sea. The Duke would then win the crown, and would reward all their services.[1]
Interest of Duke Robert in the rebellion.
His coming looked for.
He fails to help the rebels.
His childish boasting.
It is well to be reminded by words like these what
the professed object of the insurgents was. It would
be easy to forget that all the plundering that had been
done from Rochester to Ilchester had been done in
the name of the lawful rights of Duke Robert. The
men who harried Berkeley and who were overthrown at
Worcester were but the forerunners of the Duke of
the Normans, who was to come, as spring went on, with
the full force of his duchy.[2] It was not for nothing
that King William had gathered his English army,
when a new Norman Conquest was looked for. But
as yet the blow was put off; Duke Robert came not;
he seemed to think that the crown of England could
be won with ease at any moment. When the first
news of William's accession came, when those around
him urged him to active measures to support his
rights, he had spoken of the matter with childish scorn.
Were he at the ends of the earth—the city of Alexandria
is taken as the standard of distance—the English would
not dare to make William king, William would not dare
to accept the crown at their hands, without waiting for
the coming of his elder brother.[3] Both the impossible, si essem in Alexandria,
exspectarent me Angli, nec ante adventum meum Regem sibi facere auderent.
Ipse etiam Willelmus frater meus, quod eum præsumpsisse dicitur,
pro capite suo sine mea permissione minime attentaret."]
- ↑ Flor. Wig. 1088. "Fratrem reperiens, cum ut se teneat hortatur, pollicens se securos ibi posse esse, et dum rex ad expugnandam Roveceastram intenderet, comitem Normanniæ cum magno exercitu venturum, seque suosque liberaturum et magna fautoribus suis dando præmia regnum accepturum."
- ↑ Ord. Vit. 666 D. "Statuerat præcursores suos vere redeunte sequi cum multis legionibus militum."
- ↑ Cont. Will. Gem. viii. 2. "Quum sui fideles eum exhortarentur ut regnum Angliæ sibi a fratre præreptum velocius armis sibimet restitueret, simplicitate solita et, ut ita dicam, imprudentiæ proxima, respondisse fertur, 'Per angelos Dei [Gregory's pun in another form
