also gave cause of displeasure. Having taken up a notion of getting himself made Pope, he was gathering a band of Normans for an expedition into Italy, when the King cut short his schemes by ordering his arrest. As those present had scruples about laying violent hands on a Bishop, William himself arrested his brother. Instructed by Lanfranc, the King was ready with his justification :-"I do not seize the Bishop of Bayeux, but the Earl of Kent." And accordingly the Earl-Bishop was kept in ward until the King on his deathbed set him free. In 1087 William was laying waste the borderland between France and Normandy in revenge for a stupid jest which the French King had made upon his unwieldy figure. While riding through the burning town of Mantes, and urging his men to add fresh fuel to the flames, his horse, treading on the hot embers, made a bound forward, and William, being pitched against the pommel of the saddle, received an internal injury, of which he lingered many weeks. On his deathbed he expressed a tardy penitence for his unjust conquest of England, and above all for the harrying of the North. What he had won by wrong, he said, he had no right to give away, so he would only declare his wish that he might be succeeded in England by his second son William, who had ever been dutiful to him. Robert, who was still at enmity with his father, was to have Normandy, together with the adjoining province of Maine, which William had conquered. The King died at Rouen in Normandy, Sept. 9th, and was buried at Caen. Battle Abbey, near Hastings, was built by him upon the spot where Harold's standard had stood.

CHAPTER X.

WILLIAM II.

Election of William; rebellion of Odo, character of William; Ranulf Flambard; the Royal followers (1) -Norman affairs; Scottish affairs (2)-Flambard's financial expedients; Anselm made Primate (3)—the First Crusade; Normandy mortgaged (4)—death of William (5)—building of Westminster Hall (6).'

1. William II., surnamed Rufus, or the Red King, 1087-1100.-The Conqueror's wish was fulfilled, his son William being elected and crowned King, Sept. 26th. But Odo of Bayeux worked upon the barons, pointing out how much better it would suit them to be governed by the easy-tempered Robert than by the fierce and masterful William ; and almost all the great Norman nobles joined in an attempt to transfer the crown to Duke Robert. William thereupon made an appeal to the English, promising them the best laws they ever had, liberty of hunting on their own lands, and freedom from unjust taxes. The English answered with hearty support, and soon quelled the rebellion; but their loyalty was ill requited. "Who is there who can fulfil all that he promises?" was William's angry reply when Lanfranc reminded him that he had sworn to rule with justice and mercy. In 1089 Lanfranc died, and with him all hope of good government. Rufus, or the Red. King, as he was called from his ruddy complexion, inherited his father's valour, but no other of his virtues. He gave himself up to gross vice, was irreligious and blasphemous in speech, and surrounded himself with wicked and foolish companions, who caused scandal equally by their sins and their follies. His promise

to impose no unjust taxes was early broken; for being utterly reckless how he spent his money, he was soon in need. As an instance of his tasteless extravagance we are told that one morning when putting on a pair of new boots, he asked his chamberlain what they had cost? "Three shillings." Rufus flew into a rage :"How long has the King worn boots at so paltry a price? Go and bring me a pair worth a mark of silver." The chamberlain returned with a pair in reality cheaper than those rejected, and told him they had cost the price he had named. Ay," said Rufus, "these are suitable to royal majesty." After this the chamberlain was sharp enough to charge the King what he pleased for his clothes. The King's chief adviser was Ranulf, a Norman priest, who went by the nickname of "Flambard," or the Torch, and whom he afterwards made Bishop of Durham. This minister's ingenuity was employed in laying on grinding taxes, and otherwise raising money; the halter, it was said, was loosed from the robber's neck if he could promise any gain to the Sovereign. Wherever the King and the court went, they did as much damage as an invading army; for the royal followers lived at free quarters on the country people, and often repaid their hosts by wasting or selling everything they could lay their hands on, and, in wanton insolence, washing their horses' legs with the liquor they did not drink.

2. Norman and Scottish affairs.—In 1091 the King attacked Robert in his Duchy, and constrained him to surrender part of his dominions. Having thus come to an agreement, the two joined together to dispossess their third brother Henry, whom they drove from his stronghold of Mount St. Michael in Normandy. The King then returned to deal with an invasion of the Scots; and made a peace with their King, Malcolm, who renewed to Rufus the homage he had already paid to the Conqueror. Malcolm's next

invasion in 1093 cost him his life, he being killed before Alnwick. In the previous year William had enlarged the English Kingdom by the addition of the northern part of modern Cumberland, with its capital, Carlisle. This district, when Rufus marched into it, was a separate principality, ruled by an English noble named Dolfin, who was probably a vassal of the Scottish King. Having driven out Dolfin, William restored Carlisle, which had never recovered its destruction by the Danes in Alfred's time, built a castle there, and colonized the wild surrounding country with Flemings and English peasants from the South. Cumberland became an English Earldom, and in the next reign Carlisle was made the seat of a bishopric.

3. Archbishop Anselm. - Flambard's great device for raising money was that the King should take possession of all vacant bishoprics and abbeys, and farm out their lands and revenues to the highest bidder. If he at last named a new bishop or abbot, it was understood that the honour was to be paid for, Thus the See of Canterbury had never been filled since Lanfranc's death. But in Lent, 1093, the King falling grievously sick, and being pricked in conscience, in his terror promised good government, and named to the Archbishopric Anselm, an Italian by birth, and Abbot of Bec in Normandy. Anselm, a man of great learning and holiness, who was afterwards canonized as Saint, was unwilling, and with good reason, to receive the dangerous honour; for no sooner had William got well than he fell back into worse ways than ever. Anselm had likened himself to a feeble old sheep yoked to the plough with an untamed bull; and in truth he and the King agreed as ill as he had foretold. But feeble as Anselm called himself, no man was more outspoken in rebuking wrong, or firmer in upholding what he thought to be right. At last, after many quarrels, the Archbishop withdrew to Rome.

4. Normandy mortgaged.-Meanwhile Normandy, which the King had again striven to win by force, came quietly within his grasp. From early ages it had been the practice of Christians to make pilgrimages to the Holy Land, to pray at the Sepulchre of Christ; and about this time a flame of indignation was raised throughout Europe by tales of the wrongs done by the Turks to the native Christians of Palestine and to the pilgrims. At the call of the Pope, an armed expedition set out in 1096 to rescue the Holy Sepulchre from the Mohammedans; and from all parts of Europe men flocked to the Crusade, so called because those who took part in it put a cross, in Latin crux, upon their garments. Among those who were stirred by the prevailing enthusiasm was Robert of Normandy. To meet the expense of his undertaking, he mortgaged for 10,000 marks his Duchy to his brother, and set off joyously to Palestine, while William entered into full possession of Normandy.

5. Death of William.-Rufus, like his father, was passionately fond of the chase, and so far from continuing to allow the liberty of hunting accorded at the beginning of his reign, he at last made it death to take a stag. On the 2nd August, 1100, he was hunting in the New Forest. Some vague suspicion of intended foul play was probably afloat, for evil dreams had been dreamed by himself and others, and on this account he had been half persuaded not to hunt that day. But wine kindled his courage; a letter from the Abbot of Gloucester, recounting a warning vision, was received with the scornful question, "Does he think that I follow the fashion of the English, who will put off a journey for a sneeze or an old wife's dream?" and forth he went into the Forest. Soon after, he was found lying pierced by the shaft of a crossbow, and in the agonies of death. Suspicion fell on one of the hunting-party, a French knight named Walter Tyrell, who fled for his life and got away to