district; their proprietors, tenures, value, the quantity of meadow, pasture, wood, and arable land, which they contained; and in some counties, the number of tenants, cottagers, and people of all denominations, who lived upon them. This detail enabled him to regulate the taxations in such a manner, that all the inhabitants were compelled to bear their duties in proportion to their abilities.

He was no less careful of the methods of saving money than of accumulation. He reserved a very ample revenue for the crown; and, in the general distribution of land among his followers, he kept possession of no less than fourteen hundred manors in different parts of the country. Such was his income, that it is justly said to have exceeded that of any English prince either before or since his time. No king of England was ever so opulent; none so able to support the splendour and magnificence of a court; none had so many places of trust and profit to bestow; and none, consequently, had his commands attended with such implicit obedience.

There was one pleasure to which William, as well as all the Normans and ancient Saxons, was addicted, which was hunting. To indulge this in its utmost extent, he depopulated the county of Hants for thirty miles, turning out the inhabitants, destroying all the villages, and making the wretched outcasts no compensation for such an injury. In the time of the Saxon kings, all noblemen without distinction had a right to hunt in the royal forests; but William appropriated all these, and published very severe laws to prohibit his subjects from encroaching on this part of his prerogative. The killing of a deer, a boar, or even a hare, was punished with the loss of the delinquent's eyes, at a time when the killing of a man might be atoned for by paying a moderate fine or composition.

As the king's wealth and power were so great, it may be easily supposed that the riches of his ministers were in proportion. Those of his uterine brother Odo, bishop of Bayeux, were so great, that he resolved to purchase the papacy. For this purpose, taking the opportunity of William's absence, he equipped a vessel at the Isle of Wight, on board of which he sent immense treasures, and prepared for his embarkation; but he was unfortunately 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 hands 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 bishop of Bayeux, but as the earl of Kent; and in that capacity he expected, and would have, an account of his adminis tration. He was therefore sent prioner 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 in Maine, the nobility of which had been always averse from the Norman Government. 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 increased 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 should 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 A. d. strong army, and, entering the Isle of France, 1087. destroyed 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 pommel of the saddle to such a degree, that he suffered a relapse, and was obliged to return to Rouen. Finding his illness increase, and being sensible of the approach of death, he began to turn his eyes to a future state, from which the pursuit of ambition had long averted them. He was now struck with remorse for all his cruelties and depredations: he endeavoured to atone for his former offences by large presents to churches and monasteries, and by giving liberty to many prisoners whom he had 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 in

censed. He then bequeathed Normandy and 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-fifth year of his age, after having reigned fifty-three years in Normandy and almost 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 tribunal 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 inquired 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 ostentation. 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 have been 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.

WILLIAM RUFUS.

A. D. 1087-1100.

WILLIAM, surnamed Rufus 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. Arriving, 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.