FOOTNOTES: 

[72] I have known, myself, great mistakes in calculation by computing, as the produce of every day in the year, that of one extraordinary day.

[73] The Bishop of Winchester fined for not putting the king in mind to give a girdle to the Countess of Albemarle.—­Robertus de Vallibus debet quinque optimos palafredos, ut rex taceret de uxore Henrici Pinel.—­The wife of Hugh do Nevil fined in two hundred hens, that she might lie with, her husband for one night; another, that he might rise from, his infirmity; a third, that he might eat.

[74] For some particulars of the condition of the English of this time, vide Eadmer, p. 110.

[75] Upon occasion of a ward refused in marriage.  Wright thinks the feudal right of marriage not then introduced.

CHAPTER III.

REIGN OF WILLIAM THE SECOND, SURNAMED RUFUS.

[Sidenote:  A.D. 1087.]

William had by his queen Matilda three sons, who survived him,—­Robert, William, and Henry.  Robert, though in an advanced age at his father’s death, was even then more remarkable for those virtues which make us entertain hopes of a young man than for that steady prudence which is necessary when the short career we are to run will not allow us to make many mistakes.  He had, indeed, a temper suitable to the genius of the time he lived in, and which therefore enabled him to make a considerable figure in the transactions which distinguished that period.  He was of a sincere, open, candid nature; passionately fond of glory; ambitious, without having any determinate object in view; vehement in his pursuits, but inconstant; much in war, which he understood and loved.  But guiding himself, both in war and peace, solely by the impulses of an unbounded and irregular spirit, he filled the world with an equal admiration and pity of his splendid qualities and great misfortunes.  William was of a character very different.  His views were short, his designs few, his genius narrow, and his manners brutal; full of craft, rapacious, without faith, without religion; but circumspect, steady, and courageous for his ends, not for glory.  These qualities secured to him that fortune which the virtues of Robert deserved.  Of Henry we shall speak hereafter.

[Sidenote:  A.D. 1088.]

We have seen the quarrels, together with the causes of them, which embroiled the Conqueror with his eldest son, Robert.  Although the wound was skinned over by several temporary and palliative accommodations, it still left a soreness in the father’s mind, which influenced him by his last will to cut off Robert from the inheritance of his English dominions.  Those he declared he derived from his sword, and therefore he would dispose of them, to that son whose dutiful behavior had made him the most worthy.  To William, therefore, he left his crown; to Henry he devised