years, by the adverseness of the wind, he changed his design, affirming, that it must be by the determination of God, that he could not put to sea: but afterwards, misled by the suggestions of some persons, who attributed the failure of their passage to the conjurations of certain old women, he sentenced the chiefs, whose wives were accused of this transgression, to an intolerable fine; cast his brother, Olave, the principal of the suspected faction into chains, and sent him into exile to his father-in-law. The barbarians, in consequence, resenting this attack upon their liberty, killed him while in church, clinging to the altar, and promising reparation. They say that many miracles were shown from heaven at that place; because he was a man strictly observant of fasting and almsgiving, and pursued the transgressors of the divine laws more rigorously than those who offended against himself; from which circumstance, he was consecrated a martyr by the pope of Rome. After him, the murderers, that they might atone for their crime by some degree of good, redeemed Olave from captivity, for ten thousand marks. After ignobly reigning during eight years, he left the government to his brother Henry: who living virtuously for twenty-nine years, went to Jerusalem, and breathed his last at sea. Nicholas, the fifth in the sovereignty, still survives.[1]
The king of Denmark then, as I have said, was the only obstacle to William's uninterrupted enjoyment: on whose account he enlisted such an immense multitude of stipendiary soldiers out of every province on this side the mountains, that their numbers oppressed the kingdom. But he, with his usual magnaminity, not regarding the expense, had engaged even Hugo the Great, brother to the king of France, with his bands to serve in his army. He was accustomed to stimulate and incite his own valour, by the remembrance of Robert Guiscard; saying it was disgraceful to yield, in courage, to him whom he surpassed in rank. For Robert, born of middling parentage in Normandy, that is, neither very low nor very high, had gone, a few years before William's arrival in England, with fifteen knights, into Apulia, to remedy the narrowness of his own circum-
- ↑ Nicolas reigned from a.d. 1105 to a.d. 1135, June 25, when he was murdered.
