exhorted him to mend his ways.  "I will mend," quoth the duke, "when thou
shalt comb back thy hair to thy pate."  Another great lord of the same
century, Foulques the Black, count of Anjou, at the close of an able and
glorious lifetime, had resigned to his son Geoffrey Martel the
administration of his countship.  The son, as haughty and harsh towards
his father as towards his subjects, took up arms against him, and bade
him lay aside the outward signs, which he still maintained, of power.
The old man in his wrath recovered the vigor and ability of his youth,
and strove so energetically and successfully against his son that he
reduced him to such subjection as to make him do several miles "crawling
on the ground," says the chronicle, with a saddle on his back, and to
come and prostrate himself at his feet.  When Foulques had his son thus
humbled before him, he spurned him with his foot, repeating over and over
again nothing but "Thou'rt beaten, thou'rt beaten!"  "Ay, beaten," said
Geoffrey, "but by thee only, because thou art my father; to any other I
am invincible."  The anger of the old man vanished at once: he now
thought only how he might console his son for the affront put upon him,
and he gave him back his power, exhorting him only to conduct himself
with more moderation and gentleness towards his subjects.  All was
inconsistency and contrast with these robust, rough, hasty souls; they
cared little for belying themselves when they had satisfied the passion
of the moment.

The relations existing between the two great powers of the period, the
laic lords and the monks, were not less bitter or less unstable than
amongst the laics themselves; and when artifice, as often happened, was
employed, it was by no means to the exclusion of violence.  About the
middle of the twelfth century, the abbey of Tournus, in Burgundy, had, at
Louhans, a little port where it collected salt-tax, whereof it every year
distributed the receipts to the poor during the first week in Lent.
Girard, count of Macon, established a like toll a little distance off.
The monks of Tournus complained; but he took no notice.  A long while
afterwards he came to Tournus with a splendid following, and entered the
church of St. Philibert.  He had stopped all alone before the altar to
say his prayers, when a monk, cross in hand, issued suddenly from behind
the altar, and, placing himself before the count, "How hast thou the
audacity," said he, "to enter my monastery and mine house, thou that dost
not hesitate to rob me of my dues?" and, taking Girard by the hair, he
threw him on the ground and belabored him heavily.  The count, stupefied
and contrite, acknowledged his injustice, took off the toll that he had
wrongfully put on, and, not content with this reparation, sent to the
church of Tournus a rich carpet of golden and silken tissue.  In the
middle of the eleventh century, Adhemar II., viscount of Limoges, had in
his city a quarrel of quite a different sort with the monks of the abbey
of St. Martial.  The abbey had fallen into great looseness of discipline
and morals; and the viscount had at heart its reformation.  To this end
he entered into concert, at a distance, with Hugh, abbot of Cluni, at
that time the most celebrated and most respected of the monasteries.  The
abbot of St. Martial died.  Adhemar sent for some monks from Cluni to
come to Limoges, lodged them secretly near his palace, repaired to the
abbey of St. Martial after having had the chapter convoked, and called
upon the monks to proceed at once to the election of a new abbot.  A
lively discussion, upon this point, arose between the viscount and the
monks.  "We are not ignorant," said one of them to him, "that you have
sent for brethren from Cluni, in order to drive us out and put them in
our places; but you will not succeed."  The viscount was furious, seized
by the sleeve the monk who was inveighing, and dragged him by force out
of the monastery.  His fellows were frightened, and took to flight; and
Adhemar immediately had the monks from Cluni sent for, and put them in
possession of the abbey.  It was a ruffianly proceeding; but the reform
was popular in Limoges and was effected.

These trifling matters are faithful samples of the dominant and
fundamental characteristic of French society during the tenth, eleventh,
and twelfth centuries, the true epoch of the middle ages.  It was chaos,
and fermentation within the chaos the slow and rough but powerful and
productive fermentation of unruly life.  In ideas, events, and persons
there was a blending of the strongest contrasts: manners were rude and
even savage, yet souls were filled with lofty and tender aspirations; the
authority of religious creeds at one time was on the point of extinction,
yet at another shone forth gloriously in opposition to the arrogance and
brutality of mundane passions; ignorance was profound, and yet here and
there, in the very heart of the mental darkness, gleamed bright centres
of movement and intellectual labor.  It was the period when Abelard,
anticipating freedom of thought and of instruction, drew together upon
Mount St. Genevieve thousands of hearers anxious to follow him in the
study of the great problems of Nature and of the destiny of man and the
world.  And far away from this throng, in the solitude of the abbey of
Bee, St. Anselm was offering to his monks a Christian and philosophical
demonstration of the existence of God--"faith seeking understanding"
(fides quoerens intellectuan), as he himself used to say.  It was the
period, too, when, distressed at the licentiousness which was spreading
throughout the Church as well as lay society, two illustrious monks, St.
Bernard and St. Norbert, not only went preaching everywhere reformation
of morals, but labored at and succeeded in establishing for monastic life
a system of strict discipline and severe austerity.  Lastly, it was the
period when, in the laic world, was created and developed the most
splendid fact of the middle ages, knighthood, that noble soaring of
imaginations and souls towards the ideal of Christian virtue and
soldierly honor.  It is impossible to trace in detail the origin and
history of that grand fact which was so prominent in the days to which it
belonged, and which is so prominent still in the memories of men; but a
clear notion ought to be obtained of its moral character and its
practical worth.  To this end a few pages shall be borrowed from Guizot's
_History of Civilization in France_.  Let us first look on at the
admission of a knight, such as took place in the twelfth century.  We
will afterwards see what rules of conduct were imposed upon him, not only
according to the oaths which he had to take on becoming knight, but
according to the idea formed of knighthood by the poets of the day, those
interpreters not only of actual life, but of men's sentiments also.  We
shall then understand, without difficulty, what influence must have been
exercised, in the souls and lives of men, by such sentiments and such
rules, however great may have been the discrepancy between the knightly
ideal and the general actions and passions of contemporaries.

