THE MIGHTY WILLIAM
William’s father was the fifth Duke of Normandy, and if the story of
how he attained that dignity be true, certain it is that his nickname
“Le Diable” was more fitting than the other, “Magnifique,” which he
earned by his lavishness. His elder brother, Richard, was Duke of
Normandy when Robert set up the standard of rebellion at Falaise. But
Richard was no weakling, and did not suffer the disaffection to spread;
he appeared before the walls with all the forces at his disposal,
and soon compelled his younger brother to sue for peace. Then an
arrangement was made by which a certain grant of land was conferred
on the rebel, while the castle of Falaise, a powerful stronghold,
was recognised as the property of the reigning duke. To celebrate
the occasion the two brothers repaired in amity to Rouen, and there
in the castle fortress, then standing on the site of the markets
near the river, a banquet was held, to cement the new friendship
and understanding. But suddenly Richard turned pale and sickened,
and before nightfall he was dead. There was little doubt that poison
had been in his cup; put there by whom but the man who was now duke,
and held the power of life and death in his hands! None dare speak
to accuse him, and, like many another in the Dark Ages, he reaped
the full reward of his crime in perfect security. There were others
of his family alive, uncles as powerful, and, had occasion arisen,
doubtless as unscrupulous as himself; but Robert was on the spot,
he held possession, and apparently without a word being raised in
protest, he occupied his murdered brother’s place. An illegitimate son
of his brother’s, named Nicholas, he placed in the abbey at Fécamp
to be trained as a monk, a method often made use of by half savage
kings to soften youthful rivals, still susceptible of being taught
the hollowness of worldly ambition and the wickedness of rebellion
against authority. It may be thought that this youth can hardly have
been regarded as a serious rival, but in those days the marriage-tie
was not deemed essential to inheritance. From William Longsword every
Norman duke so far had been born out of wedlock, and though they had
been legitimatised afterwards by some ceremony between their parents,
this was rather a concession than a necessity. It is said that Nicholas
entered with zest into his holy vocation, and was himself the architect
of the first church of St Ouen at Rouen, of which there remains only
the beautiful apse, known as the Tour aux Clercs. He was fourth abbot,
and was buried in the church.
[Illustration: HARBOUR OF FÉCAMP]
What always strikes one as remarkable in reading history, is the youth
of the principal actors. Robert was but twenty-two when he murdered
his brother for the ducal crown. Falaise was one of his favourite
seats, the hunting was good, the country pleasant, and the security
of the stronghold reassuring. Once, as he returned from hunting, he
had espied a tanner’s daughter, of rare beauty, washing clothes in
the little stream that runs beneath the mighty rock; when he looked
out of the high narrow window the next day, he had no difficulty in
recognising the same girl again; and subsequently he introduced himself
to her in the guise of a lover. Tanning was looked upon by the Normans
as being a very low trade indeed, and though Fulbert, the Conqueror’s
grandsire, added to it the avocation of brewing, he could never shake
off the odium which clung to his name on account of his principal
business. The base-born brat of the tanner’s daughter would hardly be
considered at first as even a pawn in the great game of statecraft.
But the boy was dear to his father’s heart. His mother, Arlotta, was
taken into the castle, and there was none to rival her, for Robert was
not married. Yet strangely enough he did not make her his wife, and so
render brighter the prospects of the sturdy boy, whom he regarded with
much affection. He could not bring himself to recognise Arlotta
even by the sort of ceremony his ancestors had considered sufficient;
his pride was too great to give the tanner’s daughter a right to share
his throne, and he preferred that his son should start more heavily
weighted for the race than he need have been. When Robert made up his
mind to go on a crusade to the Holy Land, the position became one of
great difficulty; he was worse than childless, and men began dimly to
foresee that this only son of his would prove a heavy stumbling-block
in the way of any other succession. But Robert’s selfishness being
immeasurably stronger than his paternal love, he departed, leaving it
to be well understood that in case of accidents William was to be his
heir. But there were a number of the descendants of the great Rollo
still alive, strong men, soldiers, nobles with retinues of their own,
and each and all put his own claim prior to that of this nameless boy.
