An eastern sultan would have thrust out his eyes, or strangled
him at once. But William, however cruel, however unscrupulous, had a
knightly heart, and somewhat of a Christian conscience; and his conduct to
his only lawful rival is a noble trait amid many sins.
So far all went well, till William went back to France; to be likened, not
as his ancestors, to the gods of Valhalla, or the barbarous and destroying
Viking of mythic ages, but to Caesar, Pompey, Vespasian, and the civilized
and civilizing heroes of classic Rome.
But while he sat at the Easter feast at Fecamp, displaying to Franks,
Flemings, and Bretons, as well as to his own Normans, the treasures of
Edward's palace at Westminster, and "more English wealth than could be
found in the whole estate of Gaul"; while he sat there in his glory, with
his young dupes, Edwin, Morcar, and Waltheof by his side, having sent
Harold's banner in triumph to the Pope, as a token that he had conquered
the Church as well as the nation of England; and having founded abbeys as
thank-offerings to Him who had seemed to prosper him in his great crime:
at that very hour the handwriting was on the wall, unseen by man; and he
and his policy and his race were weighed in the balance, and found
wanting.
For now broke out in England that wrong-doing, which endured as long as
she was a mere appanage and foreign farm of Norman kings, whose hearts and
homes were across the seas in France.
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