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 thieves and robbers;’ but the peace was hollow; one class of ‘thieves and robbers’ formed an exception to his severity, the knights and soldiers of his own personal following, whom he ‘suffered to ravage the lands of the country folk with impunity.’ He ‘was always seeking subjects of contention, and contriving pretences whereby he might heap up money. As he was keen in exacting, so he was prodigal in distributing his ill-gotten gains; displaying the claws of a harpy, the extravagance of a Cleopatra, and the shamelessness of both.’ ‘He was very stern and cruel over his land and his men, and with all his neighbours, and very terrible; and through evil men's counsels, which were ever pleasing to him, and through his own covetousness, he was ever tormenting the people with soldiering and with ungelds, forasmuch as in his days all right fell down and all unright, for God and for the world, uprose.’ Of his private life it is impossible to speak. The one influence which held him in check was removed by Lanfranc's death on 24 May 1089. Thenceforth ‘God's churches he brought low, and all the bishoprics and abbacies, whose elders died in his time, he either sold for money, or held in his own hand, and set them to farm.’ So abject was the terror he inspired that when at Christmas 1092 the bishops and nobles at last plucked up courage to make some effort to obtain the appointment of a new primate, they asked the king, not to grant their desire, but to give them leave to offer public prayers that he might be led to grant it, a request to which he scornfully acceded. At the end of February 1093 he fell sick at Alvestone (Gloucestershire); he was carried to Gloucester, and there, believing himself at the point of death, ‘he made many promises to God to lead his own life aright and give peace and security to God's churches, and never more to sell them for money, and to have all right laws among his people.’ He began his reformation by investing Anselm with the archbishopric of Canterbury on 6 March [for details see ]. By Easter, however, he had recovered his health, and forthwith ‘he forsook all the good laws that he had promised us.’

Malcolm of Scotland now sent to demand the fulfilment of the promises which Rufus had made to him. Rufus answered by inviting or summoning Malcolm to come and speak with him at Gloucester on 24 Aug., and sending Eadgar to escort him thither ‘with mickle worship.’ ‘But when he came he was not deemed worthy either to have speech with our king, nor to receive fulfilment of the promises which had been made him, and so they parted with mickle discord.’ The consequence was that Malcolm on his return home invaded Northumberland. He was intercepted and slain on 13 Nov. by the Mowbrays [see and ], whereupon the Scots chose a new king, Donald Bane, who drove out Malcolm's English or Norman followers, and compelled his children by his English wife, St. Margaret [q. v.], to seek shelter in England. Malcolm's eldest son Duncan [see, who was already at the English court, at once did homage to William for the Scottish crown, and soon won it by the help of followers whom William allowed him to collect in England; but by the end of the year he was slain, and Donald restored. William was too busy with the affairs of Normandy to heed those of Scotland. At Christmas 1093 he received an embassy from his brother Robert, calling on him to fulfil his part of the treaty of 1091. William at once resolved upon an expedition to Normandy, and summoned a great council to meet him on Candlemas day (1094) at Hastings, where he proposed to embark. Contrary winds detained him there for six weeks. He was present at the consecration of Battle Abbey on 11 Feb. He had already rejected, as insufficient, the contribution which Anselm had offered for the expenses of the coming campaign; he now answered Anselm's remonstrances on the state of the realm by declaring that he ‘would do nothing for’ the archbishop unless bribed by a larger offering, and when Anselm refused to make any further offering at all, drove him away with words of insult and hatred [for details see ]. On 19 March William crossed into Normandy. He had an interview with Robert, but they could not agree; at a second meeting the case was laid before the guarantors of the treaty of 1091, and these unanimously declared William guilty of breach of faith. He, however, ‘would not acknowledge this, nor keep the conditions,’ and the brothers parted to make ready for war. William fixed his headquarters at Eu. For a while the luck went against him. Payments to mercenaries and bribes to enemies exhausted his treasury. Heavy taxes were imposed on England, but their proceeds came in too slowly. At last ‘the king bade call out twenty thousand Englishmen to help him in Normandy.’ When they assembled at Hastings, however, Ranulf Flambard [q. v.], ‘by the king's command,’ took from each man the ten shillings provided him by his shire for his expenses, and sent the men back to their homes, and the 10,000l. over sea to Rufus. With part of this sum Rufus again bribed Philip of France