Looked at thus, it seems little short of miraculous that William should
ever have raised himself to the throne at all, a more wonderful feat
than even his conquest of England in later years. The boy was but eight
when, after various warning rumours of failing health, the news came
definitely that his father was dead. Duke Robert had left him in charge
of Alain, Count of Brittany, who, though a relative, could not himself
hope to ascend the throne, and the choice was wise. Alain fulfilled his
trust loyally, and the exceptional talent and courage of the young
duke seem from the first to have attached to him a number of nobles,
so that his position gradually gained solidarity, though the marvel
that he should have escaped knife or poison in an age where such means
of riddance were frequently employed remains the same. Full credit for
his safety at this dangerous time must be given to the nobles of the
Côtentin, especially to Neel of St Sauveur, who is mentioned again in
the chapter on that district. The bitterness of the stain upon his
birth was early felt by William, and there are instances in his career
which point to the smarting of a hidden sore shown by a man ordinarily
self-possessed. His treatment of the burghers of Alençon, because
they had openly taunted him with his birth, is one case in point; the
other is his own unexampled domestic life, which stands out in strong
contrast with those of his predecessors; he seems early to have made up
his mind with iron will that what he had suffered through his father,
none should suffer through him.
At thirteen he took upon himself responsibility, and really began
to rule. His mother had been separated from him, and had no share
in the government. She had married a knight named Herlouin, by whom
she had two children, of both of whom we hear much in history. The
elder, Odo, became Bishop of Bayeux. He it was who encouraged his
half-brother’s troops at Hastings, going before and calling them on.
As Odo’s dealings had more to do with England than Normandy, we may
dispose of him here in a few words. After the Conquest, vast wealth
and many estates were bestowed upon him; he was viceroy in William’s
absence, and second in power to the king himself. His overweening pride
made him overbearing; he aspired to sit on the papal throne. William,
discovering in him many treasonable practices, kept him prisoner at
Rouen. On his half-brother’s death, however, he once more became
prominent, led insurrections against his nephew William the Red, and
joined with Duke Robert in his fraternal wars. At last this turbulent,
vigorous, astute man went crusading with Robert, and died at Palermo in
1097.
Arlotta’s other son, Robert of Mortain, was a loyal brother; he
prepared a hundred and twenty ships for the great flotilla, and lived
peaceably during the Conqueror’s lifetime, though he too warred against
William the Red. He is mentioned again in connection with Mortain.
The generally received opinion of William the Conqueror in England is,
that he was a stern and cruel man; stern he certainly was, stern with
the sternness of strength which serves as a shield against familiarity,
and enables its possessor to go straight on his own way, regardless of
unfavourable opinions or specious arguments.
“This King William that we speak about,” says the chronicler, “was a
very wise man, and very rich; more worshipful and strong than any
of his foregangers were. He was mild to the good men that loved God,
and beyond all metes stark to them who withstood his will. Else, he
was very worshipful.” This is the testimony of one who was almost his
contemporary, and who had nothing to fear from him, nor aught to gain
by praising him.
The idea of William’s cruelty is based on his harrying of
Northumberland, an act that could never have originated in the
mind of a soft-hearted or imaginative man; but William’s bent was
not toward cruelty, and considering the age in which he lived, the
well-authenticated cases which we have of his clemency are remarkable.
When he was only twenty, an age when if there be any hardness in a
man’s nature it is at its worst, unsoftened by personal experience
of sorrow, he spared the lives of those of his vassals who had risen
against him not openly but with treachery. The manner of it was thus.
Guy of Burgundy, William’s first cousin, entered into a conspiracy with
many of the most powerful nobles of Normandy to assassinate the duke.
It is easy to be seen what was Guy’s motive; though he could only claim
through his mother, he meant to make himself Duke of Normandy; but it
is more difficult to see what the others expected to gain by a move
which proposed to substitute one duke for another. It was not the first
time that rebellion and revolt against the duke had risen, but it was
the most serious plot, and the turning-point of William’s career.
So secretly had the conspiracy been planned that he was all unaware
of it. He was at this time in his twentieth year, and, as Wace tells
us, “the barons’ feuds continued; they had no regard for him; everyone
according to his means made castles and fortresses.” Up till now
William had lived, but he had not been master. “Affrays and jealousies,
maraudings and challengings” had continued in spite of him, but
this deadly conspiracy was to bring matters to a head in a way its
projectors little thought. William was in the castle of Alleaumes
close to Valognes; he had retired for the night, when he was awakened
by the agonised entreaties of the court fool, who told him that the
nobles were even now on the point of arriving in order to seize him
unprepared, and murder him. William must have had great confidence in
his jester, for he rose straightway, and apparently without waiting
for attendants saddled his horse, and rode off into the dark night.
