l years older than she. In fact, he was now considerably
advanced in age. He became extremely corpulent as he grew old, which, as
he was originally of a large frame, made him excessively unwieldy. The
inconvenience resulting from this habit of body was not the only evil
that attended it. It affected his health, and even threatened to end in
serious if not fatal disease. While he was thus made comparatively
helpless in body by the infirmities of his advancing age, he was
nevertheless as active and restless in spirit as ever. It was, however,
no longer the activity of youth, and hope, and progress which animated
him, but rather the fitful uneasiness with which age agitates itself
under the vexations which it sometimes has to endure, or struggles
convulsively at the approach of real or imaginary dangers, threatening
the possessions which it has been the work of life to gain. The dangers
in William's case were real, not imaginary. He was continually
threatened on every side. In fact, the very year before he died, the
dissensions between himself and Robert broke out anew, and he was
obliged, unwieldy and helpless as he was, to repair to Normandy, at the
head of an armed force, to quell the disturbances which Robert and his
partisans had raised.

Robert was countenanced and aided at this time by Philip, the king of
France, who had always been King William's jealous and implacable rival.
Philip, who, as will be recollected, was very young when William asked
his aid at the time of his invasion of England, was now in middle life,
and at the height of his power. As he had refused William his aid, he
was naturally somewhat envious and jealous of his success, and he was
always ready to take part against him. He now aided and abetted Robert
in his turbulence and insubordination, and ridiculed the helpless
infirmities of the aged king.

While William was in Normandy, he submitted to a course of medical
treatment, in the hope of diminishing his excessive corpulency, and
relieving the disagreeable and dangerous symptoms which attended it.
While thus in his physician's hands, he was, of course, confined to his
chamber. Philip, in ridicule, called it "being in the straw." He asked
some one who appeared at his court, having recently arrived from
Normandy, whether the old woman of England was still in the straw. Some
miserable tale-bearer, such as every where infest society at the present
day, who delight in quoting to one friend what the