WILLIAM THE BAD (IL MALO) (1154-1166 A.D.)
[1154-1166 A.D.]
The sceptre of Roger successively devolved to his son and grandson; they might be confounded under the name of William; they are strongly discriminated by the epithets of the “bad” and the “good”; but these epithets, which appear to describe the perfection of vice and virtue, cannot strictly be applied to either of the Norman princes. When he was roused to arms by danger and shame, the first William did not degenerate from the valour of his race; but his temper was slothful; his manners were dissolute; his passions headstrong and mischievous; and the monarch is responsible not only for his personal vices but for those of Majo, the great admiral, who abused the confidence, and conspired against the life of his benefactor.
From the Arabian conquest, Sicily had imbibed a deep tincture of oriental manners; the despotism, the pomp, and even the harem of a sultan; and a Christian people was oppressed and insulted by the ascendant of the eunuchs, who openly professed, or secretly cherished, the religion of Mohammed. An eloquent historian of the times, Falcandus,[m] has delineated the misfortunes of his country; the ambition and fall of the ungrateful Majo; the revolt and punishment of his assassins; the imprisonment and deliverance of the king himself; the private feuds that arose from the public confusion; and the various forms of calamity and discord which afflicted Palermo, the island and the continent, during the reign of William the First, and the minority of his son.