Chief of all, however, in people's minds, was his appropriation of the tract of Jettenwald, or the Giant's Wood, Ytene, in South Hants. A tempting hunting-ground extended nearly all the way from his royal city of Winchester, broad, bare chalk down, passing into heathy common, and forest waste, covered with holly and yew, and with noble oak and beech in its dells, fit covert for the mighty boar, the high deer, and an infinity of game beside.
With William's paternal feelings toward the deer, he thought the cotters and squatters, the churls and the serfs, on the borders of the wood, or in little clearings in the midst, mischievous interlopers, and at one swoop he expelled them all, and kept the Giant's Wood solely for himself and his deer, by the still remaining name of the New Forest.
Chroniclers talk of twenty-two mother churches and fifty-two parishes laid waste, but there is no doubt that this was a monstrous exaggeration, and that the population could not have been so dense. At any rate, whatever their numbers, the inhabitants were expelled, the animals were left unmolested for seven years, and then the Norman king enjoyed his sports there among his fierce nobility, little recking that all the English, and many of the Normans, longed that a curse should there light upon his head, or on that of his proud sons.
CAMEO XI. THE CONQUEROR'S CHILDREN. (1050-1087.)
The wife of William of Normandy was, as has been said, Matilda, daughter of Baldwin, Count of Flanders. The wife of such a man as William has not much opportunity of showing her natural character, and we do not know much of hers. It appears, however, that she was strong-willed and vindictive, and, very little disposed to accept him. She had set her affections upon one Brihtric Meau, called Snow, from his fair complexion, a young English lord who had visited her father's court on a mission from Edward the Confessor, but who does not appear to have equally admired the lady. For seven years Matilda is said to have held out against William, until one twilight evening, when she was going home from church, in the streets of Bruges he rode up to her, beat her severely, and threw her into the gutter!
Wonderful to relate, the high-spirited demoiselle was subdued by this rough courtship, and gave her hand to her determined cousin without further resistance; nor do we hear that he ever beat her again. Indeed, if he did, he was not likely to let their good vassals be aware of it; and, in very truth, they seem to have been considered as models of peace and happiness. But it is much to be suspected that her nature remained proud and vindictive; for no sooner had her husband become master of England, than she caused the unfortunate Brihtric, who had disdained her love, to be stripped of all his manors in Gloucestershire, including Fairford, Tewkesbury, and the rich meadows around, and threw him into Winchester Castle, where he died; while Domesday Book witnesses to her revenge, by showing that the lands once his belonged to Queen Matilda.
The indication of character in a woman who had so little opportunity of independent action, is worth noting, as it serves to mark the spirit in which her children would be reared, and to explain why the sons so entirely fell short of all that was greatest and noblest in their father. The devotion, honor, and generosity, that made the iron of his composition bright as well as hard, was utterly wanting in them, or merely appeared in passing inconsistencies, and it is but too likely that they derived no gentler training from their mother. There were ten children, four sons and six daughters, but the names of these latter, are very difficult to distinguish, as Adela, Atheliza, Adelheid, or Alix, was a sort of feminine of Atheling, a Princess-Royal title, and was applied to most of the eldest daughters of the French and German-princes, or, when the senior was dead, or married, to the surviving eldest.
Cecily, Matilda's eldest daughter, was, even before her birth, decreed to be no Adela for whom contending potentates might struggle. She was to be the atonement for the parents' hasty, unlicensed marriage, in addition to their two beautiful abbeys at Caen. When the Abbaye aux Dames was consecrated, the little girl was led by her father to the foot of the altar, and there presented as his offering. She was educated with great care by a very learned though somewhat dissipated priest, took the veil, and, becoming abbess, ruled her nuns for many years, well contented and much respected.
The next sister was the Atheliza of the family, but her name was either Elfgiva or Agatha. She enjoys the distinction of being the only female portrait in her mother's tapestry-except a poor woman escaping from a sacked town. She stands under a gateway, while Harold is riding forth with her father, in witness, perhaps, of her having been betrothed to Harold; or perhaps Matilda felt a mother's yearning to commemorate the first of her flock who had been laid in the grave, for Elfgiva died a short time after the contract, which Harold would hardly have fulfilled, since he had at least one wife already at home.
Her sister, Matilda, promoted to be Adeliza, was betrothed to another Saxon, the graceful and beautiful Edwin, whom she loved with great ardor, through all his weak conduct toward her father. After his untimely end, she was promised to Alfonso I. of Castile, but she could not endure to give her heart to another; she wept and prayed continually, but in vain as far as her father was concerned. She was sent off on her journey, but died on the way; and then it was that the poor girl's knees were found to be hardened by her constant kneeling to implore the pity that assuredly was granted to her.
Constance married Alain Fergeant, a brother of the Duke of Brittany, and an adventurer in the Norman invasion. He was presented with the Earldom of Richmond, in Yorkshire; and as his son became afterward Duke of Brittany, this appanage frequently gave title to younger brothers in the old Armorican Duchy. That son was not born of Constance; she fell into a languishing state of health, and died, four years after her marriage. Report said that her husband's vassals found her so harsh and rigorous, that they poisoned her; and considering what her brothers were, it is not unlikely.
Of the Adela who married that accomplished prince, Stephen, Count de Blois, there will be more to say; and as to Gundred, the wife of Earl Warenne, it is a doubtful question whether she was a daughter of William and Matilda. Her tomb was lately found in Isfield Church, Sussex; but though it has an inscription praising her virtues, it says nothing of her royal birth.
The sons of William left far more distinct and undesirable traces of themselves than their sisters. Robert was probably the eldest of the whole family, and he was his mother's favorite, like most eldest sons. He did not inherit the stately height of the Norman princes, and, from his short, sturdy form, early acquired the nickname of Courtheuse, by which he was distinguished among the swarms of other Roberts. Much pains was bestowed on his instruction, and that of his brothers, Richard and William, by the excellent Lanfranc, and they all had great abilities; but there were influences at work among the fierce Norman lads that rendered the holy training of the good abbot wholly ineffectual. Their father, conscious of his own defective right to the ducal rank, lost no opportunity of binding his vassals to swear fealty not only to himself, but his eldest son; and from Robert's infancy he had learnt to hold out his hand, and hear the barons declare themselves his men. When the Duke set out on his conquest of England, he caused the oath to be renewed to Robert, and he at the same time showed his love for William, then the youngest, by having him, with his long red hair floating, carved, blowing a horn, at the figure-head of the Mora.