the causes of them, which
embroiled the Conqueror with his eldest son, Robert. Although the wound
was skinned over by several temporary and palliative accommodations, it
still left a soreness in the father's mind, which influenced him by his
last will to cut off Robert from the inheritance of his English
dominions. Those he declared he derived from his sword, and therefore he
would dispose of them, to that son whose dutiful behavior had made him
the most worthy. To William, therefore, he left his crown; to Henry he
devised his treasures: Robert possessed nothing but the Duchy, which was
his birthright. William had some advantages to enforce the execution of
a bequest which was not included even in any of the modes of succession
which then were admitted. He was at the time of his father's death in
England, and had an opportunity of seizing the vacant government, a
thing of great moment in all disputed rights. He had also, by his
presence, an opportunity of engaging some of the most considerable
leading men in his interests. But his greatest strength was derived from
the adherence to his cause of Lanfranc, a prelate of the greatest
authority amongst the English as well as the Normans, both from the
place he had held in the Conqueror's esteem, whose memory all men
respected, and from his own great and excellent qualities. By the
advice of this prelate the new monarch professed to be entirely
governed. And as an earnest of his future reign, he renounced all the
rigid maxims of conquest, and swore to protect the Church and the
people, and to govern by St. Edward's Laws,--a promise extremely
grateful and popular to all parties: for the Normans, finding the
English passionately desirous of these laws, and only knowing that they
were in general favorable to liberty and conducive to peace and order,
became equally clamorous for their reestablishment. By these measures,
and the weakness of those which were adopted by Robert, William
established himself on his throne, and suppressed a dangerous conspiracy
formed by some Norman noblemen in the interests of his brother, although
it was fomented by all the art and intrigue which his uncle Odo could
put in practice, the most bold and politic man of that age.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1089.]

The security he began to enjoy from this success, and the strength which
government receives by merely continuing, gave room to his natural
dispositions to break out in several acts of tyranny and injust