Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/135

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they no longer dared to withstand openly. But it was in vain that even so great a lord as Earl Roger sought to strive or to plot against England and her King. The policy of the Conqueror, crowning the work of earlier kings, had made England a land in which no Earl of Kent or of Shrewsbury could gather a host able to withstand the King of the English at the head of the English people. When the days came that kings were to be brought low, it was not by the might of this or that overgrown noble, but by the people of the land, with the barons of the land acting only as the first rank of the people. Those days were yet far away; but an earlier stage in the chain of progress had been reached. The Norman nobles had taken one step towards becoming the first rank of the English people, when they learned that King and people together were stronger than they.

The defenders of Rochester had brought themselves to ask for peace; but they still thought that they could make terms with their sovereign. Let the King secure to them the lands and honours which they held in his kingdom, and they would give up the castle of Rochester to his will; they would hold all that they had as of his grant, and would serve him faithfully as their natural lord. The wrath of the Red King burst forth, as well it might. Odo at least was asking at Rochester for more favourable terms than those to which he had already swornfideliter amodo servirent."]