Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/393

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before us as the son of a low-born priest in the diocese of Bayeux and of a mother who bore the character of a witch, and who was reported to have lost an eye through the agency of the powers with which she was too familiar. Handsome in person, ready of wit, free of speech and of hand, unlearned, loose of life, clever and unscrupulous in business of every kind, he made friends and he made enemies; but he rose. The surname which cleaves to him in various shapes and spellings is said to have been given to him in the court of the Conqueror by the dispenser Robert, because he pushed himself on at the expense of his betters, like a burning flame. But his genius lay most of all in the direction of finance, in days when finance meant to transfer, by whatever means, the greatest amount of the subject's money into the coffers of the King. One story describes him as sent on such an errand by the Conqueror into the lands of his future bishopric, and as smitten for his crime by the wonder-working hand of Saint Cuthberht himself. There is every reason to believe that he had a hand in drawing up the Great Survey. But, while William the Great lived, he seems not to have risen to any high place. Towards the end of his reign the Conqueror did begin to give away bishoprics to his own clerks, but still hardly to such clerks as Randolf Flambard. Nor