Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/126

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things had happened, and Robert and his partisans had now before them the harder task of driving William from a throne which was already his, instead of merely hindering him from mounting it. Up to this time Robert had done nothing; but now, in answer to the urgent prayers of his uncles, he did get together a force for their help, and promised that he would himself follow it before long.

The news of Odo's presence at Pevensey at once changed the course of William's march. Wherever the Bishop of Bayeux was, there was the point to be aimed at. Instead of going on to Rochester, the King turned and marched straight upon Pevensey. The exact line of his march is not told us, but it could not fail to cross, perhaps it might for a while even coincide with, the line of march by which Harold had pressed to the South-Saxon coast on the eve of the great battle. Things might seem to have strangely turned about, when an English army, led by a son of the Conqueror, marched to lay siege to the two brothers and chief fellow-workers of the Conqueror within the stronghold which was the very first-fruits of the Conquest. The Roman walls of Anderida were still there; but their whole circuit was no longer desolate, as it had been when the Conqueror landed, and as we see it now again. One part of the ancient city had again become a dwelling-place of man. As Pevensey now stands, the south-eastern corner of the Roman en-*