"The young man, the esquire who aspired to the title of knight, was first
stripped of his clothes and placed in a bath, which was symbolical of
purification.  On leaving the bath, he was clothed in a white tunic,
which was symbolical of purity, and a red robe, which was symbolical of
the blood he was bound to shed in the service of the faith, and a black
sagum or close-fitting coat, which was symbolical of the death which
awaited him as well as all men.

"Thus purified and clothed, the candidate observed for four and twenty
hours a strict fast.  When evening came, he entered church, and there
passed the night in prayer, sometimes alone, sometimes with a priest and
sponsors, who prayed with him.  Next day, his first act was confession;
after confession the priest gave him the communion; after the communion
he attended a mass of the Holy Spirit; and, generally, a sermon touching
the duties of knights and of the new life he was about to enter on.  The
sermon over, the candidate advanced to the altar with the knight's sword
hanging from his neck.  This the priest took off, blessed, and replaced
upon his neck.  The candidate then went and knelt before the lord who was
to arm him knight.  'To what purpose,' the lord asked him, 'do you desire
to enter the order?  If to be rich, to take your ease and be held in
honor without doing honor to knighthood, you are unworthy of it, and
would be, to the order of knighthood you received, what the simoniacal
clerk is to the prelacy.'  On the young man's reply, promising to acquit
himself well of the duties of knight, the lord granted his request.

"Then drew near knights and sometimes ladies to reclothe the candidate in
all his new array; and they put on him, 1, the spurs; 2, the hauberk or
coat of mail; 3, the cuirass; 4, the armlets and gauntlets; 5, the sword.

[Illustration: "The Accolade."----324]

"He was what was then called adubbed (that is, adopted, according to Du
Cange).  The lord rose up, went to him and gave him the accolade or
accolee, three blows with the flat of the sword on the shoulder or nape
of the neck, and sometimes a slap with the palm of the hand on the cheek,
saying, 'In the name of God, St. Michael and St. George, I make thee
knight.'  And he sometimes added, 'Be valiant, bold, and loyal.'

"The young man, having been thus armed knight, had his helmet brought to
him; a horse was led up for him; he leaped on its back, generally without
the help of the stirrups, and caracoled about, brandishing his lance and
making his sword flash.  Finally he went out of church and caracoled
about on the open, at the foot of the castle, in presence of the people
eager to have their share in the spectacle."

Such was what may be called the outward and material part in the
admission of knights.  It shows a persistent anxiety to associate
religion with all the phases of so personal an affair; the sacraments,
the most august feature of Christianity, are mixed up with it; and many
of the ceremonies are, as far as possible, assimilated to the
administration of the sacraments.  Let us continue our examination; let
us penetrate to the very heart of knighthood, its moral character, its
ideas, the sentiments which it was the object to impress upon the knight.
Here again the influence of religion will be quite evident.

