Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/614

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greatness of Godfrey of Lorraine, who had won his duchy as the prize of faithful service to the Emperor, but who was none the less ready to discharge the duties of a higher allegiance at the bidding of the Pontiff. From Normandy itself went, among a crowd of others, some of that younger generation which is beginning to supply the chief actors in our tale. Philip, the son of the lately deceased Roger of Montgomery, Ivo and Alberic the sons of the lately deceased Hugh of Grantmesnil, all went forth; so did Gerard of Gournay and his wife Eadgyth, he to die, she to come back for another marriage. And with them went another married pair whose names carry us back to earlier times. The double traitor, Ralph of Wader, traitor to England, traitor to William, went forth with his valiant Emma, to do something to wipe out his old crimes by good service beneath the walls of Nikaia, and to leave his bones and hers in lands where his memory was not a memory of shame.

We may be sure that among the crowd of men of every rank who were stirred by the voice of Urban none took up the cross with a more single mind than the Duke of the Normans. It was an appeal which spoke at once to the better side of him, an appeal which took him away from that land of his birth and dominion which was to him a land of such utter failure. As a son and a ruler, he had much to repent of; as a warrior, a worthy object of warfare was for the first time opened to him. But how was he to go, at least how was he to go as became the prince of a duchy which under other princes had been so great? His hoard was empty; half his barons