Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/202

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taken away. As long as his father lived, he had little power to do evil; as long as Lanfranc lived, he was kept within some kind of bounds by respect for the man to whom he owed so much. When Lanfranc was gone, he either was corrupted by prosperity, or else, like Tiberius, his natural character was now for the first time able to show itself in the absence of restraint. His character then stood out boldly, and men might compare him with his father. William the Red may pass for William the Great with all his nobler qualities, intellectual and moral, left out. He could be, when he chose, either a great captain or a great ruler; but it was only by fits and starts that he chose to be either. His memory was strong; he at least never forgot an injury; he had also a kind of firmness of purpose; that is, he was earnest in whatever he undertook for good or for evil, and could not easily be turned from his will. But he lacked that true steadiness of purpose, that power of waiting for the right time, that unfailing adaptation of means to ends, which lends somewhat of moral dignity even torex foras expressit quod in suo pectore, illo vivente, confotum habuit." In any case we may say, "postremo in scelera simul ac dedecora prorupit, postquam, remoto pudore et metu, suo tantum ingenio utebatur." The change in William after Lanfranc's death is most strongly brought out by Matthew Paris, Hist. Angl. i. 38.]