The whole story is mysterious; were there then no men-at-arms to guard
the duke, no attendant to go with him? would it not have been safer
to barricade the castle rather than to have fled alone? Whatever the
cause, William’s midnight ride is a matter of history. There were no
smooth, easy roads then; the country, from various accounts in charters
and deeds of the tenth century, was covered with woods, and much waste
ground; and, as we know, wolves abounded, for much later (1326),
forty-five wolves were taken in the district of Coutances, twenty-two
in that of Carentan, and nineteen in that of Valognes, in the Easter
term alone. The young duke could only have had the stars to guide him,
and safety was far off. He meant to get to Falaise, where he could feel
tolerably secure; but even as the crow flies Falaise is over seventy
miles from Valognes, and the way would be difficult to find. The
account of this dramatic episode is circumstantially given by the old
chronicler, who tells us that even as William left the town he heard
the clatter of the enemies’ horses entering it. The enemy, finding he
had fled, and knowing they had implicated themselves far too deeply to
think of pardon, set off in hot pursuit, and the duke was only saved by
hiding in a thicket, whence he saw them go by. He did not follow the
direct route, but kept along by the sea-coast, until the next morning
on a worn and jaded steed he found himself at Ryes, between Bayeux and
the coast, where he revealed himself to the lord of the manor-house, a
man named Hubert. Hubert promptly rehorsed him, and sent him on his way
with two of his own sons as guides. Thus the duke managed to reach the
stronghold of Falaise in safety.
Later on William constructed a raised road, running through the
country in the direction of his flight; it ran from Valognes to
Bayeux and thence to Falaise, part of it may still be seen between
Quilly-le-Tessin, Caitheoux, and Fresni-le-Pucceux. It is said that
it was the forced task of the very conspirators who had compelled the
fight, an instance of grim justice!
The malcontents must have trembled when they knew that their powerful
overlord was free, and fully aware of their guilt; there was no escape
now, open revolt was their only chance, so they gathered their forces
and attacked Caen.
William, for his part, collected his men, and leaving a garrison in
Falaise, marched to Rouen; but too much depended on a battle, to risk
it against a greatly superior and better prepared force. He resolved
on a stroke of policy, no less than to call for protection from his
own overlord the King of France, who had formerly been his invader
and enemy. King Henry responded to the appeal, possibly feeling that
Normandy might slip from him altogether, and France itself be menaced,
were the handful of nobles to win power by their swords.
Then was fought, at Val-ès-dunes, about nine miles from Caen, one of
the most memorable battles in the history of Normandy.
A picturesque incident marked the beginning of the battle. A splendid
company of knights, carrying devices on their lances, were seen in the
forefront of the nobles’ ranks, and William, advancing, cried out that
they were his friends. The leader, De Gesson, was so much touched by
this, that though he had banded himself with the insurgents, and taken
a fearful oath to be the first to strike William in the _mêlée_, he
satisfied his conscience by one of those transparent evasions common
to superstitious ages, and considered he had redeemed his word by
striking William gently on the shoulder with his gauntlet, and then
immediately transferring himself and his followers to the side against
which he had come out to fight.
It is said the army of the nobles numbered 20,000, but figures seen
through such a distance of time have generally suffered from a little
extension. The fight was fierce, and hand to hand; battle-axes and
swords played greater part than arrows. It is impossible to better
the picturesque account given by Wace. “There was great stir over the
field, horses were to be seen curvetting, the pikes were raised, the
lances brandished, and shields and helmets glistened. As they gallop
they cry their various war-cries: those of France cry ‘Montjoie!’ the
sound whereof is pleasant to them. William cries ‘Dex Aie!’ the swords
are drawn, the lances clash. Many were the vassals to be seen there
fighting, serjeants and knights overthrowing one another. The king
himself was struck and beat down off his horse.”
