2. What were the precautions taken by the Conqueror to secure the throne he had gained? Describe the method in which he confiscated property through a commission. What other acts of spoliation did he commit? How did he gratify the rapacity of his followers? Give some instances of his tyranny.

3. What occurred during the Conqueror's absence? Who raised the standard of independence? Where did the Saxons resist in the north? What atrocities were committed by the Normans? By whom and where was the camp of refuge formed?

4. What were the domestic evils under which he suffered? With what power was he making war just before his death? Narrate the circumstances of his end.

5. Give an account of Domesday-book. What assemblage was held at Winchester? Describe the origin of the forest laws. What penalties were inflicted on their transgressors? What system of laws grew out of their enforcement? What celebrated English lawyer has condemned them?

6. What side did the Saxon clergy take? Who refused to place the crown on William's head? Describe the proceedings of Lanfranc. What line of conduct did William pursue in his intercourse with the pope? What rebellion and conspiracy disturbed the latter years of William's life?

CHAPTER X.

FROM THE ACCESSION OF WILLIAM RUFUS to the DEATH of STEPHEN, A. D. 1087-1154.

William II. (Rufus), a. D. 1087—1100.

William Rufus-Rebellion of Odo-Revolt of Northumbria-The New Forest-Henry I.-Robert Duke of Normandy-The Count of Breteuil -Death of Prince William-State of Learning and the Church-Arts and Manufactures-Stephen-Battle of the Standard-Matilda's Invasion-Treaty of Winchester.

1. WILLIAM, surnamed Rufus or the Red, was on his way to England from Normandy, when he received intelligence of his father's death; and with eager haste he hurried to Winchester, where he secured possession of the royal treasure, amounting to 60,000 pounds weight of fine silver, with gold and precious stones to a large value. His next care was to assemble the prelates and such of the nobles as were then in England, to whom he announced the death of his father. These elected him king, and he was crowned by Archbishop Lanfranc in the cathedral of Winchester, on the 26th of September 1087, while the barons who had remained in Normandy were holding a council regarding the succession. Many of them pos

sessed property both in England and on the continent, and therefore desired to see the two countries united under the government of Robert, the Conqueror's eldest son, but their designs were frustrated by William's activity.

The Norman barons, who had not concurred in the Red King's election, now resolved to depose him in favour of his elder brother. William, perceiving that his countrymen were conspiring against him, called the Saxons to his aid, and by means of great concessions and promises induced them to support his cause. Flattered by his confidence, thirty thousand Englishmen arrayed themselves under his banner; and with this army he marched towards the city of Rochester, where Odo and the other conspirators had fortified themselves. The Saxons displayed great ardour in the siege, and soon forced the garrison to capitulate. Amid the execrations of the native troops, Odo, the prelate who had invoked a blessing on the invading army at the battle of Hastings, quitted England never to return. The quarrel between the two brothers was settled not long after the king preserving his crown and Robert his duchy, with a reversion to the survivor in case of the death of either.

But the Saxons experienced no alleviation of their misery, and in some respects they were worse treated than before. When the danger was over, William forgot his promises, and even increased the oppressions they had endured under his father. He seized the temporalities of the vacant bishoprics and abbeys, which he neglected to fill up, that he might enjoy their revenues, and some of them he openly set up for sale or bestowed upon his lay favourites.

2. The very quarrels of the conquerors were fraught with fatal consequences to the English; for when the revolt of certain Northumbrian barons in 1094 had been punished by confiscation and the wasting of their lands, the whole of the taxes were exacted from the Saxon commonalty.

About the middle of this century the Turks, a fierce and warlike people of Mongolian origin, having expelled the Saracens from Syria, so oppressed the Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem, that at last, under the fiery eloquence of Peter the Hermit, all Western Europe armed to rescue the Holy Land from the infidels. Robert joined this first Crusade (as it was called from the red cross worn on the garments of each warrior), and mortgaged his duchy to Rufus for 10,000 marks, A.D. 1095. The king, however, did not long enjoy his territorial acquisition, being suddenly cut off in the carcer of his tyrrany and debauch

ery. It was the popular belief that the New Forest, which had been so unjustly and barbarously acquired by the first William for a hunting-ground, would prove fatal to the descendants of the Conqueror, and the violent death of two of them within its precincts had fostered the vulgar superstition. William himself was not without his apprehensions. On the 1st of August 1100, he was at Malwood-keep, one of his hunting-seats, along with his brother Henry and a goodly company of nobles. He passed a restless night, and his mind was so disturbed by unpleasant dreams, that he abandoned his design of hunting. After dinner, however, his spirits revived from the effects of a more than ordinary quantity of wine, and unable to refrain from his favourite amusement, he rode into the forest. According to the usual manner of conducting the sport, the company separated in pursuit of game, and in the evening the king was found weltering in his blood, having been pierced to the heart with an arrow. The commonly received account of his death is, that Sir Walter Tyrrel, one of the party, shot him by accident; but others allege that the shaft was sped by the ambition of his brother Henry, or the revenge of some injured Saxon. He was forty years old, and had reigned nearly thirteen years.

