, in 1016, Ethelred died, and Emma's cup of disappointment and humiliationwas now full. Her own sons, Edward and Alfred, had no claims to thecrown; for Edmund, being the son by a former marriage, was older thanthey. They were too young to take personally an active part in thefierce contests of the day, and thus fight their way to importance andpower. And then Edmund, who was now to become king, would, of course, feel no interest in advancing _them_, or doing honor to _her_. A sonwho would thwart and counteract the plans and measures of a father, asEdmund had done, would be little likely to evince much deference orregard for a mother-in-law, or for half brothers, whom he wouldnaturally consider as his rivals. In a word, Emma had reason to bealarmed at the situation of insignificance and danger in which she foundherself suddenly placed. She fled a second time, in destitution anddistress, to her brother's in Normandy. She was now, however, a widow, and her children were fatherless. It is difficult to decide whether toconsider her situation as better or worse on this account, than it wasat her former exile. 

Her sons were lads, but little advanced beyond the period of childhood;and Edward, the eldest, on whom the duty of making exertions to advancethe family interests would first devolve, was of a quiet and gentlespirit, giving little promise that he would soon be disposed to entervigorously upon military campaigns. Edmund, on the other hand, who wasnow king, was in the prime of life, and was a man of great spirit andenergy. There was a reasonable prospect that he would live many years;and even if he were to be suddenly cut off, there seemed to be no hopeof the restoration of Emma to importance or power; for Edmund wasmarried and had two sons, one of whom would be entitled to succeed himin case of his decease. It seemed, therefore, to be Emma's destiny now, to spend the remainder of her days with her children in neglect andobscurity. The case resulted differently, however, as we shall see inthe end. 

Edmund, notwithstanding his prospect of a long and prosperous career, was cut off suddenly, after a stormy reign of one year. During hisreign, Canute the Dane had been fast gaining ground in England, notwithstanding the vigor and energy with which Edmund had opposed him. Finally, the two monarchs assembled their armies, and were about tofight a great final battle. Edmund sent a flag of truce to Canute'scamp, proposing that, to save the effusion of blood, they should agreeto decide the case by single combat, and that he and Canute should bethe champions, and fight in presence of the armies. Canute declined thisproposal. He was himself small and slender in form, while Edmund wasdistinguished for his personal development and muscular strength. Canutetherefore declined the personal contest, but offered to leave thequestion to the decision of a council chosen from among the leadingnobles on either side. This plan was finally adopted. The councilconvened, and, after long deliberations, they framed a treaty by whichthe country was divided between the two potentates, and a sort of peacewas restored. A very short period after this treaty was settled, Edmundwas murdered. 

Canute immediately laid claim to the whole realm. He maintained thatit was a part of the treaty that the partition of the kingdom was tocontinue only during their joint lives, and that, on the death ofeither, the whole was to pass to the survivor of them. The Saxon leadersdid not admit this, but they were in no condition very strenuously tooppose it. Ethelred's sons by Emma were too young to come forward asleaders yet; and as to Edmund's, they were mere children. There was, therefore, no one whom they could produce as an efficient representativeof the Saxon line, and thus the Saxons were compelled to submit toCanute's pretensions, at least for a time. They would not wholly give upthe claims of Edmund's children, but they consented to waive them for aseason. They gave Canute the guardianship of the boys until they shouldbecome of age, and allowed him, in the mean time, to reign, himself, over the whole land. 

Canute exercised his power in a very discreet and judicious manner, seeming intent, in all his arrangements, to protect the rights andinterests of the Saxons as well as of the Danes. It might be supposedthat the lives of the young Saxon princes, Edmund's sons, would not havebeen safe in his hands; but the policy which he immediately resolved topursue was to conciliate the Saxons, and not to intimidate and coercethem. He therefore did the young children no harm, but sent them awayout of the country to Denmark, that they might, if possible, begradually forgotten. Perhaps he thought that, if the necessity shouldarise for it, they might there, at any time, be put secretly to death. 

There was another reason still to prevent Canute's destroying thesechildren, which was, that if _they_ were removed, the claims of theSaxon line would not thereby be extinguished, but would only betransferred to Emma's children in Normandy, who, being older, werelikely the sooner to be in a condition to give him trouble as rivals. Itwas therefore a very wise and sagacious policy which prompted him tokeep the young children of Edmund alive, but to remove them to a safedistance out of the way. 

In respect to Emma's children, Canute conceived a different plan forguarding against any danger which came from their claims, and that was, to propose to take their mother for his wife. By this plan her familywould come into his power, and then her own influence and that of herNorman friends would be forever prevented from taking sides against him. He accordingly made the proposal. Emma was ambitious enough of againreturning to her former position of greatness as English queen to acceptit eagerly. The world condemned her for being so ready to marry, for hersecond husband, the deadly enemy and rival of the first; but it was allone to her whether her husband was Saxon or Dane, provided that shecould be queen. 

The boys, or, rather, the young men, for they were now advancing tomaturity, were very strongly opposed to this connection. They did all intheir power to prevent its consummation, and they never forgave theirmother for thus basely betraying their interests. They were the moreincensed at this transaction, because it was stipulated in the marriagearticles between Canute and Emma that their _future_ children--theoffspring of the marriage then contracted--should succeed to the throneof England, to the exclusion of all previously born on either side. ThusCanute fancied that he had secured his title, and that of hisdescendants, to the crown forever, and Emma prepared to return toEngland as once more its queen. The marriage was celebrated with greatpomp and splendor, and Emma, bidding Normandy and her now alienatedchildren farewell, was conducted in state to the royal palace in London. 

We must now pass over, with a very few words, a long interval of twentyyears. It was the period of Canute's reign, which was prosperous andpeaceful. During this period Emma's Norman sons continued in Normandy. She had another son in England a few years after her marriage, who wasnamed Canute, after his father, but he is generally known in history bythe name of Hardicanute, the prefix being a Saxon word denotingenergetic or strong. Canute had also a very celebrated minister in hisgovernment named Godwin. Godwin was a Saxon of a very humble origin, andthe history of his life constitutes quite a romantic tale. [H] He was aman of extraordinary talents and character, and at the time of Canute'sdeath he was altogether the most powerful subject in the realm. 

[Footnote H: It is given at length in the last chapter of our history ofAlfred the Great. ]

When Canute found that he was about to die, and began to consider whatarrangements he should make for the succession, he concluded that itwould not be safe for him to fulfill the agreement made in his marriagecontract with Emma, that the children of that marriage should inheritthe kingdom; for Hardicanute, who was entitled to succeed under thatcovenant, was only about sixteen or seventeen years old, andconsequently too young to attempt to govern. He therefore made a will, in which he left the kingdom to an older son, named Harold--a son whomhe had had before his marriage with Emma. This was the signal for a newstruggle. The influence of the Saxons and of Emma's friends was ofcourse in favor of Hardicanute, while the Danes espoused the cause ofHarold. Godwin at length taking sides with this last-named party, Haroldwas established on the throne, and Emma and all her children, whetherdescended from Ethelred or Canute, were set aside and forgotten. 

Emma was not at all disposed to acquiesce in this change of fortune. She remained in England, but was secretly incensed at her secondhusband's breach of faith toward her; and as he had abandoned the childof his marriage with her for _his_ former children, she now determinedto abandon him for _hers_. She gave up Hardicanute's cause, therefore, and began secretly to plot among the Saxon population for bringingforward her son Edward to the throne. When she thought that things wereripe for the execution of the plot, she wrote a letter to her childrenin Normandy, saying to them that the Saxon population were weary of theDanish line, and were ready, she believed, to rise in behalf of theancient Saxon line, if the true representative of it would appear tolead them. She therefore invited them to come to London and consult withher on the subject. She directed them, however, to come, if they came atall, in a quiet and peaceful manner, and without any appearance ofhostile intent, inasmuch as any thing which might seem like a foreigninvasion would awaken universal jealousy and alarm. 

When this letter was received by the brothers in Normandy, the eldest, Edward, declined to go, but gave his consent that Alfred shouldundertake the expedition if he were disposed. Alfred accepted theproposal. In fact, the temperament and character of the two brotherswere very different. Edward was sedate, serious, and timid. Alfred wasardent and aspiring. The younger, therefore, decided to take the risk ofcrossing the Channel, while the elder preferred to remain at home. 

The result was very disastrous. Contrary to his mother's instructions, Alfred took with him quite a troop of Norman soldiers. He crossed theChannel in safety, and advanced across the country some distance towardLondon. Harold sent out a force to intercept him. He was surrounded, andhe himself and all his followers were taken prisoners. He was sentencedto lose his eyes, and he died in a few days after the execution of thisterrible sentence, from the mingled effects of fever and of mentalanguish and despair. Emma fled to Flanders. 

Finally Harold died, and Hardicanute succeeded him. In a short timeHardicanute died, leaving no heirs, and now, of course, there was no oneleft[I] to compete with Emma's oldest son Edward, who had remained allthis time quietly in Normandy. He was accordingly proclaimed king. Thiswas in 1041. He reigned for twenty years, having commenced his reignabout the time that William the Conqueror was established in thepossession of his dominions as Duke of Normandy. Edward had knownWilliam intimately during his long residence in Normandy, and Williamcame to visit him in England in the course of his reign. William, infact, considered himself as Edward's heir; for as Edward, thoughmarried, had no children, the dukes of the Norman line were his nearestrelatives. He obtained, he said, a promise from Edward that Edward wouldsanction and confirm his claim to the English crown, in the event of hisdecease, by bequeathing it to William in his will. 

[Footnote I: The children of Ethelred's oldest son, Edmund, were inHungary at this time, and seem to have been wellnigh forgotten. ]

Emma was now advanced in years. The ambition which had been the rulingprinciple of her life would seem to have been well satisfied, so far asit is possible to satisfy ambition, for she had had two husbands and twosons, all kings of England. But as she advanced toward the close of hercareer, she found herself wretched and miserable. Her son Edward couldnot forgive her for her abandonment of himself and his brother, tomarry a man who was their own and their father's bitterest enemy. Shehad made a formal treaty in her marriage covenant to exclude them fromthe throne. She had treated them with neglect during all the time ofCanute's reign, while she was living with him in London in power andsplendor. Edward accused her, also, of having connived at his brotherAlfred's death. The story is, that he caused her to be tried on thischarge by the ordeal of fire. This method consisted of laying red-hotirons upon the stone floor of a church, at certain distances from eachother, and requiring the accused to walk over them with naked feet. Ifthe accused was innocent, Providence, as they supposed, would so guidehis footsteps that he should not touch the irons. Thus, if he wasinnocent, he would go over safely; if guilty, he would be burned. Emma, according to the story of the times, was subjected to this test, in theCathedral of Winchester, to determine whether she was cognizant of themurder of her son. Whether this is true or not, there is no doubt thatEdward confined her a prisoner in the monastery at Winchester, where sheended her days at last in neglect and wretchedness. 

When Edward himself drew near to the close of his life, his mind wasgreatly perplexed in respect to the succession. There was one descendantof his brother Edmund--whose children, it will be remembered, Canute hadsent away to Denmark, in order to remove them out of the way--who wasstill living in Hungary. The name of this descendant was Edward. He was, in fact, the lawful heir to the crown. But he had spent his life inforeign countries, and was now far away; and, in the mean time, the EarlGodwin, who has been already mentioned as the great Saxon nobleman whorose from a very humble rank to the position of the most powerfulsubject in the realm, obtained such an influence, and wielded so great apower, that he seemed at one time stronger than the king himself. Godwinat length died, but his son Harold, who was as energetic and active ashis father, inherited his power, and seemed, as Edward thought, to beaspiring to the future possession of the throne. Edward had hated Godwinand all his family, and was now extremely anxious to prevent thepossibility of Harold's accession. He accordingly sent to Hungary tobring Edward, his nephew, home. Edward came, bringing his family withhim. He had a young son named Edgar. It was King Edward's plan to makearrangements for bringing this Prince Edward to the throne after hisdeath, that Harold might be excluded. 

The plan was a very judicious one, but it was unfortunately frustratedby Prince Edward's death, which event took place soon after he arrivedin England. The young Edgar, then a child, was, of course, his heir. Theking was convinced that no government which could be organized in thename of Edgar would be able to resist the mighty power of Harold, and heturned his thoughts, therefore, again to the accession of William ofNormandy, who was the nearest relative on his mother's side, as the onlymeans of saving the realm from falling into the hands of the usurperHarold. A long and vexatious contest then ensued, in which the leadingpowers and influences of the kingdom were divided and distracted by theplans, plots, maneuvers, and counter maneuvers of Harold to obtain theaccession for himself, and of Edward to secure it for William ofNormandy. In this contest Harold conquered in the first instance, andEdward and William in the end. 

CHAPTER VII. 

KING HAROLD. 

A. D. 1063-1066

Harold and William. --Quarrel between Godwin and Edward. --Treaty betweenGodwin and Edward. --Hostages. --The giving of hostages nowabandoned. --Cruelties inflicted. --Canute's hostages. --Godwin'shostages. --Edward declines to give up the hostages. --Harold goes toNormandy. --Harold's interview with Edward. --The storm. --Haroldshipwrecked. --Guy, count of Ponthieu. --Harold a prisoner. --He isransomed by William. --William's hospitality. --His policy inthis. --William's treatment of his guests. --William's policy. --Williammakes known to Harold his claims to the English crown. --Harold'sdissimulation. --William's precautions. --The betrothment. --Williamretains a hostage. --Harold's apparent acquiescence. --The publicoath. --The great assembly of knights and nobles. --The threefoldoath. --William's precaution. --The sacred relics. --Harold'sdeparture. --His measures to secure the throne. --Age and infirmities ofEdward. --Westminster. --Edward's death. --The crown offered toHarold. --Harold's coronation. --He knights Edgar. --Harold violates hisplighted faith to William. 

Harold, the son of the Earl Godwin, who was maneuvering to gainpossession of the English throne, and William of Normandy, though theylived on opposite sides of the English Channel, the one in France andthe other in England, were still personally known to each other; for notonly had William, as was stated in the last chapter, paid a visit toEngland, but Harold himself, on one occasion, made an excursion toNormandy. The circumstances of this expedition were, in some respects, quite extraordinary, and illustrate in a striking manner some of thepeculiar ideas and customs of the times. They were as follows:

During the life of Harold's father Godwin, there was a very seriousquarrel between him, that is, Godwin, and King Edward, in which both theking and his rebellious subject marshaled their forces, and for a timewaged against each other an open and sanguinary war. In this contest thepower of Godwin had proved so formidable, and the military forces whichhe succeeded in marshaling under his banners were so great, thatEdward's government was unable effectually to put him down. At length, after a long and terrible struggle, which involved a large part of thecountry in the horrors of a civil war, the belligerents made a treatywith each other, which settled their quarrel by a sort of compromise. Godwin was to retain his high position and rank as a subject, and tocontinue in the government of certain portions of the island which hadlong been under his jurisdiction; he, on his part, promising to dismisshis armies, and to make war upon the king no more. He bound himself tothe faithful performance of these covenants by giving the king_hostages_. 

The hostages given up on such occasions were always near and dearrelatives and friends, and the understanding was, that if the partygiving them failed in fulfilling his obligations, the innocent andhelpless hostages were to be entirely at the mercy of the other partyinto whose custody they had been given. The latter would, in such cases, imprison them, torture them, or put them to death, with a greater orless degree of severity in respect to the infliction of pain, accordingto the degree of exasperation which the real or fancied injury which hehad received awakened in his mind. 

This cruel method of binding fierce and unprincipled men to theperformance of their promises has been universally abandoned in moderntimes, though in the rude and early stages of civilization it has beenpracticed among all nations, ancient and modern. The hostages chosenwere often of young and tender years, and were always such as to renderthe separation which took place when they were torn from their friendsmost painful, as it was the very object of the selection to obtain thosewho were most beloved. They were delivered into the hands of those whomthey had always regarded as their bitterest enemies, and who, of course, were objects of aversion and terror. They were sent away into places ofconfinement and seclusion, and kept in the custody of strangers, wherethey lived in perpetual fear that some new outbreak between thecontending parties would occur, and consign them to torture or death. The cruelties sometimes inflicted, in such cases, on the innocenthostages, were awful. At one time, during the contentions betweenEthelred and Canute, Canute, being driven across the country to thesea-coast, and there compelled to embark on board his ships to make hisescape, was cruel enough to cut off the hands and the feet of somehostages which Ethelred had previously given him, and leave themwrithing in agony on the sands of the shore. 

The hostages which are particularly named by historians as given byGodwin to King Edward were his son and his grandson. Their names wereUlnoth and Hacune. Ulnoth, of course, was Harold's brother, and Hacunehis nephew. Edward, thinking that Godwin would contrive some means ofgetting these securities back into his possession again if he attemptedto keep them in England, decided to send them to Normandy, and to putthem under the charge of William the duke for safe keeping. When Godwindied, Harold applied to Edward to give up the hostages, since, as healleged, there was no longer any reason for detaining them. They hadbeen given as security for _Godwin's_ good behavior, and now Godwin wasno more. 

Edward could not well refuse to surrender them, and yet, as Haroldsucceeded to the power, and evidently possessed all the ambition of hisfather, it seemed to be, politically, as necessary to retain thehostages now as it had been before. Edward, therefore, withoutabsolutely refusing to surrender them, postponed and evaded compliancewith Harold's demand, on the ground that the hostages were in Normandy. He was going, he said, to send for them as soon as he could make thenecessary arrangements for bringing them home in safety. 

Under these circumstances, Harold determined to go and bring themhimself. He proposed this plan to Edward. Edward would not absolutelyrefuse his consent, but he did all in his power to discourage such anexpedition. He told Harold that William of Normandy was a crafty andpowerful man; that by going into his dominions he would put himselfentirely into his power, and would be certain to involve himself in someserious difficulty. This interview between Harold and the king iscommemorated on the Bayeux tapestry by the opposite uncouth design. 

What effect Edward's disapproval of the project produced upon Harold'smind is not certainly known. It is true that he went across the Channel, but the accounts of the crossing are confused and contradictory, some ofthem stating that, while sailing for pleasure with a party of attendantsand companions on the coast, he was blown off from the shore and drivenacross to France by a storm. The probability, however, is, that thisstory was only a pretense. He was determined to go, but not wishing toact openly in defiance of the king's wishes, he contrived to be blownoff, in order to make it seem that he went against his will. 

[Illustration: HAROLD'S INTERVIEW WITH EDWARD. ]

At all events, the _storm_ was real, whether his being compelled toleave the English shores by the power of it was real or pretended. Itcarried him, too, out of his course, driving him up the Channel to theeastward of Normandy, where he had intended to land, and at lengththrowing his galley, a wreck, on the shore, not far from the mouth ofthe Somme. The galley itself was broken up, but Harold and his companyescaped to land. They found that they were in the dominions of a certainprince who held possessions on that coast, whose style and title wasGuy, count of Ponthieu. 

