and made the
sufferers no compensation for the injury [w]. At the same time, he
enacted new laws, by which he prohibited all his subjects from hunting
in any of his forests, and rendered the penalties more severe than
ever had been inflicted for such offences. The killing of a deer or
boar, or even a hare, was punished with the loss of the delinquent's
eyes; and that at a time, when the killing of a man could be atoned
for by paying a moderate fine or composition.
[FN [w] Malmes. p. 3. H. Hunt. p. 731. Anglia Sacra, vol. i. p.
258.]

The transactions recorded during the remainder of this reign may be
considered more as domestic occurrences which concern the prince, than
as national events which regard England. Odo, Bishop of Baieux, the
king's uterine brother, whom he had created Earl of Kent, and
intrusted with a great share of power during his whole reign, had
amassed immense riches; and agreeably to the usual progress of human
wishes, he began to regard his present acquisitions but as a step to
farther grandeur. He had formed the chimerical project of buying the
papacy; and though Gregory, the reigning pope, was not of advanced
years, the prelate had confided so much in the predictions of an
astrologer, that he reckoned upon the pontiff's death, and upon
attaining, by his own intrigues and money, that envied state of
greatness. Resolving, therefore, to remit all his riches to Italy, he
had persuaded many considerable barons, and among the rest, Hugh, Earl
of Chester, to take the same course; in hopes that, when he should
mount the papal throne, he would bestow on them more considerable
establishments in that country. [MN 1082.] The king, from whom all
these projects had been carefully concealed, at last got intelligence
of the design, and ordered Odo to be arrested. His officers, from
respect to the immunities which the ecclesiastics now assumed,
scrupled to execute the command, till the king himself was obliged in
person to seize him; and when Odo insisted that he was a prelate, and
exempt from all temporal jurisdiction, William replied, that he
arrested him not as Bishop of Baieux, but as Earl of Kent. He was
sent prisoner to Normandy; and, notwithstanding the remonstrances and
menaces of Gregory, was detained in custody during the remainder of
this reign.

[MN 1083.] Another domestic event gave the king much more concern: it
was the death of Matilda, his consort, whom he tenderly loved, and for
who