William Rufus had not yet set sail from Wissant, near Calais, when he received intelligence of the death of his father. He kept the news secret; and obtained possession of several important places on the pretext of orders which he had received from the deceased king. It was not until he had helped himself freely to the treasure of the Conqueror at Winchester, and had made arrangements with the Archbishop Lanfranc, that he proclaimed the death of his father and his own claim to the crown. The bishop had been careful to administer to the king an oath binding him to observe the laws before consenting to give him his support; but oaths cost little to William. Scarcely had he been declared king by a council of barons and prelates, hurriedly assembled on the 26th of September, 1087, than he violated his original engagements, and cast the Saxon prisoners, whom his father had liberated on his death-bed, again into prisons, together with his Norman captives. {118} The new monarch would have acted more wisely if he had decided on a directly opposite course. Scarcely had the Bishop of Bayeux and his companions in captivity been set at liberty than they placed themselves at the head of the malcontents. The great barons all possessed fiefs in Normandy and in England: the separation of the two States, therefore, displeased them. Many of them resolved to depose William in order to secure to Robert an undivided paternal inheritance. In consequence of their manœuvres a serious insurrection broke out simultaneously in several parts of England. Robert Curthose had promised to support his partisans with a Norman army, and already some small bodies of troops had put to sea, confident of meeting with no resistance on the part of the king, who was without a fleet. William Rufus took his measures, and called round him that English nation which his father had scarcely subjected. "Let him who is not a man of nothing, either in the towns or in the country, leave his home and come." Such was the proclamation in all the counties according to the ancient Saxon custom. The Saxons obeyed: thirty thousand men assembled round King William., while the merchant ships, already numerous, were cruising in the Channel and destroying, one after the other, the little flotillas which were bringing over the Normans. Bishop Odo had fortified himself in Rochester: the king attacked him there with his Saxon army, and would have compelled him to surrender at discretion, if the Normans who had remained faithful to William had not interceded on his behalf. "We assisted thee in the time of danger," said they; "we beg thee now to spare our fellow-countrymen; our relations, who are also thine, and who aided thy father to possess himself of England." The king consented to allow the garrison to march out with arms and baggage; but the arrogant prelate demanded that the trumpets should not celebrate his defeat. "I would not consent for a thousand marks of gold,"