The law in those days was, that wrecks became the property of the lordof the territory on the shores of which they occurred; and not only werethe ships and the goods which they contained thus confiscated in case ofsuch a disaster, but the owners themselves became liable to be seizedand held captive for a ransom. Harold, knowing his danger, wasattempting to secrete himself on the coast till he could get toNormandy, when a fisherman who saw him, and knew by his dress andappearance, and by the deference with which he was treated by the restof the company, that he was a man of great consequence in his nativeland, went to the count, and said that for ten crowns he would show himwhere there was a man who would be worth a thousand to him. The countcame down with his retinue to the coast, seized the unfortunateadventurers, took possession of all the goods and baggage that the waveshad spared, and shut the men themselves up in his castle at Abbevilletill they could pay their ransom. 

Harold remonstrated against this treatment. He said that he was on hisway to Normandy on business of great importance with the duke, from theKing of England, and that he could not be detained. But the count wasvery decided in refusing to let him go without his ransom. Harold thensent word to William, acquainting him with his situation, and asking himto effect his release. William sent to the count, demanding that heshould give his prisoner up. All these things, however, only tended toelevate and enlarge the count's ideas of the value and importance of theprize which he had been so fortunate to secure. He persisted in refusingto give him up without ransom. Finally William paid the ransom, in theshape of a large sum of money, and the cession, in addition, of aconsiderable territory. Harold and his companions in bondage were thendelivered to William's messengers, and conducted by them in safety toRouen, where William was then residing. 

William received his distinguished guest with every possible mark of themost honorable consideration. He was escorted with great parade andceremony into the palace, lodged in the most sumptuous manner, providedwith every necessary supply, and games, and military spectacles, andfeasts and entertainments without number, were arranged to celebrate hisvisit. William informed him that he was at liberty to return to Englandwhenever he pleased, and that his brother and his nephew, the hostagesthat he had come to seek, were at his disposal. He, however, urged himnot to return immediately, but to remain a short time in Normandy withhis companions. Harold accepted the invitation. 

All this exuberance of hospitality had its origin, as the reader willreadily divine, in the duke's joy in finding the only important rivallikely to appear to contest his claims to the English crown so fully inhis power, and in the hope which he entertained of so managing affairsat this visit as to divert Harold's mind from the idea of becoming theKing of England himself, and to induce him to pledge himself to act inhis, that is, William's favor. He took, therefore, all possible pains tomake him enjoy his visit in Normandy; he exhibited to him the wealthand the resources of the country--conducting him from place to place tovisit the castles, the abbeys, and the towns--and, finally, he proposedthat he should accompany him on a military expedition into Brittany. 

Harold, pleased with the honors conferred upon him, and with the noveltyand magnificence of the scenes to which he was introduced, enteredheartily into all these plans, and his companions and attendants were noless pleased than he. William knighted many of these followers ofHarold, and made them costly presents of horses, and banners, and suitsof armor, and other such gifts as were calculated to captivate thehearts of martial adventurers such as they. William soon gained anentire ascendency over their minds, and when he invited them toaccompany him on his expedition into Brittany, they were all eager togo. 

Brittany was west of Normandy, and on the frontiers of it, so that theexpedition was not a distant one. Nor was it long protracted. It was, infact, a sort of pleasure excursion, William taking his guest across thefrontier into his neighbor's territory, on a marauding party, just as anobleman, in modern times, would take a party into a forest to hunt. William and Harold were on the most intimate and friendly terms possibleduring the continuance of this campaign. They occupied the same tent, and ate at the same table. Harold evinced great military talents andmuch bravery in the various adventures which they met with in Brittany, and William felt more than ever the desirableness of securing hisinfluence on his, that is, William's side, or, at least, of preventinghis becoming an open rival and enemy. On their return from Brittany intoNormandy, he judged that the time had arrived for taking his measures. He accordingly resolved to come to an open understanding with Harold inrespect to his plans, and to seek his co-operation. 

He introduced the subject, the historians say, one day as they wereriding along homeward from their excursion, and had been for some timetalking familiarly on the way, relating tales to one another of wars, battles, sieges, and hair-breadth escapes, and other such adventures asformed, generally, the subjects of narrative conversation in those days. At length William, finding Harold, as he judged, in a favorable mood forsuch a communication, introduced the subject of the English realm andthe approaching demise of the crown. He told him, confidentially, thatthere had been an arrangement between him, William, and King Edward, forsome time, that Edward was to _adopt_ him as his successor. William toldHarold, moreover, that he should rely a great deal on his co-operationand assistance in getting peaceable possession of the kingdom, andpromised to bestow upon him the very highest rewards and honors inreturn if he would give him his aid. The only rival claimant, Williamsaid, was the young child Edgar, and he had no friends, no party, nomilitary forces, and no means whatever for maintaining his pretensions. On the other hand, he, William, and Harold, had obviously all the powerin their own hands, and if they could only co-operate together on acommon understanding, they would be sure to have the power and thehonors of the English realm entirely at their disposal. 

Harold listened to all these suggestions, and pretended to be interestedand pleased. He was, in reality, interested, but he was not pleased. Hewished to secure the kingdom for himself, not merely to obtain a share, however large, of its power and its honors as the subject of another. Hewas, however, too wary to evince his displeasure. On the contrary, heassented to the plan, professed to enter into it with all his heart, andexpressed his readiness to commence, immediately, the necessarypreliminary measures for carrying it into execution. William was muchgratified with the successful result of his negotiation, and the twochieftains rode home to William's palace in Normandy, banded together, apparently, by very strong ties. In secret, however, Harold wasresolving to effect his departure from Normandy as soon as possible, andto make immediate and most effectual measures for securing the kingdomof England to himself, without any regard to the promises that he hadmade to William. 

Nor must it be supposed that William himself placed any positivereliance on mere promises from Harold. He immediately began to formplans for binding him to the performance of his stipulations, by themodes then commonly employed for securing the fulfillment of covenantsmade among princes. These methods were three--intermarriages, the givingof hostages, and solemn oaths. 

William proposed two marriages as means of strengthening the alliancebetween himself and Harold. Harold was to give to William one of hisdaughters, that William might marry her to one of his Norman chieftains. This would be, of course, placing her in William's power, and making hera hostage all but in name. Harold, however, consented. The secondmarriage proposed was between William's daughter and Harold himself; butas his daughter was a child of only seven years of age, it could only bea betrothment that could take place at that time. Harold acceded to thisproposal too, and arrangements were made for having the faith of theparties pledged to one another in the most solemn manner. A greatassembly of all the knights, nobles, and ladies of the court wasconvened, and the ceremony of pledging the troth between the fiercewarrior and the gentle and wondering child was performed with as muchpomp and parade as if it had been an actual wedding. The name of thegirl was Adela. 

In respect to hostages, William determined to detain one of those whomHarold, as will be recollected, had come into Normandy to recover. Hetold him, therefore, that he might take with him his nephew Hacune, butthat Ulnoth, his brother, should remain, and William would bring himover himself when he came to take possession of the kingdom. Harold wasextremely unwilling to leave his brother thus in William's power; but ashe knew very well that his being allowed to return to England himselfwould depend upon his not evincing any reluctance to giving Williamsecurity, or manifesting any other indication that he was not intendingto keep his plighted faith, he readily consented, and it was thussettled that Ulnoth should remain. 

Finally, in order to hold Harold to the fulfillment of his promises byevery possible form of obligation, William proposed that he should takea public and solemn oath, in the presence of a large assembly of all thegreat potentates and chieftains of the realm, by which he should bindhimself, under the most awful sanctions, to keep his word. Harold madeno objection to this either. He considered himself as, in fact, induress, and his actions as not free. He was in William's power, and wasinfluenced in all he did by a desire to escape from Normandy, and oncemore recover his liberty. He accordingly decided, in his own mind, thatwhatever oaths he might take he should afterward consider as forced uponhim, and consequently as null and void, and was ready, therefore, totake any that William might propose. 

The great assembly was accordingly convened. In the middle of thecouncil hall there was placed a great chair of state, which was coveredwith a cloth of gold. Upon this cloth, and raised considerably above theseat, was the _missal_, that is, the book of service of the CatholicChurch, written on parchment and splendidly illuminated. The book wasopen at a passage from one of the Evangelists--the Evangelists being aportion of the Holy Scriptures which was, in those days, supposed toinvest an oath with the most solemn sanctions. 

Harold felt some slight misgivings as he advanced in the midst of suchan imposing scene as the great assembly of knights and ladies presentedin the council hall, to repeat his promises in the very presence of God, and to imprecate the retributive curses of the Almighty on the violationof them, which he was deliberately and fully determined to incur. Hehad, however, gone too far to retreat now. He advanced, therefore, tothe open missal, laid his hand upon the book, and, repeating the wordswhich William dictated to him from his throne, he took the threefoldoath required, namely, to aid William to the utmost of his power in hisattempt to secure the succession to the English crown, to marryWilliam's daughter Adela as soon as she should arrive at a suitable age, and to send over forthwith from England his own daughter, that she mightbe espoused to one of William's nobles. 

As soon as the oath was thus taken, William caused the missal and thecloth of gold to be removed, and there appeared beneath it, on the chairof state, a chest, containing the sacred relics of the Church, whichWilliam had secretly collected from the abbeys and monasteries of hisdominions, and placed in this concealment, that, without Harold's beingconscious of it, their dreadful sanction might be added to that whichthe Holy Evangelists imposed. These relics were fragments of bones setin caskets and frames, and portions of blood--relics, as the monksalleged, of apostles or of the Savior--and small pieces of wood, similarly preserved, which had been portions of the cross of Christ orof his thorny crown. These things were treasured up with great solemnityin the monastic establishments and in the churches of these early times, and were regarded with a veneration and awe, of which it is almostbeyond our power even to conceive. Harold trembled when he saw what hehad unwittingly done. He was terrified to think how much more dreadfulwas the force of the imprecations that he had uttered than he hadimagined while uttering them. But it was too late to undo what he haddone. The assembly was finally dismissed. William thought he had theconscience of his new ally firmly secured, and Harold began to preparefor leaving Normandy. 

He continued on excellent terms with William until his departure. William accompanied him to the sea-shore when the time of hisembarkation arrived, and dismissed him at last with many farewellhonors, and a profusion of presents. Harold set sail, and, crossing theChannel in safety, he landed in England. 

He commenced immediately an energetic system of measures to strengthenhis own cause, and prepare the way for his own accession. He organizedhis party, collected arms and munitions of war, and did all that hecould to ingratiate himself with the most powerful and wealthy nobles. He sought the favor of the king, too, and endeavored to persuade him todiscard William. The king was now old and infirm, and was growing moreand more inert and gloomy as he advanced in age. His mind was occupiedaltogether in ecclesiastical rites and observances, or plunged in atorpid and lifeless melancholy, which made him averse to giving anythought to the course which the affairs of his kingdom were to takeafter he was gone. He did not care whether Harold or William took thecrown when he laid it aside, provided they would allow him to die inpeace. 

He had had, a few years previous to this time, a plan of making apilgrimage to Jerusalem, but had finally made an arrangement with thepope, allowing him to build a Cathedral church, to be dedicated to St. Peter, a few miles west of London, in lieu of his pilgrimage. There wasalready a Cathedral church or _minster_ in the heart of London which wasdedicated to St. Paul. The new one was afterward often called, todistinguish it from the other, the _west_ minster, which designation, Westminster, became afterward its regular name. It was on this spot, where Westminster Abbey now stands, that Edward's church was to bebuilt. It was just completed at the time of which we are speaking, andthe king was preparing for the dedication of it. He summoned an assemblyof all the prelates and great ecclesiastical dignitaries of the land toconvene at London, in order to dedicate the new Cathedral. Before theywere ready for the service, the king was taken suddenly sick. Theyplaced him upon his couch in his palace chamber, where he lay, restless, and moaning in pain, and repeating incessantly, half in sleep and halfin delirium, the gloomy and threatening texts of Scripture which seemedto haunt his mind. He was eager to have the dedication go on, and theyhastened the service in order to gratify him by having it performedbefore he died. The next day he was obviously failing. Harold and hisfriends were very earnest to have the departing monarch declare in _his_favor before he died, and their coming and going, and their louddiscussions, rude soldiers as they were, disturbed his dying hours. Hesent them word to choose whom they would for king, duke or earl, it wasindifferent to him, and thus expired. 

Harold had made his arrangements so well, and had managed so effectuallyto secure the influence of all the powerful nobles of the kingdom, thatthey immediately convened and offered him the crown. Edgar was in thecourt of Edward at the time, but he was too young to make any effort toadvance his claims. He was, in fact, a foreigner, though in the Englishroyal line. He had been brought up on the Continent of Europe, andcould not even speak the English tongue. He acquiesced, therefore, without complaint, in these proceedings, and was even present as aconsenting spectator on the occasion of Harold's coronation, whichceremony was performed with great pomp and parade, at St. Paul's, inLondon, very soon after King Edward's death. Harold rewarded Edgar forhis complaisance and discretion by conferring upon him the honor ofknighthood immediately after the coronation, and in the church where theceremony was performed. He also conferred similar distinctions andhonors upon many other aspiring and ambitious men whom he wished tosecure to his side. He thus seemed to have secure and settled possessionof the throne. 

Previously to this time, Harold had married a young lady of England, asister of two very powerful noblemen, and the richest heiress in therealm. This marriage greatly strengthened his influence in England, andhelped to prepare the way for his accession to the supreme power. Thetidings of it, however, when they crossed the Channel and reached theears of William of Normandy, as the act was an open and deliberateviolation of one of the covenants which Harold had made with William, convinced the latter that none of these covenants would be kept, andprepared him to expect all that afterward followed. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

THE PREPARATIONS. 

A. D. 1066

Harold's brother Tostig. --He brings intelligence of Harold'saccession. --William's strength and dexterity. --Hissurprise. --Fitzosborne. --His interview with William. --The great councilof state. --The embassy to Harold. --Harold reminded of his promises. --Hisreplies. --Return of the messenger. --William prepares for war. --Williamcalls a general council. --Want of funds. --Means of raisingmoney. --Adverse views. --Various opinions. --Confusion and disorder. --Planof Fitzosborne. --It is adopted by William. --Success of Fitzosborne'splan. --Supplies flow in liberally. --Embassage to the pope. --Itssuccess. --Reasons why the pope favored William's claims. --The bannerand the ring. --Excitement produced by their reception. --William'sproclamations. --Their effects. --William's promises. --Navalpreparations. --Philip, king of France. --William's visit tohim. --William's interview with Philip. --Philip opposes hisplans. --Council of nobles. --Result of their deliberations. --William'sreturn. --Final preparations. --Matilda made duchess regent. --William'smotives. --Republican sentiments. --Hereditary sovereigns. --Enthusiasm ofthe people. --The two-tailed comet. 

The messenger who brought William the tidings of Harold's accession tothe throne was a man named Tostig, Harold's brother. Though he wasHarold's brother, he was still his bitterest enemy. Brothers are seldomfriends in families where there is a crown to be contended for. Therewere, of course, no public modes of communicating intelligence in thosedays, and Tostig had learned the facts of Edward's death and Harold'scoronation through spies which he had stationed at certain points on thecoast. He was himself, at that time, on the Continent. He rode with allspeed to Rouen to communicate the news to William, eager to incite himto commence hostilities against his brother. 

[Illustration: WILLIAM RECEIVING TOSTIG'S TIDINGS. ]

When Tostig arrived at Rouen, William was in a park which lay in thevicinity of the city, trying a new bow that had been recently made forhim. William was a man of prodigious muscular strength, and they gavehim the credit of being able to use easily a bow which nobody elsecould bend. A part of this credit was doubtless due to the etiquettewhich, in royal palaces and grounds, leads all sensible courtiers totake good care never to succeed in attempts to excel the king. But, notwithstanding this consideration, there is no doubt that the dukereally merited a great portion of the commendation that he received forhis strength and dexterity in the use of the bow. It was a weapon inwhich he took great interest. A new one had been made for him, of greatelasticity and strength, and he had gone out into his park, with hisofficers, to try its powers, when Tostig arrived. Tostig followed him tothe place, and there advancing to his side, communicated the tidings tohim privately. 

William was greatly moved by the intelligence. His arrow dropped uponthe ground. He gave the bow to an attendant. He stood for a timespeechless, tying and untying the cordon of his cloak in hisabstraction. Presently he began slowly to move away from the place, andto return toward the city. His attendants followed him in silence, wondering what the exciting tidings could be which had produced sosudden and powerful an effect. 

William went into the castle hall, and walked to and fro a long time, thoughtful, and evidently agitated. His attendants waited in silence, afraid to speak to him. Rumors began at length to circulate among themin respect to the nature of the intelligence which had been received. Atlength a great officer of state, named Fitzosborne, arrived at thecastle. As he passed through the court-yard and gates, the attendantsand the people, knowing that he possessed in a great degree theconfidence of his sovereign, asked him what the tidings were that hadmade such an impression. "I know nothing certain about it, " said he, "but I will soon learn. " So saying, he advanced toward William, andaccosted him by saying, "Why should you conceal from us your news? It isreported in the city that the King of England is dead, and that Haroldhas violated his oaths to you, and has seized the kingdom. Is thattrue?"

William acknowledged that that was the intelligence by which he had beenso vexed and chagrined. Fitzosborne urged the duke not to allow suchevents to depress or dispirit him. "As for the death of Edward, " saidhe, "that is an event past and sure, and can not be recalled; butHarold's usurpation and treachery admits of a very easy remedy. Youhave the right to the throne, and you have the soldiers necessary toenforce that right. Undertake the enterprise boldly. You will be sure tosucceed. "

William revolved the subject in his mind for a few days, during whichthe exasperation and anger which the first receipt of the intelligencehad produced upon him was succeeded by calm but indignant deliberation, in respect to the course which he should pursue. He concluded to call agreat council of state, and to lay the case before them--not for thepurpose of obtaining their advice, but to call their attention to thecrisis in a formal and solemn manner, and to prepare them to act inconcert in the subsequent measures to be pursued. The result of thedeliberations of this council, guided, doubtless, by William's owndesigns, was, that the first step should be to send an embassy to Haroldto demand of him the fulfillment of his promises. 

The messenger was accordingly dispatched. He proceeded to London, andlaid before Harold the communication with which he had been intrusted. This communication recounted the three promises which Harold had made, namely, to send his daughter to Normandy to be married to one ofWilliam's generals; to marry William's daughter himself; and to maintainWilliam's claims to the English crown on the death of Edward. He was toremind Harold, also, of the solemnity with which he had bound himself tofulfill these obligations, by oaths taken in the presence of the mostsacred relics of the Church, and in the most public and deliberatemanner. 

