31. However, the proud Pope found a match in the proud king. William positively refused to agree to his demand; and to show how much he was in earnest, he would not even let the English bishops go out of the country to attend the Pope's councils. He made all the bishops do homage to him just like the barons, and send soldiers from their lands to fight for him. He would not even let a letter from the Pope come into the country without his permission.

32. Always up to this time the king and the earls and the bishops had been the best of friends, and had all worked together harmoniously; there could hardly be said to be any distinction between Church and State. Hitherto, also, the Popes had made no outrageous claims to supremacy; but from henceforward we shall find a great many disputes, which at length grew to be very serious. For the present, however, William with his strong will kept all in his own hands.

33. Though, by degrees, he turned out the English bishops and other churchmen and put Frenchmen in their place, he certainly took pains to choose good men: Lanfranc, the Lanfranc. new Archbishop of Canterbury, in particular, was a very learned and excellent man. He and others of the new bishops founded very good schools in many places; he also joined with the king and the only remaining English bishop in putting an end to the slave-trade at Bristol, which had gone on for so many years. But Lanfranc was made so miserable by the cruelty and oppression which he saw around him, that he longed to leave the country, and even wrote imploring the Pope to allow him to quit such scenes of wickedness and tyranny.

34. Though we cannot say "religion" was prospering much, yet the Church improved outwardly. The French were, as we know, far superior to the English in architecture, and as soon as they were settled in England they began to build splendid churches and abbeys in all directions. Many of our beautiful cathedrals were begun at this period, or very soon afterwards, and were a great glory to the country. Some of the finest were Durham, Peterborough, Rochester, and Gloucester. Pointed architecture had not yet been invented, and they still had round arches and massive pillars, which were richly decorated, and were very grand, stately, and solemn.

35. One more good thing about William the Conqueror is, that his private life was excellent; he was a most faithful husband, and a kind and indulgent father; indeed, it seems that tnis man, so fierce and unbending to all others, over-indulged and

spoilt his children. His eldest son, Richard, was killed by a stag in the New Forest. In his latter years the next son, Robert, rebelled against him, as in those turbulent days, sons very often did against their fathers; and he was engaged in wars both with him and the King of France during the last part of his life.

66

End of the
Etheling
Edgar.

36. But before we come to the end of William's reign we will see what became of the Etheling Edgar, who was the last man of the old English royal blood. He certainly did not have a glorious end, but at the same time it was not an unhappy one. Every one seems to have been very kind to him. After the disastrous failure in Northumberland he went back to the King and Queen of Scotland. They did all they could for him; they gave him and all his men great gifts and many treasures, in skins decked with purple, and in pelisses of marten skin, and weasel skin, and ermine skin, and in golden and silver vessels;" but they advised him at last to make peace with William, which he did. The king received him well; no doubt glad to get him quietly on his side; and he also gave him large presents. William of Malmesbury says that, "remaining at court for many years, he silently sunk into contempt through his indolence, or, more mildly speaking, his simplicity." He made friends with the king's son Robert, and afterwards went with him to Jerusalem. But he finally returned to England, received a pension, and when William of Malmesbury wrote "he was growing old in the country in privacy and quiet;" a great contrast to his grandfather Edmund, and so many others of his race, who lived such short but glorious lives.

37. The disputes of William with his son Robert and the King of France, do not exactly belong to the history of England, but it was during his war with the latter that his

1087. Death of William.

end came. He had conquered and set on fire the town of Mantes, and was riding through the burning city, when his horse, setting his foot on the redhot ashes, stumbled, and threw him heavily against the saddle. He never recovered from the hurt. They carried him to Rouen, where he lay dying many weeks, during which time he made what best arrangements he could for the disposal of the great dominions and treasures which he had spent his life in gaining, but which he could not carry away with him. He bequeathed the Duchy of Normandy to his eldest son, Robert, and the kingdom of England to the second. The youngest son, Henry, only received a sum of money, and no land or dominion at all;

but his father, who well knew the characters of his children, foretold that the day would come when Henry would have all.

38. He then tried, it seems, to make some reparation for the ill he had done, by ordering large sums of money to be given to churches and monasteries, and particularly that the church of Mantes, which had been burnt down, should be rebuilt. also commanded many of his prisoners to be set free.

