ors for three
generations was the struggle which scarcely ever ceased between the
Norman barons on the one side, and the king supported by the English
and the clergy on the other. It was to the advantage of the king that
he had not to contend against the whole of the Normans. Normans with
small estates clung for support, like their English neighbours, to the
crown. The first of many risings of the barons took place in =1075=.
Roger, Earl of Hereford, in spite of William's prohibition, gave his
sister in marriage to Ralph of Wader, Earl of Norfolk, who, though of
English birth on his father's side, had fought for William at Senlac,
and may practically be counted as a Norman. As the chronicler
expressed it:

There was that bride-ale
To many men's bale.

The two earls plotted a rising against William and the revivals of the
old independent earldoms. They took arms and were beaten. Ralph fled
the country, and Roger was condemned to perpetual imprisonment. His
followers were blinded or had their feet cut off. It was the Norman
custom not to put criminals to death. To this rule, however, William
made one exception. Waltheof, the last earl of purely English race,
had been present at the fatal bride-ale, but though he had listened to
the plottings of the conspirators, he had revealed all that he knew to
William. His wife, Judith, a niece of the Conqueror, accused him of
actual treason, and he was beheaded at Winchester. By the English he
was regarded as a martyr, and it was probably his popularity amongst
them which made William resolve upon his death.

11. =The New Forest.=--Only once did William cause misery amongst his
subjects for the sake of his own enjoyment. Many kings before him had
taken pleasure in hunting, but William was the first who claimed the
right of hunting over large tracts of country exclusively for himself.
He made, as the chronicler says, 'mickle deer-frith'--a tract, that is
to say, in which the deer might have peace--'and laid laws therewith
that he who slew hart or hind that man should blind him.... In sooth
he loved the high deer as though he were their father.' He forbade, in
short, all men, except those to whom he gave permission, to hunt
within the limits of the royal forests. In the south-west of
Hampshire, near his favourite abode at Winchester, he enlarged the New
Forest. The soil is poor, and it can never have been covered by
cultivated fields, but here and there, by the sides of streams