"The knight had to swear to twenty-six articles.  These articles,
however, did not make one single formula, drawn up at one and the same
time and all together; they are a collection of oaths required of knights
at different epochs and in more or less complete fashion from the
eleventh to the fourteenth century.  The candidate swore, 1, to fear,
reverence, and serve God religiously, to fight for the faith with all
their might, and to die a thousand deaths rather than ever renounce
Christianity; 2, to serve their sovereign-prince faithfully, and to fight
for him and fatherland right valiantly; 3, to uphold the rights of the
weaker, such as widows, orphans, and damsels, in fair quarrel, exposing
themselves on that account according as need might be, provided it were
not against their own honor or against their king or lawful prince; 4,
that they would not injure any one maliciously, or take what was
another's, but would rather do battle with those who did so; 5, that
greed, pay, gain, or profit should never constrain them to do any deed,
but only glory and virtue; 6, that they would fight for the good and
advantage of the common weal; 7, that they would be bound by and obey the
orders of their generals and captains who had a right to command them; 8,
that they would guard the honor, rank, and order of their comrades, and
that they would neither by arrogance nor by force commit any trespass
against any one of them; 9, that they would never fight in companies
against one, and that they would eschew all tricks and artifices; 10,
that they would wear but one sword, unless they had to fight against two
or more; 11, that in tourney or other sportive contest they would never
use the point of their swords; 12, that being taken prisoner in a
tourney, they would be bound, on their faith and honor, to perform in
every point the conditions of capture, besides being bound to give up to
the victors their arms and horses, if it seemed good to take them, and
being disabled from fighting in war or elsewhere without their leave; 13,
that they would keep faith inviolably with all the world, and especially
with their comrades, upholding their honor and advantage, wholly, in
their absence; 14, that they would love and honor one another, and aid
and succor one another whenever occasion offered; 15, that, having made
vow or promise to go on any quest or novel adventure, they would never
put off their arms, save for the night's rest; 16, that in pursuit of
their quest or adventure they would not shun bad and perilous passes, nor
turn aside from the straight road for fear of encountering powerful
knights or monsters or wild beasts or other hinderance such as the body
and courage of a single man might tackle; 17, that they would never take
wage or pay from any foreign prince; 18, that in command of troops of
men-at-arms, they would live in the utmost possible order and discipline,
and especially in their own country, where they would never suffer any
harm or violence to be done; 19, that if they were bound to escort dame
or damsel, they would serve her, protect her, and save her from all
danger and insult, or die in the attempt; 20, that they would never offer
violence to dame or damsel, though they had won her by deeds of arms,
against her will and consent; 21, that, being challenged to equal combat,
they would not refuse, without wound, sickness, or other reasonable
hinderance; 22, that, having undertaken to carry out any enterprise, they
would devote to it night and day, unless they were called away for the
service of their king and country; 23, that if they made a vow to acquire
any honor, they would not draw back without having attained either it or
its equivalent; 24, that they would be faithful keepers of their word and
pledged faith, and that, having become prisoners in fair warfare, they
would pay to the uttermost the promised ransom, or return to prison, at
the day and hour agreed upon, on pain of being proclaimed infamous and
perjured; 25, that on re-turning to the court of their sovereign, they
would render a true account of their adventures, even though they had
sometimes been worsted, to the king and the registrar of the order, on
pain of being deprived of the order of knighthood; 26, that above all
things they would be faithful, courteous, and humble, and would never be
wanting to their word for any harm or loss that might accrue to them."

It is needless to point out that in this series of oaths, these
obligations imposed upon the knights, there is a moral development very
superior to that of the laic society of the period.  Moral notions so
lofty, so delicate, so scrupulous, and so humane, emanated clearly from
the Christian clergy.  Only the clergy thought thus about the duties and
the relations of mankind; and their influence was employed in directing
towards the accomplishment of such duties, towards the integrity of such
relations, the ideas and customs engendered by knighthood.  It had not
been instituted with so pious and deep a design, for the protection of
the weak, the maintenance of justice, and the reformation of morals; it
had been, at its origin and in its earliest features, a natural
consequence of feudal relations and warlike life, a confirmation of the
bonds established and the sentiments aroused between different masters in
the same country and comrades with the same destinies.  The clergy
promptly saw what might be deduced from such a fact; and they made of it
a means of establishing more peacefulness in society, and in the conduct
of individuals a more rigid morality.  This was the general work they
pursued; and, if it were convenient to study the matter more closely, we
might see, in the canons of councils from the eleventh to the fourteenth
centuries, the Church exerting herself to develop more and more in this
order of knight-hood, this institution of an essentially warlike origin,
the moral and civilizing character of which a glimpse has just been
caught in the documents of knighthood itself.

In proportion as knighthood appeared more and more in this simultaneously
warlike, religious, and moral character, it more and more gained power
over the imagination of men, and just as it had become closely interwoven
with their creeds, it soon became the ideal of their thoughts, the source
of their noblest pleasures.  Poetry, like religion, took hold of it.
From the eleventh century onwards, knighthood, its ceremonies, its
duties, and its adventures, were the mine from which the poets drew in
order to charm the people, in order to satisfy and excite at the same
time that yearning of the soul, that need of events more varied and more
captivating, and of emotions more exalted and more pure than real life
could furnish.  In the springtide of communities poetry is not merely a
pleasure and a pastime for a nation; it is a source of progress; it
elevates and develops the moral nature of men at the same time that it
amuses them and stirs them deeply.  We have just seen what oaths were
taken by the knights and administered by the priests; and now, here is an
ancient ballad by Eustache Deschamps, a poet of the fourteenth century,
from which it will be seen that poets impressed upon knights the same
duties and the same virtues, and that the influence of poetry had the
same aim as that of religion:

I.

Amend your lives, ye who would fain
The order of the knights attain;
Devoutly watch, devoutly pray;
From pride and sin, O, turn away!
Shun all that's base; the Church defend;
Be the widow's and the orphan's friend;
Be good and Leal; take nought by might;
Be bold and guard the people's right;--
This is the rule for the gallant knight.


II.

Be meek of heart; work day by day;
Tread, ever tread, the knightly way;
Make lawful war; long travel dare;
Tourney and joust for lady fair;
To everlasting honor cling,
That none the barbs of blame may fling;
Be never slack in work or fight;
Be ever least in self's own sight;--
This is the rule for the gallant knight.


III.

Love the liege lord; with might and main
His rights above all else maintain;
Be open-handed, just, and true;
The paths of upright men pursue;
No deaf ear to their precepts turn;
The prowess of the valiant learn;
That ye may do things great and bright,
As did great Alexander hight;--
This is the rule for the gallant knight.

