Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/136

 *



at Pevensey. William answered that he would grant no terms; he had strength enough to take the castle, whether they chose to surrender it or not. And the story runs that he added—not altogether in the spirit of his father—that all the traitors within the walls should be hanged on gibbets, or put to such other forms of death as might please him. But those of his followers who had friends or kinsfolk within the castle came to the King to crave mercy for them. A dialogue follows in our most detailed account, in which the scriptural reference to the history of Saul and David may be set down as the garnish of the monk of Saint Evroul, but which contains arguments that are likely enough to have been used on the two sides of the question. An appeal is made to William's own greatness and victory, to his position as the successor of his father. God, who helps those who trust in him, gives to good fathers a worthy offspring to come after them. The men in the castle, the proud youths and the old men blinded by greediness, had learned that the power of kings had not died out in the island realm. Those who had come from Normandy—here we seem to hear an argument from English mouths—sweeping down upon the land like kites, they who had deemed that the kingly stock had died out in England, had learned that the younger William was in no way weaker than the elder. Mercy