Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/120

106 prelates hastened to their respective homes to secure their property; the citizens of Rouen began to conceal their most valuable effects; the servants rifled the palace, and hurried away with the booty; and the royal corpse for three hours lay almost in a state of nudity on the ground. At length the archbishop ordered the body to be interred at Caen; and Herluin, a neighbouring knight, out of compassion, conveyed it at his own expense to that city.

At the day appointed for the interment, Prince Henry, the Norman prelates, and a multitude of clergy and people, assembled in the Church of St. Stephen, which the Conqueror had founded. The mass had been performed, the corpse was placed on the bier, and the Bishop of Evreux had pronounced the panegyric of the deceased, when a voice from the crowd exclaimed, "He whom you have praised was a robber.



The very land on which you stand is mine. By violence he took it from my father; and in the name of God I forbid you to bury him in it." The speaker was Asceline Fitz-Arthur, who had often, but fruitlessly, sought reparation from the justice of William. After some debate the prelates called him to them, paid him sixty shillings for the grave, and promised that he should receive the full value of his land. The ceremony was then continued, and the body of the king deposited in a coffin of stone.

William's character has been drawn with apparent impartiality in the Saxon Chronicle, by a contemporary and an Englishman. That the reader may learn the opinion of one who possessed the means of forming an accurate judgment, we have transcribed the passage, retaining, as far as it may be intelligible, the phraseology of the original:—

"If any one wish to know what manner of man he was, or what worship he had, or of how many lands he were the lord, we will describe him as we have known him; for we looked on him, and some time lived in his herd. King William was a very wise man, and very rich, more worshipful and strong than any of his fore-gangers. He was mild to good men who loved God, and stark beyond all bounds to those who withstand his will. On the very stede where God gave him to win England, he reared a noble monastery and set monks therein, and endowed it well. He was very worshipful. Thrice he bore his king-helmet every year when he was in England: at Easter he bore it at Winchester, at Pentecost at Westminster, and in mid-winter at Gloucester: and there were with him all the rich men all over England, archbishops and diocesan bishops, abbot and earls, thanes and knights. Moreover, he was a very stark man, and very savage; so that no man durst do anything against his will. He had earls in his bonds, who had done against his will; bishops he set off their bishoprics, abbots off their abbotries, and thanes in prisons; and at last he did not spare his own brother Odo. Him he set in prison. Yet, among other things, we must not forget the good frith which he made in this land, so that a man that was good for aught might travel over the kingdom with his bosom full of gold without molestation; and no man durst slay another man, though he had suffered never so mickle evil from the other. He ruled over England; and by his cunning he was so thoroughly acquainted with it, that there is not a hide of land of which he did not know both who had it, and what was its worth, and that he set down in his