Atheling and crowds of the Saxon nobles and people. But the military genius of the Conqueror, and the valour and discipline of his troops, triumphed over all opposition. The Danes were compelled to quit the country, and William, irritated by these repeated insurrections, in a transport of passion swore to extirpate the people of Northumbria. His savage soldiery were let loose upon the district, which they ravaged with fire and sword. "From York to Durham," says William of Malmesbury, sixty years after the event, "not one inhabited village remained; fire, slaughter, and desolation made it a vast desert, which continues to this day." These atrocities have left an indelible stain on the memory of William; but his stern, remorseless policy had the effect of putting down all opposition to his authority. It is computed that a third part of the old inhabitants of England was swept out of the land during his reign, and the greater portion of the Saxon thanes were stripped of their estates to enrich the favourites and trusted followers of the Conqueror. But although the reign of William introduced a foreign monarchy and a foreign nobility, and caused so much misery to the people, it would be unjust to him not to admit that it was also productive of great and permanent good to the country. While, on the one hand, he maintained strict order and internal peace, on the other he put an end to the ravages of the piratical Norseman, who had infested the coasts of England for more than two centuries. He effected various important judicial improvements, separated the ecclesiastical from the civil judicature, retained, though with important modifications, the Saxon popular tribunals, and introduced and organized the feudal system in such a way as to repress the turbulence and lawless violence of the nobility. Though not exempt from the superstition of his age, he vigorously maintained the civil authority in opposition to the papal pretensions, and had the boldness even to resist the demand of the potent Hildebrand himself, that he would do homage for the kingdom of England to the see of Rome. The closing years of William's reign were disturbed by a violent quarrel with his eldest son, Robert, to whom he had promised the duchy of Normandy and the province of Maine before he invaded England. He delayed, however, and ultimately refused to fulfil these engagements, alleging that "he never intended to throw off his clothes till he went to bed." Robert, provoked at this breach of promise, and jealous of the favours shown to his younger brothers, flew to arms, and openly levied war against his father. This unnatural contest lasted for several years; but the young prince was obliged at last to take refuge in the castle of Gorberoi, where he was besieged by his father. In one of the encounters which took place outside the fortress Robert unhorsed and wounded the old king, whom he did not recognize until he called out for assistance. The prince, struck with remorse, threw himself at his father's feet, and entreated his forgiveness, and a reconciliation was finally effected through the tears and entreaties of Matilda the queen. In 1087 a misunderstanding broke out between William and Philip, king of France, which led to a war between the two monarchs. William led an army towards Paris, and laid waste the country; but while riding among the smouldering ruins of the town of Montes, which he had ordered to be burned, his horse reared and plunged so violently as to bruise the belly of his rider, who was at this time very corpulent and unwieldy. He was carried to the monastery of St. Gervas, near Rouen, where he breathed his last, on the 9th of September, in the sixty-third year of his age and twenty-first of his reign. On his deathbed he was struck with remorse for the crimes which he had perpetrated, and endeavoured to make some atonement for them, and ordered a number of the nobles, amongst whom was his uterine brother Odo, whom he had thrown into prison, to be set at liberty. He left three sons—Robert, to whom he bequeathed Normandy and Maine; William Rufus, who succeeded him on the throne of England; and Henry, who inherited the possessions of his mother, and subsequently the English crown. William was a brave and skilful soldier, and a vigorous and sagacious ruler. A contemporary chronicler says he was very wise, very rich, and "more worshipful and strong than any of his foregangers. He was mild to good men who loved God, and stark beyond all bounds to those who withstood his will." He deserves, too, the praise due to a judicious and liberal patron of science, art, and learning; but his great qualities were disfigured by inordinate ambition, selfishness, perfidy, and cruelty.—J. T.
