is 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. el Politic, cap.
111.]

There was one pleasure to which William, as well as all 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.

[* W. Malms, p. 3. H. Hunting, p. 731. Anglia
Sacra, vol. i. p. 258]

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,