Harold replied, 1. That as to sending over his daughter to be married to one ofWilliam's generals, he could not do it, for his daughter was dead. Hepresumed, he said, that William did not wish him to send the corpse. 

2. In respect to marrying William's daughter, to whom he had beenaffianced in Normandy, he was sorry to say that that was also out ofhis power, as he could not take a foreign wife without the consent ofhis people, which he was confident would never be given; besides, hewas already married, he said, to a Saxon lady of his own dominions. 

3. In regard to the kingdom: it did not depend upon him, he said, todecide who should rule over England as Edward's successor, but upon thewill of Edward himself, and upon the English people. The English baronsand nobles had decided, with Edward's concurrence, that he, Harold, wastheir legitimate and proper sovereign, and that it was not for him tocontrovert their will. However much he might be disposed to comply withWilliam's wishes, and to keep his promise, it was plain that it was outof his power, for in promising him the English crown, he had promisedwhat did not belong to him to give. 

4. As to his oaths, he said that, notwithstanding the secret presence ofthe sacred relics under the cloth of gold, he considered them as of nobinding force upon his conscience, for he was constrained to take themas the only means of escaping from the duress in which he was virtuallyheld in Normandy. Promises, and oaths even, when extorted by necessity, were null and void. 

The messenger returned to Normandy with these replies, and Williamimmediately began to prepare for war. 

His first measure was to call a council of his most confidential friendsand advisers, and to lay the subject before them. They cordiallyapproved of the plan of an invasion of England, and promised toco-operate in the accomplishment of it to the utmost of their power. 

The next step was to call a general council of all the chieftains andnobles of the land, and also the _notables_, as they were called, orprincipal officers and municipal authorities of the _towns_. The mainpoint of interest for the consideration of this assembly was, whetherthe country would submit to the necessary taxation for raising thenecessary funds. William had ample power, as duke, to decide upon theinvasion and to undertake it. He could also, without much difficulty, raise the necessary number of men; for every baron in his realm wasbound, by the feudal conditions on which he held his land, to furnishhis quota of men for any military enterprise in which his sovereignmight see fit to engage. But for so distant and vast an undertaking asthis, William needed a much larger supply of _funds_ than were usuallyrequired in the wars of those days. For raising such large supplies, thepolitical institutions of the Middle Ages had not made any adequateprovision. Governments then had no power of taxation, like that sofreely exercised in modern times; and even now, taxes in France andEngland take the form of _grants_ from the people to the kings. And asto the contrivance, so exceedingly ingenious, by which inexhaustibleresources are opened to governments at the present day--that is, theplan of borrowing the money, and leaving posterity to pay or repudiatethe debt, as they please, no minister of finance had, in William's day, been brilliant enough to discover it. Thus each ruler had to rely, then, mainly on the rents and income from his own lands, and other privateresources, for the comparatively small amount of money that he needed inhis brief campaigns. But now William perceived that ships must be builtand equipped, and great stores of provisions accumulated, and arms andmunitions of war provided, all which would require a considerableoutlay; and how was this money to be obtained?

The general assembly which he convened were greatly distracted by thediscussion of the question. The quiet and peaceful citizens whoinhabited the towns, the artisans and tradesmen, who wished for nothingbut to be allowed to go on in their industrial pursuits in peace, wereopposed to the whole project. They thought it unreasonable and absurdthat they should be required to contribute from their earnings to enabletheir lord and master to go off on so distant and desperate anundertaking, from which, even if successful, they could derive nobenefit whatever. Many of the barons, too, were opposed to the scheme. They thought it very likely to end in disaster and defeat; and theydenied that their feudal obligation to furnish men for their sovereign'swars was binding to the extent of requiring them to go out of thecountry, and beyond the sea, to prosecute his claims to the throne ofanother kingdom. 

Others, on the other hand, among the members of William's assembly, werestrongly disposed to favor the plan. They were more ardent or morecourageous than the rest, or perhaps their position and circumstanceswere such that they had more to hope from the success of the enterprisethan they, or less to fear from its failure. Thus there was greatdiversity of opinion; and as the parliamentary system of rules, by whicha body of turbulent men, in modern times, are kept in some semblance oforganization and order during a debate, had not then been developed, themeeting of these Norman deliberators was, for a time, a scene of uproarand confusion. The members gathered in groups, each speaker gettingaround him as many as he could obtain to listen to his harangue; themore quiet and passive portion of the assembly moving to and fro, fromgroup to group, as they were attracted by the earnestness and eloquenceof the different speakers, or by their approval of the sentiments whichthey heard them expressing. The scene, in fact, was like that presentedin exciting times by a political caucus in America, before it is calledto order by the chairman. 

Fitzosborne, the confidential friend and counselor, who has already beenmentioned as the one who ventured to accost the duke at the time whenthe tidings of Edward's death and of Harold's accession first reachedhim, now seeing that any thing like definite and harmonious action onthe part of this tumultuous assembly was out of the question, went tothe duke, and proposed to him to give up the assembly as such, and makethe best terms and arrangements that he could with the constituentelements of it, individually and severally. He would himself, hesaid, furnish forty ships, manned, equipped, and provisioned; and herecommended to the duke to call each of the others into his presence, and ask them what they were individually willing to do. The duke adoptedthis plan, and it was wonderfully successful. Those who were firstinvited made large offers, and their offers were immediately registeredin form by the proper officers. Each one who followed was emulous of theexample of those who had preceded him, and desirous of evincing as muchzeal and generosity as they. Then, besides, the duke received thesevassals with so much condescension and urbanity, and treated them withso much consideration and respect, as greatly to flatter their vanity, and raise them in their own estimation, by exalting their ideas of theimportance of the services which they could render in carrying so vastan enterprise to a successful result. In a word, the tide turned like aflood in favor of granting liberal supplies. The nobles and knightspromised freely men, money, ships, arms, provisions--every thing, inshort, that was required; and when the work of receiving and registeringthe offers was completed, and the officers summed up the aggregateamount, William found, to his extreme satisfaction, that his wants wereabundantly supplied. 

There was another very important point, which William adopted immediatemeasures to secure, and that was obtaining the _Pope's_ approval of hisintended expedition. The moral influence of having the Roman pontiff onhis side, would, he knew, be of incalculable advantage to him. He sentan embassage, accordingly, to Rome, to lay the whole subject before hisholiness, and to pray that the pope would declare that he was justlyentitled to the English crown, and authorize him to proceed and takepossession of it by force of arms. Lanfranc was the messenger whom heemployed--the same Lanfranc who had been so successful, some yearsbefore, in the negotiations at Rome connected with the confirmation ofWilliam and Matilda's marriage. 

Lanfranc was equally successful now. The pope, after examining William'sclaims, pronounced them valid. He decided that William was entitled tothe rank and honors of King of England. He caused a formal diploma to bemade out to this effect. The diploma was elegantly executed, signed withthe cross, according to the pontifical custom, and sealed with a roundleaden seal. [J]

[Footnote J: The Latin name for such a seal was _bulla_. It is onaccount of this sort of seal, which is customarily affixed to them, thatpapal edicts have received the name of _bulls_. ]

It was, in fact, very natural that the Roman authorities should take afavorable view of William's enterprise, and feel an interest in itssuccess, as it was undoubtedly for the interest of the Church thatWilliam, rather than Harold, should reign over England, as the accessionof William would bring the English realm far more fully under theinfluence of the Roman Church. William had always been very submissiveto the pontifical authority, as was shown in his conduct in respect tothe question of his marriage. He himself, and also Matilda his wife, hadalways taken a warm interest in the welfare and prosperity of theabbeys, the monasteries, the churches, and the other religiousestablishments of the times. Then the very circumstance that he sent hisembassador to Rome to submit his claims to the pontiff's adjudication, while Harold did not do so, indicated a greater deference for theauthority of the Church, and made it probable that he would be a farmore obedient and submissive son of the Church, in his manner of rulinghis realm, if he should succeed in gaining possession of it, than Haroldhis rival. The pope and his counselors at Rome thought it proper to takeall these things into the account in deciding between William andHarold, as they honestly believed, without doubt, that it was theirfirst and highest duty to exalt and aggrandize, by every possible means, the spiritual authority of the sacred institution over which they werecalled to preside. 

The pope and his cardinals, accordingly, espoused William's cause verywarmly. In addition to the diploma which gave William formal authorityto take possession of the English crown, the pope sent him a banner anda ring. The banner was of costly and elegant workmanship; its value, however, did not consist in its elegance or its cost, but in a solemnbenediction which his holiness pronounced over it, by which it wasrendered sacred and inviolable. The banner, thus blessed, was forwardedto William by Lanfranc with great care. 

It was accompanied by the ring. The ring was of gold, and it contained adiamond of great value. The gold and the diamond both, however, servedonly as settings to preserve and honor something of far greater valuethan they. This choice treasure was a hair from the head of the ApostlePeter! a sacred relic of miraculous virtue and of inestimable value. 

When the edict with its leaden seal, and the banner and the ring arrivedin Normandy, they produced a great and universal excitement. To havebestowed upon the enterprise thus emphatically the solemn sanction ofthe great spiritual head of the Church, to whom the great mass of thepeople looked up with an awe and a reverence almost divine, was to sealindissolubly the rightfulness of the enterprise, and to insure itssuccess. There was thenceforward no difficulty in procuring men ormeans. Every body was eager to share in the glory, and to obtain therewards, of an enterprise thus commended by an authority dulycommissioned to express, in all such cases, the judgment of Heaven. 

Finding that the current was thus fairly setting in his favor, Williamsent proclamations into all the countries surrounding Normandy, invitingknights, and soldiers, and adventurers of every degree to join himin his projected enterprise. These proclamations awakened universalattention. Great numbers of adventurous men determined to enterWilliam's service. Horses, arms, and accoutrements were everywhere ingreat demand. The invasion of England and the question of joining itwere the universal topics of conversation. The roads were covered withknights and soldiers, some on horseback and alone, others in bands, large or small, all proceeding to Normandy to tender their services. William received them all, and made liberal promises to bestow rewardsand honors upon them in England, in the event of his success. To somehe offered pay in money; to others, booty; to others, office and power. Every one had his price. Even the priests and dignitaries of the Churchshared the general enthusiasm. One of them furnished a ship and twentyarmed men, under an agreement to be appointed bishop of a certainvaluable English diocese when William should be established on histhrone. 

While all these movements were going on in the interior of the country, all the sea-ports and towns along the coast of Normandy presented a verybusy scene of naval preparation. Naval architects were employed in greatnumbers in building and fitting out vessels. Some were constructed andfurnished for the transportation of men, others for conveying provisionsand munitions of war; and lighters and boats were built for ascendingthe rivers, and for aiding in landing troops upon shelving shores. Smiths and armorers were occupied incessantly in manufacturing spears, and swords, and coats of mail; while vast numbers of laboring men andbeasts of burden were employed in conveying arms and materials to andfrom the manufactories to the ships, and from one point of embarkationto another. 

As soon as William had put all these busy agencies thus in successfuloperation, he considered that there was one more point which it wasnecessary for him to secure before finally embarking, and that was theco-operation and aid of the French king, whose name at this time wasPhilip. In his character of Duke of Normandy the King of France washis liege lord, and he was bound to act, in some degree, under anacknowledgment of his superior authority. In his new capacity, that is, as King of England, or, rather, as heir to the English kingdom, he was, of course, wholly independent of Philip, and, consequently, not boundby any feudal obligation to look to him at all. He thought it mostprudent, however, to attempt, at least, to conciliate Philip's favor, and, accordingly, leaving his officers and his workmen to go on withthe work of organizing his army and of building and equipping the fleet, he set off, himself, on an expedition to the court of the French king. He thought it safer to undertake this delicate mission himself, ratherthan to intrust it to an embassador or deputy. 

He found Philip at his palace of St. Germain's, which was situated at ashort distance from Paris. The duke assumed, in his interview with theking, a very respectful and deferential air and manner. Philip was avery young man, though haughty and vain. William was very much hissuperior, not only in age and experience, but in talents and character, and in personal renown. Still, he approached the monarch with all therespectful observance due from a vassal to his sovereign, made known hisplans, and asked for Philip's approbation and aid. He was willing, hesaid, in case that aid was afforded him, to hold his kingdom of England, as he had done the duchy of Normandy, as a dependency of the Frenchcrown. 

Philip seemed not at all disposed to look upon the project with favor. He asked William who was going to take care of his duchy while he wasrunning off after a kingdom. William replied, at first, that that was asubject which he did not think his neighbors need concern themselvesabout. Then thinking, on reflection, that a more respectful answer wouldbe more politic, under the circumstances of the case, he added, that hewas providentially blessed with a prudent wife and loving subjects, andthat he thought he might safely leave his domestic affairs in theirhands until he should return. Philip still opposed the plan. It wasQuixotic, he said, and dangerous. He strongly advised William to abandonthe scheme, and be content with his present possessions. Such desperateschemes of ambition as those he was contemplating would only involve himin ruin. 

Before absolutely deciding the case, however, Philip called a council ofhis great nobles and officers of state, and laid William's proposalsbefore them. The result of their deliberations was to confirm Philip inhis first decision. They said that the rendering to William the aidwhich he desired would involve great expense, and be attended with greatdanger; and as to William's promises to hold England as a vassal of theKing of France, they had no faith in the performance of them. It hadbeen very difficult, they said, for many years, for the kings of Franceto maintain any effectual authority over the dukes of Normandy, and whenonce master of so distant and powerful a realm as England, all controlover them would be sundered forever. 

Philip then gave William his final answer in accordance with thesecounsels. The answer was received, on William's part, with strongfeelings of disappointment and displeasure. Philip conducted the duke tohis retinue when the hour of departure arrived, in order to soothe, asfar as possible, his irritated feelings, by dismissing him from hiscourt with marks of his honorable consideration and regard. William, however, was not in a mood to be pleased. He told Philip, on takingleave of him, that he was losing the most powerful vassal that any lordsovereign ever had, by the course which he had decided to pursue. "Iwould have held the whole realm of England as a part of your dominions, acknowledging you as sovereign over all, if you had consented to renderme your aid, but I will not do it since you refuse. I shall feel boundto repay only those who assist me. "

William returned to Normandy, where all the preparations for theexpedition had been going on with great vigor during his absence, andproceeded to make arrangements for the last great measure which it wasnecessary to take previous to his departure; that was, the regularconstitution of a government to rule in Normandy while he should begone. He determined to leave the supreme power in the hands of his wifeMatilda, appointing, at the same time, a number of civil and militaryofficers as a council of regency, who were to assist her in herdeliberations by giving her information and advice, and to manage, under her direction, the different departments of the government. Hertitle was "Duchess Regent, " and she was installed into her office in apublic and solemn manner, at a great assembly of the estates of therealm. At the close of the ceremonies, after William had given Matildahis charge, he closed his address by adding, "And do not let us fail toenjoy the benefit of your prayers, and those of all the ladies of yourcourt, that the blessing of God may attend us, and secure the success ofour expedition. "

We are not necessarily to suppose, as we might at first be stronglyinclined to do, that there was any special hypocrisy and pretense inWilliam's thus professing to rely on the protection of Heaven in thepersonal and political dangers which he was about to incur. It isprobable that he honestly believed that the inheritance of the Englishcrown was his right, and, that being the case, that a vigorous and manlyeffort to enforce his right was a solemn duty. In the present age of theworld, now that there are so many countries in which intelligence, industry, and love of order are so extensively diffused that the mass ofthe community are capable of organizing and administering a governmentthemselves, republicans are apt to look upon hereditary sovereignsas despots, ruling only for the purpose of promoting their ownaggrandizement, and the ends of an unholy and selfish ambition. Thatthere have been a great many such despots no one can deny; but then, onthe other hand, there have been many others who have acted, in a greateror less degree, under the influence of principles of duty in theirpolitical career. They have honestly believed that the vast power withwhich, in coming forward into life, they have found themselves invested, without, in most cases, any agency of their own, was a trust imposedupon them by divine Providence, which could not innocently be laidaside; that on them devolved the protection of the communities overwhich they ruled from external hostility, and the preservation of peaceand order within, and the promotion of the general industry and welfare, as an imperious and solemn duty; and they have devoted their livesto the performance of this duty, with the usual mixture, it is true, of ambition and selfishness, but still, after all, with as muchconscientiousness and honesty as the mass of men in the humbler walks oflife evince in performing theirs. William of Normandy appears to havebeen one of this latter class; and in obeying the dictates of hisambition in seeking to gain possession of the English crown, he no doubtconsidered himself as fulfilling the obligations of duty too. 

However this may be, he went on with his preparations in the mostvigorous and prosperous manner. The whole country were enthusiastic inthe cause; and their belief that the enterprise about to be undertakenhad unquestionably secured the favor of Heaven, was confirmed by anextraordinary phenomenon which occurred just before the armament wasready to set sail. A comet appeared in the sky, which, as closeobservers declared, had a double tail. It was universally agreed thatthis portended that England and Normandy were about to be combined, andto form a double kingdom, which should exhibit to all mankind awonderful spectacle of splendor. 

CHAPTER IX. 

CROSSING THE CHANNEL. 

A. D. 1066

The River Dive. --Final assembling of the fleet. --Map. --Brilliant andmagnificent scene. --Equinoctial gales. --The expedition detainedby them. --Injurious effects of the storm. --Discouragement of themen. --Fears and forebodings. --Some of the vessels wrecked. --Favorablechange. --The fleet puts to sea. --Various delays. --Its effects. --Harold'swant of information. --He withdraws his troops. --Harold's vigilance. --Hesends spies into Normandy. --Harold's spies. --They are detected. --Williamdismisses the spies. --His confidence in his cause. --Fears of William'sofficers. --He reassures them. --Arrival of Matilda with the Mira. --Apresent to William. --The squadron puts to sea again. --Itsappearance. --Fleetness of the Mira. --Leaves the fleet out ofsight. --William's unconcern. --Reappearance of the fleet. --The fleetenters the Bay of Pevensey. --Disembarkation. --Landing of thetroops. --Anecdote. --The encampment. --Scouts sent out. --William'ssupper. --The missing ships. --The Conqueror's Stone. --March of thearmy. --Flight of the inhabitants. --The army encamps. --The town ofHastings. --William's fortifications. --Approach of Harold. 

The place for the final assembling of the fleet which was to convey theexpedition across the Channel was the mouth of a small river called theDive, which will be seen upon the following map, flowing from theneighborhood of the castle of Falaise northward into the sea. The grandgathering took place in the beginning of the month of September, in theyear 1066. This date, which marks the era of the Norman Conquest, is oneof the dates which students of history fix indelibly in the memory. 

