the cause of the suffering peoples to gain fresh influence and multiplied wealth from the guilty patronage of kings. But at the period we have now reached, the sole refuge from oppression was behind the shelter of the Church. In answer to the despairing question, uttered by the millions who were trampled on by the sanguinary and ferocious William, "Is there any hope?" a voice replied to their hearts and consciences, Yes, there is comfort within that other kingdom, which though it is declared to be not of this world, is still coextensive with it, and is founded on meekness, holiness, and truth. And on the glimmering limit, far withdrawn, § 12. Hated equally by English and Normans, feared equally by priest and baron, William pursued his self-willed course. So brave that he could not be despised, so sagacious that he could not be outwitted, so unrelenting that he could not be appeased, he hurried from England to Normandy, or from Normandy to England, reducing refractory nobles or exterminating exasperated townsmen, till the heart of both. countries grew sick beneath the intolerable woe. In 1099 he carried fire and sword into the dukedom which had been disturbed by the gallant Sir Helvic, the Lord de la Marche. Stained with the blood of the peasantry, and loaded with the curses of the priests, he returned to England in 1100. Even his imitations of the more peaceful labours of his father were sources of misery to his people. When he enlarged the Tower or reared the stupendous walls and stately roof of Westminster Hall, the work was done by forced levies of the English, who received no remuneration for their toil. If he made a royal progress through the land, his attendants considered they were in a hostile country, and plundered every farm and house. What they could not consume, they either forced the owner to carry to the next market to be sold for their benefit, or burned for their amusement on the spot. The A.D. 1095–1100.] WILLIAM SHOT BY AN ARROW. 137 king must have had sad recollections and gloomy forebodings in the midst of these tyrannous and unjust proceedings. He went to distract his cares by hunting the deer, and buried himself with his brother Henry and a few attendants in the glades of the New Forest; that tract in which his father had darkened the hearths of sixty villages, and overthrown great numbers of churches and shrines. He had taken with him, among others, one of his favourite sportsmen, Sir Walter Tyrrel, of whose character or previous history no information has come down to us, so we cannot tell whether he was a discontented courtier or a willing follower of the king—whether he was under the guidance of the Church, or as irreligious as his master. However this may be, hart 66 passed up the glade, William discharged his arrow and missed. 'Shoot, Walter, shoot, in the fiend's name!" he cried. And Walter raised his bow-the shaft, we are told, glanced off a tree, and struck the king in the chest, which was left uncovered by his hand being raised to his eyes to keep off the glare of the slanting sun. William fell from his horse a dead man. Sir Walter spurred away from the fatal spot, and took refuge in France. Surprise or a supernatural sort of terror fell upon the attendants, and the master of England and Normandy the fiery of temper and strong of hand-lay stiff and cold upon the bloody grass. A charcoal-burner passing with his cart conveyed the corpse to Winchester, and conjectures were rife about the fatal deed. Did Tyrrel miss on purpose? Did some desperate Saxon speed the shaft? Was it the Church that set him on ? or was there a person in the background, reckless as the dead monarch, and blinded with ambition, who encouraged and procured the act? Men thought of the Church, and saw almost enough to justify its revenge; but they thought of Henry also, the disinherited son of the Conqueror, and found sufficient ground for their suspicion in the opening this made for him, and the course he pursued on the sudden demise of his brother. Com § 13. There are one or two circumstances recorded at the time which help to guide us to a judgment on the death of Rufus. "A certain town in Berkshire," we see in the AngloSaxon Chronicle, "observed the strange sight of blood gushing out of the ground; and after this," it adds, "on the morning after Lammas-day, King William was shot with an arrow by his own men." We are told also by Eadmer, abbot of St. Alban's, who was a pupil of Anselm, and lived at this time, that "Anselm, the exiled Archbishop of Canterbury, being with Hugo, the Abbot of Cluny, the conversation. turned