excepting the Possessions of such as had opposed his Claim to the Crown which he pretended to be a lawful Right as derived from the Testament of Edward the Confessor and thereby was made a Pretence of legal Forfeiture in all that resisted him But this Blow to so many Estates and Families was given at once and no more renewed On the contrary Justice was administred equally to the English Men upon the Injuries of the Normans who presume upon the King's Favour in Prejudice of Right and of those Laws he had confirmed or established Whereof one memorable Instance remains upon Record even in those Writers who were most severe upon the Actions and Memory of this Prince It was an Action between Warren a Norman and Sherburn an English Man The first by Virtue of a Grant from the King had entered upon the Lands of the other who came into Court and pleaded That he had never bore Arms against the King nor opposed his Title or Accession to the Crown but had lived always peaceably upon his own Lands and so was liable to no Forfeiture by the common Law but was further secured by the King's Declaration immediately after his coming to the Crown Upon which Plea a just Sentence was given in favour of Sherburn his Lands restored and Warren the Norman cast and condemned to the Costs of the Suit He appointed Justices to preserve the Peace and administer Justice in every County pursuant to that which was used in the Saxon Reigns For the Pleas of the Crown and those of greater Moment between the Subjects he created Judges of the most learned and able he could find and ordained four Terms each Year consisting of a certain Number of Days wherein Justice should be duly administred and all Suits heard in such Places as the King should appoint and find most convenient Besides these Orders he instituted the Courts of Chancery and Exchequer the first for tempering the Rigor of Laws according to the Dictates of Conscience and Equity and the other for determining all Actions concerning the Revenues of the Crown and punishing Exactions or irregular Proceedings in the Officers who levied or received them as well as Defaults or Delays in those from whom it was due For Taxes or Impositions unusual it does not appear that he levied any excepting one of Six Shillings upon each Plow-land throughout the Kingdom nor is it well agreed at what Time or upon what Occasion this was raised whether by consent of a general Assembly or by his own Regal Authority By this indeed he imposed Danegelt upon the Invasion of the Danes which happened once or twice in this Reign though with little Progress or Success This Tax was first raised by Ethelreld upon the first Enterprise of the Danes upon England and afterwards used by several of his Successors upon the like Danger sometimes to repulse them by Force and Arms sometimes to evade them by Bargains and Money wherewith they compounded for the present Dangers but invited others to come by such mean Defences This Tax grew odious to the People whenever it was raised upon any other Pretence than a Danish Invasion and though it was sometimes levied yet very seldom and cautiously by some few of the Saxon Kings and but once or twice by this Norman Prince and then most probably upon the true natural Occasions which had given it the first Original Thus I suppose it is confounded with the Tax before mentioned and without applying it to the Danish Invasions by some Writers who seem to take all Occasions of defaming the Actions and Memory of this King and to avoid all just Excuses of any that were ill resented And this proceeded from the ill Talent of the Monkish Writers who measured the Virtues and Vices of Princes by the Opinion of their Favour or Disaffection to the Clergy whom they accounted or stiled the Church though this general Appellation is known to comprehend not only such Persons as were anciently chosen to administer the Offices of divine Worship but also all believing Christians that composed such Assemblies to whom those Offices were administred Of this the King seemed to be sensible for though he was a Prince of known and great Piety and so approved by the several Popes during his Reign yet he appeared very little favourable if not something hard to the Ecclesiasticks of this Kingdom and perhaps something bold with their Privileges so long enjoy'd under the devout Saxon Kings For the rest he contented himself with the usual Revenues of the Crown and by his great Order and Management as well as Moderation in his constant Expence gained much Ease to the Crown and Satisfaction to his People The chief and ancient Branches of the Crown Revenue consisted of First the Lands of old reserved as a Provision for the King's Houshold and so reckoned as Crown-Lands These at first yielded only certain Quantities of Provisions as Beefs Sheep Wheat Hay Oates according to the Nature of the Lands the Tenures by which they held and the Quantity of Provisions found necessary for the King's Houshold What Overplus remained was compounded for and paid in Money according to Rates usual and agreed The next was a Duty reserved anciently out of every Knight's Fee which at first was constantly paid as a Quit-rent but being small came in time to be neglected by the Kings that contented themselves with the Military Attendance of the Knights in their Wars and with levying sometimes a greater Duty upon great or urgent Occasions under the Name of Escuage which was burthensom and odious till the Proportions and Occasions came to be ascertained Those Authors who will make the Conquerour to have broken or changed the Laws of England and introduced those of Normandy pretend this Duty of Escuage with the Tenures of Knights Service and Baronage to have come over in this Reign as well as the Trial by Juries But as enough has been said to clear the last so it needs no Proof that these with the other Feudal Laws were all brought into Europe by the ancient Goths and by them settled in all the Provinces which they conquered of the Roman Empire and among the rest by the Saxons in England as well as by the Franks in Gaul and the Normans in Normandy where the use of their States or general Assemblies were likewise of the same Original The last common Branch of the King's Revenue consisted of Forfeitures both of Lands and Goods in Cases of Treason and Fines or some known mulctuary Punishments upon other Crimes which were distinctly prescribed in the Saxon Laws even for Manslaughter and Murther it self the Rigour of those Times not extending to Blood except in those Cases where the common Safety of the Kingdom was concerned by the danger of the King By all these Orders and Institutions and the Clemency as well as Justice wherewith they were administred the King how new soever his Reign how disputed his Title and how disagreeable his Person by a
and so much Power to punish and revenge them which serves to make up that Character of Clemency of Nature that is allowed this Prince among his other Virtues even by those Writers who are severest upon his Memory Both the Danes and the Irish Fleets were upon the English Coasts when they first received the News of their Cenfederates Discovery and Disasters upon which they returned to Denmark and to Ireland and after this Time the Danes never again attempted any Invasion upon England nor was this Conqueror any more infested or disturbed by any of his English Subjects during the rest of his Reign finding the Conspiracy wholly suppressed and the Kingdom in perfect Tranquility upon his Return which he had yet hastened out of Normandy upon the Intelligence of his Danger in England and Ignorance how deep it was rooted or where it might end Nor was it easie to conjecture since it was believed by wise Men in that Age that the Weakness and ill Success of this Conspiracy proceeded chiefly from the Want of some popular Pretension that might have raised a Commotion of the People in Favour of the Lords and that if this had been designed in Defence of Edgar's known Rights to the Crown and spirited by that Prince at the Head of so many English and Norman Lords as were engaged in it the Throne had been endangered by this last Shake. But the unfortunate Prince Edgar had made his first Pretensions too late and his last Submissions too soon and the Danish Title was hated by the Commons of England though favoured by many of the Nobles and thereby wanted the Foundation proper and necessary to raise any firm Building Thus the Infelicity of some Princes may be occasioned only by ill timing their Councils when to attempt and when to desist in the justest Endeavours and the Greatness of others may be raised and preserved by unforeseen Accidents where the greatest Reach of Foresight and Conduct might have failed For had Edgar been at Liberty to pursue his Rights upon this Conjunction of the English and Norman Nobility he might probably have gained the Crown and had not some of the chief Complices discovered the Conspiracy the Conqueror might as probably have lost it However these Fortunes came to attend him thus far of his Reign yet here the Curtain may be drawn over the happy Scenes of this Prince's Life for the next that must open will represent him in the Decline of his Age imbroiled in Domestick Quarrels which could neither end in Glory nor in Gains assaulted by his own Children opposed by his Native Subjects forced to use Strangers to reduce them to Duty and Obedience after two dangerous Revolts and when these Troubles were appeased after much Anguish of Mind and many Dangers engaged by a trivial Accident and without any Design in a foreign War with a powerful Prince which though pursued with his usual Vigor and Fortune it first cost him his Health and at last his Life William the Conqueror had by his Wife Matild Daugter to