He had always before his eyes the murder, or, as he himself deemed it, the glorious martyrdom of his father, who was literally hacked to pieces as he was praying before the altar in the Church of St. Alban at Odensee (1086) by a band of rioters lashed to fury by his rigorous method of exacting tithe. Such being the man, and such his antecedents, it would have been surprising indeed if he had shown any sympathy for such bloodthirsty folk as the Karls. But if he hated the lawlessness of these men, he hated no less the lawlessness of the barons, and throughout the fifteen years during which he governed Flanders, first as Baldwin's minister and afterwards, when at that prince's death he himself succeeded to his inheritance, he never ceased to combat each of these elements of disorder, and in so doing he hurled himself with such violence against the rock of liberty, that at length he was dashed to pieces. [Illustration] CHAPTER V _The Murder of Charles the Good_ Among the tragedies enacted at Bruges--and their number is legion--not one is so weird, so mysterious, so repulsive, and at the same time so enthralling, as the blood-stained legend of Charles the Good. It is the theme, as we all know, of Hendrick Conscience's _De Kerels van Vlaanderen_, a romance which approaches nearer to the original legend than almost any modern historical account that has come under our notice. For although for his details Conscience has drawn to a certain extent on imagination, the main outlines of his story coincide exactly with the main outlines of the legend handed down to us by writers contemporary with Charles himself.