Next day, says Walbert, the King and the Count, with their knights and ours, our burghers and the Karls of the seaboard, assembled in the Sablon Field, and there the Cliton solemnly swore to respect the privileges of the city and of the Church of St. Donatian, and to abolish the house tax and market dues, so that the citizens of Bruges should be for ever free. At the same time he acknowledged their right to modify and correct according to circumstances their own laws and customs. Then the vassals of Charles paid their homage to William, the mightiest putting their hands in his, and receiving in return the kiss of investiture, those of less degree simply bending while the Count touched them with his sceptre. All the great officers were confirmed in their rights and privileges, save only the Erembalds, who were declared incapable of holding office or property in the county. Although William Cliton was thus legally invested with the sovereignty of Flanders, his right to govern that province was far from being generally recognised, and the whole land was rent by factions. William of Löo was still Count for the men of Ypres; St. Omer acknowledged Arnulph of Denmark; Audenarde, Baldwin of Mons, to whose standard had rallied Dierick of Alsace, who for the time being seems to have relinquished his own claim, whilst the Erembalds, as we know, were still holding out in their tower at Bruges and still receiving from the great freeholders of the seaboard assurances of support and help. Nevertheless, if William could have given his subjects good government, if he had known how to exercise his new functions with a little tact and discretion, above all, if only he had been true to his word anent the abolition of taxes, in all probability things would have gradually settled down, and little by little men would have acquiesced in his rule. But William was a Norman, and the Normans had now become more French and more feudal than the French themselves. A man of this stamp was little likely to find favour with the Flemish people, who still retained, along with their rude Northern speech, their ancestors' love of freedom and justice, and the first incident of his reign was to them like salt on an open sore. It happened thus. Shortly after the Count's arrival at Bruges, a certain citizen, who had married a sister of one of the Erembalds, crept up secretly, as he thought, to the tower of St. Donatian's, with a view to a little business talk with his brother-in-law, who owed him a considerable sum of money. One of Praet's men saw him, and, as all communication with the besieged had been strictly forbidden, the fellow was arrested and brought before the Count.