the Normans for
their prince, and how there was no danger which they would not
willingly undergo in his service. But the orator soon overshot his
mark. He promised, in the name of the whole Assembly, that every man
would not only cross the sea with the duke, but would bring with him
double the contingent to which his holding bound him. The lord of
twenty knights' fees would serve with forty knights, and the lord of a
hundred with two hundred. He himself, of his love and zeal, would
furnish sixty ships, well equipped, and filled with fighting men.

The barons now felt themselves taken in a snare. They were in nearly
the same case as the king against whom they were called on to march.
They had indeed promised; they had commissioned William Fitz-Osbern to
speak in their names. But their commission had been stretched beyond
all reasonable construction; their spokesman had pledged them to
engagements which had never entered into their minds. Loud shouts of
dissent rose through the hall. The mention of serving with double the
regular contingent awakened special indignation. With a true
parliamentary instinct, the Norman barons feared lest a consent to
this demand should be drawn into a precedent, and lest their fiefs
should be forever burthened with this double service. The shouts grew
louder; the whole hall was in confusion; no speaker could be heard; no
man would hearken to reason or render a reason for himself.

The rash speech of William Fitz-Osbern had thus destroyed all hope of
a regular parliamentary consent on the part of the Assembly. But it is
possible that the duke gained in the end by the hazardous experiment
of his seneschal. It is even possible that the manoeuvre may have been
concerted beforehand between him and his master. It was not likely
that any persuasion could have brought the Assembly as a body to agree
to the lavish offer of volunteer service which was put into its mouth
by William Fitz-Osbern. There was no hope of carrying any such vote on
a formal division. But the confusion which followed the speech of the
seneschal hindered any formal division from being taken. The Assembly,
in short, as an assembly, was broken up. The fagot was unloosed, and
the sticks could now be broken one by one. The baronage of Normandy
had lost all the strength of union; they were brought, one by one,
within the reach of the personal fascinations of their sovereign.
William conferred with each man apart; he employed all hi