Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/619

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seven thousand pounds could hardly have weighed on the whole kingdom as this benevolence is said to have weighed. For a benevolence it was, at least in form; men were invited to give or to lend; but we gather that some more stringent means was found for those who failed to give or to lend willingly. The English Chronicler sends up his wail for the heavy time that it was by reason of the manifold gelds, and he tells us how, as so often happened, hunger followed in the wake of the extortioner. Other writers describe the King as demanding loans and gifts from his prelates, earls, and other great men. The great lay lords, we are told, raised their share by the plunder of the knights who held fiefs of them and of the churls who tilled their demesne lands. It is the cry of these last that we hear through the voice of the Chronicler. The bishops and abbots are said to have made a protest, a thing which almost passes belief on the part of the bishops of the Red King's day. When called on for their shares, they are said to have answered, in the spirit, or at least in the words, of Ælfheah, that they could not raise the money by any means save the oppression of the wretched tillers of the earth. Judged by the conduct of the two classes at Rockingham, the prelates and the lay barons seem to have changed places. It is the churchmen now who have the conscientious scruple. Yet the difference is not wonderful. The barons were used to general havoc and violence of every kind;