WILLIAM II., King of England, surnamed Rufus (the red), was born in Normandy in 1057. He was the second son of William the Conqueror by Matilda of Flanders, and succeeded his father on the throne by virtue of his will, to the exclusion of the Conqueror's eldest son Robert, being crowned by his tutor, Archbishop Lanfranc, at Westminster on the 26th of September, 1087. His uncles—Odo, bishop of Bayeux, and the earl of Mortaigne—who possessed estates both in Normandy and England, stirred up a rebellion against him soon after his accession, in which they were joined by several powerful nobles, and they persuaded Robert to levy an army for the purpose of invading England. William besieged them in their castles at Pevensey and Rochester, which he soon reduced. He spared his uncles' lives, but confiscated their estates, and thus put an end to the rebellion in the interior of the country, whilst his ships prevented the Normans from effecting a landing on the coast. In 1090 he attacked Robert in his duchy of Normandy, but in the following year a treaty was agreed upon between the brothers, and was duly signed at Caen. Whilst William was in Normandy, Malcolm III., king of Scotland, made a foray into England, but the English king hastened home and soon reduced him, and compelled him to renew his oath of fealty. In 1093 he made a, second incursion into the north, but was surprised and slain by a party of troops commanded by Robert de Mowbray, earl of Northumberland. During all this time William was intriguing in Normandy; and in 1094 the barons at his instigation broke out into rebellion there. He joined them in person, and had twenty thousand men marched down to the coast of his own country; but when they arrived there, he exacted ten shillings each from them and then dismissed them. He used the money thus raised so successfully in bribes distributed among the Normans, that he would probably have gained the duchy had he not been recalled by an incursion of the Welsh. In 1095 another rebellion occurred, headed by Robert de Mowbray and several powerful barons; but Mowbray was captured, deprived of his earldom, and thrown into prison, and the rebellion was soon crushed. In 1094 the first crusade commenced, in compliance with the preaching of Peter the Hermit; and Robert mortgaged Normandy to William for five years in order to raise funds to enable him to join in the holy expedition. In 1097 Magnus, king of Norway, landed with his forces on the isle of Anglesea, but was repulsed by Hugh de Montgomery, earl of Shrewsbury. In 1099 the crusaders gained possession of the Holy Sepulchre, and William, duke of Guienne and earl of Poictiers, proposed to mortgage his dominions to the king of England in order to join them. But all William's schemes were suddenly frustrated; for on the 1st, or according to William of Malmesbury, on the 2nd of August in the ensuing year, some colliers passing through the new forest, near Minstead, found his dead body lying on the ground with an arrow fixed in his breast. They conveyed it on the following day to Winchester in their cart, and it was buried in the cathedral there. The common story of the king's death is, that a French knight named Walter Tyrell shot at a stag, but that the arrow hit a tree, from which it glanced and mortally wounded William. The Abbot Suger, however, says that Tyrell afterwards declared upon his oath, when he could not have been harmed by the confession of the mischance, that he had not seen the king in the forest that day, and could not have killed him; it still therefore remains uncertain how he met his death-blow. William built a wall round the tower of London, and erected the original Westminster hall for a banqueting room. It was in the Gothic style of architecture, measured 270 feet by 74, and was the largest room in Europe. After the death of Lanfranc in 1089, Anselm became archbishop of Canterbury; and William, urged on by his minister Ralph, surnamed Flambard or the Firebrand, by his rapacious conduct with regard to the revenues of the church rendered himself obnoxious to the primate and the whole body of the clergy, so that his character has been painted by them in the darkest colours. There can, however, be little doubt but that, though he possessed good natural talents and much courage, he was also intemperate, covetous, and tyrannical. He died unmarried in the thirteenth year of his reign, and was succeeded by his brother Henry, the youngest son of William the Conqueror. The principal authorities for this reign are Hoveden, Hemingford, the Monk of Durham, the Saxon Chronicle, William of Malmesbury, the Annals of Waverley, the Annals of Dunstaple, Eadmer, and Ordericus Vitalis.—R. H.
WILLIAM HENRY, Prince of Orange and Nassau, who reigned as William III. of England, was the posthumous son of William, prince of Orange, by Mary, eldest daughter of Charles I.,