[Illustration: NORMANDY. ]

The gathering of the fleet in the estuary of the Dive, and theassembling of the troops on the beach along its shores, formed a verygrand and imposing spectacle. The fleets of galleys, ships, boats, andbarges covering the surface of the water--the long lines of tents underthe cliffs on the land--the horsemen, splendidly mounted, and glitteringwith steel--the groups of soldiers, all busily engaged in transportingprovisions and stores to and fro, or making the preliminary arrangementsfor the embarkation--the thousands of spectators who came and wentincessantly, and the duke himself, gorgeously dressed, and mounted onhis war-horse, with the guards and officers that attended him--these, and the various other elements of martial parade and display usuallywitnessed on such occasions, conspired to produce a very gay andbrilliant, as well as magnificent scene. 

Of course, the assembling of so large a force of men and of vessels, andthe various preparations for the embarkation, consumed some time, andwhen at length all was ready--which was early in September--theequinoctial gales came on, and it was found impossible to leave theport. There was, in fact, a continuance of heavy winds and seas, andstormy skies, for several weeks. Short intervals, from time to time, occurred, when the clouds would break away, and the sun appear; butthese intervals did not liberate the fleet from its confinement, forthey were not long enough in duration to allow the sea to go down. Thesurf continued to come rolling and thundering in upon the shore, andover the sand-bars at the mouth of the river, making destruction thealmost inevitable destiny of any ship which should undertake to braveits fury. The state of the skies gradually robbed the scene of the gayand brilliant colors which first it wore. The vessels furled theirsails, and drew in their banners, and rode at anchor, presenting theirheads doggedly to the storm. The men on the shore sought shelter intheir tents. The spectators retired to their homes, while the duke andhis officers watched the scudding clouds in the sky, day after day, withgreat and increasing anxiety. 

In fact, William had very serious cause for apprehension in respect tothe effect which this long-continued storm was to have on the successof his enterprise. The delay was a very serious consideration in itself, for the winter would soon be drawing near. In one month more it wouldseem to be out of the question for such a vast armament to cross theChannel at all. Then, when men are embarking in such dark and hazardousundertakings as that in which William was now engaged, their spirits andtheir energy rise and sink in great fluctuations, under the influence ofvery slight and inadequate causes; and nothing has greater influenceover them at such times than the aspect of the skies. William found thatthe ardor and enthusiasm of his army were fast disappearing under theeffects of chilling winds and driving rain. The feelings of discontentand depression which the frowning expression of the heavens awakened intheir minds, were deepened and spread by the influence of sympathy. Themen had nothing to do, during the long and dreary hours of the day, butto anticipate hardships and dangers, and to entertain one another, asthey watched the clouds driving along the cliffs, and the rolling of thesurges in the offing, with anticipations of shipwrecks, battles, anddefeats, and all the other gloomy forebodings which haunt theimagination of a discouraged and discontented soldier. 

Nor were these ideas of wrecks and destruction wholly imaginary. Although the body of the fleet remained in the river, where it wassheltered from the winds, yet there were many cases of single ships thatwere from time to time exposed to them. These were detached vesselscoming in late to the rendezvous, or small squadrons sent out to someneighboring port under some necessity connected with the preparations, or strong galleys, whose commanders, more bold than the rest, werewilling, in cases _not_ of absolute necessity, to brave the danger. Manyof these vessels were wrecked. The fragments of them, with the bodies ofthe drowned mariners, were driven to the shore. The ghastly spectaclespresented by these dead bodies, swollen and mangled, and half buried inthe sand, as if the sea had been endeavoring to hide the mischief it haddone, shocked and terrified the spectators who saw them. William gaveorders to have all these bodies gathered up and interred secretly, asfast as they were found; still, exaggerated rumors of the number andmagnitude of these disasters were circulated in the camp, and thediscontent and apprehensions grew every day more and more alarming. 

William resolved that he must put to sea at the very first possibleopportunity. The favorable occasion was not long wanting. The windchanged. The storm appeared to cease. A breeze sprang up from the south, which headed back the surges from the French shore. William gave ordersto embark. The tents were struck. The baggage of the soldiers was senton board the transport vessels. The men themselves, crowded into greatflat-bottomed boats, passed in masses to the ships from the shore. Thespectators reappeared, and covered the cliffs and promontories near, towitness the final scene. The sails were hoisted, and the vast armamentmoved out upon the sea. 

The appearance of a favorable change in the weather proved fallaciousafter all, for the clouds and storm returned, and after being driven, inapprehension and danger, about a hundred miles to the northeast alongthe coast, the fleet was compelled to seek refuge again in a harbor. Theport which received them was St. Valery, near Dieppe. The duke wasgreatly disappointed at being obliged thus again to take the land. Still, the attempt to advance had not been a labor wholly lost; for asthe French coast here trends to the northward, they had been graduallynarrowing the channel as they proceeded, and were, in fact, so far onthe way toward the English shores. Then there were, besides, somereasons for touching here, before the final departure, to receive somelast re-enforcements and supplies. William had also one more opportunityof communicating with his capital and with Matilda. 

These delays, disastrous as they seemed to be, and ominous of evil, werenevertheless attended with one good effect, of which, however, Williamat the time was not aware. They led Harold, in England, to imagine thatthe enterprise was abandoned, and so put him off his guard. There werein those days, as has already been remarked, no regular and public modesof intercommunication, by which intelligence of important movements andevents was spread every where, as now, with promptness and certainty. Governments were obliged, accordingly, to rely for information, inrespect to what their enemies were doing, on rumors, or on the reportsof spies. Rumors had gone to England in August that William wasmeditating an invasion, and Harold had made some extensive preparationsto meet and oppose him; but, finding that he did not come--that weekafter week of September passed away, and no signs of an enemy appeared, and gaining no certain information of the causes of the delay, heconcluded that the enterprise was abandoned, or else, perhaps, postponedto the ensuing spring. Accordingly, as the winter was coming on, hedeemed it best to commence his preparations for sending his troops totheir winter quarters. He disbanded some of them, and sent others away, distributing them in various castles and fortified towns, where theywould be sheltered from the rigors of the season, and saved from theexposure and hardships of the camp, and yet, at the same time, remainwithin reach of a summons in case of any sudden emergency which mightcall for them. They were soon summoned, though not, in the firstinstance, to meet Harold, as will presently appear. 

While adopting these measures, however, which he thought the comfort andsafety of his army required, Harold did not relax his vigilance inwatching, as well as he could, the designs and movements of his enemy. He kept his secret agents on the southern coast, ordering them toobserve closely every thing that transpired, and to gather and send tohim every item of intelligence which should find its way by any meansacross the Channel. Of course, William would do all in his power tointercept and cut off all communication, and he was, at this time, verymuch aided in these efforts by the prevalence of the storms, which madeit almost impossible for the fishing and trading vessels of the coast toventure out to sea, or attempt to cross the Channel. The agents ofHarold, therefore, on the southern coast of England, found that theycould obtain but very little information. 

At length the king, unwilling to remain any longer so entirely in thedark, resolved on sending some messengers across the sea into Normandyitself, to learn positively what the true state of the case might be. Messengers going thus secretly into the enemy's territory, or into theenemy's camp, become, by so doing, in martial law, _spies_, and incur, if they are taken, the penalty of death. The undertaking, therefore, isextremely hazardous; and as the death which is inflicted in cases ofdetection is an ignominious one--spies being hung, not shot--most menare very averse to encountering the danger. Still, desperate charactersare always to be found in camps and armies, who are ready to undertakeit on being promised very extraordinary pay. 

Harold's spies contrived to make their way across the Channel, probablyat some point far to the east of Normandy, where the passage is narrow. They then came along the shore, disguised as peasants of the country, and they arrived at St. Valery while William's fleets were there. Herethey began to make their observations, scrutinizing every thing withclose attention and care, and yet studiously endeavoring to concealtheir interest in what they saw. Notwithstanding all their vigilance, however, they were discovered, proved to be spies, and taken beforeWilliam to receive their sentence. 

Instead of condemning them to death, which they undoubtedly supposedwould be their inevitable fate, William ordered them to be set atliberty. "Go back, " said he, "to King Harold, and tell him he might havesaved himself the expense of sending spies into Normandy to learn what Iam preparing for him. He will soon know by other means--much sooner, infact, than he imagines. Go and tell him from me that he may put himself, if he pleases, in the safest place he can find in all his dominions, and if he does not find my hand upon him before the year is out, henever need fear me again as long as he lives. "

Nor was this expression of confidence in the success of the measureswhich he was taking a mere empty boast. William knew the power ofHarold, and he knew his own. The enterprise in which he had embarked wasnot a rash adventure. It was a cool, deliberate, well-considered plan. It appeared doubtful and dangerous in the eyes of mankind, for to meresuperficial observers it seemed simply an aggressive war waged by a dukeof Normandy, the ruler of a comparatively small and insignificantprovince, against a king of England, the monarch of one of the greatestand most powerful realms in the world. William, on the other hand, regarded it as an effort on the part of the rightful heir to a throne todispossess a usurper. He felt confident of having the sympathy andco-operation of a great part of the community, even in England, themoment he could show them that he was able to maintain his rights; andthat he could show them that, by a very decisive demonstration, wasevident, visibly, before him, in the vast fleet which was riding atanchor in the harbor, and in the long lines of tents, filled withsoldiery, which covered the land. 

On one occasion, when some of his officers were expressing apprehensionsof Harold's power, and their fears in respect to their being ablesuccessfully to cope with it, William replied, that the more formidableHarold's power should prove to be, the better he should be pleased, asthe glory would be all the greater for them in having overcome it. "Ihave no objection, " said he, "that you should entertain exalted ideas ofhis strength, though I wonder a little that you do not better appreciateour own. I need be under no concern lest he, at such a distance, shouldlearn too much, by his spies, about the force which I am bringingagainst him, when you, who are so near me, seem to know so little aboutit. But do not give yourselves any concern. Trust to the justice of yourcause and to my foresight. Perform your parts like men, and you willfind that the result which I feel sure of, and you hope for, willcertainly be attained. "

The storm at length entirely cleared away, and the army and the fleetcommenced their preparations for the final departure. In the midst ofthis closing scene, the attention of all the vast crowds assembled onboard the ships and on the shores was one morning attracted by abeautiful ship which came sailing into the harbor. It proved to be alarge and splendid vessel which the Duchess Matilda had built, at herown expense, and was now bringing in, to offer to her husband asher parting gift. She was herself on board, with her officers andattendants, having come to witness her husband's departure, and to bidhim farewell. Her arrival, of course, under such circumstances, produceduniversal excitement and enthusiasm. The ships in harbor and the shoresresounded with acclamations as the new arrival came gallantly in. 

Matilda's vessel was finely built and splendidly decorated. The sailswere of different colors, which gave it a very gay appearance. Upon themwere painted, in various places, the three lions, which was the deviceof the Norman ensign. At the bows of the ship was an effigy, orfigure-head, representing William and Matilda's second son shooting witha bow. This was the accomplishment which, of all others, his father tookmost interest in seeing his little son acquire. The arrow was drawnnearly to its head, indicating great strength in the little arms whichwere guiding it, and it was just ready to fly. The name of this vesselwas the Mira. William made it his flag ship. He hoisted upon its masthead the consecrated banner which had been sent to him from Rome, andwent on board accompanied by his officers and guards, and with greatceremony and parade. 

At length the squadron was ready to put to sea. At a given signal thesails were hoisted, and the whole fleet began to move slowly out of theharbor. There were four hundred ships of large size, if we may believethe chronicles of the times, and more than a thousand transports. Thedecks of all these vessels were covered with men; banners were streamingfrom every mast and spar; and every salient point of the shore wascrowded with spectators. The sea was calm, the air serene, and themighty cloud of canvas which whitened the surface of the water movedslowly on over the gentle swell of the waves, forming a spectacle which, as a picture merely for the eye, was magnificent and grand, and, whenregarded in connection with the vast results to the human race whichwere to flow from the success of the enterprise, must have beenconsidered sublime. 

The splendidly decorated ship which Matilda had presented to her husbandproved itself, on trial, to be something more than a mere toy. It ledthe van at the commencement, of course; and as all eyes watched itsprogress, it soon became evident that it was slowly gaining upon therest of the squadron, so as continually to increase its distance fromthose that were following it. William, pleased with the success of itsperformance, ordered the sailing master to keep on, without regard tothose who were behind; and thus it happened that, when night came on, the fleet was at very considerable distance in rear of the flag ship. Ofcourse, under these circumstances, the fleet disappeared from sight whenthe sun went down, but all expected that it would come into view againin the morning. When the morning came, however, to the surprise anddisappointment of every one on board the flag ship, no signs of thefleet were to be seen. The seamen, and the officers on the deck, gazedlong and intently into the southern horizon as the increasing light ofthe morning brought it gradually into view, but there was not a speck tobreak its smooth and even line. 

They felt anxious and uneasy, but William seemed to experience noconcern. He ordered the sails to be furled, and then sent a man to themast head to look out there. Nothing was to be seen. William, stillapparently unconcerned, ordered breakfast to be prepared in a verysumptuous manner, loading the tables with wine and other delicacies, that the minds of all on board might be cheered by the exhilaratinginfluence of a feast. At length the lookout was sent to the mast headagain. "What do you see now?" said William. "I see, " said the man, gazing very intently all the while toward the south, "four _very smallspecks_ just in the horizon. " The intense interest which thisannouncement awakened on the deck was soon at the same time _heightened_and _relieved_ by the cry, "I can see more and more--they are theships--yes, the whole squadron is coming into view. "

The advancing fleet soon came up with the Mira, when the latter spreadher sails again, and all moved slowly on together toward the coast ofEngland. 

The ships had directed their course so much to the eastward, that whenthey made the land they were not very far from the Straits of Dover. Asthey drew near to the English shore, they watched very narrowly for theappearance of Harold's cruisers, which they naturally expected wouldhave been stationed at various points, to guard the coast; but none wereto be seen. There had been such cruisers, and there still were such offthe other harbors; but it happened, very fortunately for William, thatthose which had been stationed to guard this part of the island had beenwithdrawn a few days before, on account of their provisions beingexhausted. Thus, when William's fleet arrived, there was no enemy tooppose their landing. There was a large and open bay, called the Bay ofPevensey, which lay smiling before them, extending its arms as ifinviting them in. The fleet advanced to within the proper distance fromthe land, and there the seamen cast their anchors, and all began toprepare for the work of disembarkation. 

A strong body of soldiery is of course landed first on such occasions. In this instance the archers, William's favorite corps, were selected totake the lead. William accompanied them. In his eagerness to get to theshore, as he leaped from the boat, his foot slipped, and he fell. Theofficers and men around him would have considered this an evil omen; buthe had presence of mind enough to extend his arms and grasp the ground, pretending that his prostration was designed, and saying at the sametime, "Thus I seize this land; from this moment it is mine. " As hearose, one of his officers ran to a neighboring hut which stood near byupon the shore, and breaking off a little of the thatch, carried it toWilliam, and, putting it into his hand, said that he thus gave him_seizin_ of his new possessions. This was a customary form, in thosetimes, of putting a new owner into possession of lands which he hadpurchased or acquired in any other way. The new proprietor would repairto the ground, where the party whose province it was to deliver theproperty would detach something from it, such as a piece of turf from abank, or a little of the thatch from a cottage, and offering it to him, would say, "Thus I deliver thee _seizin_, " that is, _possession_, "ofthis land. " This ceremony was necessary to complete the conveyance ofthe estate. 

The soldiers, as soon as they were landed, began immediately to form anencampment, and to make such military arrangements as were necessary toguard against an attack, or the sudden appearance of an enemy. Whilethis was going on, the boats continued to pass to and fro, accomplishing, as fast as possible, the work of disembarkation. Inaddition to those regularly attached to the army, there was a vastcompany of workmen of all kinds, engineers, pioneers, carpenters, masons, and laborers, to be landed; and there were three towers, orrather forts, built of timber, which had been framed and fashioned inNormandy, ready to be put up on arriving: these had now to be landed, piece by piece, on the strand. These forts were to be erected as soon asthe army should have chosen a position for a permanent encampment, andwere intended as a means of protection for the provisions and stores. The circumstance shows that the plan of transporting buildings readymade, across the seas, has not been invented anew by our emigrants toCalifornia. 

While these operations were going on, William dispatched small squadronsof horse as reconnoitering parties, to explore the country around, tosee if there were any indications that Harold was near. These partiesreturned, one after another, after having gone some miles into thecountry in all directions, and reported that there were no signs of anenemy to be seen. Things were now getting settled, too, in the camp, and William gave directions that the army should kindle their camp firesfor the night, and prepare and eat their suppers. His own supper, ordinner, as perhaps it might be called, was also served, which hepartook, with his officers, in his own tent. His mind was in a state ofgreat contentment and satisfaction at the successful accomplishment ofthe landing, and at finding himself thus safely established, at the headof a vast force, within the realm of England. 

Every circumstance of the transit had been favorable excepting one, andthat was, that two of the ships belonging to the fleet were missing. William inquired at supper if any tidings of them had been received. They told him, in reply, that the missing vessels had been heard from;they had, in some way or other, been run upon the rocks and lost. Therewas a certain astrologer, who had made a great parade, before theexpedition left Normandy, of predicting its result. He had found, byconsulting the stars, that William would be successful, and would meetwith no opposition from Harold. This astrologer had been on board one ofthe missing ships, and was drowned. William remarked, on receiving thisinformation, "What an idiot a man must be, to think that he can predict, by means of the stars, the future fate of others, when it is so plainthat he can not foresee his own!"

It is said that William's dinner on this occasion was served on a largestone instead of a table. The stone still remains on the spot, and iscalled "the Conqueror's Stone" to this day. 

The next day after the landing, the army was put in motion, and advancedalong the coast toward the eastward. There was no armed enemy to contendagainst them there or to oppose their march; the people of the country, through which the army moved, far from attempting to resist them, werefilled with terror and dismay. This terror was heightened, in fact, bysome excesses of which some parties of the soldiers were guilty. Theinhabitants of the hamlets and villages, overwhelmed with consternationat the sudden descent upon their shores of such a vast horde of wild anddesperate foreigners, fled in all directions. Some made their escapeinto the interior; others, taking with them the helpless members oftheir households, and such valuables as they could carry, sought refugein monasteries and churches, supposing that such sanctuaries as those, not even soldiers, unless they were pagans, would dare to violate. Others, still, attempted to conceal themselves in thickets and fens tillthe vast throng which was sweeping onward like a tornado should havepassed. Though William afterward always evinced a decided disposition toprotect the peaceful inhabitants of the country from all aggressions onthe part of his troops, he had no time to attend to that subject now. Hewas intent on pressing forward to a place of safety. 

