In all directions ill success was attending William. He had been defeated at Dol and at Gerberoi; his son Robert in the period between his two quarrels had failed in an expedition against Scotland; he had just lost his son Richard in the New Forest; and in 1083 he lost his wife, to whom he was deeply attached. Meanwhile Odo had been ruling with extreme severity. In suppressing an insurrection in Northumberland he had been guilty of extortion and of cruel punishment even of the innocent. In his general government he seems to have been extremely avaricious. In the year 1082 his wealth and pride had risen to such a point that he thought of attaining to the Papacy. This he intended to secure by violent means. He purchased a magnificent palace in Rome to win the favour of the people, and even collected an army, in which Hugh of Chester took service, to cross the Apennines. William met him and apprehended him at the Isle of Wight; nor could the complaints of the Pope, which we cannot conceive to have been very earnest, produce any effect. He was seized, as the King affirmed, not as Bishop but as Earl of Kent, and remained in prison till the King’s death. Odo’s oppressions had been very severe, and the condition of England no doubt had become much worse since the complete subjugation of the country, and now, in addition to a famine which had just wasted the country, a heavy direct tax was laid on all land, and worse than that, a vast host of foreign mercenaries was quartered on all the King’s tenants, for a great danger was threatening. [Sidenote: Cnut’s threatened invasion. 1084.] [Sidenote: The Domesday Book. 1085.]