"Richard Sans-peur has long been our favorite hero," says Sir Francis Palgrave, who has written perhaps the fullest account of the Third Duke; "we have admired the fine boy, nursed on his father's knee whilst the three old Danish warriors knelt and rendered their fealty. During Richard's youth, adolescence, and age our interest in his varied, active, energetic character has never flagged, and we go with him in court and camp till the day of his death."
"Then would he sing achievements high And circumstance of chivalry."—SCOTT.
Richard the Fearless had several sons, and when he lay dying his nobles asked him to say who should be his successor. "He who bears my name," whispered the old duke, and added a moment later: "Let the others take the oaths of fealty, acknowledge Richard as their superior; and put their hands in his, and receive from him those lands which I will name to you."
So Richard the Good came to his dukedom, with a rich inheritance in every way from the father who had reigned so successfully, and his brothers Geoffry, Mauger, William, and Robert, accepted their portions of the dukedom, to which Richard added more lands of his own accord.
During this reign there were many changes, some very gradual and natural ones, for Normandy was growing more French and less Scandinavian all the time, and the relationship grew stronger and stronger between vigorous young Normandy and troubled, failing England. Later we shall see how our [Pg091] Normans gave a new impulse to England, but already there are signs and forebodings of what must come to pass in the days of Richard the Good's grandson, William the Conqueror.
We first hear now of many names which are great names in Normandy and England to this day. "It seems as if there were never any region more peopled with men of known deeds, known names, known passions and known crimes," says Palgrave; and the Norman annals abound with historical titles "rendered illustrious by the illusions of time and blazonry which imagination imparts." It is very strange how few records there are, among the state papers in France, of all this period. Every important public matter in England was carefully recorded long before this, but with all the proverbial love of going to law, and all the well-ordered priesthood, and good education of the upper classes, there are only a few scattered charters until Normandy is really merged in France. This almost corresponds to the absence, in the literary world, of papers relating to Shakespeare, which is such a puzzle to antiquarians. Here was a man well-known and beloved both in his native village and the world of London, a man who must have covered thousands of pages with writing, and written letters and signed his name times without number, and yet not one of his manuscripts and very few signatures can be found. Only the references to him in contemporary literature remain to give us any facts at all about the greatest of English writers. Of far less noteworthy men, of his time and before that, we can make up [Pg092] reasonably full biographies. And Normandy is known only through the records of other nations, and the traditions and reports of romancing chroniclers. There are no long lists of men and money, and no treasurer or general of Rolf's, or Longsword's time has left us his accounts. Rolf's brother, who went to Iceland while Rolf came to Normandy, in the tyrannical reign of Harold Haarfager, established in that storm-bound little country a nation of scholars and record-makers. Perhaps it was easier to write there where the only enemies were ice and snow and darkness and the fury of the sea and wind.