_Orderic_ gives the confession, but less explicitly, thus: 'Neminem Anglici regni constituo hæredem.... Fasces igitur hujus regni, quod cum tot peccatis obtinui, nulli audeo tradere nisi Deo solo.' See the note on this passage in _Lyttleton's Hen. II._ vol. i. 397. Possibly William's admission would not, in his day, be understood as being at variance with any of the details given by Wace and other Norman historians. Harold, as we have seen, is treated as assuming with his brother Gurth the perfect moral and legal validity of his title as against William, and yet as shrinking from a personal contest with one to whom he had de facto, though by stratagem, become bound in allegiance. And William might, in a similar train of reasoning, maintain all the facts asserted by the Normans, bearing on the moral justice of the case as between him and Harold, and his personal right to punish treason in his man, and yet admit that Harold, having obtained by the gift of Edward, and by election and consecration, a strictly legal title, his eviction was tortuous, and could give his conqueror no right except that of force--none that he could lawfully transmit. _Benoit_ states his title by conquest, not in the mitigated sense in which that word has been used by some of our legal antiquaries, but in its harshest application: Deu regne est mais la seignori As eirs estraiz de Normendie: CUNQUISE l'unt cum chevalier Au FER TRENCHANT e al acier. His account of William's speech is in our appendix.] [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER XXVI. HOW WILLIAM DIED, AND WAS BURIED AT CAEN. William lay ill six weeks; his sickness was heavy and increased. He made confession of his sins to the bishops and abbots, and the tonsured priests, and afterwards received the CORPUS DOMINI. He dispossessed himself of his wealth, devising and apportioning it all: and caused his prisoners to be set free, giving them quittance of all claims. His brother Odo the bishop he also set at liberty; which he would not have done so soon, if he had thought he should live. He had arrested him in the Isle of Wic[1], and brought him and put him in prison at Rouen. He was said to be crafty and rapacious beyond all bounds; and when seneschal to the king, he was so cruel and treacherous to every one, that all England complained, rich and poor together. He had privily consulted his friends as to whether a bishop could be king, hoping to succeed should William die first; for he trusted in his great power, and the multitude of the followers that he had attached to himself by his large words and foolish boasts, and by the promises he made. The king therefore thought very ill of him, and held him in great suspicion.