necessary when the short career we are to run will not allow us to make
many mistakes. He had, indeed, a temper suitable to the genius of the
time he lived in, and which therefore enabled him to make a considerable
figure in the transactions which distinguished that period. He was of a
sincere, open, candid nature; passionately fond of glory; ambitious,
without having any determinate object in view; vehement in his pursuits,
but inconstant; much in war, which he understood and loved. But guiding
himself, both in war and peace, solely by the impulses of an unbounded
and irregular spirit, he filled the world with an equal admiration and
pity of his splendid qualities and great misfortunes. William was of a
character very different. His views were short, his designs few, his
genius narrow, and his manners brutal; full of craft, rapacious, without
faith, without religion; but circumspect, steady, and courageous for his
ends, not for glory. These qualities secured to him that fortune which
the virtues of Robert deserved. Of Henry we shall speak hereafter.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1088.]

We have seen the quarrels, together with the causes of them, which
embroiled the Conqueror with his eldest son, Robert. Although the wound
was skinned over by several temporary and palliative accommodations, it
still left a soreness in the father's mind, which influenced him by his
last will to cut off Robert from the inheritance of his English
dominions. Those he declared he derived from his sword, and therefore he
would dispose of them, to that son whose dutiful behavior had made him
the most worthy. To William, therefore, he left his crown; to Henry he
devised his treasures: Robert possessed nothing but the Duchy, which was
his birthright. William had some advantages to enforce the execution of
a bequest which was not included even in any of the modes of succession
which then were admitted. He was at the time of his father's death in