A.D. 1074.] CONSPIRACY AGAINST KING WILLIAM. mysteriously quickens them, they are neither strengthened by the merits of the good, nor weakened by the sins of the bad. From this there arose so great a scandal, that never, in the time of any heresy, had the church been divided by a more serious schism : some were acting for the sake of justice, others against it ; moreover few regarded continency, some pretending to it for the sake of gain and vain boasting ; but many, adding adultery to incontinence, rendered their perjury more glaring ; in addition to which the laity took this opportunity to rise in opposition to the holy orders, and,- shaking themselves free from all subjection to the church, polluted the sacred mysteries, and held arguments about them ; they also baptized children, using the unclean wax of the ears instead of the holy unction and oil, and thought little, when at the point of death, of receiving the holy viaticum and the obsequies of burial from married priests ; they burnt the tithes due to the priests, and, treading under foot the body of our Lord consecrated by the married priests, voluntarily poured out the blood of the Lord on the ground. Of a conspiracy of the nobles against king XVilliam. In the same year earl Ealph, to whom the king had given the earldom of East-Anglia, by the advice of earls Waltheof and Roger, plotted to drive king William from the kingdom. Now Ralph married the sister of earl Roger, and it was at the celebration of the marriage that they planned this conspiracy. Ralph was born of a Welsh mother and an English father ; and, as we have said, when the day of the marriage came, the friends of both parties assembled at the town of Norwich, and after a sumptuous feast, being intoxicated with wine, they began unanimously and with loud voices to plot treachery against the king. They declared that a man born in adultery was very little suited to rule over such a great kingdom and such men as the English. The accomplices in this plot were the earls Roger, Walthcof, and Ralph, others of the bishops and abbats, with many barons and warriors, who sent messengers to the king of the Danes, earnestly beseeching his speedy assistance ; then, having been joined by Welsh confederates, each chief in his own domain spread fire amongst the towns