Baldwin Count of Flanders four Sons Robert Richard William and Henry besides several Daughters Richard was a Prince of the greatest Hopes but unfortunately killed by a Stag while he was hunting in the new Forrest his untimely Fall was much lamented by the King but less by the People who interpreted it as a Judgment upon him for the mighty Wasts he had made to extend the Bounds of that Forrest and for the Rigor and Oppression of the Forrest Laws The other three survived their Father but with very different Fortunes as well as Merits and very unequally distributed The King before his Expedition into England had promised his eldest Son Robert the Dukedom of Normandy in case he conquered the Kingdom he then pretended this Promise was made before the King of France and challenged by Robert after the King 's first Establishment upon the English Throne But the King though he denied not the Promise he had made yet long delayed the Performance upon Pretence of his unsettled State in England from the Discontents of his Nobles and the Scotch Invasions which made it necessary for him to keep Normandy as a Retreat upon any great Misfortune or Revolution in England Duke Robert seemed content with these Reasons whilst they were justified by the Appearances of any Dangers in England but perceiving they were ceased and yet the Delays continued he grew at length impatient and about the fourteenth Year of the King's Reign assumed the Government of Normandy as sovereign and in his own Right caused the Barons to swear Fealty to him as to the Duke and not as his Father's Lieutenant and was received and obeyed by the Normans who grew weary of a subordinate Government and thought they deserved the Presence of their Prince among them which they had enjoyed since the first Establishment of their Possessions in France Besides Robert was generally beloved as a Prince courteous generous and brave though withal ambitious unquiet and uncertain yet these Dispositions both of Prince and People had not alone induced him to engage in so bold a Resolution with such a Breach of his Duty and his Trust without the Practises and Instigations of the King of France who grown jealous of King William's Greatness and envious of his Felicity found no better way of lessening both than to kindle this Fire in his own House and thereby the most sensibly to disquiet his Mind as well as to disjoynt his State and divide his Power He therefore not only encouraged Robert but combined with him in this Attempt and engaged to support him with his Forces if his Father disputed longer the Justice of his Claim The King though at first discomposed at the News of this Insolence in his Son yet believing it had no deeper Root but what would soon wither or be cut off by his Presence in Normandy gathered immediately what Forces he could raise and with an Army of his English Subjects sailed over now to invade Normandy as he had done before to invade England with his Normans A strange Revolution to befal one Prince in so short a Period of Time and which made as great a Change in his Dispositions as his Fortunes for the great Alacrity and Faithfulness which the English expressed towards him in this Expedition gained so far upon his Affections and Confidence that in the rest of his Reign and his succeeding Wars he seemed to place his chief Trust in the Courage and Loyalty of his English Subjects Duke Robert informed of his Father's Preparations neglected not his own and though surprised at the Suddenness of his Arrival to which the Winds had conspired he could not oppose his Landing yet soon after he was in the Field at the Head of a brave Norman Army and of two thousand Men at Arms which the King of France had sent to his Assistance With these Forces he marched against the King fell upon his Vanguard and by the Success of an Ambush
almost deserted by such numbers of Goths Vandals and Saxons as had issued out of them some Centuries before began under the Names of Danes and Normans to infest at first the Sea and at length the Lands of the Belgick Gallick and British Shores filling all where they came with Slaughters Spoils and Devastations The Normans first over-run the Belgick Provinces upon the Mouth of the Rhine and gave them new Names of Holland and Zealand to those parts adjacent to the Sea Afterwards they sailed with mighty Numbers into the Mouth of the Sean and with great fierceness subdued that Northern part of France which from them first received and ever since retained the Name of Normandy and became the State of a great Norman Duke and his Successors for several Generations In the mean time the Danes began their Inroads and furious Invasions upon the Coasts of England with mighty numbers of Ships full of fierce and barbarous People sometimes entring the Thames sometimes the Humber other times Coasting as far as Exeter Landing where-ever they found the Shores unguarded filling all with Ravage Slaughter Spoil and Devastations of the Country where they found any strong Opposition retiring to their Ships sailing home laden with Spoil and by such encouragements giving Life to new Expeditions the next Season of the Year The bravest Blood of the English had been exhausted in their own Civil Wars during the Contentions of the Heptarchy since those ended the rest were grown slothful with Peace and with Luxury softned with new Devotions of their Priests and their Monks with Pennances and Pilgrimages and great numbers running into Cloysters and grown as unequal a Match now for the Danes as the British had been for the Saxons before Yet this Century passed not without many various Successes between the two Nations many Victories and many Defeats on both sides so that twelve Battels are said to have been Fought between them in one Year The Danes divided their Force into several Camps removed them from one part of the Country to another as they were forced by necessity of Provisions or invited by hopes of new Spoils or the weakness and divisions of the English At length fortified Posts and Passages built Castles for defence of Borders one against the other which gave the beginning to those numerous Forts and Castles that were scattered over the whole Country and lasted so long as to remain many of them to this very Age. The English sometimes repulsed these Invasions sometimes purchased the Safety of their Provinces by great Sums of Money which occasioned great Exactions of their Kings upon the People and that great Discontents While the Danes encreasing still by new Supplies of Numbers and Force began to mingle among the Inhabitants of those parts they had subdued made Truces and Treaties and thereupon grew to live more peaceably under the Laws and Government of the English Kings Alfred to prevent the danger of New Invasions began to Build Ships for the Defence of his Coasts and Edgar a Prince of great Wisdom and Felicity in his Reign applying all his thoughts to the encrease and greatness of his Naval Forces as the true strength and safety of his Kingdom raised them to that height both of Numbers and Force and disposed them with that Order for the Guard of the Seas round the whole Island as proved not only sufficient to secure his own Coasts from any new Invasions but the Seas themselves from the Rovers and Spoilers of those Northern Nations who had so long infested them So that all Traders were glad to come under his Protection Which gave a rise to that Right so long claimed by the Crown of England to the Dominion of the Seas about the year 960. But these provisions for the safety of the Kingdom began to decline with the Life of Edgar and neglected in the succeeding Reigns made way for new Expeditions of the Danes who exacted new Tribute from the Kings and Spoils from the Subjects till Ethelred compounding with them for his own Safety and their peaceable living in England and fortifying himself by an Alliance with Richard Duke of Normandy laid a design for the general Massacre of the Danes spred abroad and living peaceably throughout the Realm which was carried on with that secrecy and concurrence of all the English that it was executed upon one day and the whole Nation of the Danes massacred in England about the year 1002. This cruel and perfidious Massacre of so many Thousands instead of ending the long miseries of this Kingdom from the Violences Invasions and Intrusions of the Danes made way for new and greater Calamities than before For Swane King of Denmark exasperated by the Slaughter of his Nation here and among them of his own Sister and animated by the Successes of so many private Expeditions soon after landed with great Forces formed several Camps of Danes in several parts of England filled all with Spoil and Slaughter forced Ethelred to fly for Relief into Normandy and though he returned again yet being a weak and cruel Prince and thereby ill beloved and ill obeyed by his Subjects he never recovered Strength enough to oppose the Forces and Numbers of the Danes to whom many of the English Nobles as well as Commoners had in his absence submitted Swane died before he could atchieve this Adventure but left his Son Canute in a Course of such prosperous Fortunes and the English so broken or divided that coming out of Denmark with new Forces in two hundred Ships he reduced Edmund Son of Ethelred first to a Division of the whole Kingdom between them and after his untimely Death was by the whole Nobility of the Realm acknowledged and received for King of England This fierce Prince cut off some of the Royal Line and forced others into Exile Reigned long and left the Crown for two Successions to his Danish Race who all swore to Govern the Realm by the Laws which had been established or rather digested by Edward the First and Edgar out of the Old Saxon Customs and Constitutions But Hardecaute last of the Danish Kings dying suddenly at a Feast in the year 1042. left the Race so hated by the Imposition and Exaction of several Tributes upon his People that Edward surnamed the Confessor and Grandson to Edgar coming out of Normandy where he had been long protected found an easie accession to the Crown by the general Concurrence both of Nobles and People and with great Applause restored the Saxon Race in the year 1043. Thus expired not only the Dominion but all Attempts or Invasions of the Danes in England which though continued and often renewed with mighty Numbers for above two hundred years yet left no change of Laws Customs Language or Religion nor other Traces of their Establishments here besides the many Castles they built and many Families they left behind them who after the Accession of Edward the Confessor to the Crown wholly submitting to his Government and
