Thus ended King William, a man prudent, untiring, and brave, and one who was pious and just according to his own lights, for he governed Church and State as one who deemed that he had an account to render for his deeds. But he was so unscrupulous in his ambition, so ruthless in sweeping away all who stood in his path, so much a stranger to pity and mercy, that he was feared rather than loved by his subjects, Norman as well as English. No man could pardon such acts as his harrying of Yorkshire, or forget his cruel forest laws, which inflicted death or mutilation on all who interfered with his royal pleasure of the chase. "He loved the tall deer as if he was their father," it was said, and ill did it fare with the unhappy subject who came between him and the favoured beasts. England has had many kings who were worse men than William the Bastard, but never one who brought her more sorrow, from the moment that he set foot on the shore of Sussex down to the day of his death.
THE HOUSE OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.
| William the Conqueror, 1066-1087. | |||||||||||
| Robert, Duke of Normandy. | William II., 1087-1100. | Henry I., = Matilda of Scotland. | Adela = Stephen of Blois. | ||||||||
| William Clito. | |||||||||||
| William. | Matilda = (1) Henry V.,Emperor. (2) Geoffrey of Anjou. | Stephen, 1135-1154. | Henry, Bishop of Winchester. | ||||||||
| Eleanor of Aquitaine = Henry II., 1154-1189. | Eustace. | William. | |||||||||
| Henry the Younger. | Richard I., 1189-1199. | Geoffrey = Constance of Brittany. | John, 1199-1216. | ||||||||
| Arthur of Brittany. | Henry III. 1216-1272. | Richard of Cornwall, King of the Romans. | |||||||||
| Edward I. | Henry of Cornwall. | ||||||||||
FOOTNOTE:
[8] The native English writers, for some time after the Conquest, continued to call it the Witan, merely because they had as yet found no other name for it.
CHAPTER VII.
WILLIAM THE RED—HENRY I.—STEPHEN.
1087-1154.
The eighty years which followed the death of William the Conqueror were spent in the solution of the problem which he had left behind him. William had brought over to England two principles of conflicting tendency—the one that of strong monarchical government, where everything depends on the king; the other that of feudal anarchy. He himself had been able to control the turbulent horde of military adventurers among whom he had distributed the lands of England, but would his sons be equally successful? We have now to see how two strong-handed kings kept down the monster of feudal rebellion; how one weak king's reign sufficed to put the monarchy in the gravest danger; and how, finally, William's great-grandson quelled the unruly baronage so that it was never again a serious danger for the rest of England's national life.