910.]
While he was but nine years of age, his father had resolved to undertake
a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; a fashionable act of devotion, which had
taken place of the pilgrimages to Rome, and which, as it was attended
with more difficulty and danger, and carried those religious adventurers
to the first sources of Christianity, appeared to them more meritorious.
Before his departure, he assembled the states of the duchy; and in
forming them of his design, he engaged them to swear allegiance to his
natural son, William, whom, as he had no legitimate issue, he intended,
in case he should die in the pilgrimage, to leave successor to his
dominions.[*] As he was a prudent prince, he could not but foresee
the great inconveniencies which must attend this journey, and this
settlement of his succession; arising from the perpetual turbulency
of the great, the claims of other branches of the ducal family and
the power of the French monarch; but all these considerations were
surmounted by the prevailing zeal for pilgrimages;[**] and probably the
more important they were, the more would Robert exult in sacrificing
them to what he imagined to be his religious duty.
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