Justice being the very Foundation of Government as Treasure is said to be the Sinew of War For the first As he had sworn at his Coronation to govern by the Laws of the Realm so he continued the ancient Customs and Liberties of the People that were called the common Law of the Kingdom which he caused to be in Substance observed both in what concerned the Crown and the Subject though he introduced several new Forms in the Administration or Execution of them Besides the ancient Laws or Customs that concerned the Descent of private Inheritances or the Penalties upon several Crimes There were two fundamental Laws of the Saxon or English Kingdom The Trial by Juries of twelve Men wherein consisted the chief Safety of Mens Properties and Lives And the Burrough Law which was the greatest Security that had been invented by the Wisdom of our Saxon Ancestors for the Peace and Order of the Realm The first I know is by some Authors mentioned as having been introduced by this Norman King out of the Laws of that Country But I think it evident to have been an Institution very ancient among the Saxons and to have been derived and observed during the whole Succession of the English Kings and even in the Danish Reigns without any Interruption Nor does there want some Traces or Appearance of it from the very Institutions of Odin the first great Leader of the Asiatick Goths or Getae into Europe and the Founder of that mighty Kingdom round the Baltick Sea from whence all the Gothick Governments in these Northwest Parts of the World were derived by the spreading Conquests of those Northern Races 'T is recorded that upon the beginning of his Expedition he ordained a Council of twelve Men who should judge and decide all Matters that came in Question and there being then no other Laws establisht among those vast Numbers of rough People going to seek out new Conquests and thereby Seats to inhabit It is probable these twelve Men judged all Cases upon Evidence or matter of fact and then gave their Sentence and appointed Penalties according to what they esteemed most agreeable to Justice and Equity so as the twelve Men were at first both Jurors and Judges Their Judgments in Causes both real and criminal being generally approved as just and equitable grew into President to succeeding Judges and being received by general Submission introduced the Custom of certain Sentences being pronounced in certain Causes and certain Punishments being usually inflicted upon certain Crimes In Process of Time and Multiplicity of Business the matter of Fact continued to be tried by twelve Men but the Adjudgment of the Punishment and the Sentence thereupon came to be given by one or two or more Persons chosen out of such as were best versed in the Knowledge of what had been usual in former Judgments upon like Cases and as the first Part was left to the Equals or Neighbours of the Persons accused as most likely to do Justice to one of their own Rank or Acquaintance so the other was committed to Persons of Learning or Knowledge in the ancient Customs Records or Traditions of what had long passed in the Course of Justice among that Nation Thus we find it evident that in the Saxon Reigns in England Causes were adjudged by the Aldermen and Bishop of the several Shires with the Assistance of twelve Men of the same County who are 〈◊〉 said to have been Judges or Assistants to the two first by such as affirm or pretend this manner of Trial to have been drawn by the Conqueror himself out of Normandy who is thereby said to have introduced in this as well as some other Forms the Norman Laws into the common Law of England 'T is true that the same Custom or Trial was used in Normandy before the Conquest and it is most probable that neither the English received it from the Normans nor these from the English but that both Nation deriving their Original from those ancient Goths agreed in several Customs or Institutions deduced from their common Ancestors which made this Trial by Juries continue uninterrupted in England not only by the Normans but by the Danes also who were but another Swarm of that great Northern Hive 'T is true the Terms of Jury and Verdict were introduced by the Normans with many others in the Stile and Practice of our Laws but the Trials by twelve Men with that essential Circumstance of their unanimous Agreement was not only used among the Saxons and Normans but is known to have been as ancient in Sweden as any Records or Traditions of that Kingdom which was the first Seat of the Gothick Dominions in the Northwest Parts of Europe and it still remains in some Provinces of that Country However King William caused this to be observed as the common Law of the Kingdom and thereby gave great and universal Satisfaction to the Body of the People both English and Normans The Burrough Law had been likewise anciently establish'd among the Saxons whereby every Shire was divided into so many Hundreds or Burroughs consisting at first of one hundred Families therein usually inhabiting every Hundred into so many Tithings consisting of ten Families If any Person committed or were accused of any Crime the Tithing to which he belonged was bound to produce him to Justice before the Court of the Hundred or County If he fled they were to swear they were not Complices of the Fact and that they would procure the Criminal whenever they could find him if this failed in a certain time they would discover all the Goods he was possess'd of within their Tithing to satisfie the Damage done to a Subject or a Fine to the King upon such an Offence If neither Person nor Estate appeared then the Tithing was answerable to a certain Proportion and if that were not sufficient then it was laid upon the Hundred By this means it became every Man's Interest as well as Duty to prevent all Crimes and Misdemeanors among their Neighbours and to discover the Criminals since they were otherwise to share in the Penalty and as the rest of the Tithing was bound for the Behavior of every Freeman among them so every Lord or Master was bound to answer in the same manner for their Servants I know not whether any Constitution of Government either ancient or modern ever invented and instituted any Law or Order of greater Wisdom or of greater Force to preserve the Peace and Safety of any State and of equal Utility to the Prince and People making Virtue and Innocence of Life so necessary by the easie Apprehension or Discovery and certain Punishment of Offenders This Law the King caused likewise to be severely observed during his Reign finding therein his own Interest as well as his Peoples and the great Security of his new settled Government He confirmed all Mens Properties Inheritances and Successions invading none either for his own Benefit or Reward of his Norman Forces or Friends
much admired in this Action being said to have stood firm at a Breach made in the Wall and with his Sword to have cut of the Heads of many Normans as they pressed to enter and could do it but one by one by the Narrowness of the Breach so bravely defended After this Defeat and the Surrender of York Edgar retired into Scotland with those of his Dependants who were most desperate and impatient of the Norman Conquest The rest of the English Nobles who had escaped the Battel submitted themselves to the King and came in upon publick Faith took a new Oath of Allegiance and were thereupon all pardoned and many restored not only to their Estates but to Favour with the King who had found Erick the Forrester that had first rebelled against him after his Coronation express great Fidelity after his Pardon obtained and perform good Service in this Northern Expedition He made Gospatrick Earl of Northumberland and employed him against the Dangers and Incursions he apprehended from the Scotch He was so charmed with the Valour and Constancy that Waltheof had shewed in the Defence of York though so much to his Cost and the Loss of so many Normans by his Sword that he resolved to gain him at what Rate soever he valued himself showing the Nobleness of his own Courage and Virtue by loving and honouring them in his Enemies He married this young Gentleman to Iudith his Niece gave him great Possessions besides those to which he was Heir and used him with much Confidence which was for some time returned with Service and with Faith Most of the other Nobles that came in upon Pardon of their Lives he despoiled of their Estates and Offices and bestowed them upon his Norman Friends and Followers some he kept Prisoners whom he thought most dangerous as the Archbishops of Canterbury and York and Edwin a Man of the greatest Power and Dependences whose Earldom and great Possessions in Yorkshire were given to Alain Earl of Britain as were those of several others at the same time to others of his Kindred or Friends In the room of Stigand he made Lanfranc Archbishop