Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/121

TO 1087.] writings. Wales was under his wield, and therein he wrought castles: and he wielded the Isle of Man withal: and moreover, he subdued Scotland by his mickle strength. Normandy was his by kin: and over the earldom called Mans he ruled: and if he might have lived yet two years, he would have won Ireland by the fame of his power, and without any armament. Yet, truly, in his time men had mickle suffering, and very many hardships. Castles he caused to be wrought, and poor men to be oppressed. He was so very stark. He took from his subjects many marks of gold, and many hundred pounds of silver; and that he took, some by right, and some by mickle might, for very little need. He had fallen into avarice, and greediness he loved withal. He let his lands to fine as dear as he could; then came some other and bade more than the first had given, and the king let it to him who bade more. Then came a third and bid yet more, and the king let it into the hands of the man who bade the most. Nor did he reck how sinfully his reeves got money of poor men, or how many unlawful things they did. For the more men talked of right law, the more they did against the law. He also set many deer friths; and he made laws therewith, that whosoever should slay hart or hind, him man should blind. As he forbade the slaying of harts, so also did he of boars. So much he loved the high deer, as if he had been their father. He also decreed about hares, that they should go free. His rich men moaned, and the poor men murmured; but he was so hard that he recked not the hatred of them all. For it was need they should follow the king's will withal, if they wished to live, or have lands or goods, or his favour. Alas, that any man should be so moody, and should so puff up himself and think himself above all other men! May Almighty God have mercy on his soul, and grant him forgiveness of his sins!"

To this account may be added a few particulars gleaned from other historians. The king was of ordinary stature, but inclined to corpulency. His countenance wore an air of ferocity, which, when he was agitated by passion, struck terror into every beholder. The story told of his strength at one period of his life almost exceeds belief. It is said that, sitting on horseback, he could draw the string of a bow which no other man could bend even on foot.

William's education had left on his mind religious impressions which were never effaced. When, indeed, his power or interest was concerned, he listened to no suggestions but those of ambition or avarice, but on other occasions he displayed a strong sense of religion, and a profound respect for its institutions.

Dr. Lingard concludes this reign with the following paragraph:—

"During William's reign the people of England were exposed to calamities of every description. It commenced with years of carnage and devastation, its progress was marked by a regular system of confiscation and oppression, and this succession of evils was closed with famine and pestilence. In 1086, a summer more rainy and tempestuous than had been experienced in the memory of man, occasioned a total failure in the harvest; and the winter introduced a malignant disease, which attacked one-half of the inhabitants, and is said to have proved fatal to many thousands. Even of those who escaped the infection, or recovered from the disease, numbers perished afterwards from want or unwholesome nourishment. 'Alas!' exclaims an eye-witness, 'how miserable, how rueful a time was that! The wretched victims had nearly perished by the fever; then came the sharp hunger, and destroyed them outricht. Who is so hard-hearted as not to weep over such calamities?'"



 , whose surname of Rufus is said to have been derived from the colour of his hair, no sooner found himself in possession of his father's letter to the primate Lanfranc, than he fled from the monastery of St. Gervas, where William was dying, and hastened to England, in order to secure possession of the crown.

Sensible that an act so opposed to the laws of primo-geniture and the feudal rights might meet with great opposition from the nobles, he trusted to his celerity for success, and reached the kingdom before the news of the king's death arrived. Pretending orders from the dead monarch, he secured the strong fortresses of Dover, Pevensey, and Hastings. On his arrival a council of prelates and barons was summoned to proceed to the election of a sovereign. Hitherto there had been no precedent in which the younger brother had been preferred to the elder. Robert, the rightful heir, and his partisans, were in Normandy; William and his adherents on the spot; added to which, the archbishop Lanfranc, who felt himself bound to obey the last injunction of his benefactor William, exerted the whole influence of the Church in his favour. Three weeks after the death of his father he was proclaimed king, and crowned with the usual formalities.

As we before stated, the Conqueror on his deathbed commanded the liberation of his half-brother Odo, the Bishop of Bayeux. That warlike prelate, who had recovered some portion of his possessions in Kent, had long been the enemy of Lanfranc. The prompt compliance of the latter with the will of the deceased king in crowning William, who at first yielded himself entirely to his directions, caused Odo to extend his hatred to his nephew, and he set himself accordingly to form a party in favour of the eldest brother, Robert, who was already in possession of the duchy of Normandy, as well as the county of Maine, (A.D. 1088.)

The great point he urged upon the nobles whom he enlisted in the cause of the last-named prince was the fact of their holding possessions in both countries, and that it would be much more prudent to hold their lands of one sovereign only. These representations were not without effect; and whilst the newly-crowned king held the festival of Easter, the barons, who had matured their plans, departed to raise the standard o£ revolt in various parts of the kingdom—Odo, in Kent; William, Bishop of Durham, in Morthumberland; Geoffery of Coutances, in Somerset; Roger Montgomery in Shropshire; Hugh de Bigod, in Nortolk; and Hugh de Grentmensil, in Leicester.

The rising which thus took place might have been formidable if the movements of the insurgents had been seconded by energetic action on the part o£ Robert. That pleasure, loving prince, who had promised to bring over an army from Normandy, once more sacrificed the prospect of a throne to his habitual indolence; and Odo waited in vain for the 