The other chief event of this time also concerns the domestic side of William’s life.  The long story of his marriage now begins.  The date is fixed by one of the decrees of the council of Rheims held in 1049 by Pope Leo the Ninth, in which Baldwin Count of Flanders is forbidden to give his daughter to William the Norman.  This implies that the marriage was already thought of, and further that it was looked on as uncanonical.  The bride whom William sought, Matilda daughter of Baldwin the Fifth, was connected with him by some tie of kindred or affinity which made a marriage between them unlawful by the rules of the Church.  But no genealogist has yet been able to find out exactly what the canonical hindrance was.  It is hard to trace the descent of William and Matilda up to any common forefather.  But the light which the story throws on William’s character is the same in any case.  Whether he was seeking a wife or a kingdom, he would have his will, but he could wait for it.  In William’s doubtful position, a marriage with the daughter of the Count of Flanders would be useful to him in many ways; and Matilda won her husband’s abiding love and trust.  Strange tales are told of William’s wooing.  Tales are told also of Matilda’s earlier love for the Englishman Brihtric, who is said to have found favour in her eyes when he came as envoy from England to her father’s court.  All that is certain is that the marriage had been thought of and had been forbidden before the next important event in William’s life that we have to record.

Was William’s Flemish marriage in any way connected with his hopes of succession to the English crown?  Had there been any available bride for him in England, it might have been for his interest to seek for her there.  But it should be noticed, though no ancient writer points out the fact, that Matilda was actually descended from Alfred in the female line; so that William’s children, though not William himself, had some few drops of English blood in their veins.  William or his advisers, in weighing every chance which might help his interests in the direction of England, may have reckoned this piece of rather ancient genealogy among the advantages of a Flemish alliance.  But it is far more certain that, between the forbidding of the marriage and the marriage itself, a direct hope of succession to the English crown had been opened to the Norman duke.

CHAPTER III—­WILLIAM’S FIRST VISIT TO ENGLAND—­A.D. 1051-1052

While William was strengthening himself in Normandy, Norman influence in England had risen to its full height.  The king was surrounded by foreign favourites.  The only foreign earl was his nephew Ralph of Mentes, the son of his sister Godgifu.  But three chief bishoprics were held by Normans, Robert of Canterbury, William of London, and Ulf of Dorchester.  William bears a good character, and won the esteem of Englishmen;