Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/537

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could hardly afford to jeopard for their sake the imperial supremacy of his crown over the whole isle of Britain, a supremacy which he was at that moment specially called on to assert. The year of the second Norman campaign was a year of special importance in the history both of Scotland and of Wales. While the Red King was warring and bribing in Normandy, Scotland had, as in the days of Siward, received a king from England, and, what had not happened in the days of Siward, her people had slain the foreign nominee, and had again chosen a king of their own. The first reign of Donald, the momentary reign of Duncan, the beginning of the second reign of Donald, all of them events which were not mere changes of sovereign, but real revolutions in the state of the nation, had happened between the death of Malcolm and the return of William from Normandy thirteen months later. Wales too had risen in a movement which had more than was usual of the character of real national insurrection, and the movement had called for all the energies of the new Earl of Shrewsbury and of the King himself on his return. And a plot yet nearer home, a plot to deprive the King of his crown and life, a plot devised by men who had been just now the foremost in supporting his cause, broke out soon after his return. It broke out so soon after it that one is tempted to think that it was already hatching, and that it was one of the causes which brought him back. The seeming break-down of the Red King's second Norman campaign thus becomes more intelligible than some of the other cases where he began an undertaking and failed to finish it. William had plenty to do in Britain, both in camp and in council. As soon as he was assured of the adhesion of his brother Henry, he could afford, indeed he was driven, to leave him to do the work which had to be done in Normandy.