Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/65

 of the great Conqueror without a blow being struck or a dog moving his tongue against him.

The first act of the uncrowned candidate for the kingly office had been one of harshness—harshness which was perhaps politic in the son, but which trod under foot the last wishes of a repentant father. The first act of the crowned King was one which might give good hopes for the reign which was beginning, and which certainly carried out his father's wishes to the letter. From Westminster William Rufus went again to Winchester, this time not to make fast the bars of his father's prison-house, but to throw open the stores of his father's treasury. Our native Chronicler waxes eloquent on the boundless wealth of all kinds, far beyond the powers of any man to tell of, which had been gathered together in the Conqueror's hoard during his one and twenty years of kingship. The Chronicler had, as we must remember, himself lived in William's court, and we may believe that his own eyes had looked on the store of gold and silver, of vessels and robes and gems and other costly things, which it was beyond the skill of man to set forth. These were the spoils of England, and from them were made the gifts which, in the belief of those days, were to win repose in the other world for the soul of her despoiler. Every minster in England received, some six marks of gold, some ten, besides gifts of every kind of ecclesiastical ornament and utensil, rich with precious metals and precious stones, among which books for the use ofr gegaderode, þa wæron unasecgendlice ænie man hu mycel þær wæs gegaderod, on golde and on seolfre and on faton and on pællan and on gimman and on manige oðre deorwurðe þingon þe earfoðe sindon to ateallene." Yet Henry of Huntingdon (p. 211) knew the exact amount of the silver, sixty thousand pounds, one doubtless for each knight's fee.]