extinguish the joys of those who
refuse to observe peace and justice." The majority, however, of the
Norman lords, refused to enter into the engagement. In default of peace,
it was necessary to be content with the truce of God. It commenced on
Wednesday evening at sunset and concluded on Monday at sunrise. During
the four days and five nights comprised in this interval, all aggression
was forbidden; no slaying, wounding, pillaging, or burning could take
place; but from sunrise on Monday to sunset on Wednesday, for three clays
and two nights, any violence became allowable, any crime might
recommence.

Meanwhile William was growing up, and the omens that had been drawn from
his early youth raised the popular hopes. It was reported that at his
very birth, when the midwife had put him unswaddled on a little heap of
straw, he had wriggled about and drawn together the straw with his hands,
insomuch that the midwife said, "By my faith, this child beginneth full
young to take and heap up: I know not what he will not do when he is
grown." At a little later period, when a burgess of Falaise drew the
attention of the Lord William de Bellesme to the gay and sturdy lad as he
played amongst his mates, the fierce vassal muttered between his teeth,
"Accursed be thou of God! for I be certain that by thee mine honors will
be lowered." The child on becoming man was handsomer and handsomer, "and
so lively and spirited that it seemed to all a marvel." Amongst his
mates, command became soon a habit with him; he made them form line of
battle, he gave them the word of command, and he constituted himself
their judge in all quarrels. At a still later period, having often heard
talk of revolts excited against him, and of disorders which troubled the
country, he was moved, in consequence, to fits of violent irritation,
which, however, he learned instinctively to bide, "and in his child's
heart," says the chronicle, "he had welling up all the vigor of a man to
teach the Normans to forbear from all acts of irregularity." At fifteen
years of age, in 1042, he demanded to be armed knight, and to fulfil all
forms necessary "for having the right to serve and command in all ranks."
These forms were in Normandy, by a relic, it is said, of the Danish and
pagan customs, more connected with war and less with religion than
elsewhere; the young candidates were not bound to confess, to spend a
vigil in the church, and to receive from the priest's hands