ng him to raise
a force and join him. Baldwin, who considered the enterprise as
dangerous and Quixotic, sent back word to inquire what share of the
English territory William would give him if he would go and help him
conquer it. William thought that this attempt to make a bargain
beforehand, for a division of spoil, evinced a very mercenary and
distrustful spirit on the part of his brother-in-law--a spirit which he
was not at all disposed to encourage. He accordingly took a sheet of
parchment, and writing nothing within, he folded it in the form of a
letter, and wrote upon the outside the following rhyme:

"Beau frere, en Angleterre vous aures
Ce qui dedans escript, vous trouveres."

Which royal distich might be translated thus:

"Your share, good brother, of the land we win,
You'll find entitled and described within."

William forwarded the empty missive by the hand of a messenger, who
delivered it to Baldwin as if it were a dispatch of great consequence.
Baldwin received it eagerly, and opened it at once. He was surprised at
finding nothing within; and after turning the parchment every way, in
vain search after the description of his share, he asked the messenger
what it meant. "It means," said he, "that as there is nothing writ
within, so nothing you shall have."

Notwithstanding this witticism, however, some arrangement seems
afterward to have been made between the parties, for Flanders did, in
fact, contribute an important share toward the force which William
raised when preparing for the invasion.

CHAPTER VI.

THE LADY EMMA.

A.D. 1002-1052

William's claims to the English throne.--The Lady Emma.--Claimants
to the English throne.--Ethelred.--Ethelred subdued.--He flies to
Normandy.--Massacre of the Danes.--Horrors of civil war.--Ethelred's
tyranny.--Emma's policy.--Emma's humiliation.--Ethelred invited to
return.--Restoration of Ethelred and Emma.--War with Canute.--Ethelred's
death.--Situation of Emma.--Her children.--War with Canute.--Treaty
between Edmund and Canute.--Death of Edmund.--Accession of
Canute.--Canute's wise policy.--His treatment of Edmund's
children.--Canute marries Emma.--Opposition of her sons.--Emma again
queen of England.--The Earl Godwin.--Canute's death.--He bequeaths
the kingdom to Harold.--Emma's plots for her children.--Her
letter to them.--Disastrous issue of Alfred's expedition.--His
terrible sentence.--Edward's accession.--Emma wretched and
mis