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History and Genealogy
of the Pearsall Family in England
and America:
Volume I
Front Cover
Inside Front Cover
The Motive
Thanks
Illustrations
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Appendix I
Volume II
Volume III
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An
essential part of the plot which led to the assassination of William Long
Sword, Duke of Normandy, was that the conspirators should proceed until
they had barred his descendants from the throne of Normandy. In this they entirely
failed. They found a difference between the blow that was struck in the
back and the blow that had to be delivered face to face with a worthy
adversary. Upon William's assassination, Bernard the Dane, the brother of
Esprota, fetched from Bayeux
his nephew, William's child Richard, then barely ten years old, in order
that he might be solemnly invested with the ducal sword and mantle and
receive the homage of the Normans.
The Norman chieftains gathered round William Long-sword's coffin. They
included old gray-headed companions of Rollo, with their sons and
grandsons, men who were the ancestors of the future conquerors of Italy
and Sicily; men, whose children fought and won on the stricken field of
Hastings; men whose descendants became the foremost Crusaders, the
fathers of the proudest Houses of the mighty Anglo-Norman kingdom, and in
their midst, standing by his murdered father's coffin, the little
fair-haired boy with ruddy cheeks, whom they had fetched from Danish
Bayeux. One gray-headed chieftain held the ducal coronet on the boy's
head, one kissed the little hand, and the others swore eternal allegiance
and fidelity to their child Duke Richard, who in sorrow and perplexity
stood gazing on his father's coffin. It was the last great service
Rollo's son could do his people and the land, this welding together by
his coffin the varied interests of his mighty chieftains. In this solemn
moment the Norman Dane and the Norman Frenchman forgot their jealousies,
their antipathies, the conflicting interests of the old religion and the
new, in their stern resolve to avenge their master's death by raising the
throne of their master's son higher than the throne of any of the Princes
of France.
But
great dangers surrounded the young duke. His father's death was followed
by a renewed Danish invasion and settlement. The old feud between the
Norman and Danish party, which had broken out in his father's time, and
which, though crushed, had been kept alive by his changeable policy, was
revived. The Danish party welcomed the settlers. Hugh of Paris and King
Louis jealously watched their opportunity. The latter had not apparently
any hand in the shameful murder of Duke William, but the Norman power had
too often endangered his throne for him to miss the chance of humbling it
for ever; and Hugh had therefore particular reasons for joining the same
cause. [The Normans in Europe,
by Rev. A. H. Johnson, M.A.]
A
few months after William's death, the sister of Otho
had borne Hugh a son, Hugh Capet, the future king of France.
The old king maker had already seen his father Robert, and his
brother-in-law Rudolf of Burgundy, elected kings of France.
He had been the guardian of King Louis, and, although he himself had
wisely refrained from aspiring to the precarious title, he now began
definitely to scheme that he might be the father of a king.
Such
were the threatening dangers which surrounded the young Richard, and it
was the successful struggle against them all which lends such romantic
interest to his earlier years. The chief hope for his success, nay, for
the preservation of his race, lay in two circumstances; first the loyal
fidelity of his uncle, Bernard the Dane, and of his father's friends, No
de Belesme and Osmund
de Centvilles
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