To Rufus England is indebted for some of the stateliest monuments of early Norman architecture. By his orders were constructed the first bridge of London and the noble hall at Westminster. His courtiers imitated his example in their respective provinces, and princely structures were raised in every direction. He had also conceived the design of rearing an immense palace, to which Westminster Hall should be merely the vestibule.

Henry I. (Beauclerc), A. D. 1100-1135.

3.. HENRY I., surnamed Beauclerc on account of his learning, rode off to Winchester immediately after the king's death, and seized upon the royal treasures. These he employed in gaining partisans. He became popular chiefly by recalling Anselm, Lanfranc's successor in the archbishopric of Canterbury, who had been compelled to leave England. Anselm was instrumental in promoting Henry's Union with Maud or Matilda, daughter of Malcolm, king of Scotland, and a descendant of Alfred the Great, through her mother Margaret, the sister of Edgar Atheling. This politic marriage, which united the Saxon and the Norman dynasties, rendered the

1101.

king so powerful in England, that he had no longer cause to fear his elder brother Robert, who was in Palestine at the time of the death of Rufus, and returned to England at the head A. D. } of his barons. Their differences, however, were terminated without bloodshed, Robert consenting to renounce his claim to the throne of England, and Henry promising to surrender all his fortresses in Normandy, and to pay an annual pension of three thousand marks, besides granting a general amnesty to the Anglo-Norman lords who had joined Robert's army.

But Robert had scarcely returned to Normandy, before Henry proceeded against the barons who had favoured his brother's cause, and whom he had promised to pardon. They resisted, and the result of a sort of civil war against them was, that one by one nearly all the great nobles, the sons of those who had conquered England, were outlawed, and their estates and honours given to Henry's favourites. The peace concluded between the king and his brother was not of long duration; and in 1105 and 1106, Henry invaded Normandy under the pretence of delivering its inhabitants from the tyranny of their duke, defeated him at Tenchebray, and having taken him prisoner, shut him up in one of his castles, where he was cruelly deprived of his eyesight. In this dismal captivity he passed twenty-eight years, until death put an end to his sufferings. After the victory of Tenchebray, Henry became master of all Normandy, which he annexed to the English crown.

4. It is impossible for pen to describe the atrocious manners of the times, and the excesses to which the thirst for revenge carried the powerful lords of this period. Henry, who had great cause to fear the violence of the men whom he had injured, never slept unarmed, and was continually changing his bed-chamber; but such precautions did not prevent him from being tormented by horrible visions that rarely allowed him to enjoy sound repose. Many odious traits in his character might be pointed out, but one alone will suffice to show how foreign to him was every sentiment of humanity. He had given the hand of Juliana, one of his natural daughters, to Eustace, count of Breteuil, who solicited the gift of an important fortress. A warrior named Harenc was then governor of the place, and Henry, who doubted the count's fidelity, promised that it should be surrendered to him at the conclusion of the war with France, and as a pledge

of Harenc's good faith, placed the son of that warrior in Eustace's hands, requiring in return, by way of security, the count's two daughters that Juliana had borne him. This arrangement did not long please the Count of Breteuil. The barbarian caused Harenc's son to be brought before him, and having torn out both his eyes, sent him back in this condition to his father. We may easily imagine the grief and rage of the warrior when his mutilated son appeared before him. He flew to Henry, demanded justice, and claimed the count's two daughters, that he might retaliate on them their father's atrocity. The count took flight as soon as he heard that Henry intended to deliver his person into Harenc's hands, and the king did not hesitate for one moment to sacrifice his two grandchildren. Harenc, insensible alike to their innocence and their youth, tore out their eyes and cut off their noses in the king's presence, and some writers assert that Henry himself was the executioner. The unhappy Juliana withdrew to the city of Breteuil, to which Henry laid siege. When abandoned by the garrison, she desired to speak to the monster who called himself her father, and as he approached, discharged an arrow at him, but which did not reach the mark, and she was compelled to surrender at discretion. Henry, more cruel than ever, had no compassion for the afflicted mother; but, causing all the gates of the castle to be shut, he ordered her to leave it immediately under pain of death, and forbade any one to aid her in the attempt. She was therefore compelled to drop half-naked from the rampart into the moat that surrounded the castle; and it being the winter season, she sunk through the ice up to the waist in water and mire, and with difficulty reached the other side.

5. Henry's son, William, inherited none of his mother Matilda's kindly feelings towards the English, and he is reported to have said publicly, that if ever he ascended the throne, he would yoke the Saxons like oxen to the plough. At the age of eighteen, he was married to the daughter of the Count of Anjou; and after the nuptial festivities, Henry and his court prepared for their return to England. On reaching Barfleur, the port at which they were to embark, a mariner named Fitzstephen, whose father had steered the vessel in which William the Conqueror sailed for the invasion of England, begged that he might enjoy the like honour of conveying the king to his insular dominions, and offered him the use of the "White Ship," manned by fifty skilful seamen.