Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/295

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Earl with a huge fyrd beset the castle about where the King's men of England in it were. The King William of England sent to Philip the Franks' King, and he for his love or for his mickle treasure forlet so his man the Earl Robert and his land, and went again to France and let them so be." A Latin writer does not think it needful to allow Philip the perhaps ironical alternative of the English writer. Love between Philip and William Rufus is not thought of. We are simply told that, while Philip was promising great things, the money of the King of England met him—the wealth of Rufus seems to be personified. Before its presence his courage was broken; he loosed his girdle and went back to his banquet.
 * borough tell what followed. "And the King and the

Thus the special weapons of Rufus could overcome even kings at a distance. But, ludicrous as the tale sounds in the way in which it is told, this negotiation between Philip and William is really, in an European, and even in an English point of view, the most important event in the whole story. We should hardly be wrong in calling this payment to Philip the first instance of the employment of English money in the shape of subsidies to foreign princes. For such it in strictness was. It was not, like a Danegeld, money paid to buy off a foreign invader. Nor was it like the simple hiring of mercenaries at home or abroad. It is, like later subsidies, money paid to a foreign sovereign, on