A great deal has been said to the effect that all this is sheer poetry, a
beautiful chimera without any resemblance to reality.  Indeed, it has
just been remarked here, that the three centuries under consideration,
the middle ages, were, in point of fact, one of the most brutal, most
ruffianly epochs in history, one of those wherein we encounter most
crimes and violence; wherein the public peace was most incessantly
troubled; and wherein the greatest licentiousness in morals prevailed.
Nevertheless it cannot be denied that side by side with these gross and
barbarous morals, this social disorder, there existed knightly morality
and knightly poetry.  We have moral records confronting ruffianly deeds;
and the contrast is shocking, but real.  It is exactly this contrast
which makes the great and fundamental characteristic of the middle ages.
Let us turn our eyes towards other communities, towards the earliest
stages, for instance, of Greek society, towards that heroic age of which
Homer's poems are the faithful reflection.  There is nothing there like
the contrasts by which we are struck in the middle ages.  We do not see
that, at the period and amongst the people of the Homeric poems, there
was abroad in the air or had penetrated into the imaginations of men any
idea more lofty or more pure than their every-day actions; the heroes of
Homer seem to have no misgiving about their brutishness, their ferocity,
their greed, their egotism, there is nothing in their souls superior to
the deeds of their lives.  In the France of the middle ages, on the
contrary, though practically crimes and disorders, moral and social evils
abound, yet men have in their souls and their imaginations loftier and
purer instincts and desires; their notions of virtue and their ideas of
justice are very superior to the practice pursued around them and amongst
themselves; a certain moral ideal hovers above this low and tumultuous
community, and attracts the notice and obtains the regard of men in whose
life it is but very faintly reflected.  The Christian religion,
undoubtedly, is, if not the only, at any rate the principal cause of this
great fact; for its particular characteristic is to arouse amongst men a
lofty moral ambition by keeping constantly before their eyes a type
infinitely beyond the reach of human nature, and yet profoundly
sympathetic with it.  To Christianity it was that the middle ages owed
knighthood, that institution which, in the midst of anarchy and
barbarism, gave a poetical and moral beauty to the period.  It was
feudal knighthood and Christianity together which produced the two great
and glorious events of those times, the Norman conquest of England and
the Crusades.




CHAPTER XV.----CONQUEST OF ENGLAND BY THE NORMANS.

At the beginning of the eleventh century, Robert, called "The
Magnificent," the fifth in succession from the great chieftain Rollo who
had established the Northmen in France, was duke of Normandy.  To the
nickname he earned by his nobleness and liberality some chronicles have
added another, and call him "Robert the Devil," by reason of his reckless
and violent deeds of audacity, whether in private life or in warlike
expeditions.  Hence a lively controversy amongst the learned upon the
question of deciding to which Robert to apply the latter epithet.  Some
persist in assigning it to the duke of Normandy; others seek for some
other Robert upon whom to foist it.  However that may be, in 1034 or
1035, after having led a fair life enough from the political point of
view, but one full of turbulence and moral irregularity, Duke Robert
resolved to undertake, barefooted and staff in hand, a pilgrimage to
Jerusalem, "to expiate his sins if God would deign to consent thereto."
The Norman prelates and barons, having been summoned around him, conjured
him to renounce his plan; for to what troubles and perils would not his
dominions be exposed without lord or assured successor?  "By my faith,"
said Robert, "I will not leave ye lordless.  I have a young bastard who
will grow, please God, and of whose good qualities I have great hope.
Take him, I pray you, for lord.  That he was not born in wedlock matters
little to you; he will be none the less able in battle, or at court, or
in the palace, or to render you justice.  I make him my heir, and I hold
him seized, from this present, of the whole duchy of Normandy."  And they
who were present assented, but not without objection and disquietude.

There was certainly ample reason for objection and disquietude.  Not only
was it a child of eight years of age to whom Duke Robert, at setting out
on his pious pilgrimage, was leaving Normandy; but this child had been
pronounced bastard by the duke his father at the moment of taking him for
his heir.  Nine or ten years before, at Falaise, his favorite residence,
Robert had met, according to some at a people's dance, according to
others on the banks of a stream where she was washing linen with her
companions, a young girl named Harlette or Harleve, daughter of a tanner
in the town, where they show to this day, it is said, the window from
which the duke saw her for the first time.  She pleased his fancy, and
was not more strait-laced than the duke was scrupulous; and Fulbert, the
tanner, kept but little watch over his daughter.  Robert gave the son
born to him in 1027 the name of his glorious ancestor, William Longsword,
the son and successor of Rollo.  The child was reared, according to some,
in his father's palace, "right honorably as if he had been born in
wedlock," but, according to others, in the house of his grandfather, the
tanner; and one of the neighboring burgesses, as he saw passing one of
the principal Norman lords, William de Bellesme, surnamed "The Fierce
Talvas," stopped him, ironically saying, "Come in, my lord, and admire
your suzerain's son."  The origin of young William was in every mouth,
and gave occasion for familiar allusions more often insulting than
flattering.  The epithet bastard was, so to speak, incorporated with his
name; and we cannot be astonished that it lived in history, for, in the
height of his power, he sometimes accepted it proudly, calling himself,
in several of his charters, William the Bastard (Gulielmus Notlzus).  He
showed himself to be none the less susceptible on this point when in
1048, during the siege of Alencon, the domain of the Lord de Bellesme,
the inhabitants hung from their walls hides all raw and covered with
dirt, which they shook when they caught sight of William, with cries of
"Plenty of work for the tanner!"  "By the glory of God," cried William,
"they shall pay me dear for this insolent bra-very!"  After an assault
several of the besieged were taken prisoners; and he had their eyes
pulled out, and their feet and hands cut off, and shot from his
siege-machines these mutilated members over the walls of the city.

