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my lord," swore the vassal, as kneeling bareheaded and without arms he placed his hands within those of his superior, 'I become liege man of yours for life and limb and earthly regard; and I will keep faith and loyalty to you for life and death, God help me!" Then the kiss of his lord invested him with land as a "fief" to descend to him and his heirs forever. In other countries such a vassal owed fealty to his lord against all foes, be they king or no. By the usage, however, which William enacted in England each sub-tenant, in addition to his oath of fealty to his lord, swore fealty directly to the Crown, and loyalty to the king was thus established as the supreme and universal duty of all Englishmen.

XI.

THE RED KING.-HUNT.

[On the death of the Conqueror, and in accordance with his wishes, the duchy of Normandy went to his eldest son, Robert, while England fell to his second son, William Rufus. William succeeded in making good his claim to the kingdom, notwithstanding the opposition of Robert and the Norman nobles, who did not like to have their hereditary estates in Normandy separated from their conquered estates in England. After a few years Robert pledged Normandy to William in order to raise money with which to join in the first Crusade, so that the duchy and the kingdom were again virtually united under one ruler. The Red King, as he was called, had great energy and ability, but he was utterly reckless and unscrupulous, and a man of the foulest life. "Never day dawned," says his chronicler, "but he was a worse man than when he lay down; never sun set, but he lay down a worse man than he had risen."]

No form of election seems to have preceded the coronation of William Rufus. His accession to the throne was the work of Archbishop Lanfranc, acting on the instructions. of the Conqueror. Conscious of the character of Rufus, who had been his pupil, Lanfranc made him, in addition to the ordinary coronation oath, give a special promise that he would govern well, and would in all things be ruled by him.

man.

For, as he had knighted him, and had brought him up, Lanfranc had a claim on his reverence, besides that which the archbishop derived from his office, and from having been the chief minister of his father. Promises had little sanctity in the eyes of Rufus, unless they concerned some matter of military honor. "Who is there that can do all he promises?" was his wrathful answer to the archbishop, when he reminded the king of his own words. In 1089 the death of Lanfranc freed him from a restraint which he regarded with impatience. From this date his true character showed itself. Unlike his father, William Rufus put no check on his evil nature. Of no other can it be more truly said that he feared not God, neither regarded The hideous depravity of his life reveals the depth to which man can sink when, owning no law, he gives himself up to work all uncleanness with greediness. The special form of his immorality was, perhaps, an effect of the connection of the Normans with the people of the south and east of Europe, which arose from the conquest of Sicily. Thence, too, it may be, came that habit of speaking evil of God and his saints, in which he constantly indulged. When he recovered, for instance, from an illness in which, with the fear of death before him, he promised to live a better life, he swore that "God should never find him a good man in return for the ill He had done him." And when certain men, accused of deerstealing, were acquitted by the ordeal, he loudly impugned the justice of God's judgment. For such offenses men were, in his reign, condemned to death, for he set aside the law of his father, which forbade capital punishment. Although he was not guilty of delighting in the bodily suffering of others, he was utterly careless of the welfare of his subjects. He rejoiced in hurting men's feelings, and in shocking their prejudices. He took a bribe from the Jews of Rouen to make some of their people who had become Christians turn back to their old religion. In a spirit of mockery he made the bishops in England hold a set disputation with the Jews, and declared