of Canterbury an Italian born but an Abbot in Normandy a Person of great Wisdom and Temper as well as Learning Thomas his Chaplain he made Archbishop of York and obtained the Approbation of the Pope for their Succession in those Sees during the Lives of the other two upon Representation of other Crimes or at least Vices besides their Rebellion against a King whose Title had been confirmed by the Pope as well as encouraged 'T is not agreed at what Time the Danish Fleet arrived upon the Coasts but 't is certain they entered Humber with about two hundred Sail some write that they returned again without making any Attempt upon the Shore that their Commanders were enriched with great presents from the King and their Soldiers supplied with Provisions and all treated rather like Friends than Enemies whether their Arrival out of Time made them despair of any Success and whether that were occasioned by cross Winds at Sea or cross Purposes in the Danish Court is not well known For William the Conqueror after he was seated in the Throne feared no Insult from abroad but by Danish Powers and Pretensions they had still upon England and the Preparations as was divulged abroad of Swain their King for invading it with a Navy of a thousand Ships Hereupon he endeavoured to ward this Blow by slight rather than Force thinking his Safety on that side better purchased with Treasure than with Blood He practised private Intelligences in the Danish Court and by Force of Presents and Pensions gained to his Devotion some Persons of Credit and among the rest Adelbert Archbishop of Hamburg a Man of great Authority in those Parts and whose Advices were much used and esteemed by the Danish King It was believed the Artifices and Practices of these Men eluded the first great Design of a mighty Invasion changed it into an Assistance of the discontented here with smaller Forces delayed them till the Time was past and disposed their Commanders to return without Action and their Master to receive their Excuses with Approbation or at least with Impunity Yet there are other Writers who say the Danes landed in England made great Spoils joyned Prince Edgar's Forces wintered in this Kingdom and returned in the Spring by the King 's private Practices and Rewards among the Commanders as well as Bounty to the Soldiers The King after having established his Affairs in the North returned triumphant to London where the first Action he performed was to take a new personal Oath before Lanfranc the new Archbishop and all the Lords then present in that City to observe the ancient Laws of the Realm established by the Kings of England his Predecessors and particularly those of Edward the Confessor This Action of the Kings was the more applauded and the better accepted by the English because it was unconstrained by any Necessity of his Affairs or Appearance of any new Dangers against which he might have Reason to provide And 't is certain his Oath taken at his Coronation of preserving the ancient Laws of the Realm had been the chief Occasion of his Safety in the late and dangerous Convulsion of the State together with the ill chosen Time of the Scotch Invasion and the Revolt of the Lords in Favour of Edgar For if such Attempts had been made soon after the Conquest while the Minds of the People were generally in Motion and in Fear of what might succeed to the Danger of their Properties and their ancient Liberties upon that new Revolution his Throne had not been only shaken but in evident Danger of being overthrown by such a violent Concussion But the People having lived quietly some Years under the Protection of their ancient Laws and in an equal Course of known and common Justice grew indifferent to the Change which had been made in the Rights or Succession of the Crown or to any new one that might succeed Besides though they were well affected to Edgar yet they disliked the Company with which he came attended and hated the Entrance of a Scotch Army into England more than they loved Edgar They thought if he succeeded the Dominion would fall under the Scotch whilst he only retained the Name and if they must be governed by Strangers the best was to have those they were already used to and so feared least The common Subjects of a Kingdom are not so apt to trouble themselves about the Rights and Possession of a Crown as about their own and seldom engage in the Quarrels of the first but upon some general and strong Apprehensions that the last are in Danger So the Discontents and Insurrections of the Nobles in England though encouraged and supported by forreign Forces yet failed of Success against this new King and his Government because they were not followed by any general Commotion or Sublevation of the People
of their general Assemblies which began in this King 's or his Son's Time first to be stiled Parliaments according to the Norman Phrase whereas they had by the Saxons been called Gemoots and by their Latin Writers Common Councils or general Assemblies of the Kingdom though how composed is left uncertain and has raised much Argument and Dispute All these Considerations either moved or augmented at this Time a Design or Inclination of this King to change the whole Frame of the English Government to abolish their ancient Laws and Customs and introduce those of Normandy by which he thought he should be more absolute and too powerful to be again disturbed by any Insurrection at home or any Invasions from his Enemies abroad So soon as he had digested and began to discover this Resolution 't is not to be imagined what a universal Discontent and indeed Consternation it raised among all his English Subjects who under so great a King attended by his victorious Norman Forces reckoned upon no other Safety but from the Preservation of their ancient Laws whereof he had hitherto assured them Whereupon the whole People sad and aggrieved as well as the Nobles in an humble Manner but with universal Agreement tendred an earnest Petition to the King Beseeching him in Regard of his Oath made at the Coronation and by the Soul of St. Edward from whom he had the Crown and Kingdom under whose Laws they were born and bred that he would not change them and deliver them up to new and strange Laws which they understood not Upon this humble but earnest Application of the whole English Nation united in their Desires upon this Occasion the King before he resolved thought at least it was of Weight to deserve the best Deliberation and thereupon fell into serious Consultations upon it with his Council whom he found much divided in their Debates The Normans among them were for his executing with Vigor what he had determined for abolishing wholly the English Laws introducing the Norman and maintaining his Crown and Government by the same means he had gained them which was by Force and Arms. They were encouraged in this Opinion by presuming it agreed with the Kings Inclination and were confirmed by the pressing Arguments and Advices of his Brother Odon Bishop of Bayeux a Man of a violent Nature arbitrary Humour and Will who in the Time of the King's Absence and his being left Vice-gerent had exercised many Oppressions and cruel Exactions upon the People and had raised more Clamour and Hatred against the King's Government than any Councils or Actions of his own This ambitious Prelate aspiring at the Papacy upon the next Election and despairing to obtain it by any other Means than the Force of Money neglected or refrained no Ways of heaping up Treasure thought none so sure of encreasing his own as by advancing the King 's by an absolute Power over the Persons and Purses of his Subjects The English of the King's Council were of a different Opinion but being Parties in the Case had been little considered without the Support of Lanfranc Archbishop of Canterbury who being born an Italian was impartial to English and Normans esteemed much by both and more by the King He was a Man of sound natural Sense and universal Goodness of general Knowledge known Virtue long Experience and approved Wisdom free and disinteressed and in all Councils considering the King more than himself and his true Service and Welfare of the Crown more than his Humour or his Inclination The King ever advised with him in all the weighty Affairs of his Reign allowed his Liberty and encouraged it knowing him to be not only wise and good but faithful to his Interests and affectionate to his Person Happy in the Choice or Fortune of such a Counsellor and more in the Disposition of hearing and weighing such Advises as were never so different from his own Opinions or Inclinations Nor is any thing more dangerous for a Prince than to consult only with Persons that he thinks are of his own Mind or will be so when they know it nor more pernicious in a Counsellor than to give only such Advices as he thinks most agreeable to him that asks or receives them Lanfranc upon this great and weighty Occasion represented to the King how much his Safety depended upon the general Satisfaction of his Subjects That of these the English were much the greater Part both in Strength and Numbers that no People could be easie under any Laws but such wherein they were born and bred That all Innovations were odious but none could be more so than this as appeared by so universal Agreement of the English in their Petition That the Humility and Calmness of it was more dangerous than if any thing had been done in hot Blood and the Refusal would be the more resented That the Laws and Constitutions of this Realm had been digested by the wisest Councils and confirmed by a long Succession of their Kings That under them the Saxons had been good and loyal Subjects and their Kings who ruled by these Laws never troubled with any Seditions or Insurrections of