The following year the king marched into Wales in person, with numerous forces, and overran a considerable portion of the country, delivering, in the course of his progress, upwards of 300 English, whom the Welsh had enslaved. From this excursion he was speedily recalled by a confederacy entered into against him by the Danes, whose king, Canute the Younger, laid claim to the crown of England, and with this intention entered into an alliance with Olaf, King of Norway, and with his brother-in-law Robert, Count of Flanders, who promised him a succour of 600 vessels. William felt the utmost alarm at this alliance, which seriously menaced his throne, and he enlisted under his banners a crowd of mercenaries from every part of Europe, whom he paid by the enormous contributions wrung from his English subjects. The Danish invasion, however, never took place, through the death of Canute and dissensions among the other leaders.
Although released from external menaces, it was not permitted to the Conqueror to enjoy repose in the last years of his eventful reign. Ordericus Vitalis, in speaking of him, says, "He was afflicted by the just judgment of God. Since the death of Waltheof, whom he had so unjustly punished, he had neither repose nor peace, and the astonishing course of his success was poisoned by the troubles which those related to him occasioned."
When William first received the submission of the province of Maine, he had promised the inhabitants that his eldest son Robert should be their prince, and before he undertook the expedition against England he had, on the application of the French court, declared him his successor in Normandy, and had obliged the barons of that duchy to do him homage as their future sovereign. By this artifice, he had endeavoured to appease the jealousy of his neighbours, as affording them a prospect of separating England from his dominions on the Continent; but when Robert demanded of him the execution of those engagements, he gave him an absolute refusal, and told him, according to the homely saying, that he never intended to throw off his clothes till he went to bed. Robert openly declared his discontent; and was suspected of secretly instigating the King of France and the Count of Brittany to the opposition which they made to William, and which had formerly frustrated his attempts on the town of Dol; and, as the quarrel still augmented, Robert proceeded to entertain a strong jealousy of his two surviving brothers, William and Henry (for Richard was killed in 1081, while hunting, by a stag), who by greater submission and complaisance had acquired the affections of their father. In this disposition on both sides, a small matter sufficed to produce a rupture between them.
The three princes residing with their father in the castle of l'Aigle in Normandy, were one day engaged in sport together; and after some mirth and jollity, the two younger threw some water over Robert, as he passed through the court on leaving their apartment—a frolic which he would naturally have regarded as innocent, had it not been for the suggestions of Alberic de Græntmesnil. This young man persuaded the prince that the act was meant as a public affront, which it behoved him in honour to resent; and the choleric Robert, drawing his sword, ran upstairs, with an intention of taking revenge on his brothers. The whole castle was filled with tumult, which the king himself, who hastened from his apartment, found some difficulty in appeasing. He could by no means calm the resentment of his eldest son, who, complaining of his father's partiality, and fancying that no proper atonement had been made for the insult, left the court that very evening, and hastened to Rouen with the intention of seizing the citadel of that place. Disappointed in this attempt by the precaution and vigilance of Roger of Ivry, the governor, he fled to Hugh of Neufchâtel, a powerful Norman baron, who gave him protection in his castles; and he levied war openly against his father. The popular character of the prince, and a similarity of manners, engaged all the young nobility of Normandy and Maine, as well as of Anjou and Brittany, to take part with him; and it was suspected that Matilda, his mother, whose favourite he was, supported him in his rebellion by secret remittances of money, which so enraged her husband that, despite the affection he is known to have borne her, he is said to have beaten her with his own hand.
All the hereditary provinces of William were convulsed by this war, and he was at last compelled to draw an army from England to assist him. These forces, led by his ancient captains, soon enabled him to drive Robert and his adherents from their strongholds, and re-establish his authority; the rebellious son himself being driven to seek a retreat in the castle of Gerberoi, which the King of France, who had secretly fomented these dissensions, placed at his disposal. In this fortress he was closely besieged by his angry father, and many encounters took place in the sorties made by the garrison. In one of these Robert engaged the king without knowing him, wounded him in the arm, and unhorsed him. On William calling out for assistance, his son recognised his voice, and, filled with horror at the idea of having so nearly become a parricide, threw himself at his feet, and asked pardon for his offences. So says Florence of Worcester, while other accounts represent William as having been rescued by his attendants. The entreaties of the queen, and other influences, soon afterwards brought about a reconciliation; but it is thought the Conqueror in his heart never forgave his son, although he afterwards took Robert to England. This occurred previous to the expedition recorded on the preceding page, in which he sent his son to oppose the King of Scotland.
The tranquillity which now ensued gave William leisure to begin an undertaking which proves the comprehensive nature of his talents. This was a general survey of all the lands in the kingdom in 1081; their extent in each district; their proprietors, tenures, value; the quantity of meadow, pasture, wood, and arable land which they contained; and in some counties the number of tenants, cottagers, and slaves of all denominations who lived on them. He appointed commissioners for this purpose, who entered every particular in their register by the verdict of juries, and after a labour of six years (for the work was so long in finishing), brought him an exact account of all the landed property in England. This monument, called Domesday Book—the most valuable piece of antiquity possessed by any nation—is still preserved in the Exchequer. It was followed by a great Witena-gemot at Salisbury, attended, it is said, by some sixty thousand men, who all swore obedience to the king "against all other men."
William, in common with all the great men of the time, was passionately addicted to the chase; a pastime he indulged in at the expense of his unhappy subjects. Not content with the royal domains, he resolved to make a new forest near Winchester, his usual place of abode, and for this purpose laid waste a tract of country extending above thirty miles, expelling the inhabitants from their houses, and seizing on their property, without affording them the least compensation; neither did he respect the churches and convents—the possessions of the clergy as well as laity being alike confiscated to his pleasures. At the same time he enacted penalties more severe than had hitherto been known in England, against hunting in any of the royal forests. The killing of a deer, wild boar, or hare, was punished by the loss of the offender's eyes—and that at a time when the slaying of a fellow-creature might be atoned by the payment of a fine. The death of William's son Richard there, and afterwards of William Rufus, were regarded as judgments from heaven for the sacrilege committed in the making of the forest.
The transactions recorded during the remainder of this reign may be considered more as domestic occurrences which concern the prince, than as national events which regard England. Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, the king's uterine brother, whom he had created Earl of Kent, and entrusted with a great share of power during his whole reign, had amassed immense riches; and, agreeably to the usual progress of human wishes, he began to regard his present acquisitions as but a step to further grandeur. He had formed the chimerical project of buying the papacy; and though Gregory, the reigning pope, was not of advanced years, the prelate had confided so much in the predictions of an astrologer, that he reckoned on the pontiff's death, and on attaining, by his own intrigues and money, that envied state of greatness. Resolving, therefore, to go to Italy with something like an army, he had persuaded many barons, and among the rest Hugh, Earl of Chester, to take the same course, in hopes that when he should mount the Papal throne, he would bestow on them more considerable establishments in that country. The king, from whom all these projects had been carefully concealed, at last got intelligence of the design, and ordered Odo to be arrested. His officers, from respect to the immunities which the ecclesiastics now assumed, scrupled to execute the command, till the king himself was obliged in person to seize him; and when Odo insisted that he was a prelate, and exempt from all temporal jurisdiction, William replied that he arrested him not as Bishop of Bayeux, but as Earl of Kent. He was sent prisoner to Normandy, and, notwithstanding the remonstrances and menaces of Gregory, was kept in confinement during the remainder of William's reign.
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR GRANTING A CHARTER TO THE CITIZENS OF LONDON.