forgiveness by any atonement.* The resentment harbored by William was so implacable, that he did not immediately correspond to this dutiful submission of his son with like tenderness; but, giving him his malediction, departed for his own camp, on Robert's horse, which that prince had assisted him to mount. He soon after raised the siege, and marched with his army to Normandy; where the interposition of the queen and other common friends brought about a reconcilement, which was probably not a little forwarded by the generosity of the son's behavior in this action, and by the returning sense of his past misconduct. The king seemed so fully appeased that he even took Robert with him into England, where he intrusted him with the command of an army, in order to repel an inroad of Malcolm, king of Scotland, and to retaliate by a like inroad into that country. The Welsh, unable to resist William's power, were, about the same time, necessitated to pay a compensation for their incursions; and every thing was reduced to full tranquillity in this island. [1081.] This state of affairs gave William leisure to begin and finish an undertaking, which proves his extensive genius, and does honor to his memory; it was a general survey of all the lands in the kingdom, 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 upon them. He appointed commissioners for this purpose, who entered every particular in their register by the verdict of juries; and after a labor of six years, (for the work was so long in finishing,) brought him an exact account of all the landed property of his kingdom.† This monument, called domesday-book, the most valuable piece of antiquity possessed by any nation, is still preserved in the exchequer; and though only some extracts of it have hitherto been published, it serves to illustrate to us, in many particulars, the ancient state of England. The great Alfred had finished * W. Malms. p. 106. H. Hunting. p. 369. Hoveden, p. 457. Flor. Wigorn. p. 639. Sim. Dunelm. p. 210. Diceto, p. 287. Knygh-. ton, p. 2351. Alured. Beverl. p. 135. Chron. Sax. p. 190. Ingulph. p. 79. Chron. T. Wykes, p. 23. Flor H. Hunting. p. 370. Hoveden, p. 460. M. West. p. 229. Wigorn. p. 641. Chron. Abb. St. Petri de Burgo, p. 51. M. Paris p. 8. The more northern counties were not comprehended in this survey; I suppose because of their wild, uncultivated state. a like survey of the kingdom in his time, which was long kep at Winchester, and which probably served as a model to Wi.. liam in this undertaking. The king was naturally a great economist; and though no prince had ever been more bo mntiful to his officers and servants, it was merely because he had rendered himself universal proprietor of England, and had a whole kingdom to bestow. He reserved an ample revenue for the crown; and in the general distribution of land among his followers, he kept`possession of no less than one thousand four hundred and twentytwo manors in different parts of England,† which paid him rent either in money, or in corn, cattle, and the usual produce of the soil. An ancient historian computes that his annual fixed income, besides escheats, fines, reliefs, and other casual profits to a great value, amounted to near four hundred thousand pounds a year; a sum which, if all circumstances be attended to, will appear wholly incredible. A pound in that age, as we have already observed, contained three times the weight of silver that it does at present; and the same weight of silver, by the most probable computation, would purchase near ten times more of the necessaries of life, though not in the same proportion of the finer manufactures. This revenue, therefore, of William, would be equal to at least nine or ten millions at present; and as that prince had neither fleet nor army to support, the former being only an occasional expense, and the latter being maintained, without any charge to him, by his military vassals, we must thence conclude that no emperor or prince, in any age or nation, can be compared to the Conqueror for opulence and riches. This leads us to suspect a great mistake in the computation of the historian; though, if we consider that avarice is always imputed to William as one of his vices, and that, having by the sword rendered himself master of all the lands in the kingdom, he would certainly, in the partition, retain a great proportion for his own share, we can scarcely be guilty of any error in asserting, that perhaps no king of England was ever more opulent, was more able to support by his revenue the splendor and magnificence of a court, or could bestow more on his pleasures, or in liberalities to his servants and favorites.§ * Ingulph. p. 8. + West's Inquiry into the Manner of creating Peers, p. 24. Order. Vitalis, p. 523. He says, one thousand and sixty pounds and some odd shillings and pence a day.. § Fortescue, de Dom. Reg. et Politic. cap. 111. There was one pleasure to which William, as well as afi the Normans and ancient Saxons, was extremely addicted, and that was hunting; but this pleasure he indulged more at the expense of his unhappy subjects, whose interests he always disregarded, than to the loss or diminution of his own revenue. Not content with those large forests which former kings possessed in all parts of England, he resolved to make a new forest near Winchester, the usual place of his residence; and for that purpose, he laid waste the country in Hampshire for an extent of thirty miles, expelled the inhabitants from their houses, seized their property, even demolished churches and convents, and made the sufferers no compensation for the injury.