Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/231



The next year we find no entries of this kind. There was a mighty stir in England and in Normandy; but it was not a mere stirring of the elements. We now enter on the record of the foreign policy and the foreign wars of the Red King, and we hear the first wail going up from the oppressed folk within his kingdom. Throughout his reign the growth of the prince's power and the grievances of his people go together. In the former year there was nothing to chronicle but the earthquake and the late harvest. This year we hear of the first successes of the King beyond the sea, and we hear, as their natural consequence, that the "land was fordone with unlawful gelds."

The two years which followed the death of Lanfranc saw the attempt of the first year of Rufus reversed. Instead of the lord of Normandy striving to win England, the lord of England not only strives, but succeeds, in making himself master of a large part of the Norman duchy. Having thus become a continental potentate, the King comes back to his island kingdom, to establish his Imperial supremacy over the greatest vassal of his crown, and to do what his father had not done, to enlarge the borders of his immediate realm by a new land and a new city.

Through a large part then of the present chapter the scene of our story will be removed from England to Normandy. Yet it is only the scene which is changed, not the actors. One main result of the coming of the first William into England was that for a while the history of Normandy and that of England cannot be kept asunder. The chief men on the one side of the water are the chief men on the other side. And the fact that they were so is the main key to the politics of the time. We have in the last chapter seen the working of this fact from one side;