And
meanwhile, Eustace of Boulogne, the Confessor's brother-in-law, himself a
Norman, rebelled at the head of the down-trodden men of Kent; and the
Welshmen were harrying Herefordshire with fire and sword, in revenge for
Norman ravages.
But as yet the storm did not burst. William returned, and with him
something like order. He conquered Exeter; he destroyed churches and towns
to make his New Forest. He brought over his Queen Matilda with pomp and
great glory; and with her, the Bayeux tapestry which she had wrought with
her own hands; and meanwhile Sweyn Ulfsson was too busy threatening Olaf
Haroldsson, the new king of Norway, to sail for England; and the sons of
King Harold of England had to seek help from the Irish Danes, and,
ravaging the country round Bristol, be beaten off by the valiant burghers
with heavy loss.
So the storm did not burst; and need not have burst, it may be, at all,
had William kept his plighted word. But he would not give his fair
daughter to Edwin. His Norman nobles, doubtless, looked upon such an
alliance as debasing to a civilized lady. In their eyes, the Englishman
was a barbarian; and though the Norman might well marry the Englishwoman,
if she had beauty or wealth, it was a dangerous precedent to allow the
Englishman to marry the Norman woman, and that woman a princess.
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