indisputably establishes, were added many other grievances, well fitted to "make oppression bitter." "The king and the head men," says the Saxon Chronicler, "loved much, and overmuch, gold and silver, and recked not how sinfully it was got, provided it came to them. The king let his land at as high a rate as he possibly could; then came some other person and bade more than the former one gave, and the king let it to the man that bade him more. Then came the third and bade yet more, and the king let it to hand to the man who bade him most of all; and he recked not how very sinfully the stewards got it of wretched men, nor how many unlawful deeds they did. They erected unjust tolls, and many other unjust things they did, that are hard to reckon."

Though the Normans founded or endowed monasteries (chiefly, however, abroad), they, perhaps for strategic purposes, destroyed the minster at York, and many other churches, and more than one Saxon bishop died in prison, whilst others were driven from their sees, for attempting to shield their people from the exactions and encroachments of the "mixed multitude" of soldiers of fortune, who, having conquered at Hastings, were prevented neither by mercy nor discretion from pushing their triumph to the uttermost.

It is said that William, in the fourth year of his reign, granted certain laws and customs to the people of England, being, he says, the same as his cousin King Edward held before him, "but the more men spake about right law, the more unlawfully they acted," and soon, as far as the Saxons at least were concerned, the open and avowed law was the king's pleasure, and the sword the only instrument of government.

The germ of the feudal system is probably almost

These laws embody the main features of Anglo-Saxon legislation, already described (pp. 134-150).

coeval with government itself, and it had unquestionably been acted on, not only in the arrangements made in the latter days of the Roman empire for the protection of its frontiers by military colonies, but also by the Anglo-Saxon kings, but it was not until the time of William that it received its full development in England, and was applied to the whole property of the country. The division of land now generally recognised was into knights' fees, varying from about 600 to 800 acres, which were obliged to furnish 40 days' service of a fully equipped horseman each year; these fees were popularly regarded as more than 60,000, but there is very great difficulty in ascertaining the exact number. The land was first granted in large districts to the tenants in chief, and by them subdivided; homage, service, and various money payments were the considerations due for each grant, and were as fully owing from the under to the chief tenants, as from the latter to the king. No land could be alienated without a fine; and on the death of a tenant, the successor paid a sum to be put in possession, called a relief. If the heir was under age, the profits of the estates belonged to the lord, as also did the control of the marriage of the ward. Under the name of aids, the lord claimed stipulated sums from his tenants on the occasion of the knighting of his eldest son, the marriage of his eldest daughter, or his own capture in war. These were all legal and established burdens, and perhaps did not amount to more than the rent of land and the ordinary taxation of modern times: but the superiors did not confine themselves to them: on the contrary, new exactions were perpetually attempted, and the revenues of both lords and kings were increased by the most various and often discreditable means.

The forests had been in the hands of the kings in Anglo-Saxon times, and the laws of Canute shew that

the game was "preserved" in his day, though the pannage, or feeding for swine, was liberally granted to individuals; but the Norman kings carried their passion for the chase to a pitch which perhaps no other monarchs have equalled, and guarded their wild beasts by denouncing death against those who interfered with them. On some occasions, when the turbulence of their barons compelled them to attempt to conciliate their English subjects, they promised an amelioration of their forest code, but uniformly retracted their concessions when the danger was over.

Between people thus treated, and their rulers, no cordiality could exist, and it appeared necessary to the safety of the latter that no Englishman should hold any place of importance. The powers of government were entrusted to such rapacious adventurers as Ralph Flambard and William of Ypres, Saxon bishops were replaced by Norman ones; but although the colloquial use of the Norman-French language was a necessary innovation at first, the change ran in the contrary direction, and the second or third generation of the victors at Hastings spoke in common life a language which

i

William I. usually bears the whole odium of the afforestation which proved so grievous to the English people; but it appears from the charter of Stephen, that William II. and Henry I. had also added to the royal forests: these latter additions Stephen promises to restore to the owners, in terms which seem to imply that they had been forcibly seized.

Ralph, a Norman chaplain of vile character, was by William Rufus made bishop of Durham, but by Henry I. was deprived of his see, and imprisoned. He escaped, and went into exile, but having made his peace by betraying a city entrusted to him (Lisieux), he returned some years after, and held his bishopric till his death. William of Ypres, a Fleming, was Stephen's general, and received from him the earldom of Kent. His ravages made him so unpopular, that on the king's death he fled from England, and entered a monastery, where he died in 1162.

hOne Norman monk, however, Guitmond, had the virtue to refuse such preferment, and the courage to reproach the spoilers with their barbarous usage of the vanquished. His strictures gave such great offence that he was obliged to withdraw from Normandy, but he was afterwards, by Pope Urban II., made bishop of Aversa. His eloquent letter to William has been preserved by Orderic.

iThe first Norman-French document is of the reign of John, and the use of the language in the law courts belongs to the reign of Edward I. Of course colloquially the Normans used French.

was much more intelligible to their Saxon countrymen than to their Norman kindred.

In fact, the Saxon and Danish races, though borne down for a while, were not crushed; and when the death of the last of the Norman kings left the throne vacant, the young Henry of Anjou was received by the main body of the people, not as the heir of the Conqueror, but as the lineal representative of "the right royal race," the descendants of Cerdic.

WILLIAM, the illegitimate son of Robert, sixth duke of Normandy, was born at Falaise about the end of the year 1027. In 1035 his father died, but William only obtained full possession of the duchy, after several contests with his neighbours and the king of France, in 1056. His father's sister, Emma, being mother to Edward the Confessor, William alleged that that prince had named him heir to the crown of England, and he successfully asserted his claim at the battle of Hastings, after gaining which, on the 14th October, 1066, he advanced on London and was crowned king at Westminster on the following Christmas-day; the troubled character of his reign being aptly foreshadowed by a tumult on the occasion, in which some houses were burnt, and many people slain.

William's reign was passed, after a brief attempt at conciliation at his first coming, in a systematic endeavour to crush his new subjects. Churches and towns were destroyed, and whole districts laid waste, sometimes to punish unsuccessful revolt, sometimes to pro

He granted charters to several towns, among them to London, in which he promised that each man should be "law-worthy" as in King Edward's days, and that no one should do them wrong, but he forcibly resumed most of them a few years after. See A.D. 1071. The London charter, however, is still in the possession of the citizens.