William the Conqueror | Page 8

the powers that were in him, but
which at the same time led to his moral degradation. The defender of
his own land became the invader of other lands, and the invader could
not fail often to sink into the oppressor. Each step in his career as
Conqueror was a step downwards. Maine was a neighbouring land, a
land of the same speech, a land which, if the feelings of the time could
have allowed a willing union, would certainly have lost nothing by an
union with Normandy. England, a land apart, a land of speech, laws,
and feelings, utterly unlike those of any part of Gaul, was in another

case. There the Conqueror was driven to be the oppressor. Wrong, as
ever, was punished by leading to further wrong.
With the two fields, nearer and more distant, narrower and wider, on
which William was to appear as Conqueror he has as yet nothing to do.
It is vain to guess at what moment the thought of the English
succession may have entered his mind or that of his advisers. When
William began his real reign after Val-es-dunes, Norman influence was
high in England. Edward the Confessor had spent his youth among his
Norman kinsfolk; he loved Norman ways and the company of Normans
and other men of French speech. Strangers from the favoured lands
held endless posts in Church and State; above all, Robert of Jumieges,
first Bishop of London and then Archbishop of Canterbury, was the
King's special favourite and adviser. These men may have suggested
the thought of William's succession very early. On the other hand, at
this time it was by no means clear that Edward might not leave a son of
his own. He had been only a few years married, and his alleged vow of
chastity is very doubtful. William's claim was of the flimsiest kind. By
English custom the king was chosen out of a single kingly house, and
only those who were descended from kings in the male line were
counted as members of that house. William was not descended, even in
the female line, from any English king; his whole kindred with Edward
was that Edward's mother Emma, a daughter of Richard the Fearless,
was William's great-aunt. Such a kindred, to say nothing of William's
bastardy, could give no right to the crown according to any doctrine of
succession that ever was heard of. It could at most point him out as a
candidate for adoption, in case the reigning king should be disposed
and allowed to choose his successor. William or his advisers may have
begun to weigh this chance very early; but all that is really certain is
that William was a friend and favourite of his elder kinsman, and that
events finally brought his succession to the English crown within the
range of things that might be.
But, before this, William was to show himself as a warrior beyond the
bounds of his own duchy, and to take seizin, as it were, of his great
continental conquest. William's first war out of Normandy was waged
in common with King Henry against Geoffrey Martel Count of Anjou,
and waged on the side of Maine. William undoubtedly owed a debt of
gratitude to his overlord for good help given at Val-es- dunes, and

excuses were never lacking for a quarrel between Anjou and Normandy.
Both powers asserted rights over the intermediate land of Maine. In
1048 we find William giving help to Henry in a war with Anjou, and
we hear wonderful but vague tales of his exploits. The really instructive
part of the story deals with two border fortresses on the march of
Normandy and Maine. Alencon lay on the Norman side of the Sarthe;
but it was disloyal to Normandy. Brionne was still holding out for Guy
of Burgundy. The town was a lordship of the house of Belleme, a house
renowned for power and wickedness, and which, as holding great
possessions alike of Normandy and of France, ranked rather with
princes than with ordinary nobles. The story went that William Talvas,
lord of Belleme, one of the fiercest of his race, had cursed William in
his cradle, as one by whom he and his should be brought to shame.
Such a tale set forth the noblest side of William's character, as the man
who did something to put down such enemies of mankind as he who
cursed him. The possessions of William Talvas passed through his
daughter Mabel to Roger of Montgomery, a man who plays a great part
in William's history; but it is the disloyalty of the burghers, not of their
lord, of which we hear just now. They willingly admitted an Angevin
garrison. William in return laid siege to Domfront on the Varenne, a
strong castle