Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/238

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father which is one of the redeeming features in the character of the Red King. He underwent excommunication from the zeal of Bishop Serlo, and by the wrongs done by him to Abbot Ralph of Seez, which drove that prelate to seek shelter in England, he unwittingly gave England a worthy primate and Anselm a worthy successor. One is inclined to wonder how such a man gained the special favour of the Conqueror, whose politic sternness had nothing in common with the fiendish brutality of Robert. Perhaps, as in William Rufus, the worst features of his character may for a while have been hidden. It is less surprising that, in the days of William's sons, we find him in honour at the courts of England, Normandy, and France. But at last vengeance came upon him. When King Henry sent him to spend his days in prison, it was in a prison so strait and darksome that the outer world knew not whether he were dead or alive, nor was the time of his death set down in any record.

The other Robert, the son of the other Roger, was a man of a different mould, a man who would perhaps seem more in place in some other age than in that in which he lived. He was the son of the old and worthy Roger of Beaumont, the faithful counsellor of princes, who, like Gulbert of Hugleville, refused to share in