manifested his regard to the earl at Rouen. Finally, the king's party coming thither in the day time, he spiritedly expelled them, when already, through the treachery of the citizens, they had over-run the whole city; sending a message to the earl, to oppose them in front, while he pressed upon their rear. In consequence of this transaction, one Conan was accused of treachery to the earl; who designed to cast him into chains: supposing that no greater calamity could be inflicted on the wretch, than dooming him to drag out a hated existence in prison. But Henry requested to have this Conan committed to his care; which being granted, he led him to the top of the tower at Rouen, and ordering him carefully to survey the surrounding territory from the heights of the citadel, ironically declaring it should all be his, he thrust him suddenly off the ramparts into the Seine below; protesting to his companions, who at the same time assisted him, that no respite was due to a traitor; that the injuries of a stranger might be endured in some manner or other; but that the punishment of a man who with an oath had done homage, when once convicted of perfidy, never should be deferred. This action weighed little with Robert, who was a man of changeable disposition, for he immediately became ungrateful, and compelled his deserving brother to retire from the city. This was the period in which, as has been before mentioned, Henry, as well for his security as for his fame, made a stand against both Robert and William at Mount St. Michael's. Thus, though he had been faithful and serviceable to either brother, they, vouchsafing no establishment to the young man, trained him up, as he grew in years, to greater prudence, from the scantiness of his means. But on the violent death of king William, as before related, after the solemnization of the royal funeral, he was elected king; though some trifling dissensions had first arisen among the nobility which were allayed chiefly through the exertions of Henry earl of Warwick, a man of unblemished integrity, with whom he had long been in the strictest intimacy. He immediately promulgated an edict throughout England, annulling the illegal ordinances[1] of his brother, and of Ranulph; he remitted taxes; released prisoners; drove the flagitious from court; restored the nightly use
- ↑ Wilkins, Leges Anglo-Saxonicas, 233.
