de the Danes
so formidable was not extinguished in the Normans, nor the spirit of
enterprise. Not long before this period, a private gentleman of
Normandy, by his personal bravery, had acquired the kingdom of Naples.
Several others followed his fortunes, who added Sicily to it. From one
end of Europe to the other the Norman name was known, respected, and
feared. Robert, the sixth Duke of Normandy, to expiate some crime which
lay heavy upon his conscience, resolved, according to the ideas of that
time, upon a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. It was in vain that his nobility,
whom he had assembled to notify this resolution to them, represented to
him the miserable state to which his country would be reduced, abandoned
by its prince, and uncertain of a legal successor. The Duke was not to
be moved from his resolution, which appeared but the more meritorious
from the difficulties which attended it. He presented to the states
William, then an infant, born of an obscure woman, whom,
notwithstanding, he doubted not to be his son; him he appointed to
succeed; him he recommended to their virtue and loyalty; and then,
solemnly resigning the government in his favor, he departed on the
pilgrimage, from whence he never returned. The states, hesitating some
time between, the mischiefs that attend the allowing an illegitimate
succession, and those which might arise from admitting foreign
pretensions, thought the former the least prejudicial, and accordingly
swore allegiance to William. But this oath was not sufficient to
establish a right so doubtful. The Dukes of Burgundy and Brittany, as
well as several Norman noblemen, had specious titles. The endeavors of
all these disquieted the reign of the young prince with perpetual
troubles. In these troubles he was formed early in life to vigilance,
activity, secrecy, and a conquest over all those passions, whether bad
or good, which obstruct the way to greatness. He had to contend with all
the neighboring princes, with the seditions of a turbulent and
unfaithful nobility, and the treacherous protection of his feudal lord,
the King of France. All of these in their turns, sometimes all of these
together, distressed him. But with the most unparalleled good fortune
and conduct he overcame all opposition, and triumphed over every enemy,
raising his power and reputation above that of all his ancestors, as
much as he was exalted by his bravery above the princes of his own time.

Such was the prince who, o