THE TWO WILLIAMS.
=1. King William’s Last War.=--The way in which the Conqueror came
by his death was hardly worthy of the great deeds of his life. The
land between Rouen and Paris, on the rivers Seine and Oise, known as
the _Vexin_, was a land which had long been disputed between Normandy
and France. Border quarrels were always going on, and just now there
were great complaints of inroads made by the French commanders in
Mantes, the chief town of the Vexin, on the lands of various Normans.
William made answer by calling on Philip to give up to him the town of
Mantes and the whole Vexin. Philip only answered by making jests on
William, who was just now keeping quiet at Rouen, seeking by medical
treatment to lessen the bulk of his body. Philip said that the King
of the English was lying in, and that there would be a great show of
candles at his churching. Then King William was very wroth, and swore
his most fearful oaths that, when he rose up, he would light a hundred
thousand candles at the cost of the French King. So in August 1087, as
soon as he was able to get up, he entered the Vexin and harried the
land cruelly. He reached Mantes (August 15), entered the town, caused
it to be set on fire, and rode about to see the burning. At last his
horse stumbled, perhaps on the burning embers; he was thrown forward
on the tall bow of his saddle, and received a wound inside which made
him give over. He was carried to Rouen, and there lay in the priory of
Saint Gervase outside the city.
=2. King William’s last Sickness.=--He lay there for more than three
weeks. The chief prelates of Normandy came about him; some of them were
skilful leeches who could tend his body as well as his soul. But they
saw that there was no hope, and told him that he must die. He then
began to make ready for death. He professed repentance for all his
wrong deeds, for the harrying of Northumberland long before and for the
burning of Mantes just now. He sent money to make good the destruction
at Mantes, and he sent other money to the churches and poor of England.
Then he settled the succession to his dominions. He said that by all
law Robert must succeed him in Normandy; so it must be; yet he saw what
woes would come on the land where Robert should rule. About England he
said that he did not dare to make any order; but he wished, if it were
God’s will, that William should succeed him, and he sent a letter to
Archbishop Lanfranc, praying him to crown William, if he thought it
right to do so. To his youngest son Henry he left five thousand pounds
in money from his hoard. Robert was far away, and now his other sons
left him, William to look after the kingdom, and Henry to look after
his money. Then the King bade all the men, Norman and English, whom he
had kept in prison to be set free, save only his brother Odo. Him he
said he would not set free; he would only be the cause of more mischief
if he were let out. But his brother Robert and others prayed hard for
him, and at last, much against his will, the King bade that Odo should
be set free with the others.
=3. King William’s Death and Burial.=--At last on September 9, 1087,
the great King William, the Conqueror of England, died. There was fear
and confusion through all Rouen; men knew not what to do, now that the
man who had kept the land in peace was gone. For a while the King’s
body lay stripped and forsaken. But at last he was taken to Caen, to
be buried in his own minster of Saint Stephen without the walls. Then,
when the rites of burial began, one Asselin the son of Arthur rose and
said that the ground on which the church was built was his and his
father’s, and he forbade that the body should be buried in his soil.
So they paid him at once for the grave, and afterwards for the whole
estate that he had lost. Then was King William buried, and a shrine of
cunning workmanship was made over his grave; but all is now gone.
=4. William the Red.=--The king who was now to succeed William the
Great was his third son William--his second son Richard had died in
the New Forest. From his ruddy face he was called William Rufus or the
Red, and sometimes the Red King. His character was a strange mixture.
He had a large share of his father’s gifts; he was brave, free of
hand, and merry of speech; and, when he chose, he could be both a good
captain and a good ruler. But he had none of his father’s really great
qualities; he was a blasphemer of God and a man of the foulest life;
without being so cruel in his own person as some other princes, he was
utterly reckless, and cared not how much evil he caused. He was also
quite careless of his promises, except when he pledged his word as a
good knight; then he kept it faithfully; any one who trusted himself to
his personal generosity was always safe. For we have now come to the
beginning of what is called chivalry, of which William the Red was one
of the first professors. He was proud and self-willed above all men,
and he had not, like his father, any steady purpose about any matter.
He was always beginning undertakings and not ending them. Yet there is
no doubt that he was a man of great natural gifts, if he had chosen to
use them better. He made a great impression on the minds of men at the
time, and of no king are there more personal stories told.
=5. Accession of William Rufus.=--It does not seem that William Rufus
was ever regularly chosen king. He crossed to England with his father’s
letter to Lanfranc, and on September 26, the Archbishop crowned him
at Westminster. No one gainsaid his claim; all men bowed to him and
sware oaths to him. But it must be remembered that there was really
more to be said for either of his brothers than for him. Robert was the
eldest son, and was his father’s natural successor in Normandy. And
those Normans who wished England and Normandy to stay together, would
of course wish to have Robert for king in England. On the other hand,
if the English had given up all thought of a king of their own blood,
the natural choice for them was Henry. He alone was a real Ætheling, a
king’s son born in the land. But neither Robert nor Henry was at hand,
and William took the crown quite quietly. He held the Christmas feast
at Westminster, and it seems to have been then that he gave back the
earldom of Kent to his uncle Bishop Odo.
=6. The Rebellion of Odo.=--The new king had been only a few months
on the throne, when most of the chief Normans openly rebelled against
him, meaning to bring in his brother Duke Robert. At the head of the
revolt were the King’s two uncles, Count Robert and Bishop Odo. Odo
was the first beginner of the whole stir, for he found that he was
not, as he had hoped to be, the King’s chief counsellor. Earl Roger of
Shrewsbury, Bishop Geoffrey of Coutances, Bishop William of Durham,
and others of the great men joined them; but Earl Hugh of Chester,
Archbishop Lanfranc and all the other bishops, above all Saint Wulfstan
at Worcester, remained faithful. Then the King saw that he had nothing
to trust to but the native English. So he called them to his standard,
and made promises of good government in every way. Then the people
flocked to him from all parts, and he found himself at the head of a
great English army. The rebels were now smitten everywhere; specially
the King with his Englishmen beat back the troops that Duke Robert sent
to land at Pevensey. That is, they beat back a new Norman invasion on
the very spot where the Conqueror had landed. Then they took the castle
of Rochester, where Odo was, and Odo had to come out with shame and to
go back to Normandy; he never saw England again. Many of the rebels
lost their lands; but they afterwards got them back again when peace
was made between King William and his brother Robert.
=7. The End of the Conquest.=--William Rufus was very far from
keeping the promises of good government which he made to the native
English when he needed their help. Yet it would be hard to show
that he directly oppressed Englishmen as Englishmen; his reign was
rather a time of general misrule, which oppressed all classes, though
undoubtedly the native English must have suffered the most. But this
war of the year 1088 was the last stage of the Norman Conquest. It
was the last time that Englishmen and Normans, as such, met in battle
against one another on English soil. And, as far as fighting went,
the English had the better. In this war Englishmen, fighting against
Normans, kept the crown of England for a Norman King. Thus by this war
the Norman Conquest of England was in some sort completed and in some
sort undone. It was completed so far as that the Norman house was now
firmly established on the English throne. From this time no one thought
of driving out the kings who came of the line of the Conqueror. No one
thought again of setting up Edgar, though he lived a long time after
this; no one thought again of asking for help from Denmark. But the
Conquest was undone so far as that all this was done by the English
themselves, so far as the Norman King was set on the throne by English
hands. At this point then we shall best end our tale of the history of
the Conquest, and stop to look at the effects which the Conquest had,
both at once and on the later history of England.