most immediately concerned would accept that settlement. Was the
rule either of Maine or of England to be handed over in this way,
like a mere property, without the people who were to be ruled
speaking their minds on the matter? What the people of England
said to this question in 1066 we shall hear presently; what the
people of Maine said in 1063 we hear now. We know not why they had
submitted to the Angevin count; they had now no mind to merge their
country in the dominions of the Norman duke. The Bishop was
neutral; but the nobles and the citizens of Le Mans were of one
mind in refusing William's demand to be received as count by virtue
of the agreement with Herbert. They chose rulers for themselves.
Passing by Gersendis and Paula and their sons, they sent for
Herbert's aunt Biota and her husband Walter Count of Mantes.
Strangely enough, Walter, son of Godgifu daughter of AEthelred, was
a possible, though not a likely, candidate for the rule of England
as well as of Maine. The people of Maine are not likely to have
thought of this bit of genealogy. But it was doubtless present to
the minds alike of William and of Harold.

William thus, for the first but not for the last time, claimed the
rule of a people who had no mind to have him as their ruler. Yet,
morally worthless as were his claims over Maine, in the merely
technical way of looking at things, he had more to say than most
princes have who annex the lands of their neighbours. He had a
perfectly good right by the terms of the agreement with Herbert.
And it might be argued by any who admitted the Norman claim to the
homage of Maine, that on the failure of male heirs the country
reverted to the overlord. Yet female succession was now coming in.
Anjou had passed to the sons of Geoffrey's sister; it had not
fallen back to the French king. There was thus a twofold answer to