through a daughter. Two others, the seneschal Osbern and Gilbert
Count of Eu, were irregular kinsmen of the duke. All these were
murdered, the Breton count by poison. Such a childhood as this
made William play the man while he was still a child. The helpless
boy had to seek for support of some kind. He got together the
chief men of his duchy, and took a new guardian by their advice.
But it marks the state of things that the new guardian was one of
the murderers of those whom he succeeded. This was Ralph of Wacey,
son of William's great-uncle, Archbishop Robert. Murderer as he
was, he seems to have discharged his duty faithfully. There are
men who are careless of general moral obligations, but who will
strictly carry out any charge which appeals to personal honour.
Anyhow Ralph's guardianship brought with it a certain amount of
calm. But men, high in the young duke's favour, were still
plotting against him, and they presently began to plot, not only
against their prince but against their country. The disaffected
nobles of Normandy sought for a helper against young William in his
lord King Henry of Paris.

The art of diplomacy had never altogether slumbered since much
earlier times. The king who owed his crown to William's father,
and who could have no ground of offence against William himself,
easily found good pretexts for meddling in Norman affairs. It was
not unnatural in the King of the French to wish to win back a sea-
board which had been given up more than a hundred years before to
an alien power, even though that power had, for much more than half
of that time, acted more than a friendly part towards France. It
was not unnatural that the French people should cherish a strong
national dislike to the Normans and a strong wish that Rouen should
again be a French city. But such motives were not openly avowed