e
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.

[Footnote 58: From "The History of the Norman Conquest."]

[Footnote 59: William of Malmesbury.]

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 AEtheling, 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
r