Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/291

 generation, "joined the English." And for them the King of the English was open-handed. Into the hoard at Winchester the wealth of England flowed in the shape of every kind of unlawful exaction. Out of it it flowed as freely to enable the new subjects of King William to strengthen the defences of their castles and to hire mercenaries to defend them.

During all this time Duke Robert himself does not seem to have thought of striking a blow. But there was one man at least between Seine and Somme who was ready both to give and to take blows on his behalf. Robert had given one of his natural children, a daughter born, to him in his wandering days, in marriage to Helias, lord of Saint-Saens. Helias, like so many of the Norman nobles, came of a house which had risen to importance through the loves of Gunnor and Richard the Fearless. A daughter of one of Gunnor's sisters married Richard Viscount of Rouen, and became the mother of Lambert of Saint-Saens, the father of Helias. Helias and the daughter of Robert had thus a common, though distant, forefather in the father of Gunnor. With his wife Helias received a goodly dowry, nothing less, we are told, than the whole land of Caux. Helias' own lordship of Saint-Saens lies on the upper course of the