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It was not long after this that the years of intrigue and plotting ended in armed revolt. Guy of Burgundy, William’s kinsman and once his playmate, looked with greedy eyes on the fair lands of Normandy. He was master of many provinces already, and among his hosts of friends there were not a few of William’s own under-lords, in whose breasts still rankled the shame of owning a bastard for their master. To his side came the Viscount of Coutance, Randolph of Bayeux, Hamon of Thorigny and Creuilly, and that Grimbald of Plessis whose hand was to have slain William that night in Valognes, and in the end this long-gathering storm burst on the grassy slopes of Val-ès-Dunes.

Master Wace the Chronicler, in his “Roman de Rou,” gives us a brilliant little picture of that long-past scene where the future Conqueror won his spurs—of many a brave and gallant gentleman clad cap-à-pie in shining mail, seated on mighty chargers impatiently pawing the ground, of long lances gay with fluttering ribbons tied on by dainty hands that morning, of waving plumes and flaunting pennons, and mild-eyed cattle grazing knee-deep in the long wet grass in peaceful ignorance of the bloody work that was about to be done.