assistance which was to come across the channel. When at length single ships with detachments of the invading forces ventured from the Norman coast, they were intercepted and destroyed by English cruisers. Rufus, on learning the preparations which were making against him, had wisely permitted the fitting out of vessels, which seem to have been the first that may be called privateers; and his island subjects began thus early to give proofs of that superiority in the art of naval warfare which they have ever since maintained. The Norman attempt at invasion was abandoned, and the English insurgents were left to sustain the shock of the king's forces as best they might.
William II., surnamed Rufus.
Threatened by his own countrymen, the Red King turned for counsel and assistance to the more honest and less ambitious Anglo-Saxons. He adopted a policy of conciliation towards those nobles of Anglo-Saxon blood who still retained any influence: he made liberal promises, which afterwards were only partially fulfilled, and he obtained their adherence to his cause. The king proclaimed the old Saxon call to battle, "Let every man who is not a man of nothing,[1] whether he live in burgh or out of burgh, leave his house and come," and many Englishmen flocked to his standard.
The first attacks of Rufus were directed against his uncle Odo, of Bayeux. That fierce and turbulent bishop waited his coming at Pevensey, which he had fortified strongly and garrisoned. This stronghold was taken after a siege of a few weeks, and Odo fell into the hands of Rufus, who gave him liberty, on the condition of his taking a solemn oath to deliver up Rochester Castle into the king's possession, and to quit the country immediately afterwards.
Rochester Castle was held by Eustace, Earl of Boulogne, one of the warmest partisans of Robert. When Odo arrived before the gates with the king's escort, and demanded in set form that the keys should be given up, the earl took him prisoner with his guards. This was a stratagem by which Odo hoped to escape the accusation of perjury, while he continued his rebellious course of action against the king. As the real commander of the garrison, this truculent bishop sustained for many weeks the attacks of his royal nephew, who, with his united forces of English and Normans, laid siege to the castle.
At length the besieged were subdued by disease and famine, and compelled to capitulate. They sent to William, informing him of their desire, and demanding that they would be allowed to retain their lands and titles under his sovereignty. Rufus at first refused to grant such a permission; but the Norman troops in his army, who could not forget that the garrison of the castle were their countrymen,
- ↑ A "man of nothing," In Angle-Saxon "unuithlng," or "nidering" term of abuse and contempt
