His exile however left William without a check.
Supreme at home, he was full of ambition abroad.

As a soldier the Red King was little inferior to his father.

Normandy had been pledged to him by his brother Robert in exchange for a sum which enabled the Duke to march in the first Crusade for the delivery of the Holy Land, and a rebellion at Le Mans was subdued by the fierce energy with which William flung himself at the news of it into the first boat he found, and crossed the Channel in face of a storm.

"Kings never drown," he replied contemptuously to the remonstrances of his followers.

Homage was again wrested from Malcolm by a march to the Firth of Forth, and the subsequent death of that king threw Scotland into a disorder which enabled an army under Eadgar AEtheling to establish Eadgar, the son of Margaret, as an English feudatory on the throne.