to his enemy; and receiving a decent
pension for his subsistence, was permitted to live in England
unmolested. But these acts of generosity towards the leaders were
disgraced, as usual, by William's rigour against the inferior
malecontents. He ordered the hands to be lopt off; and the eyes to be
put out, of many of the prisoners whom he had taken in the Isle of
Ely; and he dispersed them in that miserable condition throughout the
country, as monuments of his severity.

[MN 1073.] The province of Maine, in France, had, by the will of
Herbert, the last count, fallen under the dominion of William some
years before his conquest of England; but the inhabitants,
dissatisfied with the Norman government, and instigated by Fulk, Count
of Anjou, who had some pretensions to the succession, now rose in
rebellion, and expelled the magistrates whom the king had placed over
them. The full settlement of England afforded him leisure to punish
this insult on his authority; but being unwilling to remove his Norman
forces from this island, he carried over a considerable army, composed
almost entirely of English; and joining them to some troops levied in
Normandy, he entered the revolted province. The English appeared
ambitious of distinguishing themselves on this occasion, and of
retrieving that character of valour which had long been national among
them; but which their late easy subjection under the Normans had
somewhat degraded and obscured. Perhaps too they hoped that, by their
zeal and activity, they might recover the confidence of their
sovereign, as their ancestors had formerly, by like means, gained the
affections of Canute; and might conquer his inveterate prejudices in
favour of his own countrymen. The king's military conduct, seconded
by these brave troops, soon overcame all opposition in Maine: the
inhabitants were obliged to submit, and the Count of Anjou
relinquished his pretensions.

[MN 1074. Insurrection of the Norman barons.]
But during these transactions the government of England was greatly
disturbed; and that too by those very foreigners who owed every thing
to the king's bounty, and who were the sole object of his friendship
and regard. The Norman barons, who had engaged with their duke in the
conquest of England, were men of the most independent spirit; and
though they obeyed their leader in the field, they would have regarded
with disdain the richest acquisitions, had they been required in
return to sub