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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Dickens, Charles – A Child’s History of England
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