Notwithstanding his recklessness and his being engrossed in his
pilgrimage, Duke Robert had taken some care for the situation in which he
was leaving his son, and some measures to lessen its perils.  He had
appointed regent of Normandy, during William's minority, his cousin,
Alain V., duke of Brittany, whose sagacity and friendship he had proved;
and he had confided the personal guardianship of the child, not to his
mother.  Harlette, who was left very much out in the cold, but to one of
his most trusty officers, Gilbert Crespon, count of Brionne; and the
strong castle of Vaudreuil, the first foundation of which dated back, it
was said, to Queen Fredegonde, was assigned for the usual residence of
the young duke.  Lastly, to confirm with brilliancy his son's right as
his successor to the duchy of Normandy, and to assure him a powerful
ally, Robert took him, himself, to the court of his suzerain, Henry I.,
king of France, who recognized the title of William the Bastard, and
allowed him to take the oath of allegiance and homage.  Having thus
prepared, as best he could, for his son's future, Robert set out on his
pilgrimage.  He visited Rome and Constantinople, everywhere displaying
his magnificence, together with his humility.  He fell ill from sheer
fatigue whilst crossing Asia Minor, and was obliged to be carried in a
litter by four negroes.  "Go and tell them at home," said he to a Norman
pilgrim he met returning from the Holy Land, "that you saw me being
carried to Paradise by four devils."  On arriving at Jerusalem, where he
was received with great attention by the Mussulman emir in command there,
he discharged himself of his pious vow, and took the road back to Europe.
But he was poisoned, by whom or for what motive is not clearly known, at
Nicaea, in Bithynia, where he was buried in the basilica of St. Mary--an
honor, says the chronicle, which had never been accorded to anybody.

From 1025 to 1042, during William's minority, Normandy was a prey to the
robber-like ambition, the local quarrels, and the turbulent and brutal
passions of a host of petty castle-holders, nearly always at war, either
amongst themselves or with the young chieftain whose power they did not
fear, and whose rights they disputed.  In vain did Duke Alain of
Brittany, in his capacity as regent appointed by Duke Robert, attempt to
re-establish order; and just when he seemed on the road to success he was
poisoned by those who could not succeed in beating him.  Henry I., king
of France, being ill-disposed at bottom towards his Norman neighbors and
their young duke, for all that he had acknowledged him, profited by this
anarchy to filch from him certain portions of territory.  Attacks without
warning, fearful murders, implacable vengeance, and sanguinary
disturbances in the towns, were evils which became common, and spread.
The clergy strove with courageous perseverance against the vices and
crimes of the period.  The bishops convoked councils in their dioceses;
the laic lords, and even the people, were summoned to them; the peace of
God was proclaimed; and the priests, having in their hands lighted
tapers, turned them towards the ground and extinguished them, whilst the
populace repeated in chorus, "So may God extinguish the joys of those who
refuse to observe peace and justice."  The majority, however, of the
Norman lords, refused to enter into the engagement.  In default of peace,
it was necessary to be content with the truce of God.  It commenced on
Wednesday evening at sunset and concluded on Monday at sunrise.  During
the four days and five nights comprised in this interval, all aggression
was forbidden; no slaying, wounding, pillaging, or burning could take
place; but from sunrise on Monday to sunset on Wednesday, for three clays
and two nights, any violence became allowable, any crime might
recommence.

Meanwhile William was growing up, and the omens that had been drawn from
his early youth raised the popular hopes.  It was reported that at his
very birth, when the midwife had put him unswaddled on a little heap of
straw, he had wriggled about and drawn together the straw with his hands,
insomuch that the midwife said, "By my faith, this child beginneth full
young to take and heap up: I know not what he will not do when he is
grown."  At a little later period, when a burgess of Falaise drew the
attention of the Lord William de Bellesme to the gay and sturdy lad as he
played amongst his mates, the fierce vassal muttered between his teeth,
"Accursed be thou of God! for I be certain that by thee mine honors will
be lowered."  The child on becoming man was handsomer and handsomer, "and
so lively and spirited that it seemed to all a marvel."  Amongst his
mates, command became soon a habit with him; he made them form line of
battle, he gave them the word of command, and he constituted himself
their judge in all quarrels.  At a still later period, having often heard
talk of revolts excited against him, and of disorders which troubled the
country, he was moved, in consequence, to fits of violent irritation,
which, however, he learned instinctively to bide, "and in his child's
heart," says the chronicle, "he had welling up all the vigor of a man to
teach the Normans to forbear from all acts of irregularity."  At fifteen
years of age, in 1042, he demanded to be armed knight, and to fulfil all
forms necessary "for having the right to serve and command in all ranks."
These forms were in Normandy, by a relic, it is said, of the Danish and
pagan customs, more connected with war and less with religion than
elsewhere; the young candidates were not bound to confess, to spend a
vigil in the church, and to receive from the priest's hands the sword he
had consecrated on the altar; it was even the custom to say that "he
whose sword had been girded upon him by a long-robed cleric was no true
knight, but a cit without spirit."  The day on which William for the
first time donned his armor was for his servants and all the spectators
a gala day.  "He was so tall, so manly in face, and so proud of bearing,
that it was a sight both pleasant and terrible to see him guiding his
horse's career, flashing with his sword, gleaming with his shield, and
threatening with his casque and javelins."  His first act of government
was a rigorous decree against such as should be guilty of murder, arson,
and pillage; but he at the same time granted an amnesty for past revolts,
on condition of fealty and obedience for the future.

