Shortly afterwards, the Conqueror was buried in the presence of nearly all the prelates of the Norman church. The bishop of Evreux, who had watched by the king’s death-bed, preached, praising him for the renown which his victories had brought upon his race, and for the strictness of his justice in the lands over which he ruled. But a strange scene then interrupted the course of the ceremony. A certain Ascelin, the son of Arthur, came forward and loudly declared that the place in which the grave had been prepared had been the court-yard of his father’s house, unjustly seized by the dead man for the foundation of his abbey. Ascelin clamoured for restitution, and the bishops and other magnates drew him apart, and, when satisfied that his claim was just, paid him sixty shillings for the ground where the grave was. And then, with broken rites, the Conqueror was laid between the choir and the altar of Saint Stephen’s church.
[Illustration: Denier of Philip I. of France]
Charter of King Philip to St. Quentin, Gallia Christ; X. Inst. 247. Among the witnesses are Anselm of Bec, and Ives de Beaumont, the father-in-law of Hugh de Grentemaisnil.
This fact is of importance, as giving an example, rare in England, of a true “vicecomes,” an earl’s deputy as distinguished from a sheriff.
For all these events Simeon of Durham is the authority giving most detail.
_Mon. Angl._, vii., 993, from an “inspeximus” of 31 Ed. I. The charter in question is dated “apud villam Dontonam,” which in the index to the volume of _Patent Rolls_ is identified with Downton, Wilts. William, at Downton, may very well have been on his way to one of the Hampshire or Dorset ports.
iii., 168. On the other hand, Giesbrecht (iii., 531) has suggested that a political difference was the occasion of the quarrel between Odo and William, the former wishing to take up arms for Gregory VII., while the latter was on friendly terms with the emperor. But Gregory himself in a letter addressed to William (_Register_, viii., 60), while reproving his correspondent for lack of respect towards his brother’s orders, admits that Odo had committed some political offence against the king. As to the nature of that offence, we have no contemporary statement, nor do we know how far Gregory may have possessed accurate information as to the motives which induced William’s action.