HISTORY OF THE NORMAN CONQUEST.

Φιλεῖ γὰρ ὁ Θεὸς τοῖς οὔτε ἀγχίνοις οὔτε τι οἰκόθεν μηχανᾶσθαι οἵοις τε οὖσιν,
ὴν μὴ πονηροὶ εἶεν, ἀπορουμένοις τὰ ἔσχατα ἐπικουρεῖν τε καὶ ξυλλαμβάνεσθαι.
ὁποῖον δή τι καὶ τῷ βασιλεῖ τούτῳ τετύχηκεν.—Procopius, Bell. Vand. i. 2.

SECOND EDITION, REVISED.

Oxford:

AT THE CLARENDON PRESS.

M. DCCC.LXX.

[All rights reserved]

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

My first volume was preliminary. I am now able to announce the exact extent and scheme of my book. My plan now extends to five volumes. The present volume takes in the first stage of the actual struggle between Normans and Englishmen, that is, the Reign of Eadward the Confessor. I begin with Eadward's election and I continue the narrative to his death. I take in also the early years of William in Normandy. In this period the struggle is not as yet a struggle of open warfare: it is a political struggle within the Kingdom of England. Harold and William gradually come to be leaders and representatives of their several nations; but they are not, during the time embraced in the present volume, brought into any actual hostile relation to one another.

The third volume will, as far as England is concerned, be devoted to the single year 1066. But, along with the history of that great year, I shall have to trace the later years of William's Norman reign. The year itself is the time of actual warfare