For the establishment, however, of a young and disputed authority there
is need of something more than brilliant ceremonies and words partly
minatory and partly coaxing.  William had to show what he was made of.
A conspiracy was formed against him in the heart of his feudal court, and
almost of his family.  He had given kindly welcome to his cousin Guy of
Burgundy, and had even bestowed on him as a fief the countships of Vernon
and Brionne.  In 1044 the young duke was at Valognes; when suddenly, at
midnight, one of his trustiest servants, Golet, his fool, such as the
great lords of the time kept, knocked at the door of his chamber, crying,
"Open, open, my lord duke: fly, fly, or you are lost.  They are armed,
they are getting ready; to tarry is death."  William did not hesitate; he
got up, ran to the stables, saddled his horse with his own hands, started
off, followed a road called to this day the duke's way, and reached
Falaise as a place of safety.  There news came to him that the conspiracy
was taking the form of insurrection, and that the rebels were seizing his
domains.  William showed no more hesitation at Falaise than at Valognes;
he started off at once, repaired to Poissy, where Henry I., king of
France, was then residing, and claimed, as vassal, the help of his
suzerain against traitors.  Henry, who himself was brave, was touched by
this bold confidence, and promised his young vassal effectual support.
William returned to Normandy, summoned his lieges, and took the field
promptly.  King Henry joined him at Argence, with a body of three
thousand men-at-arms, and a battle took place on the 10th of August,
1047, at Val des Dunes, three leagues from Caen.  It was very hotly
contested.  King Henry, unhorsed by a lance-thrust, ran a risk of his
life; but he remounted and valiantly returned to the melley.  William
dashed in wherever the fight was thickest, showing himself everywhere as
able in command as ready to expose himself.  A Norman lord, Raoul de
Tesson, held aloof with a troop of one hundred and forty knights.  "Who
is he that bides yonder motionless?" asked the French king of the young
duke.  "It is the banner of Raoul de Tesson," answered William; "I wot
not that he hath aught against me."  But, though he had no personal
grievance, Raoul de Tesson had joined the insurgents, and sworn that he
would be the first to strike the duke in the conflict.  Thinking better
of it, and perceiving William from afar, he pricked towards him, and
taking off his glove struck him gently on the shoulder, saying, "I swore
to strike you, and so I am quit: but fear nothing more from me."
"Thanks, Raoul," said William; "be well disposed, I pray you."  Raoul
waited until the two armies were at grips, and when he saw which way
victory was inclined, he hasted to contribute thereto.  It was decisive:
and William the Bastard returned to Val des Dunes really duke of
Normandy.

He made vigorous but not cruel use of his victory.  He demolished his
enemies' strong castles, magazines as they were for pillage no less than
bulwarks of feudal independence; but there is nothing to show that he
indulged in violence towards persons.  He was even generous to the chief
concocter of the plot, Guy of Burgundy.  He took from him the countships
of Vernon and Brionne, but permitted him still to live at his court, a
place which the Burgundian found himself too ill at ease to remain in, so
he returned to Burgundy, to conspire against his own eldest brother.
William was stern without hatred and merciful without kindliness, only
thinking which of the two might promote or retard his success, gentleness
or severity.

There soon came an opportunity for him to return to the king of France
the kindness he had received.  Geoffrey Martel, duke of Anjou, being
ambitious and turbulent beyond the measure of his power, got embroiled
with the king his suzerain, and war broke out between them.  The duke of
Normandy went to the aid of King Henry and made his success certain,
which cost the duke the fierce hostility of the count of Anjou and a four
years' war with that inconvenient neighbor; a war full of dangerous
incidents, wherein William enhanced his character, already great, for
personal valor.  In an ambuscade laid for him by Geoffrey Martel he lost
some of his best knights, "whereat he was so wroth," says a chronicle,
"that he galloped down with such force upon Geoffrey, and struck him in
such wise with his sword that he dinted his helm, cut through his hood,
lopped off his car, and with the same blow felled him to earth.  But the
count was lifted up and remounted, and so fled away."