their People That besides Reason and Experience Religion was concerned in this Resolution since the King had already twice sworn solemnly to observe them so as a Change of them now would be taxed not only of Injustice but Impiety That nothing was of so much Moment to a Prince as Reputation and none more than that of being a Religious Observer of his Word and Promise but especially of his Oaths without which he could never be trusted by his Subjects or his Neighbors The King heard and weighed all their Reasons and by them formed his own Judgment which he ever trusted in the last Resort Upon mature Deliberation as the Case required he at length resolved not only to continue the Laws and Customs of the Realm but to give the People new and more evident Assurances of this resolution in pursuance whereof he granted and confirmed them by a publick and open Charter and thereby purchased the Hearts as well as Satisfaction of his English Subjects whereof he reaped the Fruits in his succeeding Troubles in Normandy and his Wars with France Yet he could not refrain showing the Kindness he retained for his own Country and Language introducing by Connivance or by Countenance several Norman Customs and endeavouring to introduce that Language to be general in the Kingdom To this End he caused many Schools to be set up for teaching that Tongue which was a Bastard French not well understood by the French themselves and not at all by the English He caused the Laws of the Kingdom which had been anciently written in Saxon and by Edward the Confessor published also in Latin to be now translated into Norman He ordered all Pleas in the several Courts to be made in the same Language and all Petitions presented the King and all Business of Court to be likewise in Norman This
introduced new Terms new Forms of Pleading and of Process new Names of Offices and of Courts and with them all the litigious Customs and Subtelties of the Norman Pleas and Conveyances who were a witty but contentious People instead of the old English Simplicity in their common Suits Pleas or Conveyances which were plain brief without Perplexities made with good meaning kept with good Faith and so followed by little Contention and that determined by speedy Justice and Decision of Monthly Courts in every County Among the Saxons it was usual to grant Lands and Houses by bare Words and with the Delivery of some trivial Gift as an Horn a Sword an Arrow a Helmet and yet the simple Honesty of those Times and People left such Grants little subject to any Disputes or Contentions But the Conqueror reduced all Grants to Writing to Signature and to Witnesses which brought in Cavils and Actions grounded upon Punctilious Errors in Writing Mistakes in Expression which in much writing must sometimes happen either by Hast Weakness or perhaps by Fraud of Conveyancers and with Design to leave matter of Contentions by which they subsist as Physicians by Diseases Notwithstanding all these Arts of the Prince and Industry of his Ministers to introduce the Norman Language in England yet all was frustrated by the Over-ballance of Numbers in the Nations in Proportion to the Strangers and assisted by a general Avertion in the English to change their Language which they thought would be succeeded by that of their Laws and Liberties So that in this very Reign instead of the English speaking Norman the Normans began generally by Force of Intermarriages ordinary Commerce and Conversation to use the English Tongue which has ever since continued and composed the main Body of our Language though changed like others by Mixture of many new Words and Phrases not only introduced by this great Revolution but by the Uses and Accidents of each succeeding Age. It seems very remarkable and very different what happened in Scotland about this Time and upon this Subject for upon the great Recourse of English Nobles and Gentlemen into Scotland seeking Refuge from the first Dangers and and Terrors of the Norman Conquest and afterwards of many more who fled there in Pursuit of Edgar's Pretensions and joyned with the Scots in two Invasions of England but chiefly upon Malcolm's fond Affection of his English Wife Sister to Prince Edgar his Learning and commonly using or favouring her Language the usual Compliance and Conformity of Courtiers to the Customs of their Prince and the general Humour of Kindness in the Scots at that time to the Person or Rights of Edgar and to all his Adherents that lost their own Country to follow his Fortunes the English Language grew in this King's Reign to be generally spoken not only in the Court of Scotland but in several Counties thereunto adjacent and among most of the Nobles in remoter Provinces and so it has ever since remained as have many English Families in those Parts habituated and with Time naturalized among them and the ancient barbarous Scotch Tongue has been left current only in the more Northern or Northwest and mountainous Parts of that Kingdom and in the Islands that seeem to have been first and most entirely possessed by the Scyths or Scots who so long ago invaded and conquered the Northern Parts of Britain and Ireland The contrary of this unusual Change in Language appears to have succeeded in England since in a little time nothing remained of the Norman Language in common Use besides the Translation of our common Law which though deduced from the ancient Saxon Streams yet the Sound and Forms and Practice came to be Norman like Rivers which still run from their original Sources but yet often change their Taste from the Soils through which they take their Course and sometimes from Accidents of great Inundations which for the present change them but leave them to return to their natural Streams A singular and instructive Example how strange a Difference there is in the Compliance of a Nation with the Humour of a Prince they love or of one they fear Besides these Changes in the Language of our Laws and the Forms of Pleas which were generally disaffected by the English Subjects this Norman King either upon Pretence of Justice and Piety or else of Necessity and Safety abolished several ancient Saxon Institutions and made several new which how reasonable or how useful soever yet bred ill Blood among the Nobles and Clergy of England though the People contented themselves with the Continuance of their ancient Laws and thought all they did or suffered for the King's Service well rewarded while they might preserve what they called the Laws of Edward the Confessor And the King was so wise as often to renew his Oath to maintain them for the general Satisfaction of the People For the rest he took all Jurisdiction and Judgment in civil Causes wholly out of the Hands of the Bishops where it had been placed in the whole Saxon Succession after their Conversion to Christianity And restrained the Clergy to the Exercise and Administration of their Ecclesiastical Power He endeavoured to abolish two ancient Forms of Trial used among the Saxons with great Reverence even during their Christian Worship though they were but Remainders of their old Pagan Superstition but so rooted in the Opinion of the People as not to be dispossessed by new Reason or Religion These were the Trials Ordeal and of Camp-fight The first was either by Fire or by Water and used only in Criminal Cases where the Accusation was strong the Suspicions great but no Proofs evident In that of Fire the Person accused was brought into an open Place upon even Ground several Plow-shares heated red hot were laid before them at unequal Distances over which they were to walk blindfold and if they escaped any Harm were adjudged innocent if their Feet were burned by treading upon the hot Irons they were condemned as guilty In the other of Water the accused were thrown into the Water if they sunk immediately they were esteemed innocent and guilty if they swam either because it seemed against the Nature of heavy Bodies or that the clear Element would not receive them but rejected them as polluted Persons The first Trial was for those of better Condition and the other for those of inferiour and both were chiefly used upon Accusations of Unchastity of Poysoning or of Sorcery These Trials though grounded upon no Reason yet were thought approved by long Experience and the rather I suppose because any sncceeding Proofs of Innocence were as difficult to find as any precedent Evidence of Guilt And they were commonly called the Judgments of God and performed with solemn Oraisons and other Ceremonies that amused or rather enchanted the ignorant People into an Opinion of their being sacred as well as just The Trials of Camp-fight were performed by single Combat in Lists appointed for that Purpose
