Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/119

TO 1087.] the Norman duke that, meeting her in the streets of Bruges as she returned from the church, he not only beat her, but rolled her in the dirt. Notwithstanding this unknightly outrage, she afterwards consented to become his wife.

The transactions recorded during the remainder of this reign may be considered more as domestic occurrences which concern the prince, than as national events which regard England. Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, the king's uterine brother, whom he had created Earl of Kent, and entrusted with a great share of power during his whole reign, had amassed immense riches; and, agreeably to the usual progress of human wishes, he began to regard his present acquisitions as but a step to farther grandeur. He had formed the chimerical project of buying the papacy; and though Gregory, the reigning pope, was not of advanced years, the prelate had confided so much in the predictions of an astrologer, that he reckoned on the pontiff's death, and on attaining, by his own intrigues and money, that envied state of greatness. Resolving, therefore, to remit all his riches to Italy, he had persuaded many considerable barons, and among the rest Hugh, Earl of Chester, to take the same course, in hopes that when he should mount the Papal throne, he would bestow on them more considerable establishments in that country. The king, from whom all these projects had been carefully concealed, at last got intelligence of the design, and ordered Odo to be arrested. His officers, from respect to the immunities which the ecclesiastics now assumed, scrupled to execute the command, till the king himself was obliged in person to seize him; and when Odo insisted that he was a prelate, and exempt from all temporal jurisdiction, William replied that he arrested him not as Bishop of Bayeux, but as Earl of Kent. He was sent prisoner to Normandy, and, notwithstanding the remonstrances and menaces of Gregory, was kept in confinement during the remainder of William's reign.

William was detained upon the Continent some time after this affair by a quarrel which, in 1087, broke out between himself and his suzerain the lung of France, and was occasioned by inroads which the French barons made into Normandy. His displeasure was also increased by some railleries which had been thrown out against his person. The king had grown remarkably stout, and been detained for some time on a bed of sickness. Philip, hearing of this, expressed his surprise that his brother of England should be so long at his lying-in, but that no doubt there would be a fine churching when he was delivered. The Conqueror, enraged at the insulting jest, sent him word, that as soon as he was up he would be churched in Nôtre Dame, and present so many lights—alluding to the Catholic custom—as would give little pleasure to the King of France. Immediately on his recovery he kept his word; for, gathering an army, he led his forces into the L'Isle de France, laying everything waste with fire and sword in his passage, and took the town of Mantes, which he reduced to ashes.

This career of conquest, however, was cut short by an accident which afterwards cost William his life. His horse starting on a sudden, caused him to bruise his stomach severely against the pommel of his saddle. Being advanced in years, he began to apprehend the consequences, and ordered himself to be conveyed to the monastery of St. Gervas. Finding his end approaching, he perceived the vanity of all human greatness, and began to feel the most bitter remorse of conscience for the cruelties he had practised, the desolation he had caused, and the innocent blood he had shed during his reign in England; and by way of atonement gave great gifts to various monasteries. He also commanded that Earls Morcar, Siward, Beorn, and other English prisoners, should be set at liberty. He was now prevailed upon, though not without reluctance, to release his brother Odo, against whom he was terribly incensed.

He left Normandy and Maine to his eldest son Robert, whom he had never forgiven for his rebellion against him. He wrote to Lanfranc, the primate, desiring him to crown William King of England, and bequeathed to his son Henry the possessions of his mother; foretelling, it is said, that he would one day surpass both his brothers in greatness.

He died at Rouen, on the 9th of September, 1087, in the sixty-third year of his age, the twenty-first of his reign in England, and fifty-fourth over Normandy. Few princes have been more fortunate than William, or better entitled to grandeur and prosperity, from the abilities and the vigour of mind displayed in all his conduct. His spirit was bold and enterprising, yet guided by prudence; his ambition, which was exorbitant, and lay little under the restraints of justice, still less under those of humanity, ever submitted to the dictates of sound policy. Born in an age when the minds of men were intractable and unacquainted with submission, he was yet able to direct them to his purposes; and partly from the influence of his vehement character, partly from art and dissimulation, to establish an unlimited authority. The maxims of his administration were austere, but might have been useful, had they been solely employed to preserve order in an established government: they were ill calculated for softening the rigours which, under the most gentle management, are inseparable from conquest. His attempt against England was the last great enterprise of the kind which, during the course of 800 years, has fully succeeded in Europe; and the force of his genius broke through those limits which the feudal institutions and the refined policy of princes have fixed to the several states of Christendom.

King William had issue, besides his three sons who survived him, five daughters, to wit—1. Cicely, a nun in the monastery of Feschamp, afterwards abbess in the Holy Trinity at Caen, where she died in 1127. 2. Constantia, married to Alan Fergent, Earl of Brittany: she died without issue. 3. Alice, contracted to Harold. 4. Adela, married to Stephen, Earl of Blois, by whom she had four sons—William, Theobald, Henry, and Stephen—of whom the elder was neglected on account of the imbecility of his understanding. 6. Agatha, who died a virgin, but was betrothed to the King of Gallicia: she died on her journey thither, before she joined her bridegroom.

A learned historian gives the following more circumstantial account of William's death and character. He says, "Early on the morning of the 9 th of September, 1087, the king heard the sound of a bell, and eagerly demanded what it meant. He was told that it sounded the hour of prime in the Church of St. Mary. 'Then,' said he, 'I commend my soul to my Lady, the mother of God, that by her holy prayers she may reconcile me to her son, my Lord Jesus Christ,' and immediately expired."

From the events which followed the reader may judge of the unsettled nature of the time. The knights and