William reached at length a position which seemed to him suitable for apermanent encampment. It was an elevated land, near the sea. To thewestward of it was a valley formed by a sort of recess opened in therange of chalky cliffs which here form the shore of England. In thebottom of this valley, down upon the beach, was a small town, then of nogreat consequence or power, but whose name, which was Hastings, hassince been immortalized by the battle which was fought in its vicinity afew days after William's arrival. The position which William selectedfor his encampment was on high land in the vicinity of the town. Thelines of the encampment were marked out, and the forts or castles whichhad been brought from Normandy were set up within the inclosures. Vastmultitudes of laborers were soon at work, throwing up embankments, andbuilding redoubts and bastions, while others were transporting the arms, the provisions, and the munitions of war, and storing them in securitywithin the lines. The encampment was soon completed, and the long lineof tents were set up in streets and squares within it. By the time, however, that the work was done, some of William's agents and spies cameinto camp from the north, saying that in four days Harold would be uponhim at the head of a hundred thousand men. 

CHAPTER X. 

THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS. 

A. D. 1066

Tostig. --He is driven from England. --Expedition of Tostig. --He sailsto Norway. --Tostig's alliance with the Norwegians. --The Norwegianfleet. --Superstitions. --Dreams of the soldiers. --The combinedfleets. --Attack on Scarborough. --The rolling fire. --Burning ofScarborough. --Tostig marches to York. --Surrender of the city. --Arrivalof King Harold. --Movements of Tostig. --Surprise of Tostig and hisallies. --Preparations for battle. --Negotiations between Tostig and hisbrother. --The battle. --Death of Tostig. --The Norwegians retire. --Haroldattempts to surprise William. --His failure. --Advice of Harold'scounselors. --He rejects it. --Harold's encampment. --The countryalarmed. --Harold's brothers. --He proposes to visit William'scamp. --Harold's arrival at William's lines. --He reconnoiters thecamp. --Harold's despondency. --His spies. --Their report. --William'sembassadors. --Their propositions. --William's propositionsunreasonable. --Harold declines them. --Further proposals ofWilliam. --Counter proposal of Harold. --Harold's forebodings. --Proposalsof his brothers. --Night before the battle. --Scenes in Harold'scamp. --Scenes in William's camp. --Religious ceremonies. --A martialbishop. --William's war-horse. --Preliminary arrangements. --Battle ofHastings. --Defeat of Harold. --He is slain. --Final subjugation of theisland. --William crowned at Westminster. --William's power. --Hisgreatness. 

The reader will doubtless recollect that the tidings which William firstreceived of the accession of King Harold were brought to him by Tostig, Harold's brother, on the day when he was trying his bow and arrows inthe park at Rouen. Tostig was his brother's most inveterate foe. He hadbeen, during the reign of Edward, a great chieftain, ruling over thenorth of England. The city of York was then his capital. He had beenexpelled from these his dominions, and had quarreled with his brotherHarold in respect to his right to be restored to them. In the course ofthis quarrel he was driven from the country altogether, and went to theContinent, burning with rage and resentment against his brother; andwhen he came to inform William of Harold's usurpation, his object wasnot merely to arouse _William_ to action--he wished to act himself. Hetold William that he himself had more influence in England still thanhis brother, and that if William would supply him with a small fleetand a moderate number of men, he would make a descent upon the coast andshow what he could do. 

William acceded to his proposal, and furnished him with the force whichhe required, and Tostig set sail. William had not, apparently, muchconfidence in the power of Tostig to produce any great effect, but hisefforts, he thought, might cause some alarm in England, and occasionsudden and fatiguing marches to the troops, and thus distract and weakenKing Harold's forces. William would not, therefore, accompany Tostighimself, but, dismissing him with such force as he could readily raiseon so sudden a call, he remained himself in Normandy, and commenced inearnest his own grand preparations, as is described in the last chapter. 

Tostig did not think it prudent to attempt a landing on English shoresuntil he had obtained some accession to the force which William hadgiven him. He accordingly passed through the Straits of Dover, and thenturning northward, he sailed along the eastern shores of the GermanOcean in search of allies. He came, at length, to Norway. He enteredinto negotiations there with the Norwegian king, whose name, too, wasHarold. This northern Harold was a wild and adventurous soldier andsailor, a sort of sea king, who had spent a considerable portion of hislife in marauding excursions upon the seas. He readily entered intoTostig's views. An arrangement was soon concluded, and Tostig set sailagain to cross the German Ocean toward the British shores, while Haroldpromised to collect and equip his own fleet as soon as possible, andfollow him. All this took place early in September; so that, at the sametime that William's threatened invasion was gathering strength andmenacing Harold's southern frontier, a cloud equally dark and gloomy, and quite as threatening in its aspect, was rising and swelling in thenorth; while King Harold himself, though full of vague uneasiness andalarm, could gain no certain information in respect to either of thesedangers. 

The Norwegian fleet assembled at the port appointed for the rendezvousof it, but, as the season was advanced and the weather stormy, thesoldiers there, like William's soldiers on the coast of France, wereafraid to put to sea. Some of them had dreams which they considered asbad omens; and so much superstitious importance was attached to suchideas in those times that these dreams were gravely recorded by thewriters of the ancient chronicles, and have come down to us as part ofthe regular and sober history of the times. One soldier dreamed that theexpedition had sailed and landed on the English coast, and that therethe English army came out to meet them. Before the front of the armyrode a woman of gigantic stature, mounted on a wolf. The wolf had in hisjaws a human body, dripping with blood, which he was engaged indevouring as he came along. The woman gave the wolf another victim afterhe had devoured the first. 

Another of these ominous dreams was the following: Just as the fleet wasabout setting sail, the dreamer saw a crowd of ravenous vultures andbirds of prey come and alight every where upon the sails and rigging ofthe ships, as if they were going to accompany the expedition. Upon thesummit of a rock near the shore there sat the figure of a female, with astern and ferocious countenance, and a drawn sword in her hand. She wasbusy counting the ships, pointing at them, as she counted, with hersword. She seemed a sort of fiend of destruction, and she called out tothe birds, to encourage them to go. "Go!" said she, "without fear; youshall have abundance of prey. I am going too. "

It is obvious that these dreams might as easily have been interpreted toportend death and destruction to their English foes as to the dreamersthemselves. The soldiers were, however, inclined--in the state of mindwhich the season of the year, the threatening aspect of the skies, andthe certain dangers of their distant expedition, produced--to apply thegloomy predictions which they imagined these dreams expressed, tothemselves. Their chief, however, was of too desperate and determined acharacter to pay any regard to such influences. He set sail. Hisarmament crossed the German Sea in safety, and joined Tostig on thecoast of Scotland. The combined fleet moved slowly southward, along theshore, watching for an opportunity to land. 

[Illustration: THE NORWEGIANS AT SCARBOROUGH. ]

They reached, at length, the town of Scarborough, and landed to attackit. The inhabitants retired within the walls, shut the gates, and bidthe invaders defiance. The town was situated under a hill, which rose ina steep acclivity upon one side. The story is, that the Norwegians wentupon this hill, where they piled up an enormous heap of trunks andbranches of trees, with the interstices filled with stubble, driedbark, and roots, and other such combustibles, and then setting the wholemass on fire, they rolled it down into the town--a vast ball of fire, roaring and crackling more and more, by the fanning of its flames in thewind, as it bounded along. The intelligent reader will, of course, pauseand hesitate, in considering how far to credit such a story. It isobviously impossible that any mere _pile_, however closely packed, couldbe made to roll. But it is, perhaps, not absolutely impossible thattrunks of trees might be framed together, or fastened with wet thongs oriron chains, after being made in the form of a rude cylinder or ball, and filled with combustibles within, so as to retain its integrity insuch a descent. 

The account states that this strange method of bombardment wassuccessful. The town was set on fire; the people surrendered. Tostig andthe Norwegians plundered it, and then, embarking again in their ships, they continued their voyage. 

The intelligence of this descent upon his northern coasts reached Haroldin London toward the close of September, just as he was withdrawing hisforces from the southern frontier, as was related in the last chapter, under the idea that the Norman invasion would probably be postponeduntil the spring; so that, instead of sending his troops into theirwinter quarters, he had to concentrate them again with all dispatch, andmarch at the head of them to the north, to avert this new and unexpecteddanger. 

While King Harold was thus advancing to meet them, Tostig and hisNorwegian allies entered the River Humber. Their object was to reach thecity of York, which had been Tostig's former capital, and which wassituated near the River Ouse, a branch of the Humber. They accordinglyascended the Humber to the mouth of the Ouse, and thence up the latterriver to a suitable point of debarkation not far from York. Here theylanded and formed a great encampment. From this encampment they advancedto the siege of the city. The inhabitants made some resistance at first;but, finding that their cause was hopeless, they offered to surrender, and a treaty of surrender was finally concluded. This negotiation wasclosed toward the evening of the day, and Tostig and his confederateforces were to be admitted on the morrow. They therefore, feeling thattheir prize was secure, withdrew to their encampment for the night, andleft the city to its repose. 

It so happened that King Harold arrived that very night, coming to therescue of the city. He expected to have found an army of besiegersaround the walls, but, instead of that, there was nothing to intercepthis progress up to the very gates of the city. The inhabitants openedthe gates to receive him, and the whole detachment which was marchingunder his command passed in, while Tostig and his Norwegian allies weresleeping quietly in their camp, wholly unconscious of the great changewhich had thus taken place in the situation of their affairs. 

The next morning Tostig drew out a large portion of the army, and formedthem in array, for the purpose of advancing to take possession of thecity. Although it was September, and the weather had been cold andstormy, it happened that, on that morning, the sun came out bright, andthe air was calm, giving promise of a warm day; and as the movement intothe city was to be a peaceful one--a procession, as it were, and not ahostile march--the men were ordered to leave their coats of mail and alltheir heavy armor in camp, that they might march the more unencumbered. While they were advancing in this unconcerned and almost defenselesscondition, they saw before them, on the road leading to the city, agreat cloud of dust arising. It was a strong body of King Harold'stroops coming out to attack them. At first, Tostig and the Norwegianswere completely lost and bewildered at the appearance of so unexpected aspectacle. Very soon they could see weapons glittering here and there, and banners flying. A cry of "The enemy! the enemy!" arose, and passedalong their ranks, producing universal alarm. Tostig and the NorwegianHarold halted their men, and marshaled them hastily in battle array. TheEnglish Harold did the same, when he had drawn up near to the front ofthe enemy; both parties then paused, and stood surveying one another. Presently there was seen advancing from the English side a squadron oftwenty horsemen, splendidly armed, and bearing a flag of truce. Theyapproached to within a short distance of the Norwegian lines, when aherald, who was among them, called out aloud for Tostig. Tostig cameforward in answer to the summons. The herald then proclaimed to Tostigthat his brother did not wish to contend with him, but desired, on thecontrary, that they should live together in harmony. He offered himpeace, therefore, if he would lay down his arms, and he promised torestore him his former possessions and honors. 

Tostig seemed very much inclined to receive this proposition favorably. He paused and hesitated. At length he asked the messenger what termsKing Harold would make with his friend and ally, the Norwegian Harold. "He shall have, " replied the messenger, "seven feet of English groundfor a grave. He shall have a little more than that, for he is tallerthan common men. " "Then, " replied Tostig, "tell my brother to preparefor battle. It shall never be said that I abandoned and betrayed my allyand friend. "

The troop returned with Tostig's answer to Harold's lines, and thebattle almost immediately began. Of course the most eager and inveteratehostility of the English army would be directed against the Norwegiansand their king, whom they considered as foreign intruders, without anyexcuse or pretext for their aggression. It accordingly happened that, very soon after the commencement of the conflict, Harold the Norwegianfell, mortally wounded by an arrow in his throat. The English king thenmade new proposals to Tostig to cease the combat, and come to someterms of accommodation. But, in the mean time, Tostig had become himselfincensed, and would listen to no overtures of peace. He continued thecombat until he was himself killed. The remaining combatants in his armyhad now no longer any motive for resistance. Harold offered them a freepassage to their ships, that they might return home in peace, if theywould lay down their arms. They accepted the offer, retired on boardtheir ships, and set sail. Harold then, having, in the mean time, heardof William's landing on the southern coast, set out on his return to thesouthward, to meet the more formidable enemy that menaced him there. 

His army, though victorious, was weakened by the fatigues of the march, and by the losses suffered in the battle. Harold himself had beenwounded, though not so severely as to prevent his continuing to exercisethe command. He pressed on toward the south with great energy, sendingmessages on every side, into the surrounding country, on his line ofmarch, calling upon the chieftains to arm themselves and theirfollowers, and to come on with all possible dispatch, and join him. Hehoped to advance so rapidly to the southern coast as to surpriseWilliam before he should have fully intrenched himself in his camp, andwithout his being aware of his enemy's approach. But William, in orderto guard effectually against surprise, had sent out small reconnoiteringparties of horsemen on all the roads leading northward, that they mightbring him in intelligence of the first approach of the enemy. Harold'sadvanced guard met these parties, and saw them as they drove rapidlyback to the camp to give the alarm. Thus the hope of surprising Williamwas disappointed. Harold found, too, by his spies, as he drew near, tohis utter dismay, that William's forces were four times as numerous ashis own. It would, of course, be madness for him to think of attackingan enemy in his intrenchments with such an inferior force. The onlyalternative left him was either to retreat, or else to take some strongposition and fortify himself there, in the hope of being able to resistthe invaders and arrest their advance, though he was not strong enoughto attack them. 

Some of his counselors advised him not to hazard a battle at all, butto fall back toward London, carrying with him or destroying every thingwhich could afford sustenance to William's army from the whole breadthof the land. This would soon, they said, reduce William's army to greatdistress for want of food, since it would be impossible for him totransport supplies across the Channel for so vast a multitude. Besides, they said, this plan would compel William, in the extremity to whichhe would be reduced, to make so many predatory excursions among the moredistant villages and towns, as would exasperate the inhabitants, and induce them to join Harold's army in great numbers to repelthe invasion. Harold listened to these counsels, but said, afterconsideration, that he could never adopt such a plan. He could not beso derelict to his duty as to lay waste a country which he was underobligations to protect and save, or compel his people to come to his aidby exposing them, designedly, to the excesses and cruelties of soferocious an enemy. 

Harold determined, therefore, on giving William battle. It was notnecessary, however, for him to attack the invader. He perceived at oncethat if he should take a strong position and fortify himself in it, William must necessarily attack _him_, since a foreign army, just landedin the country, could not long remain inactive on the shore. Haroldaccordingly chose a position six or seven miles from William's camp, and fortified himself strongly there. Of course neither army was insight of the other, or knew the numbers, disposition, or plans of theenemy. The country between them was, so far as the inhabitants wereconcerned, a scene of consternation and terror. No one knew at whatpoint the two vast clouds of danger and destruction which were hoveringnear them would meet, or over what regions the terrible storm which wasto burst forth when the hour of that meeting should come, would sweep inits destructive fury. The inhabitants, therefore, were every whereflying in dismay, conveying away the aged and the helpless by any meanswhich came most readily to hand; taking with them, too, such treasuresas they could carry, and hiding, in rude and uncertain places ofconcealment, those which they were compelled to leave behind. Theregion, thus, which lay between the two encampments was rapidly becominga solitude and a desolation, across which no communication was made, andno tidings passed to give the armies at the encampments intelligence ofeach other. 

Harold had two brothers among the officers of his army, Gurth andLeofwin. Their conduct toward the king seems to have been of a morefraternal character than that of Tostig, who had acted the part of arebel and an enemy. Gurth and Leofwin, on the contrary, adhered to hiscause, and, as the hour of danger and the great crisis which was todecide their fate drew nigh, they kept close to his side, and evinced atruly fraternal solicitude for his safety. It was they, specially, whohad recommended to Harold to fall back on London, and not risk his life, and the fate of his kingdom, on the uncertain event of a battle. 

As soon as Harold had completed his encampment, he expressed a desireto Gurth to ride across the intermediate country and take a view ofWilliam's lines. Such an undertaking was less dangerous then than itwould be at the present day; for now, such a reconnoitering party wouldbe discovered from the enemy's encampment, at a great distance, by meansof spy-glasses, and a twenty-four-pound shot or a shell would be sentfrom a battery to blow the party to pieces or drive them away. The onlydanger _then_ was of being pursued by a detachment of horsemen from thecamp, or surrounded by an ambuscade. To guard against these dangers, Harold and Gurth took the most powerful and fleetest horses in thecamp, and they called out a small but strong guard of well-selected mento escort them. Thus provided and attended, they rode over to theenemy's lines, and advanced so near that, from a small eminence to whichthey ascended, they could survey the whole scene of William'sencampment: the palisades and embankments with which it was guarded, which extended for miles; the long lines of tents within; the vastmultitude of soldiers; the knights and officers riding to and fro, glittering with steel; and the grand pavilion of the duke himself, withthe consecrated banner of the cross floating above it. Harold was verymuch impressed with the grandeur of the spectacle. 

After gazing on this scene for some time in silence, Harold said toGurth that perhaps, after all, the policy of falling back would havebeen the wisest for them to adopt, rather than to risk a battle with sooverwhelming a force as they saw before them. He did not know, he added, but that it would be best for them to change their plan, and adopt thatpolicy now. Gurth said that it was too late. They had taken their stand, and now for them to break up their encampment and retire would beconsidered a retreat and not a maneuver, and it would discourage anddishearten the whole realm. 

After surveying thus, as long as they desired to do so, the situationand extent of William's encampment, Harold's party returned to their ownlines, still determined to make a stand there against the invaders, butfeeling great doubt and despondency in respect to the result. Haroldsent over, too, in the course of the day, some spies. The men whom heemployed for this purpose were Normans by birth, and they could speakthe French language. There were many Normans in England, who had comeover in King Edward's time. These Norman spies could, of course, disguise themselves, and mingle, without attracting attention, among thethousands of workmen and camp followers that were going and comingcontinually around the grounds which William's army occupied. They didthis so effectually, that they penetrated within the encampment withoutdifficulty, examined every thing, and, in due time, returned to Haroldwith their report. They gave a formidable account of the numbers andcondition of William's troops. There was a large corps of bowmen in thearmy, which had adopted a fashion of being shaven and shorn in such amanner that the spies mistook them for priests. They told Harold, accordingly, on their return, that there were more _priests_ inWilliam's camp than there were soldiers in all his army. 