having never lost but one which was Fitz-Auber He was a Prince deep in his Designs bold in his Enterprises firm in his Prosecution excelling in the Order and Discipline of his Armies and choice in his Officers both of his Army and his State But admirable in Expedition and Dispatch of Civil as well as Military Affairs never deferring till to Morrow what should be done to Day Above all he was careful and prudent in the Management of his Treasure and finding a Temper between the Bounty of his own Nature and the Necessity of his Affairs proportioning always the Expences of his Gifts his Buildings his Enterprizes to the Treasure he was master of for defraying them designing nothing out of his Compass and thereby compassing all he seemed to design He was religious in frequenting Divine Service giving much Alms building Abbies and endowing them sending Presents of Crosses of Gold rich Vestures and Plate to many other Churches and much Treasure to Rome He was a great Lover of Learning and though he despised the loose ignorant Saxon Clergy he found in England yet he took Care and Pleasure to fill Ecclesiastical Dignities here with Persons of great Worth and Learning from abroad as Lanfranc Durand Anselm with many more He was a Lover of Virtue in others and Hater of Vice for being naturally very kind to his half Brother Odon Bishop of Bayeux having made him Earl of Kent given him great Revenues entrusted him in his Absence with the Government of the Realm yet finding him a Man of incurable Ambition Avarice Cruelty Oppression and Prophaneness he at length wholly disgraced him and kept him in Prison during all the rest of his Reign which seems to have been a just Punishment of his Crimes and Sacrifice to the English he had cruelly oppressed in the King's Absence rather than a greediness of his Treasures as some envious Writers would make it appear Yet by the Consent of them all and the most partial or malicious to his Memory as well as others He is agreed to have been a Prince of great Strength Wisdom Courage Clemency Magnificence Wit Courtesie Charity Temperance and Piety This short Character and by all agreed is enough to vindicate the Memory of this noble Prince and famous Conqueror from the Aspersions or Detractions of several malicious or partial Authors who have more unfaithfully represented his Reign than any other Period of our English History Having taken a full View of this King in his Actions and his Person it remains only that we consider the Consequences that both of them had upon the Condition of this Kingdom which will be best discovered by the Survey of what it lost what it preserved and what it gained by this famous Conquest England thereby must be confessed to have lost first very great Numbers of brave English Men who fell in the Battle of Hastings and in two Wars afterwards by the Revolt of the Nobles and Invasion of the Scots in Favor of Edgar Atheling Likewise many Nobles and Gentlemen who disdaining all Subjection to a forreign and conquering Power retired into Scotland Ireland Denmark and after the Extinction of their Hopes by the Suppression of all Endeavours in Favour of Edgar's Right never returned but left their Families habituated in those Countries choosing if they must live under a forreign Dominion to do it rather abroad than at home In the next Place England lost the true Line of their ancient Saxon Kings who were a Race of just good and pious Princes governed by such known Laws and with such Moderation and were so beloved of their People as makes it observed by Writers that no popular Insurrection ever happened in any of the Saxon Reigns Lastly England by the Conquest lost in a great Measure the old Plainness and Simplicity of the Saxon Times and Customs of Life who were generally a People of good Meaning plain Dealing contended with their own little coveting or imitating their Neighbours and living frugally upon the Product of their own fruitful Soil For the Profusion of Meats at our English Tables came in with the Danes and the Luxury of them was introduced first by the Normans and after encreased by the more frequent Use of Wines upon the Accession of Guienne to this Crown What we preserved is remarkable in three Particulars not usual upon great Conquests for first we preserved our Name which was lost by the Saxon Invasions but that of England then succeeding the other of Britain has ever since continued Next we preserved our Language or the old English Tongue which has made the Body and Substance of what still remains though much enlarged and polished since those Times by the transplanting many Words out of forreign Languages especially Latin and French In the last Place we preserved our Forms of Government our Laws and Institutions which have been so much celebrated by ancient Writers and have been so obstinately defended by our Ancestors and are by Chancellor Fortescue who writ in the Time of Henry the Sixth averred to have been preserved through the five several Governments in this Island of Normans Danes Saxons Romans and Britains and so to have continued for a longer Course of Time than those of Rome or Venice or any other Nation known in Story But this I doubt is not so easily proved as affirmed though it may be with more Certainty of the three first which is sufficient to illustrate the Antiquity of our Constitutions without Recourse to strained or uncertain Allegations For what we gained by our Loss in this Conquest though it seems a Contradiction yet it may be observed in many more Particulars than the other two First England grew much greater both in Dominion and Power abroad and also in Dignity and State at home by the Accession of so much Territory upon the Continent For though the Normans by the Conquest gained much of the English Lands and Riches yet England gained Normandy which by it became a Province to this Crown Next it gained greater Strength by the great Numbers of Normans and French that came over with the Conqueror and after his Establishment here and incorporated with the English Nation joyning with them in the same Language Laws and Interests Then we gained much by the great Encrease of our Naval Power and Multitude of Ships wherein Normandy then abounded by the Advantage of more and better Havens than in later Ages This with the perpetual Intercourse between England and Normandy and other Parts of the Continent gave us a mighty Encrease of Trade and Commerce and thereby of Treasure to the Crown and Kingdom which appeared first in so great a Mass as was left by the Conqueror to Prince Henry his younger Son England by the Conquest gained likewise a natural Right to the Dominion of the narrow Seas which had been before acquired only by the great Naval Power of Edgar and other Saxon Kings But the Dominion of narrow Seas seems naturally to belong like that of
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND BY Sir WILLIAM TEMPLE BARONET Nescio quâ natale solum dulcedine tangit Humanos animos LONDON Printed for Richard Simpson at the Three Trouts and Ralph Simpson at the Harp in St. Paul's Church-yard 1695. THE PREFACE I Have often complained that so ancient and noble a Nation as ours so renowned by the Fame of their Arms and Exploits abroad so applauded and envied for their wise and happy Institutions at home so flourishing in Arts and Learning and so adorned by excellent Writers in other Kinds should not yet have produced one good or approved general History of England That of France has been composed with great Industry by des Serres with Iudgment and Candor by Mezeray That of Spain with great Diligence and eloquent Stile by Mariana That of the Empire with much Pains and good Order as well as Learning by Pedro de Mexia but ours have been written by such mean and vulgar Authors so tedious in their Relations or rather Collections so injudicious in the Choice of what was fit to be told or to be let alone with so little Order and in so wretched a Style that as it is a Shame to be ignorant in the Affairs of our own Country so 't is hardly worth the Time or Pains to be informed since for that End a Man must read over a Library rather than a Book and after all must be content to forget more than he remembers 'T is true some Parcels or short Periods of our History have been left us by Persons of great Worth and Learning much honoured or esteemed in their Times as Part of Edward the fourth and Richard the third by Sir Thomas Moor Henry the soventh by Sir Francis Bacon Henry the eighth by the Lord Herbert Edward the sixth by Sir John Haywood and Queen Elizabeth by Mr. Camden There are besides these many voluminous Authors of ancient Times in Latin and of modern in English with some Forreigners as Froissart and Polidore Virgil out of all which might be framed a full and just Body of our general History if collected with Pains and Care and digested with good Order for the Architect is only wanting and not the Materials for such a Building I will confess I had it in my Thoughts at one Time of my Life and the most proper for such a Work to make an Abridgment of our English Story having observed that Mezeray's Abrege of his own was more esteemed and much more read than his larger Volume but those Thoughts were soon diverted by other Imployments wherein I had the Hopes as well as the Intentions of doing some greater Sevices to my Country I have since endeavoured to engage some of my Friends in the same Design whom I thought capable of atchieving it but have not prevailed some pretending Modesty and others too much valuing Ease Therefore to invite and encourage some worthy Spirit and true Lover of our Country to pursue this Attempt I have consented to the publishing of this Introduction to the History of England wherein I have traced a short Account of this Island the Names the Inhabitants and Constitutions thereof from the first Originals as far as I could find any Ground of probable Story or of fair Conjecture since Philosophers tell us that none can be said to know things well who does not know them in their Beginnings I have further deduced it through the great and memorable Changes of Names People Customs and Laws that passed here until the End of the first Norman Reign which made the last and great Period of this Kingdom leaving the Successions and Constitutions since that Time so fixed and Established as to have lasted for the Space of above six hundred Years withont any considerable Alteration from so long a Course of Time or such Variety of Events as have since arrived in the World I have hereby beaten through all the rough and dark Ways of this Iourney the rest lies fair and easie through a plain and open Country and I should think my self happy to see it well pursued by some abler Hand for the Honour of our Nation and the Satisfaction of our own as well as forreign Readers who