that if they were worsted he would become a Jew himself. William Rufus was a dutiful son to his father while he lived, and ever held his memory in honor. His filial admiration led him to try to imitate his father's dignity, and his boastful insolence was a travesty of his father's majesty. The mighty oath of the Conqueror gave place to the adjuration," By the holy face of Lucca!" or the yet more senseless form, “By this and by that." He loved to boast of his power, and to talk of his kingly dignity; but there was, in truth, nothing kingly in him. An assumed scowl and a blustering tone were the means by which he sought to make men feel the fear inspired by the fierceness of his father's mien and his terrific voice. At the same time Rufus loved to jest with his companions, and to make his own wickedness the subject of their laughter. Men bandied words with him as they would not have dared to do with his father. They even played tricks upon him. Thus one day it chanced, as he was putting on some new boots, that he asked his chamberlain how much they cost, and when he said, "three shillings," Rufus abused him, for he held them to be too cheap for a king's use. The man went and fetched a cheaper pair, telling him that they cost more. "Ay," said he, "these are fit for a king's majesty." Not so, we may be sure, did his servants treat his father. The story is told by William of Malmesbury to illustrate the king's wastefulness. New fashions of effeminate luxury prevailed in his court. Men went about with long hair and flowing robes, and long, pointed shoes. Extravagance and folly were encouraged by the example and by the prodigal gifts of the king. His empty treasury was supplied by the devices of his low-born minister, Ranulf Flambard, who oppressed all alike, caring for no man's hatred if only he might please his master. These extortions were the more galling because they were committed under the guise of law, for every court was made by the justiciary the means of pressing the claims of the Crown.

66

Chief among the causes of the extravagance of Rufus was his love of all that pertained to arms. From his youth he excelled in all knightly exercises. A man-at-arms was to him something different from the rest of mankind. The word of such a one was more worthy of belief than that of others, and to such a one he held that a man should keep his word. Το speak as a good soldier" was to give another the highest assurance of truth. Some relation there was between such ideas and the arbitrary and imperfect code of chivalry. Yet, while chivalry exalted certain virtues to the neglect of others, and regarded a certain part of mankind as alone worthy of consideration, the system was founded on the idea that this regard was paid to the members of an order on the ground that they were pledged to exercise the virtues which were thus honored. Rufus, on the other hand, exalted no virtue, and honored men, not because they spoke the truth, but because they belonged to a profession which he loved. For this reason he held them to be entitled to privileges which he would not extend to others, and was careful to attach them to his service. When Rufus rewarded and enlisted a soldier who unhorsed him at St. Michael's Mount, or when he refused to believe that the knights at Ballon could break their word, he seems to exhibit the spirit of Francesco Sforza when, in 1424, he spared the lives of the captains whom his father bade him put to death, rather than to resemble Bayard, who, imperfect as were his ideas of right, poured scorn with his dying breath on the greatest captain of his age because he was "false to his country, his king, and his oath." Nor do the ideas of Rufus seem to me to have much in common with those of his ancestor, Richard the Good; for the king made his privileged class of soldiers, while an accident of birth was the sole recommendation for promotion at the court of the duke. Rufus would have made no bad captain of mercenaries, and these troops flocked to him in great numbers. He paid them highly, and if sometimes his treasury was empty, still their

services were not unrequited, for he let them do as they liked. The license extended to these men caused much suffering to his people. In other cases he was stern enough. Death was a common penalty, until he found it more profitable to make men give him money than to hang them.

No dependence could be placed on the word of Rufus. Three times he promised that he would govern well, and three times those who believed him were deceived. The first of these promises he made to Lanfranc. Again, in 1088, when the Normans rebelled against him, and he was driven to seek the support of the English, "he promised them the best laws that ever were before in this land; and every unjust geld he forbade, and granted them their woods and hunting, but it stood no while." The third time he made such a promise was in 1093, when he was sick, and this, too, he broke when he recovered from his sickness. Great as the help was that he gained from the English fyrd, on one notable occasion he shamefully betrayed the loyalty of the people. In his war with Robert, in 1094, he sent over from Normandy to Flambard and bade him levy twenty thousand Englishmen to come over to him. The English then, as ever, obeyed the call of their king. The host came together at Hastings, each man with ten shillings given him by his shire for his expenses on the campaign. Then Flambard came and took this money away, and dismissed the men. So the king gained £10,000 by this transaction, and used the money in buying off the French king from his brother's side. Impetuous at the beginning of all his undertakings, Rufus lacked the steadfastness to carry them out to a distinct issue. Unstable as water, he never made a great war or a firm peace. In his attempt, in 1098, to bring Maine again under the Norman power, he took Le Mans, and then left the country unsubdued. Before he finished his work there, he began a war in the French Vexin, and that also, after a while, ceased without any definite ending. The vague and spasmodic character of his foreign rela

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