[Illustration: A ROAD NEAR ROUEN]
But in the end William and his ally triumphed, and the nobles fled in
confusion from the field. Yet, when he seized the arch-traitor Guy of
Burgundy, he treated him as we have said with extraordinary leniency,
and except for taking from him the territory which had enabled him to
play such a part, he suffered him to go unpunished, and even provided
for him otherwise. This treatment bore fruit, for Guy became a
good subject, and led troops at Hastings with distinction. The other
leaders were deprived of their estates, and one was imprisoned, but
none were executed, while the smaller men escaped scot-free. When the
duke had come to his full stature he was a mighty man, some say seven
feet in height, and unwieldy in bulk; none could wield his axe; in
battle, horse and man went down before him, cloven by the strength of
his mighty arm. And not alone in strength was he more than a match for
his fellows, but let a man as much as whisper treason, and he heard of
it; those who plotted were reached surely by that penetrating power,
and lived to rue their folly. He was a kingly man, born to rule.
But though the victory at Val-ès-dunes made him duke _de facto_, his
work was far from being done, insurrection continued in other parts of
the duchy, and shortly after he was called to subdue Alençon, which
held out against him. “He found the inhabitants all ready to greet
him: calthrops sown, fosses deepened, walls heightened, palisades
bristling all around ... to spite the Tanner’s grandson, the walls were
tapestried with raw hides, the filthy gore-besmeared skins hung out,
and as he drew nigh, they whacked them and they thwacked them; ‘plenty
of work for the tanner,’ they sang out, shouting and hooting, mocking
their enemies” (Palgrave).
Then in an ineffectual sortie some of the townsmen fell into William’s
hands, and terrible was the vengeance which fell on them for their
savage joke. Their eyes were spiked out, their hands and feet chopped
off, and the mangled limbs were flung into the town. Soon after, no
doubt awed by an anger so much fiercer than they had reckoned on, a
cruelty so merciless when aroused, the people made terms, and William,
victorious, once again returned to Rouen.
[Illustration: NEAR PONT-AUDEMER]
The next rebel was William’s own uncle, of the same name as himself,
his father’s half-brother. He trusted to the strength of the castle of
Arques, near Dieppe, which had been given him by his nephew. But the
young duke was in the heyday of his vigour. The news was brought to
him at Valognes at midday one Thursday, and by Friday evening he was
before the gates of Arques, having come by way of Bayeux, Caen, and
Pont-Audemer. The castle was stoutly defended, and so impregnable by
position, that the only method was to sit down before it and wait; a
method adopted with complete success, though the arch-traitor himself
managed to escape and fly. Many other smaller risings occurred which
kept the great Conqueror in practice, and then came the second great
battle in Normandy, that of Mortèmer, at which he was not present
himself. He had shown his diplomacy in using the King of France as
an ally against the men of the Côtentin, now it was the same King of
France, Henry, who, being jealous of the power of this great
vassal, fomented insurrection among his subjects and entered that part
of the duchy known as the Vexin, in a hostile spirit. To the French,
the Normans were even yet pirates, and pirates they continued to be
called until the end. Wace says that the Frenchmen would call the
Normans “Bigoz,” a corruption of their war-cry, “By God,” from which
comes our word bigot; and they would ask the king, “Sire, why do you
not chase the Bigoz out of the country? Their ancestors were robbers,
who came by sea, and stole the land from our forefathers and us.”
So the French marched as far as Mortèmer, and began to pillage. But
after pillage came revelry, as it so frequently does, and the Normans,
who had been watchful but unseen, fell upon the French and routed them
hip and thigh. With the blithe exaggeration of days before statistics
were known, the old chronicler says, “nor was there a prison in all
Normandy which was not full of the Frenchmen. They were to be seen
fleeing around, skulking in the woods and bushes, and the dead and
wounded lay amid the burning ruins, and upon the dunghills, and about
the fields, and in the bye-paths.”
As we have said, at this battle William personally was not present, and
the French king was not taken prisoner.
Record states that William broke into poetry, apparently the only time
he was so seized: the very words of his poem are preserved; here is a
verse of it:--
“Réveillez vous et vous levez
Guerriers qui trop dormi avez
Allez bientôt voir vos amys
Que les Normands ont à mort mys
Entre Ecouys et Mortèmer
Là les vous convient les inhumer.”
After this, negotiations were concluded, and the French prisoners
restored; nevertheless the French again soon after entered Normandy,
and ravaged the country, even so far as the coast. The River Dive,
lying to the east of Caen, is considered the dividing line between
Upper and Lower Normandy, and it was at this river that William came up
with the main body of the French, including the king himself. William’s
strokes generally owed as much to their policy as their strength, and
this time was no exception. He waited in ambush until half the French
had crossed the stream, and then falling suddenly on the remainder, cut
them off, and totally routed them. Those in advance, taken in the rear,
fled in confusion, and vast quantities of spoil fell into the duke’s
hands, though the French king himself escaped. After this, peace was
concluded at Fécamp.
