then any more than now. The alleged ground was quite different.
The counts of Chartres were troublesome neighbours to the duchy,
and the castle of Tillieres had been built as a defence against
them. An advance of the King's dominions had made Tillieres a
neighbour of France, and, as a neighbour, it was said to be a
standing menace. The King of the French, acting in concert with
the disaffected party in Normandy, was a dangerous enemy, and the
young Duke and his counsellors determined to give up Tillieres.
Now comes the first distinct exercise of William's personal will.
We are without exact dates, but the time can be hardly later than
1040, when William was from twelve to thirteen years old. At his
special request, the defender of Tillieres, Gilbert Crispin, who at
first held out against French and Normans alike, gave up the castle
to Henry. The castle was burned; the King promised not to repair
it for four years. Yet he is said to have entered Normandy, to
have laid waste William's native district of Hiesmois, to have
supplied a French garrison to a Norman rebel named Thurstan, who
held the castle of Falaise against the Duke, and to have ended by
restoring Tillieres as a menace against Normandy. And now the boy
whose destiny had made him so early a leader of men had to bear his
first arms against the fortress which looked down on his birth-
place. Thurstan surrendered and went into banishment. William
could set down his own Falaise as the first of a long list of towns
and castles which he knew how to win without shedding of blood.

When we next see William's distinct personal action, he is still
young, but no longer a child or even a boy. At nineteen or
thereabouts he is a wise and valiant man, and his valour and wisdom
are tried to the uttermost. A few years of comparative quiet were
chiefly occupied, as a quiet time in those days commonly was, with