hallowed to Queen at Westminster by Archbishop Ealdred. We may
believe that no part of his success gave William truer pleasure.
But the presence of the Lady was important in another way. It was
doubtless by design that she gave birth on English soil to her
youngest son, afterwards the renowned King Henry the First. He
alone of William's children was in any sense an Englishman. Born
on English ground, son of a crowned King and his Lady, Englishmen
looked on him as a countryman. And his father saw the wisdom of
encouraging such a feeling. Henry, surnamed in after days the
Clerk, was brought up with special care; he was trained in many
branches of learning unusual among the princes of his age, among
them in a thorough knowledge of the tongue of his native land.


The campaign of Exeter is of all William's English campaigns the
richest in political teaching. We see how near the cities of
England came for a moment--as we shall presently see a chief city
of northern Gaul--to running the same course as the cities of Italy
and Provence. Signs of the same tendency may sometimes be
suspected elsewhere, but they are not so clearly revealed.
William's later campaigns are of the deepest importance in English
history; they are far richer in recorded personal actors than the
siege of Exeter; but they hardly throw so much light on the
character of William and his statesmanship. William is throughout
ever ready, but never hasty--always willing to wait when waiting
seems the best policy--always ready to accept a nominal success
when there is a chance of turning it into a real one, but never
accepting nominal success as a cover for defeat, never losing an
inch of ground without at once taking measures to recover it. By
this means, he has in the former part of 1068 extended his dominion