William made rapid advances both as prince and as man.  Without being
austere in his private life, he was regular in his habits, and patronized
order and respectability in his household as well as in his dominions.
He resolved to marry to his own honor, and to the promotion of his
greatness.  Baldwin the Debonnair, count of Flanders, one of the most
powerful lords of the day, had a daughter, "Matilda, beautiful,
well-informed, firm in the faith, a model of virtue and modesty."
William asked her hand in marriage.  Matilda refused, saying, "I would
rather be veiled nun than given in marriage to a bastard."  Hurt as he
was, William did not give up.  He was even more persevering than
susceptible; but he knew that he must get still greater, and make an
impression upon a young girl's imagination by the splendor of his fame
and power.  Some years later, being firmly established in Normandy,
dreaded by all his neighbors, and already showing some foreshadowings of
his design upon England, he renewed his matrimonial quest in Flanders,
but after so strange a fashion that, in spite of contemporary testimony,
several of the modern historians, in their zeal, even at so distant a
period, for observance of the proprieties, reject as fabulous the story
which is here related on the authority of the most detailed account
amongst all the chronicles which contain it.  "A little after that Duke
William had heard how the damsel had made answer, he took of his folk,
and went privily to Lille, where the duke of Flanders and his wife and
his daughter then were.  He entered into the hall, and, passing on, as if
to do some business, went into the countess's chamber, and there found
the damsel daughter of Count Baldwin.  He took her by the tresses,
dragged her round the chamber, trampled her under foot, and did beat her
soundly.  Then he strode forth from the chamber, leaped upon his horse,
which was being held for him before the hall, struck in his spurs, and
went his way.  At this deed was Count Baldwin much enraged; and when
matters had thus remained a while, Duke William sent once more to Count
Baldwin to parley again of the marriage.  The count sounded his daughter
on the subject, and she answered that it pleased her well.  So the
nuptials took place with very great joy.  And after the aforesaid
matters, Count Baldwin, laughing withal, asked his daughter wherefore she
had so lightly accepted the marriage she had aforetime so cruelly
refused.  And she answered that she did not then know the duke so well as
she did now; for, said she, if he had not great heart and high emprise,
he had not been so bold as to dare come and beat me in my father's
chamber."

Amongst the historians who treat this story as a romantic and untruthlike
fable, some believe themselves to have discovered, in divers documents of
the eleventh and twelfth centuries, circumstances almost equally singular
as regards the cause of the obstacles met with at first by Duke William
in his pretensions to the hand of Princess Matilda, and as regards the
motive for the first refusal on the part of Matilda herself.  According
to some, the Flemish princess had conceived a strong passion for a noble
Saxon, Brihtric Meaw, who had been sent by King Edward the Confessor to
the court of Flanders, and who was remarkable for his beauty.  She wished
to marry him, but the handsome Saxon was not willing; and Matilda at
first gave way to violent grief on that account, and afterwards, when she
became queen of England, to vindictive hatred, the weight of which she
made him feel severely.  Other writers go still farther, and say that,
before being sought in marriage by William, Matilda had not fallen in
love with a handsome Saxon, but had actually married a Flemish burgess,
named Gerbod, patron of the church of St. Dertin, at St. Omer, and that
she had by him two and perhaps three children, traces of whom recur, it
is said, under the reign of William, king of England.  There is no
occasion to enter upon the learned controversies of which these different
allegations have been the cause; it is sufficient to say that they have
led to nothing but obscurity, contradiction, and doubt, and that there is
more moral verisimilitude in the account just given, especially in
Matilda's first prejudice against marriage with a bastard, and in her
conversation with her father, Count Baldwin, when she had changed her
opinion upon the subject.  Independently of the testimony of several
chroniclers, French and English, this tradition is mentioned, with all
the simplicity of belief, in one of the principal Flemish chronicles; and
as to the ruffianly gallantry employed by William to win his bride, there
is nothing in it very singular, considering the habits of the time, and
we meet with more than one example of adventures, if not exactly similar,
at any rate very analogous.

