Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/137

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was the noblest attribute of a conqueror; something too was due to the men who had helped him to his victory, and who now pleaded for those who had undergone enough of punishment for their error. Rufus is made to answer that he is thankful both to God and to his faithful followers. But he fears that he should be lacking in that justice which is a king's first duty, if he were to spare the men who had risen up against him without cause, and who had sought the life of a king who, as he truly said, had done them no harm. The Red King is made to employ the argument which we have so often come across on behalf of that severe discharge of princely duty which made the names of his father and his younger brother live in men's grateful remembrance. He fears lest their prayers should lead him away from the strait path of justice. He who spares robbers and traitors and perjured persons takes away the peace and safety of the innocent, and only sows loss and slaughter for the good and for the unarmed people. This course is one which the Red King was very far from following in after years; but it is quite possible that he may have made such professions at any stage of his life, and he may have even made them honestly at this stage. But on behalf of the chiefest of all culprits, the counsellors of mercy had special arguments. Odo is the King's uncle, the companion of his father in the Conquest of England. He is moreover a bishop, a priest of the Lord, a sharer in the privileges to which, in one side of his twofold character, he had