Robert, who had no pleasure but in action, as soon as this war was concluded, finding that he could not regain his father’s confidence, and that he had no credit at the court of England, retired to that of France.  Edgar Atheling saw likewise that the innocence of his conduct could not make amends for the guilt of an undoubted title to the crown, and that the Conqueror, soured by continual opposition, and suspicious through age and the experience of mankind, regarded him with an evil eye.  He therefore desired leave to accompany Robert out of the kingdom, and then to make a voyage to the Holy Land.  This leave was readily granted.  Edgar, having displayed great valor in useless acts of chivalry abroad, after the Conqueror’s death returned to England, where he long lived in great tranquillity, happy in himself, beloved by all the people, and unfeared by those who held his sceptre, from his mild and inactive virtue.

[Sidenote:  A.D. 1084.]

[Sidenote:  A.D. 1087.]

William had been so much a stranger to repose that it became no longer an object desirable to him.  He revived his claim, to the Vexin Francais, and some other territories on the confines of Normandy.  This quarrel, which began, between him and the King of France on political motives, was increased into rancor and bitterness, first, by a boyish contest at chess between their children, which was resented, more than became wise men, by the fathers; it was further exasperated by taunts and mockeries yet less becoming their age and dignity, but which infused a mortal venom into the war.  William entered first into the French territories, wantonly wasting the country, and setting fire to the towns and villages.  He entered Mantes, and as usual set it on fire; but whilst he urged his horse over the smoking ruins, and pressed forward to further havoc, the beast, impatient of the hot embers which burned his hoofs, plunged and threw his rider violently on the saddle-bow.  The rim of his belly was wounded; and this wound, as William was corpulent and in the decline of life, proved fatal.  A rupture ensued, and he died at Rouen, after showing a desire of making amends for his cruelty by restitutions to the towns he had destroyed, by alms and endowments, the usual fruits of a late penitence, and the acknowledgments which expiring ambition pays to virtue.

There is nothing more memorable in history than the actions, fortunes, and character of this great man,—­whether we consider the grandeur of the plans he formed, the courage and wisdom with which they were executed, or the splendor of that success which, adorning his youth, continued without the smallest reverse to support his age, even to the last moments of his life.  He lived above seventy years, and reigned within ten years as long as he lived, sixty over his dukedom, above twenty over England,—­both of which he acquired or kept by his own magnanimity, with hardly any other title than he derived from his arms: