Some conspiracies disturbed the course of the reign, or rather tyranny, of this prince:  as plots usually do, they ended in the ruin of those who contrived them, but proved no check to the ill government of William.  Some disturbances, too, he had from the incursions of the Welsh, from revolts in Normandy, and from a war, that began and ended without anything memorable either in the cause or consequence, with France.

He had a dispute at home which at another time had raised great disturbances; but nothing was now considered but the expedition to the Holy Land.  After the death of Lanfranc, William omitted for a long time to fill up that see, and had even alienated a considerable portion of the revenue.  A fit of sickness, however, softened his mind; and the clergy, taking advantage of those happy moments, among other parts of misgovernment which they advised him to correct, particularly urged him to fill the vacant sees.  He filled that of Canterbury with Anselm, Bishop of Bec, a man of great piety and learning, but inflexible and rigid in whatever related to the rights, real or supposed, of the Church.  This prelate refused to accept the see of Canterbury, foreseeing the troubles that must arise from his own dispositions and those of the king; nor was he prevailed upon to accept it, but on a promise of indemnification for what the temporalities of the see had suffered.  But William’s sickness and pious resolutions ending together, little care was taken about the execution of this agreement.  Thus began a quarrel between this rapacious king and inflexible archbishop.  Soon after, Anselm declared in favor of Pope Urban, before the king had recognized him, and thus subjected himself to the law which William the Conqueror had made against accepting a Pope without his consent.  The quarrel was inflamed to the highest pitch; and Anselm desiring to depart the kingdom, the king consented.

[Sidenote:  A.D. 1100.]

The eyes of all men being now turned towards the great transactions in the East, William, Duke of Guienne, fired by the success and glory that attended the holy adventurers, resolved to take the cross; but his revenues were not sufficient to support the figure his rank required in this expedition.  He applied to the King of England, who, being master of the purses of his subjects, never wanted money; and he was politician enough to avail himself of the prodigal, inconsiderate zeal of the times to lay out this money to great advantage.  He acted the part of usurer to the Croises; and as he had taken Normandy in mortgage from his brother Robert, having advanced the Duke of Guienne a sum on the same conditions, he was ready to confirm his bargain by taking possession, when he was killed in hunting by an accidental stroke of an arrow which pierced his heart.  This accident happened in the New Forest, which his father with such infinite oppression of the people had made, and in which they both delighted extremely.  In the same forest the Conqueror’s eldest son, a youth of great hopes, had several years before met his death from the horns of a stag; and these so memorable fates to the same family and in the same place easily inclined men to think this a judgment from Heaven:  the people consoling themselves under their sufferings with these equivocal marks of the vengeance of Providence upon their oppressors.