Dickens, Charles – A Child’s History of England

songs of the minstrels; sometimes, would dream, in his blindness,

of the light and glitter of the Norman Court. Many and many a

time, he groped back, in his fancy, to Jerusalem, where he had

fought so well; or, at the head of his brave companions, bowed his

feathered helmet to the shouts of welcome greeting him in Italy,

and seemed again to walk among the sunny vineyards, or on the shore

of the blue sea, with his lovely wife. And then, thinking of her

grave, and of his fatherless boy, he would stretch out his solitary

arms and weep.

At length, one day, there lay in prison, dead, with cruel and

disfiguring scars upon his eyelids, bandaged from his jailer’s

sight, but on which the eternal Heavens looked down, a worn old man

of eighty. He had once been Robert of Normandy. Pity him!

At the time when Robert of Normandy was taken prisoner by his

brother, Robert’s little son was only five years old. This child

was taken, too, and carried before the King, sobbing and crying;

for, young as he was, he knew he had good reason to be afraid of

his Royal uncle. The King was not much accustomed to pity those

who were in his power, but his cold heart seemed for the moment to

soften towards the boy. He was observed to make a great effort, as

if to prevent himself from being cruel, and ordered the child to be

taken away; whereupon a certain Baron, who had married a daughter

of Duke Robert’s (by name, Helie of Saint Saen), took charge of

him, tenderly. The King’s gentleness did not last long. Before

two years were over, he sent messengers to this lord’s Castle to

seize the child and bring him away. The Baron was not there at the

time, but his servants were faithful, and carried the boy off in

his sleep and hid him. When the Baron came home, and was told what

the King had done, he took the child abroad, and, leading him by

the hand, went from King to King and from Court to Court, relating

how the child had a claim to the throne of England, and how his

uncle the King, knowing that he had that claim, would have murdered

him, perhaps, but for his escape.

The youth and innocence of the pretty little WILLIAM FITZ-ROBERT

(for that was his name) made him many friends at that time. When

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he became a young man, the King of France, uniting with the French

Counts of Anjou and Flanders, supported his cause against the King

of England, and took many of the King’s towns and castles in

Normandy. But, King Henry, artful and cunning always, bribed some

of William’s friends with money, some with promises, some with

power. He bought off the Count of Anjou, by promising to marry his

eldest son, also named WILLIAM, to the Count’s daughter; and indeed

the whole trust of this King’s life was in such bargains, and he

believed (as many another King has done since, and as one King did

in France a very little time ago) that every man’s truth and honour

can be bought at some price. For all this, he was so afraid of

William Fitz-Robert and his friends, that, for a long time, he

believed his life to be in danger; and never lay down to sleep,

even in his palace surrounded by his guards, without having a sword

and buckler at his bedside.

To strengthen his power, the King with great ceremony betrothed his

eldest daughter MATILDA, then a child only eight years old, to be

the wife of Henry the Fifth, the Emperor of Germany. To raise her

marriage-portion, he taxed the English people in a most oppressive

manner; then treated them to a great procession, to restore their

good humour; and sent Matilda away, in fine state, with the German

ambassadors, to be educated in the country of her future husband.

And now his Queen, Maud the Good, unhappily died. It was a sad

thought for that gentle lady, that the only hope with which she had