say that when he recognized his father in the knight whom he had
unseated, he was filled with grief and horror, and eagerly sought his
pardon, and tenderly raised him from the ground. Then Robert wandered
about, living on money that his mother, Queen Matilda, sent him, though
his father was angry with her for doing so, and this made the first
quarrel the husband and wife had ever had.

Not long after, William went to war with the King of France. He had
caused a city to be burnt down, and was riding through the ruins, when
his horse trod on some hot ashes, and began to plunge. The king was
thrown forward on the saddle, and, being a very heavy, stout man, was
so much hurt, that, after a few weeks, in the year 1087, he died at
a little monastery, a short way from Rouen, the chief city of his
dukedom of Normandy.

He was the greatest man of his time, and he had much good in him; and
when he lay on his death-bed he grieved much for all the evil he had
brought upon the English; but that could not undo it. He had been a
great church-builder, and so were his Norman bishops and barons. You
always know their work, because it has round pillars, and round arches,
with broad borders of zig-zags, and all manner of patterns round them.

In the end, the coming of the Normans did the English much good, by
brightening them up and making them less dull and heavy; but they did
not like having a king and court who talked French, and cared more for
Normandy than for England.