During this eventful day, William too sent a body of horsemen across thecountry which separated the two encampments, though his emissaries werenot spies, but embassadors, with propositions for peace. William had nowish to fight a battle, if what he considered as rightfully his kingdomcould be delivered to him without it; and he determined to make onefinal effort to obtain a peaceable surrender of it, before coming to thedreadful resort of an appeal to arms. He accordingly sent his embassywith _three_ propositions to make to the English king. The principalmessenger in this company was a monk, whose name was Maigrot. He rode, with a proper escort and a flag of truce, to Harold's lines. Thepropositions were these, by accepting either of which the monk said thatHarold might avoid a battle. 1. That Harold should surrender the kingdomto William, as he had solemnly sworn to do over the sacred relics inNormandy. 2. That they should both agree to refer the whole subject ofcontroversy between them to the pope, and abide by his decision. 3. That they should settle the dispute by single combat, the two claimantsto the crown to fight a duel on the plain, in presence of theirrespective armies. 

It is obvious that Harold could not accept either of these propositions. The first was to give up the whole point at issue. As for the second, the pope had already prejudged the case, and if it were to be referredto him, there could be no doubt that he would simply reaffirm his formerdecision. And in respect to single combat, the disadvantage on Harold'spart would be as great in such a contest as it would be in the proposedarbitration. He was himself a man of comparatively slender form and oflittle bodily strength. William, on the other hand, was distinguishedfor his size, and for his extraordinary muscular energy. In a moderncombat with fire-arms these personal advantages would be of no avail, but in those days, when the weapons were battle-axes, lances, andswords, they were almost decisive of the result. Harold thereforedeclined all William's propositions, and the monk returned. 

William seems not to have been wholly discouraged by this failure of hisfirst attempt at negotiation, for he sent his embassage a second timeto make one more proposal. It was, that if Harold would consent toacknowledge William as King of England, William would assign the wholeterritory to him and to his brother Gurth, to hold _as provinces_, underWilliam's general sway. Under this arrangement William would himselfreturn to Normandy, making the city of Rouen, which was his capitalthere, the capital of the whole united realm. To this proposal Haroldreplied, that he could not, on any terms, give up his rights assovereign of England. He therefore declined this proposal also. He, however, now made a proposition in his turn. He was willing, he said, tocompromise the dispute, so far as it could be done by _the payment ofmoney_. If William would abandon his invasion and return to Normandy, giving up his claims to the English crown, he would pay him, he said, any sum of money that he would name. 

William could not accept this proposal. He was, as he believed, the trueand rightful heir to the throne of England, and there was a point ofhonor involved, as well as a dictate of ambition to be obeyed, ininsisting on the claim. In the mean time, the day had passed, whilethese fruitless negotiations had been pending. Night was coming on. William's officers and counselors began to be uneasy at the delay. Theysaid that every hour new re-enforcements were coming into Harold's camp, while they themselves were gaining no advantage, and, consequently, thelonger the battle was delayed, the less was the certainty of victory. SoWilliam promised them that he would attack King Harold in his camp thevery next morning. 

As the time for the great final struggle drew near, Harold's mind wasoppressed more and more with a sense of anxiety and with forebodingfears. His brothers, too, were ill at ease. Their solicitude wasincreased by the recollection of Harold's oath, and of the awfulsanctions with which they feared the sacred relics might have investedit. They were not sure that their brother's excuse for setting it asidewould save him from the guilt and curse of perjury in the sight ofHeaven. So they proposed, on the eve of the battle, that Harold himselfshould retire, and leave them to conduct the defense. "We can not deny, "they said, "that you did take the oath; and, notwithstanding thecircumstances which seem to absolve you from the obligation, it is bestto avoid, if possible, the open violation of it. It will be better, onthe whole, for you to leave the army and go to London. You can aid veryeffectually in the defense of the kingdom by raising re-enforcementsthere. We will stay and encounter the actual battle. Heaven can not bedispleased with us for so doing, for we shall be only discharging theduty incumbent on all, of defending their native land from foreigninvasion. "

Harold would not consent to adopt this plan. He could not retirehimself, he said, at the hour of approaching danger, and leave hisbrothers and his friends exposed, when it was _his_ crown for whichthey were contending. 

Such were the circumstances of the two armies on the evening before thebattle; and, of course, in such a state of things, the tendency of theminds of men would be, in Harold's camp, to gloom and despondency, andin William's, to confidence and exultation. Harold undertook, as men inhis circumstances often do, to lighten the load which weighed upon hisown heart and oppressed the spirits of his men, by feasting and wine. Heordered a plentiful supper to be served, and supplied his soldiers withabundance of drink; and it is said that his whole camp exhibited, duringthe whole night, one wide-spread scene of carousing and revelry, thetroops being gathered every where in groups around their camp fires, some half stupefied, others quarreling, and others still singingnational songs, and dancing with wild excitement, according to thevarious effects produced upon different constitutions by theintoxicating influence of beer and wine. 

In William's camp there were witnessed very different scenes. There werea great many monks and ecclesiastics in the train of his army, and, onthe night before the battle, they spent the time in saying masses, reading litanies and prayers, chanting anthems, and in other similaracts of worship, assisted by the soldiers, who gathered, in greatcongregations, for this wild worship, in the open spaces among the tentsand around the camp fires. At length they all retired to rest, feelingan additional sense of safety in respect to the work of the morrow byhaving, as they supposed, entitled themselves, by their piety, to theprotection of Heaven. 

In the morning, too, in William's camp, the first thing done was toconvene the army for a grand celebration of mass. It is a curiousillustration of the mingling of the religious, or, perhaps, we oughtrather to say, the superstitious sentiment of the times, with thespirit of war, that the bishop who officiated in this solemn service ofthe mass wore a coat of mail under his pontifical attire, and anattendant stood by his side, while he was offering his prayers, with asteel-pointed spear in his hand, ready for the martial prelate to assumeas soon as the service should be ended. Accordingly, when the religiousduty was performed, the bishop threw off his surplice, took his spear, and mounting his white charger, which was also all saddled and bridledbeside him, he headed a brigade of horse, and rode on to the assault ofthe enemy. 

William himself mounted a very magnificent war-horse from Spain, apresent which he had formerly received from one of his wealthy barons. The name of the horse was Bayard. From William's neck were suspendedsome of the most sacred of the relics over which Harold had taken hisfalse oath. He imagined that there would be some sort of charm in them, to protect his life, and to make the judgment of Heaven more sureagainst the perjurer. The standard which the pope had blessed was borneby his side by a young standard bearer, who was very proud of the honor. An older soldier, however, on whom the care of this standard officiallydevolved, had asked to be excused from carrying it. He wished, he said, to do his work that day with the _sword_. While making these preliminaryarrangements for going into battle, William, with the party around him, stood upon a gentle eminence in the middle of the camp, and in sight ofthe whole army. Every one was struck with admiration at the splendidfigure which their commander made--his large and well-formed limbscovered with steel, and his horse, whose form was as noble as that ofhis master, prancing restlessly, as if impatient for the battle tobegin. 

When all were ready, the Norman army advanced gayly and joyously toattack the English lines; but the gayety and joyousness of the scenesoon disappeared, as corps after corps got fairly engaged in the awfulwork of the day. For ten long hours there reigned over the whole fieldone wide-spread scene of havoc and death--every soul among all thosecountless thousands delivered up to the supreme dominion of the mostdreadful passions, excited to a perfect phrensy of hatred, rage, andrevenge, and all either mercilessly killing others, or dying themselvesin agony and despair. When night came, the Normans were every wherevictorious. They were in full possession of the field, and they rodetriumphantly to and fro through Harold's camp, leaping their horses overthe bodies of the dead and dying which covered the ground. Those of KingHarold's followers that had escaped the slaughter of the day fled inhopeless confusion toward the north, where the flying masses strewed theroads for miles with the bodies of men who sank down on the way, spentwith wounds or exhausted by fatigue. 

In the morning, William marshaled his men on the field, and called overthe names of the officers and men, as they had been registered inNormandy, for the purpose of ascertaining who were killed. While thismelancholy ceremony was going on, two monks came in, sent from theremains of the English army, and saying that King Harold was missing, and that it was rumored that he had been slain. If so, his body must belying somewhere, they said, upon the field, and they wished forpermission to make search for it. The permission was granted. With theaid of some soldiers they began to explore the ground, turning over andexamining every lifeless form which, by the dress or the armor, mightseem to be possibly the king's. Their search was for a long time vain;the ghastly faces of the dead were so mutilated and changed that nobodycould be identified. At length, however, a woman who had been inHarold's family, and knew his person more intimately than they, foundand recognized the body, and the monks and the soldiers carried it away. 

 * * * * *

The battle of Hastings sealed and settled the controversy in respect tothe English crown. It is true that the adherents of Harold, and alsothose of Edgar Atheling, made afterward various efforts to rally theirforces and recover the kingdom, but in vain. William advanced to London, fortified himself there, and made excursions from that city as a centreuntil he reduced the island to his sway. He was crowned at length, atWestminster Abbey, with great pomp and parade. He sent for Matilda tocome and join him, and instated her in his palace as Queen of England. He confiscated the property of all the English nobles who had foughtagainst him, and divided it among the Norman chieftains who had aidedhim in the invasion. He made various excursions to and from Normandyhimself, being received every where throughout his dominions, on bothsides the Channel, with the most distinguished honors. In a word, hebecame, in the course of a few years after he landed, one of thegreatest and most powerful potentates on the globe. How far all hisriches and grandeur were from making him happy, will appear in thefollowing chapter. 

CHAPTER XI. 

PRINCE ROBERT'S REBELLION. 

A. D. 1076-1077

William's oldest son. --His character. --William's conflicts with hisson Robert. --William Rufus. --William's son Henry. --Robert nicknamedShort Boots. --Robert's betrothment. --William's motives. --Deathof Margaret. --More trouble. --Robert's political power. --Hisambition. --Robert claims Normandy. --William refuses it. --Castle atL'Aigle. --Quarrel between Robert and William Rufus. --The combatantsparted. --Robert's rage. --Robert's rebellion. --Anxiety and distress ofMatilda. --Measures of Matilda. --Advantages of William. --Robert laysdown his arms. --Interview with his father. --Recriminations. --Theinterview fruitless. --Robert goes to Flanders. --His treasonablecorrespondence. --Action of Philip. --He sides with Robert. --Robert'sdissipation. --Matilda sends him supplies. --Matilda's secretsupplies. --She is discovered. --Matilda's messenger seized. --William'sreproaches. --Matilda's reply. --William's anger. --Sampson'sescape. --Things grow worse. --Preparations for war. --Matilda'sdistress. --William wounded by his son. --The battle goes againsthim. --Matilda's anguish. --The reconciliation. 

Ambitious men, who devote their time and attention, through all theearly years of life, to their personal and political aggrandizement, have little time to appropriate to the government and education of theirchildren, and their later years are often embittered by the dissipationand vice, or by the unreasonable exactions of their sons. At least itwas so in William's case. By the time that his public enemies weresubdued, and he found himself undisputed master both of his kingdom andhis duchy, his peace and happiness were destroyed, and the tranquillityof his whole realm was disturbed by a terrible family quarrel. 

The name of his oldest son was Robert. He was fourteen years old whenhis father set off on his invasion of England. At that time he was asort of spoiled child, having been his mother's favorite, and, as such, always greatly indulged by her. When William went away, it will berecollected that he appointed Matilda regent, to govern Normandy duringhis absence. This boy was also named in the regency, so that he wasnominally associated with his mother, and he considered himself, doubtless, as the more important personage of the two. In a word, whileWilliam was engaged in England, prosecuting his conquests there, Robertwas growing up in Normandy a vain, self-conceited, and ungovernableyoung man. 

His father, in going back and forth between England and Normandy, oftencame into conflict with his son, as usual in such cases. In thesecontests Matilda took sides with the son. William's second son, whosename was William Rufus, was jealous of his older brother, and was oftenprovoked by the overbearing and imperious spirit which Robert displayed. William Rufus thus naturally adhered to the father's part in the familyfeud. William Rufus was as rough and turbulent in spirit as Robert, buthe had not been so indulged. He possessed, therefore, more self-control;he knew very well how to suppress his propensities, and conceal theunfavorable aspects of his character when in the presence of his father. 

There was a third brother, named Henry. He was of a more quiet andinoffensive character, and avoided taking an active part in thequarrel, except so far as William Rufus led him on. He was WilliamRufus's friend and companion, and, as such, Robert considered him as hisenemy. All, in fact, except Matilda, were against Robert, who lookeddown, in a haughty and domineering manner--as the oldest son and heiris very apt to do in rich and powerful families--upon the comparativeinsignificance of his younger brethren. The king, instead of restrainingthis imperious spirit in his son, as he might, perhaps, have done by aconsiderate and kind, and, at the same time, decisive exercise ofauthority, teased and tormented him by sarcasms and petty vexations. Among other instances of this, he gave him the nickname of _ShortBoots_, because he was of inferior stature. As Robert was, however, at this time of full age, he was stung to the quick at having such astigma attached to him by his father, and his bosom burned with secretsentiments of resentment and revenge. 

He had, besides, other causes of complaint against his father, moreserious still. When he was a very young child, his father, according tothe custom of the times, had espoused him to the daughter and heiress ofa neighboring earl, a child like himself. Her name was Margaret. Theearldom which this little Margaret was to inherit was Maine. It was onthe frontiers of Normandy, and it was a rich and valuable possession. Itwas a part of the stipulation of the marriage contract that the youngbride's domain was to be delivered to the father of the bridegroom, tobe held by him until the bridegroom should become of age, and themarriage should be fully consummated. In fact, the getting possession ofthis rich inheritance, with a prospect of holding it so many years, wasvery probably the principal end which William had in view in contractingfor a matrimonial union so very premature. 

If this was, in reality, William's plan, it resulted, in the end, evenmore favorably than he had anticipated; for the little heiress died ashort time after her inheritance was put into the possession of herfather-in-law. There was nobody to demand a restoration of it, and soWilliam continued to hold it until his son, the bridegroom, became ofage. Robert then demanded it, contending that it was justly his. Williamrefused to surrender it. He maintained that what had passed between hisson in his infancy, and the little Margaret, was not a marriage, butonly a betrothment--a contract for a future marriage, which was to takeplace when the parties were of age--that, since Margaret's deathprevented the consummation of the union, Robert was never her husband, and could not, consequently, acquire the rights of a husband. The lands, therefore, ought manifestly, he said, to remain in the hands of herguardian, and whatever rights any other persons might have, claiming tosucceed Margaret as her natural heirs, it was plain that his son couldhave no title whatever. 

However satisfactory this reasoning might be to the mind of William, Robert was only exasperated by it. He looked upon the case as one ofextreme injustice and oppression on the part of his father, who, notcontent, he said, with his own enormous possessions, must add to them byrobbing his own son. In this opinion Robert's mother, Matilda, agreedwith him. As for William Rufus and Henry, they paid little attention tothe argument, but were pleased with the result of it, and highly enjoyedtheir brother's vexation and chagrin in not being able to get possessionof his earldom. 

There was another very serious subject of dispute between Robert and hisfather. It has already been stated, that when the duke set out on hisexpedition for the invasion of England, he left Matilda and Roberttogether in charge of the duchy. At the commencement of the period ofhis absence Robert was very young, and the actual power rested mainly inhis mother's hands. As he grew older, however, he began to exercise anincreasing influence and control. In fact, as he was himself ambitiousand aspiring, and his mother indulgent, the power passed very rapidlyinto his hands. It was eight years from the time that William leftNormandy before his power was so far settled and established in Englandthat he could again take the affairs of his original realm into hishands. He had left Robert, at that time, a mere boy of fourteen, who, though rude and turbulent in character, was still politically powerless. He found him, on his return, a man of twenty-two, ruder and moreturbulent than before, and in the full possession of political power. This power, too, he found him very unwilling to surrender. 

In fact, when William came to receive back the province of Normandyagain, Robert almost refused to surrender it. He said that his fatherhad always promised him the duchy of Normandy as his domain so soon ashe should become of age, and he claimed now the fulfillment of thispromise. Besides, he said that, now that his father was King of England, his former realm was of no consequence to him. It did not add sensiblyto his influence or his power, and he might, therefore, withoutsuffering any sensible loss himself, grant it to his son. William, onhis part, did not acknowledge the force of either of these arguments. Hewould not admit that he had ever promised Normandy to his son; and as tovoluntarily relinquishing any part of his possessions, he had no faithin the policy of a man's giving up his power or his property to hischildren until they were justly entitled to inherit it by his death; atany rate, he should not do it. He had no idea, as he expressed it, "ofputting off his clothes before he was going to bed. "

The irritation and ill-will which these dissensions produced grew deeperand more inveterate every day, though the disagreement had been thus fara private and domestic dispute, confined, in its influence, to theking's immediate household. An occasion, however, now occurred, on whichthe private family feud broke out into an open public quarrel. Thecircumstances were these:

King William had a castle in Normandy, at a place called L'Aigle. He wasspending some time there, in the year 1076, with his court and family. One day William Rufus and Henry were in one of the upper apartments ofthe castle, playing with dice, and amusing themselves, in company withother young men of the court, in various ways. There was a window in theapartment leading out upon a balcony, from which one might look downupon the court-yard of the castle below. Robert was in this court-yardwith some of _his_ companions, walking there in an irritated state ofmind, which had been produced by some previous disputes with hisbrothers. William Rufus looked down from the balcony and saw him, and byway, perhaps, of quenching his anger, poured some water down upon him. The deed changed the suppressed and silent irritation in Robert's heartto a perfect phrensy of rage and revenge. He drew his sword and sprangto the stair-case. He uttered loud and terrible imprecations as he went, declaring that he would kill the author of such an insult, even if he_was_ his brother. The court-yard was, of course, immediately filledwith shouts and exclamations of alarm, and every body pressed forwardtoward the room from which the water had been thrown, some to witness, and some to prevent the affray. 

The king himself, who happened to be in that part of the castle at thetime, was one of the number. He reached the apartment just in time tointerpose between his sons, and prevent the commission of the awfulcrime of fratricide. As it was, he found it extremely difficult to partthe ferocious combatants. It required all his paternal authority, andnot a little actual force, to arrest the affray. He succeeded, however, at length, with the help of the by-standers, in parting his sons, andRobert, out of breath, and pale with impotent rage, was led away. 

Robert considered his father as taking sides against him in thisquarrel, and he declared that he could not, and would not, endure suchtreatment any longer. He found some sympathy in the conversation of hismother, to whom he went immediately with bitter complainings. She triedto soothe and quiet his wounded spirit, but he would not be pacified. Hespent the afternoon and evening in organizing a party of wild anddesperate young men from among the nobles of the court, with a view ofraising a rebellion against his father, and getting possession ofNormandy by force. They kept their designs profoundly secret, butprepared to leave L'Aigle that night, to go and seize Rouen, thecapital, which they hoped to surprise into a surrender. Accordingly, inthe middle of the night, the desperate troop mounted their horses androde away. In the morning the king found that they were gone, and hesent an armed force after them. Their plan of surprising Rouen failed. The king's detachment overtook them, and, after a sharp contest, succeeded in capturing a few of the rebels, though Robert himself, accompanied by some of the more desperate of his followers, escaped overthe frontier into a neighboring province, where he sought refuge in thecastle of one of his father's enemies. 

