tunately detained by contrary winds. In the mean time, William having had intimation of his design, resolved to prevent the exportation of so much wealth from his dominions. Accordingly, returning from Normandy, where he was then employed, he came into England at the very instant his brother was stepping on board, and immediately ordered him to be made a prisoner. His attendants however, respecting the immunities of the church, scrupled to execute his commands; so that the king himself was obliged with his own hand to seize him. Odo, disconcerted at so unexpected an intervention, appealed to the Pope; who, he alleged, was the only person upon earth, to try a bishop. To this the king replied, that he did not seize him as the bishop of Bayeux, but as earl of Kent; and in that capacity he expected, and would have an account of his administration. He was, therefore, sent prisoner into Normandy; and notwithstanding all the remonstrances and threats of Gregory, he was detained in custody during the remainder of William's reign.

William had scarcely put an end to this transaction, when he felt a very severe blow in the death of Matilda, his queen; and as misfortunes generally come together, he received information of a general insurrection at Maine, the nobility of which had been always averse to the Norman go- . vernment: upon his arrival on the continent, he found, that the insurgents had been secretly assisted and excited by the king of France, whose policy consisted in thus lessening the Norman power, by creating dissensions among the nobles of its different provinces. William's displeasure was not a little encreased, by the account he received of some railleries, which that monarch had thrown out against him. It seems that William, who was become corpulent, had been detained in bed some

time by sickness; and Philip was heard to say, that he only lay in of a big belly. This so provoked the English monarch, that he sent him word, he would soon be up, and would at his churching present such a number of tapers, as would set the kingdom of France in a flame.

In order to perform this promise, he levied a strong army, and entering the isle of France, detroyed and burned all the villages and houses without opposition. He took the town of Mante, which he reduced to ashes. But the progress of these hostilities was stopped by an accident, which shortly after put an end to William's life. His horse chancing to place his fore-feet on some hot ashes, plunged so violently, that the rider was thrown forward, and bruised upon the pummel of the saddle to such a degree, that he suffered a relapse, and was obliged to return to Rouen. Finding his illness encrease, and being sensible of the approach of death, he began to turn his eye to a future state, from which the pursuit of ambition had long averted him. He was now struck with remorse for all the cruelties and depredations he had made; he endeavoured to atone for his former offences, by large presents to churches and monasteries, and by giving liberty to many prisoners whom he unjustly detained. He was even prevailed on, though not without reluctance, to consent with his dying breath, to the deliverance of his brother Odo, against whom he was extremely incensed. He then bequeathed Normandy, and Le Maine to his eldest son Robert, whom he never loved; to Henry, he left five thousand pounds, and his mother's jointure, without the smallest territory; and though he would not pretend to establish the succession of the crown of England, to which he now began to perceive that he had no title, he expressed his wish that it might devolve

to his favourite son William, whom he immediately dispatched with letters to the archbishop of Canterbury, desiring his assistance. Having thus regulated his temporal affairs, he was conveyed in a litter, to a little village near Rouen, where he might settle the concerns of his soul without noise or interruption. It was there that he died, in the sixty-first year of his age, after having reigned fifty-two in Normandy, and twenty one in England. His body was interred in the church at Caen, which he himself had founded; but his interment was attended with a remarkable circumstance. As the body was carrying to the grave, the prelates and priests attending with the most awful silence, a man who stood upon an eminence, was heard to cry out with a loud voice, and to forbid the interment of the body, in a spot that had been unjustly seized by the conqueror. That very place, cried the man, is the area of my father's house; and I now summon the departed soul before the divine ribunal to do me justice, and to atone for so great an oppression. The bishops and attendants were struck with the man's intrepid conduct; they enquired into the truth of his charge, and finding it just, agreed to satisfy him for the damages he had sustained.

William was a prince of great courage and capacity. Ambitious, politic, cruel, vindictive, and rapacious. He was fond of glory, and parsimonious merely for the purposes of ostentaion. Though sudden and impetuous in his enterprises, he was cool, deliberate, and indefatigable in times of danger. He is said by the Norman writers to be above eight feet high, his body strong built, and well proportioned, and his strength such, that none of his courtiers could draw his bow. He talked little; he was seldom affable to any, except to Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury; with him,

he was ever meek and gentle; with all others, stern and austere. Though he rendered himself formidable to all, and odious to many, yet he had policy sufficient to transmit his power to posterity, and the throne is still occupied by his descendants.

CHAPTER VI.

W

WILLIAM RUFUS.

1087.

Ar

ILLIAM, surnamed RUFUS, A. D. from the colour of his hair, had no sooner received the late king's letter to Lanfranc, in his favour, than he hastened to take measures for securing himself on the throne. riving, therefore, before the news of William's death had yet reached England, his first care was, to take possession of the treasure left by the king at Winchester, which amounted to the sum of sixty thousand pounds. He then addressed the primate who had always considered him with an eye of peculiar affection; and who now, finding the justness of his claim, instantly proceeded to the ceremony of his coronation. At the same time Robert, who had been appointed successor to Normandy, took peaceable possession of that government; where his person was loved, and his accession long desired.

In the beginning of William the Second's reign, the English began to think they had hitherto mistaken this prince's character, who had always ap peared to them rude and brutal. He at first seemed to pay the utmost regard to the councils of Lanfranc, the primate, which were mild and gentle, and constantly calculated for the benefit of the nation. Nevertheless, the Norman barons, who knew him better, perceived that he kept his disposition under an unnatural restraint, and that he only waited an

VOL.

opportunity for throwing off the mask when his power should be established. They were, from the beginning, displeased at the division of the empire by the late king; they eagerly desired an union as before, and looked upon Robert as the proper owner of the whole. The natural disposition also of this prince was as pleasing to them, as that of William his brother was odious. Robert was open, generous, and humane; he carried his facility to an excess, that he could scarcely find strength of mind to give any of his adherents the mortification of a refusal. But this was a quality no way disagreeable to those who expected to build their ambition on the easy pliancy of his temper. A powerful conspiracy was therefore carried on against William; and Odo the late king's brother undertook to conduct it to maturity.

William, sensible of the danger that threatened him on all sides, endeavoured to gain the affections of the native English, whom he prevailed upon, by promises of future good treatment, and preference in the distribution of his favours, to espouse his. interests. He was soon therefore in the field; and, at the head of a numerous army, shewed himself in 'readiness to oppose all who should dispute his pretensions. In the mean time, Odo had written to Robert an account of the conspiracy in his favour, urging him to use dispatch, and exciting him, by the greatness of the danger, and the splendor of the reward. Robert gave him the most positive assurances of speedy assistance; but his indolence was not to be exited by distant expectations. Instead of employing his money in levies, to support his friends in England, he squandered it away in idle expences, and unmerited benefits, so that he procrastinated his departure till the opportunity was lost while William exerted himself with incredible activity, to dissipate the confederacy before