* At the same time, he enacted new laws, by which he prohibited all his subjects from hunting in any of his forests, and rendered the penalties more severe than ever had been inflicted for such offences. The killing of a deer or boar, or even a hare, was punished with the loss of the delinquent's eyes; and that at a time when the killing of a man could be atoned for by paying a moderate fine or composition. 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 Baieux, the king's uterine brother, whom he had created earl of Kent, and intrusted 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 but as 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 upon the pontiff's death, and upon attaining, by his own intrigues and money, that envied state of greatness. Resolving, therefore, to remit all his riches to Italy, he had persuaded many considerable 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 * W. Malms. p. 3. H. Hunting. p. 731. Anglia Sacra, vol. i. p. 258. 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 Baieux, but as earl of Kent. He was sent prisoner to Normandy; and notwithstanding the remonstrances and menaces of Gregory, was detained in custody during the remainder of this reign. [1083.] Another domestic event gave the king much more concern: it was the death of Matilda, his consort, whom he tenderly loved, and for whom he had ever preserved the most sincere friendship. Three years afterwards he passed into Normandy, and carried with him Edgar Atheling, to whom he willingly granted permission to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He was detained on the continent by a misunderstanding which broke out between him and the king of France, and which was occasioned by inroads made into Normandy by some French barons on the frontiers. [1087.] It was little in the power of princes at that time to restrain thei licentious nobility; but William suspected, that these barons durst not have provoked his indignation, had they not been assured of the countenance and protection of Philip. His displeasure was increased by the account he received of some railleries which that monarch had thrown out against him. William, who was become corpulent, had been detained in bed some time by sickness; upon which Philip expressed his surprise that his brother of England should be so long in being delivered of his big belly. The king sent him word, that, as soon as he was up, he would present so many lights at Notre-dame, as would perhaps give little pleasure to the king of France; alluding to the usual practice at that time of women after childbirth. Immediately on his recovery, he led an army into L'Isle de France, and laid every thing waste with fire and sword. He took the town of Mante, which he reduced to ashes. But the progress of these hostilities was stopped by an accident which soon after put an end to William's life. His horse starting aside of a sudden, he bruised his belly on the pommel of the saddle; and being in a bad habit of body, as well as somewhat advanced in years, he began to apprehend the consequences, and ordered himself to be carried in a litter to the monastery of St. Gervas. Finding his illness increase, and being sensible of the approach of death, he discovered at last the vanity of all human grandeur, and was struck with remorse for those horrible cruelties and acts of violence, which, in the attainment and defence of it, he had committed during the course of his reign over England. He endeavored to make atonement by presents to churches and monasteries; and he issued orders that Earl Morcar, Siward, Bearne, and other English prisoners, should be set at liberty. He was even prevailed on, though not without reluctance, to consent, with his dying breath, to release his brother Odo, against whom he was extremely incensed. He left Normandy and Maine to his eldest son, Robert: he wrote to Lanfranc, desiring him to crown William king of England; he bequeathed to Henry nothing but the possessions of his mother, Matilda; but foretold that he would one day surpass both his brothers in power and opulence. He expired in the sixty-third year of his age, in the twenty-first year of his reign over England, and in the fifty-fourth of that over Normandy. Few princes have been more fortunate than this great monarch, or were better entitled to grandeur and prosperity, from the abilities and the vigor of mind which he displayed in all his conduct. His spirit was bold and enterprising, yet guided by prudence; his ambition, which was exorbitant, and lay little under the restraints of justice, still less under those of humanity, ever submitted to the dictates of sound policy. Born in an age when the minds of men were intractable, and unacquainted with submission, he was yet able to direct them to his purposes, and, partly from the ascendant of his vehement character, partly from art and dissimulation, to establish an unlimited authority. Though not insensible to generosity, he was hardened against compassion; and he seemed equally ostentatious and equally ambitious of show and parade in his clemency and in his severity. The maxims of his administration were austere, but might have been useful, had they been solely employed to preserve order in an established government: * they were ill calculated for softening the rigors which, under the most gentle management, are inseparable from conquest. His attempt against England was the last great enterprise of the kind, which, during the course of seven hundred years, has fully succeeded in Europe; and the force of his genius broke through those * M. West. p. 230. Anglia Sacra, vol. i. p. 258. |