This result, as might have been expected, filled the mind of Matildawith anxiety and distress. A civil war between her husband and her sonwas now inevitable; and while every consideration of prudence and ofduty required her to espouse the father's cause, her maternal love, aprinciple stronger far, in most cases, than prudence and duty combined, drew her irresistibly toward her son. Robert collected around him allthe discontented and desperate spirits of the realm, and for a longtime continued to make his father infinite trouble. Matilda, while sheforbore to advocate his cause openly in the presence of the king, keptup a secret communication with him. She sent him information and advicefrom time to time, and sometimes supplies, and was thus, technically, guilty of a great crime--the crime of maintaining a treasonablecorrespondence with a rebel. In a moral point of view, however, herconduct may have been entirely right; at any rate, its influence wasvery salutary, for she did all in her power to restrain both the fatherand the son; and by the influence which she thus exerted, she doubtlessmitigated very much the fierceness of the struggle. 

Of course, the advantage, in such a civil war as this, would be whollyon the side of the sovereign. William had all the power and resources ofthe kingdom in his own hands--the army, the towns, the castles, thetreasures. Robert had a troop of wild, desperate, and unmanageableoutlaws, without authority, without money, without a sense of justice ontheir side. He gradually became satisfied that the contest was vain. Inproportion as the activity of the hostilities diminished, Matilda becamemore and more open in her efforts to restrain it, and to allay theanimosity on either side. She succeeded, finally, in inducing Robert tolay down his arms, and then brought about an interview between theparties, in hopes of a peaceful settlement of the quarrel. 

It appeared very soon, however, at this interview, that there was nohope of any thing like a real and cordial reconciliation. Though boththe father and son had become weary of the unnatural war which they hadwaged against each other, yet the ambitious and selfish desires on bothsides, in which the contest had originated, remained unchanged. Robertbegan the conference by imperiously demanding of his father thefulfillment of his promise to give him the government of Normandy. Hisfather replied by reproaching him with his unnatural and wickedrebellion, and warned him of the danger he incurred, in imitating theexample of Absalom, of sharing that wretched rebel's fate. Robertrejoined that he did not come to meet his father for the sake of hearinga sermon preached. He had had enough of sermons, he said, when he was aboy, studying grammar. He wanted his father to do him justice, notpreach to him. The king said that he should never divide his dominions, while he lived, with any one; and added, notwithstanding what Robert hadcontemptuously said about sermons, that the Scripture declared that ahouse divided against itself could not stand. He then proceeded toreproach and incriminate the prince in the severest manner for hisdisloyalty as a subject, and his undutifulness and ingratitude as a son. It was intolerable, he said, that a son should become the rival andbitterest enemy of his father, when it was to him that he owed, notmerely all that he enjoyed, but his very existence itself. 

These reproaches were probably uttered in an imperious and angry manner, and with that spirit of denunciation which only irritates the accusedand arouses his resentment, instead of awakening feelings of penitenceand contrition. At any rate, the thought of his filial ingratitude, ashis father presented it, produced no relenting in Robert's mind. Heabruptly terminated the interview, and went out of his father's presencein a rage. 

In spite of all his mother's exertions and entreaties, he resolved toleave the country once more. He said he would rather be an exile, andwander homeless in foreign lands, than to remain in his father's court, and be treated in so unjust and ignominious a manner, by one who wasbound by the strongest possible obligations to be his best and truestfriend. Matilda could not induce him to change this determination; and, accordingly, taking with him a few of the most desperate and dissoluteof his companions, he went northward, crossed the frontier, and soughtrefuge in Flanders. Flanders, it will be recollected, was Matilda'snative land. Her brother was the Earl of Flanders at this time. The earlreceived young Robert very cordially, both for his sister's sake, andalso, probably, in some degree, as a means of petty hostility againstKing William, his powerful neighbor, whose glory and good fortune heenvied. 

Robert had not the means or the resources necessary for renewing an openwar with his father, but his disposition to do this was as strong asever, and he began immediately to open secret communications andcorrespondence with all the nobles and barons in Normandy whom hethought disposed to espouse his cause. He succeeded in inducing them tomake secret contributions of funds to supply his pecuniary wants, ofcourse promising to repay them with ample grants and rewards so soon ashe should obtain his rights. He maintained similar communications, too, with Matilda, though she kept them very profoundly secret from herhusband. 

Robert had other friends besides those whom he found thus furtively inNormandy. The King of France himself was much pleased at the breakingout of this terrible feud in the family of his neighbor, who, from beinghis dependent and vassal, had become, by his conquest of England, hisgreat competitor and rival in the estimation of mankind. Philip wasdisposed to rejoice at any occurrences which tended to tarnish William'sglory, or which threatened a division and diminution of his power. Hedirected his agents, therefore, both in Normandy and in Flanders, toencourage and promote the dissension by every means in their power. Hetook great care not to commit himself by any open and positive promisesof aid, and yet still he contrived, by a thousand indirect means, toencourage Robert to expect it. Thus the mischief was widened andextended, while yet nothing effectual was done toward organizing aninsurrection. In fact, Robert had neither the means nor the mentalcapacity necessary for maturing and carrying into effect any actualplan of rebellion. In the mean time, months passed away, and as nothingeffectual was done, Robert's adherents in Normandy became graduallydiscouraged. They ceased their contributions, and gradually forgot theirabsent and incompetent leader. Robert spent his time in dissipation andvice, squandering in feasts and in the company of abandoned men andwomen the means which his followers sent him to enable him to preparefor the war; and when, at last, these supplies failed him, he would havebeen reduced gradually to great distress and destitution, were it notthat one faithful and devoted friend still adhered to him. That friendwas his mother. 

Matilda knew very well that whatever she did for her absent son must bedone in the most clandestine manner, and this required much stratagemand contrivance on her part. She was aided, however, in her efforts atconcealment by her husband's absence. He was now for a time in England, having been called there by some pressing demands of public duty. Heleft a great minister of state in charge of Normandy, whose vigilanceMatilda thought it would be comparatively easy to elude. She sent toRobert, in Flanders, first her own private funds. Then she employed forthis purpose a portion of such public funds as came into her hands. Themore she sent, however, the more frequent and imperious were Robert'sdemands for fresh supplies. The resources of a mother, whether great orsmall, are always soon exhausted by the insatiable requirements of adissolute and profligate son. When Matilda's money was gone, she soldher jewels, then her more expensive clothes, and, finally, such objectsof value, belonging to herself or to her husband, as could be mosteasily and privately disposed of. The minister, who was very faithfuland watchful in the discharge of his duties, observed indications thatsomething mysterious was going on. His suspicions were aroused. Hewatched Matilda's movements, and soon discovered the truth. He sentinformation to William. William could not believe it possible that hisminister's surmises could be true; for William was simply a statesmanand a soldier, and had very inadequate ideas of the absorbing anduncontrollable power which is exercised by the principle of maternallove. 

He, however, determined immediately to take most efficient measures toascertain the truth. He returned to Normandy, and there he succeeded inintercepting one of Matilda's messengers on his way to Flanders, withcommunications and money for Robert. The name of this messenger wasSampson. William seized the money and the letters, and sent themessenger to one of his castles, to be shut up in a dungeon. Then, withthe proofs of guilt which he had thus obtained, he went, full ofastonishment and anger, to find Matilda, and to upbraid her, as hethought she deserved, for her base and ungrateful betrayal of herhusband. 

The reproaches which he addressed to her were bitter and stern, thoughthey seem to have been spoken in a tone of sorrow rather than of anger. "I am sure, " he said, "I have ever been to you a faithful and devotedhusband. I do not know what more you could have desired than I havedone. I have loved you with a sincere and true affection. I have honoredyou. I have placed you in the highest positions, intrusting yourepeatedly with large shares of my own sovereign power. I have confidedin you--committing my most essential and vital interests to your charge. And now this is the return. You employ the very position, and power, andmeans which your confiding husband has put into your hands, to betrayhim in the most cruel way, and to aid and encourage his worst and mostdangerous enemy. "

To these reproaches Matilda attempted no reply, except to plead theirresistible impetuosity and strength of her maternal love. "I could notbear, " she said, "to leave Robert in distress and suffering while I hadany possible means of relieving him. He is my child. I think of him allthe time. I love him more than my life. I solemnly declare to you, thatif he were now dead, and I could restore him to life by dying for him, Iwould most gladly do it. How, then, do you suppose that I could possiblylive here in abundance and luxury, while he was wandering homeless, indestitution and want, and not try to relieve him? Whether it is right orwrong for me to feel so, I do not know; but this I know, I _must_ feelso: I can not help it. He is our first-born son; I can not abandon him. "

William went away from the presence of Matilda full of resentment andanger. Of course he could do nothing in respect to her but reproach her, but he determined that the unlucky Sampson should suffer severely forthe crime. He sent orders to the castle where he lay immured, requiringthat his eyes should be put out. Matilda, however, discovered thedanger which threatened her messenger in time to send him warning. Hecontrived to make his escape, and fled to a certain monastery which wasunder Matilda's special patronage and charge. A monastery was, in thosedays, a sanctuary into which the arm even of the most despotic authorityscarcely dared to intrude in pursuit of its victim. To make the safetydoubly sure, the abbot proposed that the trembling fugitive should jointheir order and become a monk. Sampson was willing to do any thing tosave his life. The operation of putting out the eyes was very generallyfatal, so that he considered his life at stake. He was, accordingly, shaven and shorn, and clothed in the monastic garb. He assumed the vowsof the order, and entered, with his brother monks, upon the course offastings, penances, and prayers which pertained to his new vocation; andWilliam left him to pursue it in peace. 

Things went on worse instead of better after this discovery of themother's participation in the councils of the son. Either through theaid which his mother had rendered, or by other means, there seemed to bea strong party in and out of Normandy who were inclined to espouseRobert's cause. His friends, at length, raised a very considerablearmy, and putting him at the head of it, they advanced to attack Rouen. The king, greatly alarmed at this danger, collected all the forces thathe could command, and went to meet his rebel son. William Rufusaccompanied his father, intending to fight by his side; while Matilda, in an agony of terror and distress, remained, half distracted, withinher castle walls--as a wife and mother might be expected to be, on theapproach of a murderous conflict between her husband and her son. Thethought that one of them might, perhaps, be actually killed by theother, filled her with dismay. 

And, in fact, this dreadful result came very near being realized. Robert, in the castle at L'Aigle, had barely been prevented fromdestroying his brother, and now, on the plain of Archembraye, where thisbattle was fought, his father _fell_, and was very near being killed, byhis hand. In the midst of the fight, while the horsemen were impetuouslycharging each other in various parts of the field, all so disguised bytheir armor that no one could know the individual with whom he wascontending, Robert encountered a large and powerful knight, and drovehis lance through his armor into his arm. Through the shock of theencounter and the faintness produced by the agony of the wound, thehorseman fell to the ground, and Robert perceived, by the voice withwhich his fallen enemy cried out in his pain and terror, that it was hisfather that he had thus pierced with his steel. At the same moment, thewounded father, in looking at his victorious antagonist, recognizedhis son. He cursed his unnatural enemy with a bitter and terriblemalediction. Robert was shocked and terrified at what he had done. Heleaped from his horse, knelt down by the side of his father, and calledfor aid. The king, distracted by the anguish of his wound, and by theburning indignation and resentment which raged in his bosom against theunnatural hostility which inflicted it, turned away from his son, andrefused to receive any succor from him. 

Besides the misfortune of being unhorsed and wounded, the battle itselfwent that day against the king. Robert's army remained masters of thefield. William Rufus was wounded too, as well as his father. Matilda wasoverwhelmed with distress and mental anguish at the result. She couldnot endure the idea of allowing so unnatural and dreadful a struggle togo on. She begged her husband, with the most earnest importunities andwith many tears, to find some way of accommodating the dispute. Hernights were sleepless, her days were spent in weeping, and her healthand strength were soon found to be wasting very rapidly away. She wasemaciated, wan, and pale, and it was plain that such distress, if longcontinued, would soon bring her to the grave. 

Matilda's intercessions at length prevailed. The king sent for his son, and, after various negotiations, some sort of compromise was effected. The armies were disbanded, peace was restored, and Robert and his fatheronce more seemed to be friends. Soon after this, William, having acampaign to make in the north of England, took Robert with him as one ofthe generals in his army. 

CHAPTER XII. 

THE CONCLUSION. 

A. D. 1078-1087

William's reign in England. --His difficulties. --Feelings of theEnglish people. --Rebellions. --Amalgamation of the English andNormans. --William's labors. --Necessity of bringing a large Normanforce. --Providing for them. --The British realm Normanized. --O yes! Oyes! O yes!--Relics of the past. --Their future preservation. --Pointof view in which the Norman Conquest is regarded. --DomesdayBook. --Its great obscurity. --Specimen of the DomesdayBook. --Translation. --Matilda's health declines. --Death of herdaughter. --Matilda retires to her palace at Caen. --Her distress ofmind. --Matilda's health. --Memorials of her. --William's decliningyears. --His fitfulness and discontent. --Philip ridiculesWilliam. --William's rage. --William's threats. --Conflagration ofMantes. --William's injury. --His great danger. --William's remorse. --Hislast acts. --Robert absent. --He receives Normandy. --William Rufusand Henry. --The king's will. --William's death. --Abandonment ofthe body. --Apprehensions of the people. --The body removed toCaen. --Extraordinary scenes. --The body conveyed to the monastery ona cart. --The procession broken up. --Scene at the interment. --Thesarcophagus too small. --The body burst. --William Rufus obtainspossession of the English throne. 

From the time of the battle of Hastings, which took place in 1066, tothat of William's death, which occurred in 1087, there intervened aperiod of about twenty years, during which the great monarch reignedover his extended dominions with a very despotic sway, though notwithout a large share of the usual dangers, difficulties, and strugglesattending such a rule. He brought over immense numbers of Normans fromNormandy into England, and placed all the military and civil power ofthe empire in their hands; and he relied almost entirely upon thesuperiority of his physical force for keeping the country in subjugationto his sway. It is true, he maintained that he was the rightful heir tothe English crown, and that, consequently, the tenure by which he heldit was the right of inheritance, and not the right of conquest; and heprofessed to believe that the people of England generally admitted hisclaim. This was, in fact, to a considerable extent, true. At leastthere was probably a large part of the population who believed William'sright to the crown superior to that of Harold, whom he had deposed. Still, as William was by birth, and education, and language a foreigner, and as all the friends and followers who attended him, and, in fact, almost the whole of the army, on which he mainly relied for thepreservation of his power, were foreigners too--wearing a strange dress, and speaking in an unknown tongue--the great mass of the English peoplecould not but feel that they were under a species of foreignsubjugation. Quarrels were therefore continually breaking out betweenthem and their Norman masters, resulting in fierce and bloody struggles, on their part, to get free. These rebellions were always effectually putdown; but when quelled in one quarter they soon broke out in another, and they kept William and his forces almost always employed. 

But William was not a mere warrior. He was well aware that thepermanence and stability of his own and his successor's sway in Englandwould depend finally upon the kind of basis on which the civilinstitutions of the country should rest, and on the proper consolidationand adjustment of the administrative and judicial functions of therealm. In the intervals of his campaigns, therefore, William devoted agreat deal of time and attention to this subject, and he evinced a mostprofound and statesmanlike wisdom and sagacity in his manner of treatingit. 

He had, in fact, a Herculean task to perform--a double task--viz. , toamalgamate two _nations_, and also to fuse and merge two _languages_into one. He was absolutely compelled, by the circumstances under whichhe was placed, to grapple with both these vast undertakings. If, at thetime when, in his park at Rouen, he first heard of Harold's accession, he had supposed that there was a party in England in his favor strongenough to allow of his proceeding there alone, or with a small Normanattendance, so that he might rely mainly on the English themselves forhis accession to the throne, the formidable difficulties which, as itwas, he had subsequently to encounter, would all have been saved. Butthere was no such party--at least there was no evidence that there wasone of sufficient strength to justify him in trusting himself to it. Itseemed to him, then, that if he undertook to gain possession of theEnglish throne at all, he must rely entirely on the force which he couldtake with him from Normandy. To make this reliance effectual, the forceso taken must be an overwhelming one. Then, if Normans in great numberswere to go to England for the purpose of putting him upon the Englishthrone, they must be rewarded, and so vast a number of candidates forthe prizes of honor and wealth could be satisfied only in England, andby confiscations there. His possessions in Normandy would obviously beinsufficient for such a purpose. It was evident, moreover, that if alarge number of Norman adventurers were placed in stations of trust andhonor, and charged with civil offices and administrative functions allover England, they would form a sort of class by themselves, and wouldbe looked upon with jealousy and envy by the original inhabitants, andthat there was no hope of maintaining them safely in their positionexcept by making the class as numerous and as strong as possible. In aword, William saw very clearly that, while it would have been very well, if it had been possible, for him to have brought _no_ Normans toEngland, it was clearly best, since so many must go, to contrive everymeans to swell and increase the number. It was one of those caseswhere, being obliged to go far, it is best to go farther; and Williamresolved on thoroughly _Normanizing_, so to speak, the whole Britishrealm. This enormous undertaking he accomplished fully and permanently;and the institutions of England, the lines of family descent, theroutine of judicial and administrative business, and the very languageof the realm, retain the Norman characteristics which he ingrafted intothem to the present day. 

It gives us a feeling akin to that of sublimity to find, even in our ownland, and in the most remote situations of it, the lingering relics ofthe revolutions and deeds of these early ages, still remaining, like afaint ripple rolling gently upon a beach in a deep and secluded bay, which was set in motion, perhaps, at first, as one of the mountainoussurges of a wintery storm in the most distant seas. For example, if weenter the most humble court in any remote and newly-settled country inthe American forests, a plain and rustic-looking man will call theequally rustic-looking assembly to order by rapping his baton, the onlysymbol of his office, on the floor, and calling out, in words mystic andmeaningless to him, "O yes! O yes! O yes!"[K] He little thinks that heis obeying a behest of William the Conqueror, issued eight hundred yearsago, ordaining that his native tongue should be employed in the courtsof England. The irresistible progress of improvement and reform havegradually displaced the intruding language again--except so far as ithas become merged and incorporated with the common language of thecountry--from all the ordinary forms of legal proceedings. It lingersstill, however, as it were, on the threshold, in this call to order; andas it is harmless there, the spirit of conservatism will, perhaps, preserve for it this last place of refuge for a thousand years to come, and "_O yes_" will be the phrase for ordaining silence by manygenerations of officers, who will, perhaps, never have heard of theauthority whose orders they unwittingly obey. 

