The forest is silent. It is late afternoon, and the setting sun is even now gilding the upper branches of the spreading trees. Suddenly the silence is dispelled. You hear the sound of horns, the baying of dogs, the shouts of hunters, and a lordly stag flies past you. Now a pair of horsemen gallop up, and your eye is instantly arrested by the Red King. You recognize him instantly as a son of the Conqueror, though he seems but a caricature of his father. Of middle stature, he is square and heavy of frame, with a restless eye, and a stammering tongue that can, nevertheless, rap out ready witticisms and biting sarcasms on occasion. Evil living and unbridled passion have left their marks on his ruddy and bloated countenance. He fears neither God nor man. His crafty ministers wring heavy fines from his barons, and he does not even spare the Church. Archbishop Anselm, that tender-hearted poet-dreamer, who showed the courage of a lion when fraud and wrong were brewing, alone held him in check. Now that Anselm is in exile, there is no wickedness that he will not do. Vicious, vain, boastful, and puffed up with pride, he has not an honest friend in the land. Men hate him and mock him. With what gibes and sneers they tell that story of the chamberlain and the boots! Once his chamberlain brought him a pair of boots, saying that they had cost but three shillings. “Take them away,” roared the vainglorious fool, “they are not worthy of a king’s foot. Bring a pair that costs a mark of silver.” The cunning chamberlain, thereupon, brings a worse pair, and these the Red King pronounces worthy of his majesty. What a king! Ay, but far worse remains behind. There is no baseness, no cruelty, no injustice which he has not practised. Even now the revenues of bishops and abbots are flowing into his pocket, while “the hungry flock look up, and are not fed.” When disease attacks him he repents; when he recovers he is himself again. But withal he is no craven. He fights like a man, and reveals much of the Conqueror’s skill and cunning. Fear he knows not. Men tell with wonder of the day when he set forth to subdue Normandy in the teeth of a storm. His mariners trembled, but not he. “Kings never drown, ye varlets!” he cried, and forthwith hove out on the tempestuous waters of the Channel.