This William, who will ever bear the proud title of the Conqueror, was the natural son of Robert duke of Normandy, who was nearly allied to Emma, the queen of both Ethelred and Canute, and the mother of Edward. William's mother was the daughter of a tanner, or some one humbly situated in the town of Falaise, and was one day busily engaged in washing clothes at a brook, when the eye of duke Robert chanced to alight upon her as he was returning from hunting. Pleased with her beauty, he sent one of his knights to make proposals to her father, offering no doubt, on pretty liberal terms, to make her his mistress. The father received the proposition coldly, but probably dreading that his daughter might be carried off by force--and our only wonder is that she was not--he went to consult his brother, who is said to have lived in a neighbouring forest, and to have stood high in the estimation of all around for his sanctity. The "pious" brother gave his opinion, and said that in all things it was fitting to obey the will of the prince. So Arlette, or Harlot, as her name is sometimes spelt, was consigned to duke Robert, who, we must conclude, was already married. Illegitimacy, as we have shown in several reigns, was thought but little of at this period, many of our own Saxon kings having had no better claim to the crown than William had to the dukedom of Normandy. However, Robert the Devil, as he was called from his violent temper, was greatly attached to both the tanner's daughter and the child she bore him, whom he brought up with as much affection as if he had been the son of a lawful wife.[11] When William was only seven years old, his father was seized with a fit of devotion, and resolved to make a pilgrimage, on foot, to Jerusalem, to obtain forgiveness for his sins. His chiefs and barons rightly argued that such a journey was not free from danger, and that if he chanced to die, they should be left without a ruler. "By my faith," answered the duke, "I will not leave you without a lord. I have a little bastard, who will grow up and be a gallant man, if it please God. I know he is my son. Receive him, then, as your lord, for I make him my heir, and give him from this time forth the whole duchy of Normandy."