However that may be, this marriage brought William an unexpected
opportunity of entering into personal relations with one of the most
distinguished men of his age, and a man destined to become one of his own
most intimate advisers.  In 1019, at the council of Rheims, Pope Leo IX.,
on political grounds rather than because of a prohibited degree of
relationship, had opposed the marriage of the duke of Normandy with the
daughter of the duke of Flanders, and had pronounced his veto upon it.
William took no heed; and, in 1052 or 1053, his marriage was celebrated
at Rouen with great pomp; but this ecclesiastical veto weighed upon his
mind, and he sought some means of getting it taken off.  A learned
Italian, Lanfranc, a juris-consult of some fame already, whilst
travelling in France and repairing from Avranches to Rouen, was stopped
near Brionne by brigands, who, having plundered him, left him, with his
eyes bandaged, in a forest.  His cries attracted the attention of
passers-by, who took him to a neighboring monastery, but lately founded
by a pious Norman knight retired from the world.  Lanfranc was received
in it, became a monk of it, was elected its prior, attracted to it by his
learned teaching a host of pupils, and won therein his own great renown
whilst laying the foundation for that of the abbey of Bee, which was
destined to be carried still higher by one of his disciples, St. Anselm.
Lanfranc was eloquent, great in dialectics, of a sprightly wit, and
lively in repartee.  Relying upon the pope's decision, he spoke ill of
William's marriage with Matilda.  William was informed of this, and in a
fit of despotic anger, ordered Lanfranc to be driven from the monastery
and banished from Normandy, and even, it is said, the dependency which he
inhabited as prior of the abbey, to be burned.  The order was executed;
and Lanfranc set out, mounted on a sorry little horse given him, no
doubt, by the abbey.  By what chance is not known, but probably on a
hunting-party, his favorite diversion, William, with his retinue,
happened to cross the road which Lanfranc was slowly pursuing.  "My
lord," said the monk, addressing him, "I am obeying your orders; I am
going away, but my horse is a sorry beast; if you will give me a better
one, I will go faster."  William halted, entered into conversation with
Lanfranc, let him stay, and sent him back with a present to his abbey.
A little while afterwards Lanfranc was at Rome, and defended before Pope
Victor II. William's marriage with Matilda: he was successful, and the
pope took off the veto on the sole condition that the couple, in sign of
penitence, should each found a religious house.  Matilda, accordingly,
founded at Caen, for women, the abbey of the Holy Trinity; and William,
for men, that of St. Stephen.  Lanfranc was the first abbot of the
latter; and when William became king of England, Lanfranc was made
archbishop of Canterbury and primate of the Church of England, as well as
privy counsellor of his king.  William excelled in the art, so essential
to government, of promptly recognizing the worth of men, and of
appropriating their influence to himself whilst exerting his own over
them.

About the same time he gave his contemporaries, princes and peoples, new
proofs of his ability and power.  Henry I., king of France, growing more
and more disquieted at and jealous of the duke of Normandy's ascendency,
secretly excited against him opposition and even revolt in his dominions.
These dealings led to open war between the suzerain and the vassal, and
the war concluded with two battles won by William, one at Mortemer near
Neuchatel in Bray, the other at Varaville near Troarrh "After which,"
said William himself, "King Henry never passed a night tranquilly on my
ground."  In 1059 peace was concluded between the two princes.  Henry I.
died almost immediately afterwards, and on the 25th of August, 1060, his
son Philip I. succeeded him, under the regency of Baldwin, count of
Flanders, father of the Duchess Matilda.  Duke William was present in
state at the coronation of the new king of France, lent him effectual
assistance against the revolts which took place in Gascony, reentered
Normandy for the purpose of holding at Caen, in 1061, the Estates of his
duchy, and at that time published the famous decree observed long after
him, under the name of the law of curfew, which ordered "that every
evening the bell should be rung in all parishes to warn every one to
prayer, and house-closing, and no more running about the streets."

The passion for orderliness in his dominion did not cool his ardor for
conquest.  In 1063, after the death of his young neighbor Herbert II.,
count of Maine, William took possession of this beautiful countship; not
without some opposition on the part of the inhabitants, nor without
suspicion of having poisoned his rival, Walter, count of Vexin.  It is
said that after this conquest William meditated that of Brittany; but
there is every indication that he had formed a far vaster design, and
that the day of its execution was approaching.

From the time of Rollo's settlement in Normandy, the communications of
the Normans with England had become more and more frequent, and important
for the two countries.  The success of the invasions of the Danes in
England in the tenth century, and the reigns of three kings of the Danish
line, had obliged the princes of Saxon race to take refuge in Normandy,
the duke of which, Richard I., had given his daughter Emma in marriage to
their grandfather, Ethelred II.  When, at the death of the last Danish
king, Hardicanute, the Saxon prince Edward ascended the throne of his
fathers, he had passed twenty-seven years of exile in Normandy, and he
returned to England "almost a stranger," in the words of the chronicles,
to the country of his ancestors; far more Norman than Saxon in his
manners, tastes, and language, and surrounded by Normans, whose numbers
and prestige under his reign increased from day to day.  A hot rivalry,
nationally as well as courtly, grew up between them and the Saxons.  At
the head of these latter was Godwin, count of Kent, and his five sons,
the eldest of whom, Harold, was destined before long to bear the whole
brunt of the struggle.  Between these powerful rivals, Edward the
Confessor, a pacific, pious, gentle, and undecided king, wavered
incessantly; at one time trying to resist, and at another compelled to
yield to the pretensions and seditions by which he was beset.  In 1051
the Saxon party and its head, Godwin, had risen in revolt.  Duke William,
on invitation, perhaps, from King Edward, paid a brilliant visit to
England, where he found Normans everywhere established and powerful, in
Church as well as in State; in command of the fleets, ports, and
principal English places.  King Edward received him "as his own son, gave
him arms, horses, hounds, and hawking-birds," and sent him home full of
presents and hopes.  The chronicler, Ingulf, who accompanied William on
his return to Normandy, and remained attached to him as private
secretary, affirms that, during this visit, not only was there no
question, between King Edward and the duke of Normandy, of the latter's
possible succession to the throne of England, but that never as yet had
this probability occupied the attention of William.

It is very doubtful whether William had said nothing upon the subject to
King Edward at that time; and it is certain, from William's own
testimony, that he had for a long while been thinking about it.  Four
years after this visit of the duke to England, King Edward was reconciled