on King William, when the abbot observed, "Last night that king was brought before God, and by a deliberate judgment received the sorrowful sentence of damnation." How he came to know this he neither explained at the time, nor did any of his hearers ask. Nevertheless, out of respect to his piety, not a doubt of the truth of his words remained on the minds of any present. Hugo led such a life and had such a character, that all regarded his discourse and venerated his advice as though an oracle from heaven had spoken. It is, perhaps, not a great departure from the rule of charity, considering the relations between the Church and William, to suppose that among those who regarded the discourse, and venerated the advice of this holy personage, was the famous marksman, Sir Walter Tyrrel, or the person, whoever it might be, whose arrow had so opportunely glanced aside. CHAPTER III. HENRY I. (BEAU CLERC). A.D. 1100 TO A.D. 1135. CONTEMPORARY SOVEREIGNS. FRANCE. Philip I., the Fair; Louis VI., the Fat. § 1. Accession of Henry I. His advantages over his disinherited brother Robert. His various measures.-§ 2. Reflections on the past, and comparisons with the present. § 3. Duke Robert invades England. Reconciliation of the brothers. Charges against Robert de Belesme, Earl of Shrewsbury. His banishment.-§ 4. The king makes war upon his brother Robert, takes him prisoner, and subdues Normandy. Robert's long imprisonment. The Earl of Shrewsbury restored to his honours and estates.-§ 5. The son of Robert committed to the guardianship of Sir Helie de St. Saen.-§ 6. Prince William acknowledged as future king. War with France. Battle of Brenneville. Prince William betrothed to the Princess of Anjou.-§ 7. The prince with his sister and a large suite shipwrecked and drowned.§ 8. The king's only surviving child, the Empress Matilda, married to Geoffrey Plantagenet, from whom descended the dynasty of the Plantagenets. § 9. William Clito of Normandy. The king makes war upon him.- 10. His cares to secure the succession of his daughter Matilda to the throne. Death of Henry from over-eating stewed lampreys. His character.-§ 11. Retrospect of his reign. Eustace de Breteuil, and Juliana his wife. § 1. WHILE the dead king was lying in that solitary glade of the New Forest, his brother Henry set spurs to his horse, and galloped into the city of Winchester. He never pulled bridle till he came to the gate of the great castle where the royal treasure was kept. With sword drawn, and words of furious threatening, he forced his way in, and in spite of the opposition of the Lord Treasurer, De Breteuil, who reminded him of the oaths of fealty and allegiance they had both sworn to Robert, laid violent hands on the caskets of gold and valuable jewels. In this he was assisted by certain powerful nobles and influential churchmen, whose favour he had secured beforehand; and on the following day, summoning as many of his adherents as were in the neighbourhood to a council, which, in imitation of the old Saxon assembly, he called a Witan, he was elected king, and verified his father's prophecy, that his rank would be equal to his brothers' if he patiently waited his time. Henry had many advantages in the contest which would inevitably arise on behalf of the twice disinherited Robert. That easy and luxurious crusader had wasted the whole of the previous year in feasts and pageants among the Norman nobles who had recently established a dominion in Apulia and Naples, and received him in their splendid Italian castles, and owned their natural allegiance to his ducal crown. In this gay and chivalrous existence the soldier of the Cross consoled himself for his toils and perils in the Holy Land, regardless equally of the unruly vassals in his hereditary State, and of the events which were evidently at hand in England. He took home with him to Rouen one of the fairest and richest brides in Europe-Sibylla, the daughter of a great Apulian baron; and even after the news of the startling incident in the New Forest reached him, he continued in the congenial employment of spending his wife's fortune, and attending tournaments in honour of her beauty. But Ralph the Firebrand had a great longing for the riches and power from which he had been driven by the hatred of the English nation, and urged him to vindicate his claims by force of arms. Robert was always delighted to fight, as perhaps he was conscious that he made a better figure on his warhorse than at a council table, and accepted gladly the services of many of the great barons of his duchy, receiving at the |