Go you before, and they will follow you; and spare them in nothing.

As for me, I will furnish you with sixty vessels, manned with good fighters." "Nay, nay," cried several of those present, prelates and barons, "we charged you not with such reply; when he hath business in his own country, we will do him the service we owe him; we be not bound to serve him in conquering another's territory, or to go beyond sea for him." And they gathered themselves together in knots with much uproar.
"William was very wroth," says the chronicler, "retired to a chamber apart, summoned those in whom he had most confidence, and by their advice called before him his barons, each separately, and asked them if they were willing to help him.

He had no intention, he told them, of doing them wrong, nor would he and his, now or hereafter, ever cease to treat with them in perfect courtesy; and he would give them, in writing, such assurances as they were minded to devise.

The majority of his people agreed to give him, more or less, according to circumstances; and he had everything reduced to writing." At the same time he made an appeal to all his neighbors, Bretons, Manceaux, and Angevines, hunting up soldiers wherever he could find them, and promising all who desired them lands in England if he effected its conquest.

Lastly he repaired in person, first to Philip I., king of France, his suzerain, then to Baldwin V., count of Flanders, his father-in-law, asking their assistance for his enterprise.
Philip gave a formal refusal.