But still fighting did not cease. The Counts of Anjou had been a
perpetual thorn in William’s side, and the most formidable of all
was Geoffrey Martel, who seized Maine, and held it as well as his
own territory; but buoyant with victory, the Norman troops advanced
upon the principal city, Le Mans, and took it without difficulty, and
Geoffrey Martel was quieted for a while; he died four years before the
Conquest of England.
But now we must turn for a moment from William’s battles to his
domestic life. His romantic marriage is an outstanding incident in his
career. He did not marry until he was twenty-six, a considerable age
for a king. But in that as in other matters he had a mind of his own,
and one lady and one only would satisfy him, and she kept him waiting
for seven years. She was his own first cousin, Matilda of Flanders,
daughter of Baldwin V., Earl of Flanders, but neither she nor her
relatives cared for the match. There are various tales concerning her,
one of which says she was already a widow when William expressed his
preference, and had two children of her own. Another story says she
favoured another suitor, who, however, was perhaps well advised in
declining the perilous position of husband to the lady of William’s
choice, however flattering that lady’s preference for himself. After
waiting with more or less patience for seven years, William took
summary methods. He went to Bruges, where his ladylove lived, and
meeting her as she returned from church, rolled her in the mud of the
street, humiliating her in the eyes of all, and ruining her gay and
beautiful clothes. This Petruchio-like method served the purpose. In
a very short time Matilda consented to marry the man who had shown
her his determination in so unequivocal a manner. This particular
marriage seems to have been a brilliant exception in an age when
marriage vows were held in scant respect. Yet, when he won Matilda’s
consent, all William’s troubles, in regard to the alliance, were by no
means at an end. By the tenets of the Church to which he and his bride
belonged, they were within the prohibited degree of consanguinity. This
difficulty was surmounted by their gaining absolution on the condition
that they erected two religious houses at Caen, houses which stand to
this day, and are mentioned more particularly in the chapter on that
city.
It was two years before his marriage that William had paid that
celebrated visit to England in which had probably originated his
intention to become lord of that country in due time. But it was
not until he was thirty-six that he received the return visit from
Harold, when he extorted from his unwilling guest the oath on which
he based his right to the English throne. The story of Harold and of
the Conquest is told in connection with the famous tapestry, one of
the most marvellous contemporary records ever a nation possessed.
We resume the narrative here when William, as King of England, in
March 1067 returned to Normandy, bringing with him the harmless Edgar
Atheling, also the earls Edwin and Morcar, and the archbishop Stigand,
probably less with the intention of treating them as guests than
with the idea of leaving no head for a revolt behind him in his new
country. He held festivals at Rouen, Caen, Fécamp, and Falaise, a kind
of triumphal progress in fact; and then returning to quell the revolts
which had broken out in England in his absence, he took with him
Matilda, and they were jointly crowned at Westminster. But his triumphs
were soon to be dimmed by sore domestic worry. During his frequent
absences in England he left Matilda in charge of Normandy, and with
her he associated his son Robert. But Robert was rude and unfilial;
he grasped at power on his own account, and his mother, with that
weak affection so often shown in a mother toward her first-born son,
aided and sympathised with him. One great source of quarrel between
the young prince and his father was the government of the country
of Maine. Robert had been affianced to the young Countess of Maine,
who had died before the marriage; he held, therefore, that he ought
now to rule there independently, while William, who had subdued the
country by his sword before he took possession of the young heiress
and betrothed her to his son, held it for himself, and the subject was
the cause of endless recrimination between the king and his eldest
son. Besides Robert, he had had three other sons, but the next,
Richard, “had been killed in some mysterious manner, which seemed to
make people loath to speak even of the circumstance” (Palgrave). He
seems to have met his death in the New Forest, where also were killed
William the Red and one of Robert’s sons. William, afterwards known
as Rufus, was six years his eldest brother’s junior, and Henry was
several years younger still. There were also, at ages varying between
the brothers, five daughters. Cecily, of whom we hear at Caen, as first
abbess of her mother’s foundation; she became eventually Abbess of
Fécamp. Constance, married to the Duke of Brittany. Adeliza or Agatha,
first betrothed to Harold, and afterwards, much against her will, to
