Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/125

 sea. The Duke would then win the crown, and would reward all their services.

It is well to be reminded by words like these what the professed object of the insurgents was. It would be easy to forget that all the plundering that had been done from Rochester to Ilchester had been done in the name of the lawful rights of Duke Robert. The men who harried Berkeley and who were overthrown at Worcester were but the forerunners of the Duke of the Normans, who was to come, as spring went on, with the full force of his duchy. It was not for nothing that King William had gathered his English army, when a new Norman Conquest was looked for. But as yet the blow was put off; Duke Robert came not; he seemed to think that the crown of England could be won with ease at any moment. When the first news of William's accession came, when those around him urged him to active measures to support his rights, he had spoken of the matter with childish scorn. Were he at the ends of the earth—the city of Alexandria is taken as the standard of distance—the English would not dare to make William king, William would not dare to accept the crown at their hands, without waiting for the coming of his elder brother. Both the impossible, si essem in Alexandria, exspectarent me Angli, nec ante adventum meum Regem sibi facere auderent. Ipse etiam Willelmus frater meus, quod eum præsumpsisse dicitur, pro capite suo sine mea permissione minime attentaret."]