concluded the terms of an advantageous peace. In the mean time his
Norman subjects in England, inconstant, warlike, independent, fierce by
nature, fiercer by their conquest, could scarcely brook that
subordination in which their safety consisted. Upon some frivolous
pretences, chiefly personal disgusts,[75] a most dangerous conspiracy
was formed: the principal men among the Normans were engaged in it; and
foreign correspondence was not wanting. Though this conspiracy was
chiefly formed and carried on by the Normans, they knew so well the use
which William on this occasion would not fail to make of his English
subjects, that they endeavored, as far as was consistent with secrecy,
to engage several of that nation, and above all, the Earl Waltheof, as
the first in rank and reputation among his countrymen. Waltheof,
thinking it base to engage in any cause but that of his country against
his benefactor, unveils the whole design to Lanfranc, who immediately
took measures for securing the chief conspirators. He dispatched
messengers to inform the king of his danger, who returned without delay
at the head of his forces, and by his presence, and his usual bold
activity, dispersed at once the vapors of this conspiracy. The heads
were punished. The rest, left under the shade of a dubious mercy, were
awed into obedience. His glory was, however, sullied by his putting to
death Waltheof, who had discovered the conspiracy; but he thought the
desire the rebels had shown of engaging him in their designs
demonstrated sufficiently that Waltheof still retained a dangerous
power. For as the years, so the suspicions, of this politic prince
increased,--at whose time of life generosity begins to appear no more
than a splendid weakness.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1079]

These troubles were hardly appeased, when others began to break forth in