12. =The Last Years of the Red King.=--The remaining years of William's reign were years of varying success. An English force set up Eadgar, the son of Malcolm and Margaret, as king of the Scots, and Eadgar consented to hold his crown as William's vassal. William's attempts to reduce the Welsh to submission ended in failure, and he was obliged to content himself with hemming them in with castles. In =1098= the wicked Robert of Belleme succeeded his brother as earl of Shrewsbury. Robert robbed and tortured Englishmen as he had robbed and tortured Normans. He was a great builder of castles, and at Bridgenorth he raised a fortress as the centre of a group of strong places which could defy the Welsh and form the basis of his operations against them. In the same year William captured Le Mans, the capital of Maine, which had recovered its independence from Robert, which was held against him by Helie de la Fleche, one of the few unselfish men of the day. Unlike his father, the Red King often began enterprises which he did not finish. In =1099= he had all his work to do over again. He was hunting in the New Forest when he heard that Helie had regained Le Mans. He rode hard to Southampton, and, leaping on board a vessel, bade the sailors put to sea. A storm was raging, and the sailors prayed him to wait till the wind fell. "I never heard," he answered, "of a king being drowned." The next morning he was in Normandy. He recovered Le Mans, but returned to England without conquering Maine. 13. =The Death of the Red King. 1100.=--On August 2, =1100=, the Red King went out to hunt in the New Forest. In the evening his body was found pierced by an arrow. Who his slayer was is unknown. The blow may have been accidental. It is more likely to have been intentional. In every part of England were men who had good cause to hate William, and nowhere were his enemies in greater numbers than round the New Forest. Whoever was his slayer, the body of the tyrant was borne to the cathedral of Winchester and buried as the corpse of a wild beast, without funeral rites or weeping eyes. When, after a few years had passed, the tower above the unhallowed tomb fell in, men said that it had fallen because so foul a body lay beneath it. CHAPTER IX. HENRY I. AND STEPHEN. HENRY I., =1100--1135=. STEPHEN, =1135--1154=. LEADING DATES The Accession of Henry I. 1100 Battle of Tinchebrai 1106 Death of Henry I. and Accession of Stephen 1135 The Civil War 1139 Treaty of Wallingford 1153 Death of Stephen 1154 [Illustration: Henry I. and his queen Matilda. (From the west front of Rochester Cathedral.)]