[Sidenote:  Duke William]

From the moment of their settlement on the Frankish coast, the Normans had been jealously watched by the English kings; and the anxiety of AEthelred for their friendship set a Norman woman on the English throne.  The marriage of Emma with AEthelred brought about a close political connexion between the two countries.  It was in Normandy that the King found a refuge from Swein’s invasion, and his younger boys grew up in exile at the Norman court.  Their presence there drew the eyes of every Norman to the rich land which offered so tempting a prey across the Channel.  The energy which they had shown in winning their land from the Franks, in absorbing the French civilization and the French religion, was now showing itself in adventures on far-off shores, in crusades against the Moslem of Spain or the Arabs of Sicily.  It was this spirit of adventure that roused the Norman Duke Robert to sail against England in Cnut’s day under pretext of setting AEthelred’s children on its throne, but the wreck of his fleet in a storm put an end to a project which might have anticipated the work of his son.  It was that son, William the Great, as men of his own day styled him, William the Conqueror as he was to stamp himself by one event on English history, who was now Duke of Normandy.  The full grandeur of his indomitable will, his large and patient statesmanship, the loftiness of aim which lifts him out of the petty incidents of his age, were as yet only partly disclosed.  But there never had been a moment from his boyhood when he was not among the greatest of men.  His life from the very first was one long mastering of difficulty after difficulty.  The shame of his birth remained in his name of “the Bastard.”  His father Robert had seen Arlotta, a tanner’s daughter of the town, as she washed her linen in a little brook by Falaise; and loving her he had made her the mother of his boy.  The departure of Robert on a pilgrimage from which he never returned left William a child-ruler among the most turbulent baronage in Christendom; treason and anarchy surrounded him as he grew to manhood; and disorder broke at last into open revolt.  But in 1047 a fierce combat of horse on the slopes of Val-es-dunes beside Caen left the young Duke master of his duchy and he soon made his mastery felt.  “Normans” said a Norman poet “must be trodden down and kept under foot, for he only that bridles them may use them at his need.”  In the stern order he forced on the land Normandy from this hour felt the bridle of its Duke.

[Sidenote:  William and France]

Secure at home, William seized the moment of Godwine’s exile to visit England, and received from his cousin, King Eadward, as he afterwards asserted, a promise of succession to his throne.  Such a promise however, unconfirmed by the Witenagemot, was valueless; and the return of Godwine must have at once cut short the young Duke’s hopes.  He found in fact work enough to do in his own duchy, for the discontent