He

39. After all his glories and triumphs, the great conqueror could barely find an honourable grave or a true mourner. At the very moment when he was to be laid in a tomb in a fine church he had built at Caen, a certain knight stood forth, "loudly exclaiming against the robbery." The very land the church was built upon, had belonged to him and to his father before him, and William had taken it from him by force to found this new church. It was not till a sum of money had been paid down to appease this injured man that the funeral could be proceeded with. And only one of the sons he had loved, if even one, followed his father to the grave.

LECTURE XVII.-THE CONQUEROR'S SONS.

William Rufus. His brother Robert. The king and the barons. The English people. Anselm. The Crusades. Henry Beauclerc. His marriage. The English take his part. Peace, order, and justice. Stephen and Matilda. Misery of the country. The agreement and promised reform. Death of Stephen.

1. WILLIAM, the Conqueror's second son, who is generally called Rufus, from his red hair and complexion, lost no time in rushing to England to take possession of the kingdom and his father's treasure.

This treasure was at

1087.

William

Rufus.

Winchester, and the 'Chronicle' says, "It was not to be expressed by any man how much was there gathered in gold, and in silver, and in vessels, and in robes, and in gems, and in many other precious things."

His character.

William

2. He was speedily crowned by Lanfranc, as his father had desired. He seems to have been one of the worst kings England ever had; more hated and detested far than his father had been. William the Conqueror had something grand and kingly about him, which people looked upon with awe and reverence as well as fear. Rufus was brutal, coarse, irreligious, and ignorant, in addition to being, like his father, cruel, tyrannical, and avaricious. William of Malmesbury says that in public "he had a supercilious and threatening look, and a severe and ferocious voice; in private he liked jesting and levity." He tells us too that he "blushes to relate the crimes of so great a king;" but he does relate quite enough to show us what his opinion really was. "He feared God but little; man not at all."

3. He disgusted the people not only by his cruel taxes and oppression, but by pouring contempt on all they held most sacred. It appears to have been his custom "to come into church with menacing and insolent gestures," and to treat the bishops and clergy with shameful injustice. The wonderful value placed on "relics" in those times has been mentioned already. The bones of saints and other such things were placed

in boxes in the churches, which boxes were splendidly ornamented with gold, silver, and jewels, and called "shrines," and they were regarded with a reverence that we in our days can hardly understand. When William Rufus wanted money, which he nearly always did, for he was a spendthrift as well as covetous, he called the relics "dead men's bones," and made the abbots and bishops give up the gold and silver from their shrines, and even their crucifixes and sacramental cups.

The Chronicle' says, "All that was hateful to God and oppressive to men was customary in this land in his time, and therefore he was most hateful to almost all his people, and odious to God." Moreover, he was perpetually quarrelling with one or other of his brothers.

Robert.

4. Just at first he did not begin so ill; indeed, as long as Archbishop Lanfranc lived he was kept in some kind of check, and the people were inclined to take his part. Almost as soon as the Couqueror was dead, the proud, fierce lords, whom even he could hardly tame and keep down, began to rebel again. 5. Robert, the eldest son, had been inade Duke of Normandy, but he would have very much liked to be King of England too. For these Frenchmen found England His brother a very pleasant place when they had once set foot in it. It is all very well, as Fuller remarks, to say that France is so much better than England, and when we have ale they have wine, and when we have oats they have wheat; in short, that France is a garden and England only a field. "But let such know," says patriotic Fuller (and I am sure we all agree with him), "that England in itself is an excellent country, too good for the unthankful people which live therein; and such foreigners who seemingly slight secretly love and like the plenty thereof."

6. Many of the great Norman lords took part with Robert; partly because he was of a much pleasanter disposition than William; kindly and generous, though idle and pleasure-loving (but that suited them all the better, as they did not like a master); partly also because they now had lands both in England and France, and if they did not like one master, far less would they like two. So they wished one man to be both King of England and Duke of Normandy, and that man to be Robert.

7. William for his part would have had no objection to be Duke of Normandy as well, but he had no notion of giving up England. Now these and other disputes between the king and the barons turned out in the end very well for the English,