lliam was murdered by Arnoulf
of Flanders at the conference held on the island of Pecquigny in the
Somme, as William of Jumieges relates (III. cap. xi. _et seq._). His
courtiers found upon his body the silver key of the chest that guarded
the monk's cowl he had always desired to wear. So upon a sixteenth of
December 943 (in the year of the birth of Hugh Capet), the
strengthless descendant of the Viking died and was buried in the
Cathedral, and the Normans did homage to his young son Richard the
Fearless who was fetched from his Saxon home at Bayeux and guarded by
Bernard the Dane within the walls of Rouen. The boy was destined to a
perilous and adventurous career, which began as soon as he had taken
up his father's power, for the King of France came straight to Rouen
and would have seized the little Duke had not the citizens arisen to
protect him with such menaces of violence that the attempt was
postponed. But he enticed the boy to Laon and there imprisoned him
until the faithful Osmond got him out concealed in a bundle of hay and
bore him off on horseback to Coucy. Then Bernard the Dane called on
Harold Blacktooth of Denmark to bring his men from Coutances and
Bayeux and to sail up with his long ships from Cherbourg to avenge the
murder of Duke William. The King hastened to the walls of Rouen to see
what could be done by treaty with the invaders, but the crafty Normans
pretended that among his escort they saw the murderer himself, so they
fell suddenly upon the French, slew eighteen of their nobles, and
threw their king into prison from which he was only rescued by Hugh,
Duke of the French, at the price of the city of Laon. The interference
of Germany in the quarrel produced an alliance between Normandy and
Hugh of Paris that led eventually to the independence of the Duchy and
the downfall of the Karolings of Laon as soon as the German help had
been withdrawn. But this did not happen until an energetic attempt had
been made to crush Normandy and Paris by the new allies who failed to
take either Laon or Paris, but ravaged Normandy and were only repulsed
from Rouen after a siege in 946 that is one of the most picturesque
landmarks in the early story of the town. In the Roman de Rou, and in
Dudo of St. Quentin, the details of the fighting have been carefully
preserved.

The combined host of Germans under Otto, French under Louis, and
Flemings under Arnoul, advanced together upon Rouen, and their scouts
reported that the