shall be curious to know our Story I wish it may be performed with the same good Intentions and with much better Success than this small Endeavour of mine AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND BRitain was by the Ancients accounted the greatest Island of the known World and for ought is yet certain may be so still notwithstanding the later Discoveries of Madagascar and Iapan which are by some brought into Competition It extends from North to South about ten Degrees and about two hundred Miles in the Breadth of its most extended Angles It was anciently called Albion which seems to have been softned from Alpion the word Alp in some of the Original Western Languages signifying generally very high Lands or Hills as this Isle appears to those who approach it from the Continent But of those Times there is no Certainty remains in Story more than that it was so called and very little known to the rest of the World By the Romans and some time before Cesar it was called Britannia concerning which Name very much Debate and no Agreement has been among the modern Learned of our Country or of others After raking into all the Rubbish of those Authors That which seems to me most probable is that the Strangers who came over into this Island upon the score of Traffick from the Coasts of Gaul or Germany called the Inhabitants by one common Name of Briths given them from the Custom among them of painting their naked Bodies and small Shields with an azure Blew which by them was called Brith and distinguish'd them from Strangers who came among them From this Name of the Inhabitants the Romans upon their Invasions Conquests and Colonies establish'd in Gaul which brought them first acquainted with this Island called it Britannia by giving a Latin termination to a barbarous Name and the same which appears to have been usual with them by the Appellations of many other Countries that fell under their Commerce or Conquests as Mauritania Lusitania Aquitania and several others commonly known The curious may observe this Care of the Romans in giving their own Terminations to many barbarous Countries and forming easie and pleasant Sounds out of the harshest and most offensive to such elegant Tongues and Ears as theirs I shall instance only in three among many more that are obvious to such as please themselves with these Speculations The Province of Britain in France was called among the Natives Al Mor which signisied Ad mare or near the Sea from this the Romans called it Armorica The Isle between the Branches of the Rhine which divide for some distance before they fall into the Sea was called by the Old Germans Vat awe which signifies fat or fruitful Earth and from this was framed the Latin word
or agreement of Times or Actions by the few and mean Authors of those barbarous and illiterate Ages and perhaps the rough course of those lawless Times and Actions would have been too ignoble a Subject for a good Historian About the Year 8 o. after many various Events and Revolutions between the several Races of the Heptarchy Ecbert descended from the West-Saxon Kings having inherited most of the Successions from the Prowess and Exploits of his Ancestors and acquired others by his own became the first sole King or Monarch of England as it now was distinguished from the Principality of Wales possessed by the old Britains and from that part of the Island to the North of Tweed possessed by the Picts and Scots and by the Saxons stiled by one common Name of Scotland This famous Adventure of the Saxons in England was atchieved by the Force and Confluence of such Multitudes from the Coasts of Germany which lie between the Belgick and Baltick Shores that some Parts of their Native Countries were left almost dispeopled to fill again by new Swarms from the great Northern Hive and the Number of Saxons and Angles Iutes and other Nations that came over were not only sufficient to Conquer and Wast this whole Province but even to Plant and People it soon again with numerous and new Inhabitants So as by them succeeded in this Island not only a Change of Government as by the Roman Arms but a Change of the very People or Nation that inhabited or possessed the Lands of this whole Province This induced a Change likewise of Names of Language of Customs of Laws of Arms of Discipline of Possessions of Titles of Religion and even of the whole Face of Nature through this whole Kingdom So as we may justly date the Original of all these amongst us as well as our Nation it self from these our Saxon Ancestors Britain which was before a Roman Province was now grown a Saxon Kingdom and instead of its former Name was called England The Language which was either Latin or British was now grown wholly Saxon or English The Land that was before divided into Roman Colonies or Governments was so now into Shires with Names given to them by the Saxons as they first possessed or afterwards thought fit to distinguish them The Habits in Peace and Arms in War the Titles of Officers in both as well as of great Counsellors to their Kings or great Proprietors of Lands came to be all according to the Saxon Forms and Usage The Laws of this Country which before were Roman changed now into Old Saxon Customs or Constitutions Their Princes or Leaders of their several Nations became Konings or Kings of the Territories they had subdued They reserved part of the Lands to themselves for their Revenue and shared the rest among their chief Commanders by great Divisions and among their Soldiers by smaller shares The first who had the great Divisions were called Earls or Barons those of the smaller were Knights and the smallest of all were Freemen who possessed some Proportions of free Lands and were thereby distinguished from the Villens that held nothing but at the Will of the Landlord In this universal Transformation Religion it self had a share like all the rest and received new Forms and Orders with the new Inhabitants whilst all that was Roman or British expired together in this Country The Britains began early to receive the Christian Faith and as is reported from some of the Disciples themselves And this was so propagated among them that when the Romans left the Province they were generally Christians and had their Priests and Bishops from the ancient and Apostolick Institution The Saxons were a sort of Idolatrous Pagans that worshipped several Gods peculiar to themselves among whom Woden Thor and Frea were the chief which left their Memory still preserved by the common names of three days in the Week This Religious Worship they introduced with them and continued long in England till they subdued the Britains reduced it under their Heptarchy of Saxons Kings persecuted the British Christians and drove them with their Religion into Wales where they continued under their Primitive Priests and Bishops who with their Monks were all under the Surintendance of one Arch-Priest or Bishop of Carleon or Chester the Bound of the British Principality About the year 600. or soon after Pope Boniface sent Austin the Monk to Preach the Gospel in England to the Heathen Saxons who landing at Dover was received with Humanity by Ethelbert King of the South Saxons and being admitted with four or five of his Companions as well-meaning Men to teach and explain the Doctrin and Mysteries of Christianity among these ignorant and barbarous People they so well succeeded that they converted at first great numbers of the common sort and at length the King himself whose example gave easie way for introducing the Christian Faith into his whole Kingdom which from thence spread into all the Countries subject to the Saxon Heptarchy Thus Religion came to be Establish'd in England under the Rites and Forms and Authority of the Roman Church by which Austin was instituted chief Bishop in England and seated by the Saxon King at Canterbury But his Jurisdiction though admitted in all the Saxon Territories was not received by the British Priests or People in Wales though endeavoured by many missions from Austin and his Successors and even by Wars and Persecutions of the Saxons upon the Old British Christians at the instigation of the New Romish Priests in one of which near Carleon Twelve Hundred of the poor British Monks are said to have been slaughtered while they were apart in the Field at their Prayers for the success of the British Army With this Account of a new face and state of Persons and of Things both Natural Civil and Religious establish'd in England I return to the Period I left of the Saxon Heptarchy which being extinguish'd by long and various Revolutions among themselves made way for the Reign of Ecbert the first sole King or Monarch of England about the year 830. It might have been reasonably expected that a wise and fortunate Prince at the Head of so great a Dominion and so brave and numerous a People as the English after the Expulsion of the Picts and Scots out of his Country into the rough Northern Parts and of the Britains into the North-west Corners of the Island should not only have enjoyed the Fruits of Peace and Quiet but left much Felicity as well as greatness to many succeeding Generations both of Prince and People Yet such is the instability of Human Affairs and the weakness of their best Conjectures That Ecbert was hardly warm in his united Throne when both he and his Subjects began to be alarmed and perplexed at the approach of new and unknown Enemies and this Island exposed to New Invasions About this time a mighty Swarm of the Old Northern Hive who had possessed the Seats about the Baltick