the King of Galicia; but she was never married to him, dying on the
journey to Spain. Adela, who married Stephen of Blois, and whose son
afterwards became king of England; and Alice, who died young. Others
add Constance and Adelaide, but five daughters and four sons are enough
for any man, and the existence of the other two seems mythical. Various
insurrections and petty wars vexed William’s later days, but still his
hand was strong, his courage unfailing. He forgave his eldest son’s
disloyalty more than once, only to find it break out again. At last,
after wandering in exile for several years, Robert fixed himself in the
castle of Gerberoi, on French soil, whence William assailed him, having
his two younger sons with him. In one of the desperate sallies of the
besieged, father and son engaged in a hand-to-hand conflict, and being
disguised by heavy armour, neither knew the other. At length William,
being wounded, cried out, and in a moment his son, struck by remorse,
raised his visor and fell on his knees asking forgiveness, sobered by
the thought of the terrible crime of patricide of which he had nearly
been guilty. Yet the reconciliation was hollow, and the father and son
were never at heart friends. It was nine years after this that the
end came. Philip, now King of France, seized an opportunity to make
inroads on Normandy, and a mocking speech of his about William, who had
grown corpulent and unwieldy, was repeated to the English king. But
his spirit was the same; embittered by personal troubles, lonely in
the estrangement and loss of her who had been his faithful companion
through life, though not old in years--for he was only sixty--yet old
with the turmoil of a fierce, hard life lived from the cradle, he still
had the fire of youth, and he returned a furious answer to Philip’s
taunt.
“The harvest was ripening, the grape swelling on the stem, the fruit
reddening on the bough,” when William entered the fertile land where
he was to meet with death. He seized the town of Mantes, belonging
to the French king, and soon the place was in red ruin. A mass of
flames mounted high in the sky, the inhabitants lay wounded to death
or fled in terror, and the king himself, in spite of his great bulk
and increasing infirmity, superintended the work of destruction; then
suddenly--one has heard the story from earliest childhood--his fine
charger, treading unexpectedly on a hot cinder, started violently,
and flung its rider violently against the high-peaked saddle of the
country--William had received his death-blow. There was little left to
follow. He was carried by easy stages to his capital city, Rouen, and
there laid in the abbey of St Gervais. And we may read of his lonely
end in the account of the city of Rouen. But even after his death,
the solitude which had attended the end did not desert him; of all
historical funerals ever recorded, that of this great man is the most
terrible.
The body was conveyed at the cost of a private citizen on its journey
to Caen. Some say that his youngest son Henry followed it to Caen, but
it seems hardly likely, for in that case there would have been no need
for a subject to defray the expenses, as he undoubtedly did. The corpse
was taken to the church in the abbey of St Etienne--the abbey that,
so light-heartedly years before, William had erected in penance for
his marriage. Yet the mischances were not at an end. As the procession
passed along the narrow street, a cry arose that the town was on fire.
Down went the bier, and off went the crowd in search of this new
sensation. It was not until the fire was quenched that the funeral was
resumed. As they prepared with all due solemnity to lower the body into
the grave, one stepped forward, crying, “I adjure ye that ye inter not
William in the spot where ye are about to lay him. He shall not commit
trespass on what is my right, for the greater part of this church is
my right and of my fee, and I have no greater right in any of my
lands.... By force he took it from me, and never afterwards offered to
do me right.” He who had never dared to rebuke William publicly for
“offering that which cost him nothing,” after his death was very bold.
“All marvelled that this great king, who had conquered so much, and won
so many cities and so many castles, could not call so much land his own
as his body might lie within after death.”
The claimant was appeased by money, and after a further mishap too
terrible to relate, those who had fulfilled their duty left the body of
the king.
But even then his dust was not suffered to rest in peace, for in
1562 his tomb was broken into by the Huguenots, and again by the mob
in 1793, and the remains disturbed. All that was preserved was a
thigh-bone, a mighty bone, showing by its measurements the size and
strength of the man, and this was reburied, and now lies before the
altar, where a long inscription records the burial-place. It is the
same as the original epitaph, though new cut:
“HIC Sepultus est invictissimus Guillelemus Conquestor Normanniae Dux,
et Anglae Rex Hujus ce domus conditor qui obiit Anno MLXXXVII.”