Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 16.djvu/22

14 king of Scotland, who, during his absence, had invaded the borders. The king, having raised great forces both by sea and land, went in person to repel the inroads of the Scots; but the enterprise was without success; for the greatest part of his fleet was destroyed by a tempest, and his army very much diminished by sickness and famine, which forced him to a peace of little honour; by which, upon the condition of homage from that prince, the king of England agreed to deliver him up those twelve towns (or manors) in England which Malcolm had held under William the Conqueror; together with a pension of twelve thousand marks.

At this time were sown the seeds of another quarrel between him and duke Robert, who soliciting the king to perform some covenants of the last peace, and meeting with a repulse, withdrew in great discontent to Normandy.

King William, in his return from Scotland, fell dangerously sick at Glocester, where, moved by the seasonable exhortations of his clergy, or rather by the fears of dying, he began to discover great marks of repentance, with many promises of amendment and retribution, particularly for his injuries to the church. To give credit to which good resolutions, he immediately filled several vacant sees, giving that of Canterbury to Anselm, a foreigner of great fame for piety and learning. But as it is the disposition of men who derive their vices from their complexions, that their passions usually beat strong and weak with their pulses, so it fared with this prince; who upon recovery of his health, soon forgot the vows he had made in his sickness, relapsing with greater violence into the same irregularities of injustice and sion,