THE DEATH OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR[58]
The death-bed of William was a death-bed of all formal devotion, a death-bed of penitence which we may trust was more than formal. The English Chronicles,[59] after weighing the good and evil in him, sends him out of the world with a charitable prayer for his soul's rest; and his repentance, late and fearful as it was, at once marks the distinction between the conqueror on his bed of death and his successor cut off without a thought of penitence in the midst of his crimes. He made his will. The mammon of unrighteousness which he had gathered together amid the groans and tears of England he now strove so to dispose of as to pare his way to an everlasting habitation. All his treasures were distributed among the poor and the churches of his dominions. A special sum was set apart for the rebuilding of the churches which had been burned at Mantes, and gifts in money and books and ornaments of every kind were to be distributed among all the churches of England according to their rank. He then spoke of his own life and of the arrangements which he wished to make for his dominions after his death. The Normans, he said, were a brave and unconquered race; but they needed the curb of a strong and righteous master to keep them in the path of order. Yet the rule over them must by all law pass to Robert. Robert was his eldest born; he had promised him the Norman succession before he won the crown of England, and he had received the homage of the barons of the Duchy. Normandy and Maine must therefore pass to Robert, and for them he must be the man of the French king. Yet he well knew how sad would be the fate of the land which had to be ruled by one so proud and foolish, and for whom a career of shame and sorrow was surely doomed.
But what was to be done with England? Now at last the heart of William smote him. To England he dared not appoint a successor; he could only leave the disposal of the island realm to the Almighty Ruler of the world. The evil deeds of his past life crowded upon his soul. Now at last his heart confest that he had won England by no right, by no claim of birth; that he had won the English crown by wrong, and that what he had won by wrong he had no right to give to another. He had won his realm by warfare and bloodshed; he had treated the sons of the English soil with needless harshness; he had cruelly wronged nobles and commons; he had spoiled many men wrongfully of their inheritance; he had slain countless multitudes by hunger or by the sword. The harrying of Northumberland now rose up before his eyes in all its blackness. The dying man now told how cruelly he had burned and plundered the land, what thousands of every age and sex among the noble nation which he had conquered had been done to death at his bidding. The scepter of the realm which he had won by so many crimes he dared not hand over to any but to God alone. Yet he would not hide his wish that his son William, who had ever been dutiful to him, might reign in England after him. He would send him beyond the sea, and he would pray Lafranc to place the crown upon his head, if the Primate in his wisdom deemed that such an act could he rightly done.
Of the two sons of whom he spoke, Robert was far away, a banished rebel; William was by his bedside. By his bedside also stood his youngest son, the English Ætheling, Henry the Clerk. "And what dost thou give to me, my father?" said the youth. "Five thousand pounds of silver from my hoard," was the Conqueror's answer. "But of what use is a hoard to me if I have no place to dwell in?" "Be patient, my son, and trust in the Lord, and let thine elders go before thee." It is perhaps by the light of the later events that our chronicler goes on to make William tell his youngest son that the day would come when he would succeed both his brothers in their dominions, and would be richer and mightier than either of them. The King then dictated a letter to Lafranc, setting forth his wishes with regard to the kingdom. He sealed it and gave it to his son William, and bade him, with his last blessing and his last kiss, to cross at once into England. William Rufus straightway set forth for Witsand, and there heard of his father's death. Meanwhile Henry, too, left his father's bedside to take for himself the money that was left to him, to see that nothing was lacking in its weight, to call together his comrades on whom he could trust, and to take measures for stowing the treasure in a place of safety.
And now those who stood around the dying King began to implore his mercy for the captives whom he held in prison. He granted the prayer....
The last earthly acts of the Conqueror were now done. He had striven to make his peace with God and man, and to make such provision as he could for the children and the subjects whom he had left behind him. And now his last hour was come. On a Thursday morning in September, when the sun had already risen upon the earth, the sound of the great bell of the metropolitan minster struck on the ears of the dying King. He asked why it sounded. He was told that it rang for prime in the church of our Lady. William lifted his eyes to heaven, he stretched forth his hands, and spake his last words: "To my Lady Mary, the Holy Mother of God, I commend myself, that by her holy prayers she may reconcile me to her dear Son, our Lord Jesus Christ." He prayed, and his soul passed away. William, king of the English and duke of the Normans, the man whose fame has filled the world in his own and in every following age, had gone the way of all flesh. No kingdom was left him now but his seven feet of ground, and even to that his claim was not to be undisputed.
The death of a king in those days came near to a break-up of all civil society. Till a new king was chosen and crowned, there was no longer a power in the land to protect or to chastise. All bonds were loosed; all public authority was in abeyance; each man had to look to his own as he best might. No sooner was the breath out of William's body than the great company which had patiently watched around him during the night was scattered hither and thither. The great men mounted their horses and rode with all speed to their own homes, to guard their houses and goods against the outburst of lawlessness which was sure to break forth now that the land had no longer a ruler. Their servants and followers, seeing their lords gone, and deeming that there was no longer any fear of punishment, began to make spoil of the royal chamber. Weapons, clothes, vessels, the royal bed and its furniture, were carried off, and for a whole day the body of the Conqueror lay well-nigh bare on the floor of the room in which he died.
FOOTNOTES:
[58] From "The History of the Norman Conquest."
[59] William of Malmesbury.