. He speaks of the long sleeves and white shirts of the
barons, and relates the first instance of aristocratic kleptomania at
a dinner-table, when a knight took a silver spoon and hid it in his
sleeve (R. de R. 7030). The reign of this second Richard and of his
son the third passed without much incident, and then came the sixth
Duke, Robert the Magnificent as his courtiers called him, Robert the
Devil as his people knew him. He is chiefly famous as the father of
his mighty son, and he did little in his capital of Rouen that is of
interest beyond its walls, save the attempt to restore the Saxon
princes Alfred and Edward to their father's throne, which failed
because his fleet was stopped by persistent headwinds and could do
nothing more than thoroughly subjugate the neighbouring fief of
Brittany. After this, the Duke fell in, like all around, with the
dominant religious passion, took up the pilgrim's cross, and died with
his Crusaders at Nicaea.

"A Faleize ont li Dus hante,"

says Wace,

"Une meschine i ont amee,
Arlot ont nom, de burgeis nee."

And from this love-match with a tanner's daughter sprang William the
Bastard in 1028. Though his father had insisted upon this child's
inheritance on his departure for the East, the election of a boy of
seven to the Ducal throne was naturally bitterly opposed by such great
baronial houses as those of Belesme and others. A period of anarchy
and assassination was the obvious result. But Alan of Brittany, the
Seneschal Osbern, and Count Gilbert stood staunchly by the heir. All
three were murdered, and young William himself with difficulty
escaped. Then Ralph of Wacey and William Fitz-Osbern attached
themselves to the boy who must have shown promise of his greatness
early to attract such faithful friendships through the twenty years of
civil war that preceded his firm holding of the throne. He had been
knighted young, and he was soon to prove the strength of his right
arm. But his first actions strangely enough are connected with the
Church that overshadowed so much of public life. He made the mistake
of giving the See of Rouen to the profligate Mauger (though the error
was sternly corrected later on) just as he gave the See of Bayeux to
his half-brother Odo. Benedictine monasteries began to flourish all
over Normandy, chief among which was the Abbey of Bec, which in
Lanfranc and Anselm was to provide Canterbury with two prelates later
on. Religion was responsib