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WILLIAM DEFEATS THE REBEL NORMANS.

greatest risk of losing both life and throne.

347

All

the Norman nobles, it may be said, conspired to overthrow him, not with the notion of setting up any other duke in his place, but in the hope of setting up each a little sovereignty of his own, where he might oppress his weak neighbours to his heart's content. The first thing to be done was, if possible, to seize William himself. He happened to be on a hunting expedition at Valognes, a little town in the peninsula now called La Manche, and therefore far away from his home. One night he was roused from his sleep with the warning that he must rise at once, and fly for his life. The duke threw himself on his horse and rode all that night. In the morning he reached the house of a faithful vassal, who gave him a fresh horse and the escort of his own sons. Thus he reached Falaise in safety.

Though the common people were favourable to the duke, as indeed they might well be with the prospect of a number of petty tyrants before them, he was obliged to look abroad for help, and he looked to his liege lord, Henry of France. The King at once granted his petition for help, and marched with his army to join the loyal Normans. It was at Val-ès-Dunes, near Caen, that the opposing forces met. It was William's first battle, and he bore himself in it with all the courage that distinguished him through life; nor did he fail to show that great physical strength which we shall see displayed hereafter in a greater fight. The King too, on his part, did his duty as a warrior, though he was twice unhorsed. After a fierce resistance the rebels were overthrown. Their loss on the field

of battle was great, and their loss in the flight still greater. William was now undisputed master of Normandy. One of his first acts was to require from his turbulent nobles the destruction of the castles which they had built during the period of anarchy, and which were the signs of the lawless independence that they so coveted.

Master of his own inheritance, William now began to turn his thoughts to a richer possession which he began to hope might be his. The crown of England was not without heir; but there was no heir present before the eyes of men. The last direct male descendant of Alfred was living in a distant country. If there were other claimants they had no great thought either of legal right or of popular favour to urge on their own behalf. If the house of Godwin thought of the succession as a thing that might come to them, why might he not so think of it?

It was therefore appropriately enough during the exile of Godwin and his sons (1051-1052), that William paid a visit to the English king. What passed between the two on that occasion can never be known. But there is a general consent that some sort of promise was made by Edward that William should have the succession to his kingdom.

But it was necessary, or at least expedient, to have some kind of personal right. This was a difficult, it may be said, an impossible, thing to acquire. Still some kind of pretence might be invented. A claim on the score of birth was impossible. Even had William been the legitimate child of his father, there

The Atheling Edward, son of Edmund Ironsides.

MATILDA OF FLANDERS.

349

was no blood relationship between Duke Robert and the royal house of England. But what could not come by birth might be obtained by marriage. And it seems very likely that William did think of this possibility in choosing the lady whom he would seek in marriage.

We have heard more than once of Baldwin of Flanders as a prince, with whom unsuccessful pretenders found it convenient to take refuge. It was Baldwin's daughter Matilda whom William determined to make his wife.

The lady had, it seems, been married before, and had borne two children to her former husband. But she was exceedingly beautiful, if her traditionary portrait and the glowing language of contemporaries can be trusted. And she had the advantage of being descended from Alfred through his daughter, the wife of Baldwin II. of Flanders

The difficulties that William had to overcome in prosecuting his courtship were great. There was, it would seem, aversion on the part of the lady, aversion which, according to one account, the suitor overcame by the strange method of making his way into her father's palace, seizing her by the hair as she sat in her mother's chamber, and, after repeated blows, throwing her on the ground. "He must be a man of great courage," Matilda is reported to have said, "who could dare to beat me in my own father's palace," when she was asked why she had afterwards consented to a suit which she had at first scornfully refused.

Another difficulty was of a legal kind. What it

was we cannot pretend to say with any certainty. It is impossible to believe that Matilda's first husband. was still alive. On the other hand, it seems equally impossible to make out clearly any relationship between the two lovers that would have brought their marriage within the prohibited degrees. But, whatever the difficulties were, they were serious enough to delay the marriage for nearly four years. The courtship began in 1048, but the marriage did not take place till 1051. It was expressly forbidden at the time when it was first proposed by the Council of Rheims. Even when it was actually celebrated it was held to be irregular by the authorities of the Church; and it was not till six or seven years afterwards that Pope Nicholas II. yielded, not without reluctance, to the petition of William's chosen advocate, Lanfranc,1 and granted the dispensation which was to take away from it all defect.

Such, then, was Harold's great rival. His claims or hopes were Edward's promise, Harold's own oath, and the relationship of his wife to the royal house. His chief support lay in the Norman influence which the King during all his reign had so busily promoted. • Afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury.

THE ACCESSION OF HAROLD AND THE CAMPAIGN

IN THE NORTH.

EDWARD THE CONFESSOR was now drawing near to his end. The vexation which he felt at the banishment of Tostig is said to have aggravated his sickness; but whatever the cause, it was now evident that he had not long to live. On Christmas Day he appeared in public, wearing his crown, according to custom, but in the evening his strength gave way. Still he rallied, and appeared, more than once, at the banquets with which the Christmas festival was held. On Innocents' Day (Wednesday, December 28, 1065) the great church which he had been building for many years, and on which he had spent, it was said, the tenth part of the wealth of the kingdom, was consecrated. The King was too weak to attend the ceremony; when he heard that it was complete, he laid his head upon his pillow. Nor did he ever rise again from his bed. He grew weaker and weaker till, on the Tuesday in the following week (January 5, 1066), his speech failed him.

Two

days after came that common lighting up before

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