[Footnote K: Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! Norman French for Hearken! hearken!hearken!]

The work of incorporating the Norman and English families with oneanother, and fusing the two languages into one, required about a centuryfor its full accomplishment; and when at last it was accomplished, thepeople of England were somewhat puzzled to know whether they ought tofeel proud of William's exploits in the conquest of England, orhumiliated by them. So far as they were themselves descended from theNormans, the conquest was one of the glorious deeds of their ancestors. So far as they were of English parentage, it would seem to be incumbenton them to mourn over their fathers' defeat. It is obvious that fromsuch a species of perplexity as this there was no escape, and it hasaccordingly continued to embarrass the successive generations ofEnglishmen down to the present day. The Norman Conquest occupies, therefore, a very uncertain and equivocal position in English history, the various modern writers who look back to it now being hardly able todetermine whether they are to regard it as a mortifying subjugationwhich their ancestors suffered, or a glorious victory which they gained. 

One of the great measures of William's reign, and one, in fact, forwhich it has been particularly famous in modern times, was a grandcensus or registration of the kingdom, which the Conqueror ordered witha view of having on record a perfect enumeration and description of allthe real and personal property in the kingdom. This grand nationalsurvey was made in 1078. The result was recorded in two volumes ofdifferent sizes, which were called the Great and the Little DomesdayBook. These books are still preserved, and are to this day of the veryhighest authority in respect to all questions touching ancient rights ofproperty. One is a folio, and the other a quarto volume. The records arewritten on vellum, in a close, abridged, and, to ordinary readers, aperfectly unintelligible character. The language is Latin; but a modernLatin scholar, without any means other than an inspection of the work, would be utterly unable to decipher it. In fact, though the character ishighly wrought, and in some respects elegant, the whole style andarrangement of the work is pretty nearly on a par, in respect toscientific skill, with Queen Emma's designs upon the Bayeux tapestry. About half a century ago, copies of these works were printed, by meansof type made to represent the original character. But these printededitions were found unintelligible and useless until copious indexeswere prepared, and published to accompany them, at great expense of timeand labor. 

Some little idea of the character and style of this celebrated recordmay be obtained from the following specimen, which is as faithful animitation of the original as any ordinary typography will allow:

[Illustration]

The passage, deciphered and expressed in full, stands thus--the lettersomitted in the original, above, being supplied in italics:

 IN BRIXISTAN HUND_redo_. 

 Rex ten_et_ BERMUNDESYE. HERALD_US_ com_es_ tenuit. T_unc_ se def_en_d_ebat_ p_ro_ xiii. Hid_is_, m_od_o pro xii. Hid_is_. T_er_ra e_st_ viii. Car_rucatarum_. In d_omi_nio e_st_ una car_rucata_ et xxv. Vill_ani_ et xxxiii. Bord_arii_ cu_m_ un_a_ car_rucata_. Ibi nova et pulchra eccl_esia_, et xx. Ac_ræ_ p_ra_ti. Silva v. Porc_is_ de pasnag_io_. 

The English translation is as follows:

 IN BRIXISTAN HUNDRED. 

 The king holds BERMUNDESYE. Earl HERALD held it [before]. At that time it was rated at thirteen hides; now, at twelve. The arable land is eight carrucates [_or_ plow-lands]. There is one carrucate in demesne, and twenty-five villans, and thirty-three bordars, with one carrucate. There is a new and handsome church, with twenty acres of meadow, and woodland for five hogs in pasnage [pasturage] time. 

But we must pass on to the conclusion of the story. About the year 1082, Queen Matilda's health began seriously to decline. She was harassed bya great many anxieties and cares connected with the affairs of statewhich devolved upon her, and arising from the situation of her family:these anxieties produced great dejection of spirits, and aggravated, ifthey did not wholly cause, her bodily disease. She was at this time inNormandy. One great source of her mental suffering was her anxiety inrespect to one of her daughters, who, as well as herself, was decliningin health. Forgetting her own danger in her earnest desires for thewelfare of her child, she made a sort of pilgrimage to a monastery whichcontained the shrine of a certain saint, who, as she imagined, had powerto save her daughter. She laid a rich present on the shrine; she offeredbefore it most earnest prayers, imploring, with tears of bitter grief, the intercession of the saint, and manifesting every outward symbol ofhumility and faith. She took her place in the religious services of themonastery, and conformed to its usages, as if she had been in thehumblest private station. But all was in vain. The health of her beloveddaughter continued to fail, until at length she died; and Matilda, growing herself more feeble, and almost broken hearted through grief, shut herself up in the palace at Caen. 

It was in the same palace which William had built, within his monastery, many long years before, at the time of their marriage. Matilda lookedback to that period, and to the buoyant hopes and bright anticipationsof power, glory, and happiness which then filled her heart, with sadnessand sorrow. The power and the glory had been attained, and in a measuretenfold greater than she had imagined, but the happiness had never come. Ambition had been contending unceasingly for twenty years, among all thebranches of her family, against domestic peace and love. She possessed, herself, an aspiring mind, but the principles of maternal and conjugallove were stronger in her heart than those of ambition; and yet she wascompelled to see ambition bearing down and destroying love in all itsforms every where around her. Her last days were embittered by thebreaking out of new contests between her husband and her son. 

Matilda sought for peace and comfort in multiplying her religiousservices and observances. She fasted, she prayed, she interceded for theforgiveness of her sins with many tears. The monks celebrated mass ather bed-side, and made, as she thought, by renewing the sacrifice ofChrist, a fresh propitiation for her sins. William, who was then inNormandy, hearing of her forlorn and unhappy condition, came to see her. He arrived just in time to see her die. 

They conveyed her body from the palace in her husband's monastery atCaen to the convent which she had built. It was received there in solemnstate, and deposited in the tomb. For centuries afterward, thereremained many memorials of her existence and her greatness there, inpaintings, embroideries, sacred gifts, and records, which have beengradually wasted away by the hand of time. They have not, however, wholly disappeared, for travelers who visit the spot find that manymemorials and traditions of Matilda linger there still. 

William himself did not live many years after the death of his wife. Hewas several years older than she. In fact, he was now considerablyadvanced in age. He became extremely corpulent as he grew old, which, ashe was originally of a large frame, made him excessively unwieldy. Theinconvenience resulting from this habit of body was not the only evilthat attended it. It affected his health, and even threatened to end inserious if not fatal disease. While he was thus made comparativelyhelpless in body by the infirmities of his advancing age, he wasnevertheless as active and restless in spirit as ever. It was, however, no longer the activity of youth, and hope, and progress which animatedhim, but rather the fitful uneasiness with which age agitates itselfunder the vexations which it sometimes has to endure, or strugglesconvulsively at the approach of real or imaginary dangers, threateningthe possessions which it has been the work of life to gain. The dangersin William's case were real, not imaginary. He was continuallythreatened on every side. In fact, the very year before he died, thedissensions between himself and Robert broke out anew, and he wasobliged, unwieldy and helpless as he was, to repair to Normandy, at thehead of an armed force, to quell the disturbances which Robert and hispartisans had raised. 

Robert was countenanced and aided at this time by Philip, the king ofFrance, who had always been King William's jealous and implacable rival. Philip, who, as will be recollected, was very young when William askedhis aid at the time of his invasion of England, was now in middle life, and at the height of his power. As he had refused William his aid, hewas naturally somewhat envious and jealous of his success, and he wasalways ready to take part against him. He now aided and abetted Robertin his turbulence and insubordination, and ridiculed the helplessinfirmities of the aged king. 

While William was in Normandy, he submitted to a course of medicaltreatment, in the hope of diminishing his excessive corpulency, andrelieving the disagreeable and dangerous symptoms which attended it. While thus in his physician's hands, he was, of course, confined to hischamber. Philip, in ridicule, called it "being in the straw. " He askedsome one who appeared at his court, having recently arrived fromNormandy, whether the old woman of England was still in the straw. Somemiserable tale-bearer, such as every where infest society at the presentday, who delight in quoting to one friend what they think will excitetheir anger against another, repeated these words to William. Sick as hewas, the sarcasm aroused him to a furious paroxysm of rage. He swore by"God's brightness and resurrection" that, when he got out again, hewould kindle such fires in Philip's dominions, in commemoration of hisdelivery, as should make his realms too hot to hold him. 

He kept his word--at least so far as respects the kindling of the fires;but the fires, instead of making Philip's realms too hot to hold him, bya strange yet just retribution, were simply the means of closing foreverthe mortal career of the hand that kindled them. The circumstances ofthis final scene of the great conqueror's earthly history were these:

In the execution of his threat to make Philip's dominions too hot tohold him, William, as soon as he was able to mount his horse, headed anexpedition, and crossed the frontiers of Normandy, and moved forwardinto the heart of France, laying waste the country, as he advanced, withfire and sword. He came soon to the town of Mantes, a town upon theSeine, directly on the road to Paris. William's soldiers attacked thetown with furious impetuosity, carried it by assault, and set it onfire. William followed them in, through the gates, glorying in thefulfillment of his threats of vengeance. Some timbers from a burninghouse had fallen into the street, and, burning there, had left asmoldering bed of embers, in which the fire was still remaining. William, excited with the feeling of exultation and victory, was ridingunguardedly on through the scene of ruin he had made, issuing orders, and shouting in a frantic manner as he went, when he was suddenlystopped by a violent recoil of his horse from the burning embers, onwhich he had stepped, and which had been concealed from view by theashes which covered them. William, unwieldy and comparatively helplessas he was, was thrown with great force upon the pommel of the saddle. Hesaved himself from falling from the horse, but he immediately found thathe had sustained some serious internal injury. He was obliged todismount, and to be conveyed away, by a very sudden transition, from thedreadful scene of conflagration and vengeance which he had beenenacting, to the solemn chamber of death. They made a litter for him, and a corps of strong men was designated to bear the heavy and nowhelpless burden back to Normandy. 

[Illustration: WILLIAM'S HORSE STEPPING ON THE EMBERS. ]

They took the suffering monarch to Rouen. The ablest physicians weresummoned to his bed-side. After examining his case, they concluded thathe must die. The tidings threw the unhappy patient into a state ofextreme anxiety and terror. The recollection of the thousand deeds ofselfish ambition and cruelty which he had been perpetrating, he said, all his days, filled him with remorse. He shrunk back with invincibledread from the hour, now so rapidly approaching, when he was to appearin judgment before God, and answer, like any common mortal, for hiscrimes. He had been accustomed all his life to consider himself as aboveall law, superior to all power, and beyond the reach of all judicialquestion. But now his time had come. He who had so often made otherstremble, trembled now in his turn, with an acuteness of terror anddistress which only the boldest and most high-handed offenders everfeel. He cried bitterly to God for forgiveness, and brought the monksaround him to help him with incessant prayers. He ordered all the moneythat he had on hand to be given to the poor. He sent commands to havethe churches which he had burned at Mantes rebuilt, and the otherinjuries which he had effected in his anger repaired. In a word, he gavehimself very earnestly to the work of attempting, by all the meansconsidered most efficacious in those days, to avert and appease thedreaded anger of heaven. 

Of his three oldest sons, Robert was away; the quarrel between him andhis father had become irreconcilable, and he would not come to visithim, even in his dying hours. William Rufus and Henry were there, andthey remained very constantly at their father's bed-side--not, however, from a principle of filial affection, but because they wanted to bepresent when he should express his last wishes in respect to thedisposal of his dominions. Such an expression, though oral, would bebinding as a will. When, at length, the king gave his dying directionsin respect to the succession, it appeared that, after all, he consideredhis right to the English throne as very doubtful in the sight of God. Hehad, in a former part of his life, promised Normandy to Robert, as hisinheritance, when he himself should die; and though he had so oftenrefused to surrender it to him while he himself continued to live, heconfirmed his title to the succession now. "I have promised it to him, "he said, "and I keep my promise; and yet I know that that will be amiserable country which is subject to his government. He is a proud andfoolish knave, and can never prosper. As for my kingdom of England, " hecontinued, "I bequeath it to no one, for it was not bequeathed to me. Iacquired it by force, and at the price of blood. I leave it in the handsof God, only wishing that my son William Rufus may have it, for he hasbeen submissive to me in all things. " "And what do you give _me_, father?" asked Henry, eagerly, at this point. "I give you, " said theking, "five thousand pounds from my treasury. " "But what shall I do withmy five thousand pounds, " asked Henry, "if you do not give me eitherhouse or land?" "Be quiet, my son, " rejoined the king, "and trust inGod. Let your brothers go before you; your turn will come after theirs. "

The object which had kept the young men at their father's bed-sidehaving been now attained, they both withdrew. Henry went to get hismoney, and William Rufus set off immediately for England, to prepare theway for his own accession to the throne, as soon as his father should beno more. 

The king determined to be removed from his castle in Rouen to amonastery which was situated at a short distance from the city, withoutthe walls. The noise of the city disturbed him, and, besides, he thoughthe should feel safer to die on sacred ground. He was accordingly removedto the monastery. There, on the tenth of September, he was awakened inthe morning by hearing the city bells ringing. He asked what it meant. He was told that the bells were ringing for the morning service at thechurch of St. Mary. He lifted up his hands, looked to heaven, and said, "I commend myself to my Lady Mary, the holy Mother of God, " and almostimmediately expired. 

The readers of history have frequent occasion to be surprised at thesudden and total change which often takes place at the moment of thedeath of a mighty sovereign, and even sometimes before his death, in theindications of the respect and consideration with which his attendantsand followers regard him. In William's case, as has happened in manyother cases since, the moment he ceased to breathe he was utterlyabandoned. Every body fled, carrying with them, as they went, whateverthey could seize from the chamber--the arms, the furniture, the dresses, and the plate; for all these articles became their perquisites on thedecease of their master. The almost incredible statement is made thatthe heartless monsters actually stripped the dead body of theirsovereign, to make sure of all their dues, and left it naked on thestone floor, while they bore their prizes to a place of safety. Thebody lay in this neglected state for many hours; for the tidings of thegreat monarch's death, which was so sudden at last, produced, as itspread, universal excitement and apprehension. No one knew to whatchanges the event would lead, what wars would follow between the sons, or what insurrections or rebellions might have been secretly formed, tobreak out suddenly when this crisis should have arrived. Thus the wholecommunity were thrown into a state of excitement and confusion. 

The monk and lay brethren of the monastery at length came in, took upthe body, and prepared it for burial. They then brought crosses, tapers, and censers, and began to offer prayers and to chant requiems for therepose of the soul of the deceased. They sent also the Archbishop ofRouen, to know what was to be done with the body. The archbishop gaveorders that it should be taken to Caen, and be deposited there in themonastery which William had erected at the time of his marriage. 

The tale which the ancient historians have told in respect to theinterment is still more extraordinary, and more inconsistent with allthe ideas we naturally form of the kind of consideration and honor whichthe remains of so great a potentate would receive at the hands of hishousehold and his officers of state, than the account of his death. Itis said that all the members of his household, and all his officers, immediately after his decease, abandoned the town--all eagerly occupiedin plans and maneuvers to secure their positions under the new reign. Some went in pursuit of Robert, and some to follow William Rufus. Henrylocked up his money in a strong box, well ironed, and went off with itto find some place of security. There was nobody left to take theneglected body to the grave. 

At last a countryman was found who undertook to transport the heavyburden from Rouen to Caen. He procured a cart, and conveyed it from themonastery to the river, where it was put on board a vessel, and takendown the Seine to its mouth, and thence by sea to Caen. The Abbot of St. Stephen's, which was the name of William's monastery there, came, withsome monks and a procession of the people, to accompany the body to theabbey. As this procession was moving along, however, a fire broke out inthe town, and the attendants, actuated either by a sense of dutyrequiring them to aid in extinguishing the flames, or by curiosity towitness the conflagration, abandoned the funeral cortège. Theprocession was broken up, and the whole multitude, clergy and laity, went off to the fire, leaving the coffin, with its bearers, alone. Thebearers, however, went on, and conveyed their charge to the churchwithin the abbey walls. 

When the time arrived for the interment, a great company assembled towitness the ceremonies. Stones had been taken up in the church floor, and a grave dug. A stone coffin, a sort of sarcophagus, had beenprepared, and placed in the grave as a receptacle for the body. When allwas ready, and the body was about to be let down, a man suddenly cameforward from the crowd and arrested the proceedings. He said that theland on which the abbey stood belonged to him; that William had takenforcible possession of it, for the abbey, at the time of his marriage;that he, the owner, had been compelled thus far to submit to this wrong, inasmuch as he had, during William's life-time, no means of redress, butnow he protested against a spoliation. "The land, " he said, "is mine; itbelonged to my father. I have not sold it, or forfeited it, nor pledgedit, nor given it. It is my right. I claim it. In the name of God, Iforbid you to put the body of the spoiler there, or to cover him with myground. "

When the excitement and surprise which this denunciation had awakenedhad subsided a little, the bishops called this sudden claimant aside, examined the proofs of his allegations, and, finding that the case wastruly as he stated it, they paid him, on the spot, a sum equal to thevalue of ground enough for a grave, and promised to take immediatemeasures for the payment of the rest. The remonstrant then consentedthat the interment might proceed. 

In attempting to let the body down into the place prepared for it, theyfound that the sarcophagus was too small. They undertook to force thebody in. In attempting this, the coffin was broken, and the body, already, through the long delays, advanced in decomposition, was burst. The monks brought incense and perfumes, and burned and sprinkled themaround the place, but in vain. The church was so offensive that everybody abandoned it at once, except the workmen who remained to fill thegrave. 

 * * * * *

While these things were transpiring in Normandy, William Rufus hadhastened to England, taking with him the evidences of his father'sdying wish that he should succeed him on the English throne. Before hereached head-quarters there, he heard of his father's death, and hesucceeded in inducing the Norman chieftains to proclaim him king. Robert's friends made an effort to advance his claims, but they could donothing effectual for him, and so it was soon settled, by a treatybetween the brothers, that William Rufus should reign in England, whileRobert was to content himself with his father's ancient domain ofNormandy. 

 THE END. 

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

1. Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors, and toensure consistent spelling and punctuation in this etext; otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the original book. 

2. The chapter summaries in this text were originally published asbanners in the page headers, and have been moved to beginning of thechapter for the reader's convenience. 

3. Page numbering in the list of engravings for the "Map of Normandy"has been changed from 189 to 190, to be consistent with the changeneeded in the HTML version of this book.