ose, the people hurried out into the air, and, for the
third time, it was left alone.

Where were the Conqueror's three sons, that they were not at their
father's burial? Robert was lounging among minstrels, dancers, and
gamesters, in France or Germany. Henry was carrying his five thousand
pounds safely away in a convenient chest he had got made. William the
Red was hurrying to England, to lay hands upon the Royal treasure and the
crown.

CHAPTER IX--ENGLAND UNDER WILLIAM THE SECOND, CALLED RUFUS

William the Red, in breathless haste, secured the three great forts of
Dover, Pevensey, and Hastings, and made with hot speed for Winchester,
where the Royal treasure was kept. The treasurer delivering him the
keys, he found that it amounted to sixty thousand pounds in silver,
besides gold and jewels. Possessed of this wealth, he soon persuaded the
Archbishop of Canterbury to crown him, and became William the Second,
King of England.

Rufus was no sooner on the throne, than he ordered into prison again the
unhappy state captives whom his father had set free, and directed a
goldsmith to ornament his father's tomb profusely with gold and silver.
It would have been more dutiful in him to have attended the sick
Conqueror when he was dying; but England itself, like this Red King, who
once governed it, has sometimes made expensive tombs for dead men whom it
treated shabbily when they were alive.

The King's brother, Robert of Normandy, seeming quite content to be only
Duke of that country; and the King's other brother, Fine-Scholar, being
quiet enough with his five thousand pounds in a chest; the King flattered
himself, we may suppose, with the hope of an easy reign. But easy reigns
were difficult to have in those days. The turbulent Bishop ODO (who had
blessed the Norman army at the Battle of Hastings, and who, I dare say,
took all the credit of the victory to himself) soon began, in concert
with some powerful Norman nobles, to trouble the Red King.

The truth seems to be that this bishop and his friends, who had lands in
England and lands in Normandy, wished to hold both under one Sovereign;
and greatly preferred a thoughtless good-natured person, such as Robert
was, to Rufus; who, though far from being an amiable man in any respect,
was keen, and not to be imposed upon. They declared in Robert's favour,
and retired to their castles (those castles were very troublesome to
kings) in a sullen humour. The Red K