distance fell again to their Arrows with one of which Harold was shot quite through the Head and fell to the Ground And by his Death gave the Victory and the Field to the Normans which had hitherto continued doubtful on both sides and seemed thus far to have been Fought with equal Courage and with equal Loss But the Flight of the English upon Harold's Fall soon determined it and was followed by a long and bloody pursuit of the Normans which continued till Night and left mighty Numbers of the English slain in their Flight that had been safe in the Battel and the rest of them wholly dispersed though covered by the Night So different are the effects of Courage and of Fear and so Just the Rewards of both the first which seeks dangers often avoids them the other often runs into them by endeavouring to escape them Much greater numbers falling in all Battels by the pursuit of those that fly than by the Slaughter of those that Fight Nothing seems to show the greatness of England so much at this time as that Harold should be able to assemble so mighty an Army to oppose this Invasion And find above Threescore Thousand Men Brave enough not only to Fight but to lose their Lives in his defence For so many are agreed to have been slain of the English at this Battel of Hastings where he lost his Crown and his Life together and left the Field with the Kingdom to this brave Norman Conquerour This was the Man These the Forces and such the Circumstances that contributed to so famous an Enterprise by which the Fate of England was determined in or about the Year 1066. The Duke after this famous Victory resolved not to lose the Fruits and Advantages he had thereby gained which is often done for want of Speed or Vigour in the Prosecution wherein Celerity is sometimes of more Consequence than Force Therefore after the Pursuit of his broken Enemies and a short Refreshment of his own Army He began immediately his March towards London where was all the Strength then left in the Kingdom believing if he could be Master of the Head the rest of the Body would follow without more Struggle or Resistance In his March he is said to have exercised much Cruelty towards all he found in Arms with great Rigour and Oppression upon the other Inhabitants and Spoil of the Countries where he passed till entring into a Woody Part of Kent and advancing with his Vanguard before the rest of his Army he found himself almost environed with mighty Numbers of the Kentish Men who had concealed themselves in the Wood by carrying every Man a great Bough of a Tree like a Shield in his Hand But when they saw the Norman Troops and the Duke at the Head of them within their Danger they began on a sudden to march like a moving Wood till approaching their Enemies they threw down their Boughs and discovered on all Sides a Multitude of brave armed Men ready to charge the Normans that stood surprised and amazed at the Strangeness of the Sight which appeared as if a Wood had been by some Enchantment transformed into an Army But the Kentish Men approaching made a Halt and sent the Abbot of St. Austins to tell the Duke that all the Men of that Province were there assembled to defend their Country and their Liberties or to sell their Lives as dear as they could that if he would swear to preserve them in those ancient Laws and Customs under which they and their Ancestors had so long lived they were all ready to lay down their Arms and become his Subjects if not he must prepare to fight with Men that had resolved to lose their Lives rather than their Liberties and Laws The Duke finding he was too far advanced to joyn the Body of his Army before he engaged and unwilling to venture all his Fortunes and Hopes against such numerous Bands as these appeared and of so desperate Men granted to all the Inhabitants of the Province of Kent the Preservation and free Enjoyment of all their ancient Laws and Customs under the Saxon Reigns swore the Observance of his Grant received their Homage and so pursued his March This is represented as a forc'd Prelude to a subsequent voluntary Act of this Prince whereby he made or confirmed the same Concession in general to all the rest of the Kingdom And though this Adventure of the Kentish Men be not recorded with great Evidence of Truth or Agreement of Circumstances or of Time for some Writers place it before his first Arrival at London others after and upon an Expedition to reduce the Castle of Dover yet it is related by so many Authors and is so generally received by vulgar Tradition that it seems not to be omitted But when or however it happened or whether at all or no is not material to the History of this Prince or to the following Actions or Institutions of his Reign In the City of London besides the great Numbers and Riches of the Inhabitants were retired most of the great Nobles of the Kingdom both Ecclesiastical and Secular who had not been engaged in Action of either Side and attended what would be the Issue of this strong and violent Convulsion of the State Upon Decision of the last Battel they all consulted together with the Citizens what was best to be advised and done for their common Interest and Safety as well as of the whole Kingdom which was like to run their Fate by following their Example Many of the secular Nobles were for collecting what Forces they could and making a stand either in the Field or in the Town and thereby trying their Fortunes or at the worst making Conditions for they could not bear that their great Possessions and Lands should lie at the Mercy of a Prince whose Will might be as boundless as his Power and who had so great a Train to be rewarded at their Cost and by the Spoils if he pleased of the whole Kingdom The Citizens feared the hostile Entrance of an incensed Army upon a weak Resistance and the sudden Loss of their Possessions which consisting chiefly in Moveables might be seized in a Day and dissipated past any Recovery by the very Grace of the Prince or succeeding Composition between him and the rest of the Kingdom They thought no Forces could be collected either in Time upon so sudden an Approach or with Strength enough to make Opposition in a Body that had lost so much Blood and without a Head to command them or upon any Treaty to manage their common Interests to the best Advantage and so they were disposed to submit to what they esteemed the Fate of the Kingdom The Arch-bishops Bishops and the rest of the Clergy were a sort of State apart within the State it self having a Jurisdiction independent as they pretended and were usually allowed in that Age upon the secular Power they held their Lands and Possessions in the Kingdom
foreign Birth yet so far gained the general Affections and Satisfaction of the Commoners of the Realm who ask nothing but Security in their Estates and Properties that no Commotions afterwards raised by the Nobles and Clergy against his Government though in Favour of a better Right and Title were ever supported by the Commons who compose the Mass and Bulk of a Nation and whose general good or ill Humour Satisfaction or Discontent will ever have the most forcible Influence for the Preservation or Ruin of any State Besides the good and profitable Institutions and Orders of this King already mentioned so generally approved and so grateful to the Commonalty of the Realm there were others of a different Nature and which had a contrary Effect by distasting and disobliging many of the chief Nobility and most or all of the Clergy though some were so cautious as not to lose their Dignities or Revenues by expressing their Resentments The Offences taken by these last were first the abrogating or surceasing the Judiciary Power exercised by the Bishops during the Saxon Times in each County where Justice was administred and the Bishop with the Alderman or Earl of each Shire sate as Judges in those Courts which encreased not only their Authority but their Revenues too by a Share they had with the King in all Fines rais'd from the Issue of Causes there determined But all this was abolished by the King's Institution of Justiciaries to administer Justice upon all Pleas of the Crown and others among Subjects at four Terms of the Year This gave particular Offence to the Bishops but another to the whole Clergy for whereas before they held all their Land by Franc Almonage and subject to no Duties or Impositions but such as they laid upon themselves in their Ecclesiastical Assemblies This Prince finding above a third Part of the Lands of the Kingdom in Possession of the Clergy and the Forces of the Crown which consisted in Knights Service lessened in Proportion by their Immunity He reduced all their Lands to the common Tenure of Knights Fees and Baronage and thereby subjected them to the Attendance upon the King in his Wars and to other Services anciently due and sometimes raised upon all Lands that held in fee from the Crown This Innovation touched not only the Bishops but all the Abbots throughout the Kingdom many of whom were endowed with so great Lands and Revenues that in Right thereof they were upon the regular Constitutions of Parliaments allowed Session with the Bishops as Barons in the House of Lords The whole Clergy exclaimed against this new Institution not only as an Indignity and Injustice but as an Impiety too and Violation of the sacred Rights of the holy Church but their Complaints were without Redress though not without ill Consequence The Discontents among many of the great Nobles arose chiefly from two Occasion The first was the Rigor of the Forrest Laws and of their Execution And the other was the King 's too apparent Partiality to his Normans To know the Ground or Pretence of these Forrest Laws it will be necessary to run up to their Original In the first Seisures and Distributions made of the British Lands by the conquering Saxons besides those reserved to the Kings or divided among the People and held by the Tenures either of Knights Service or of Book-land as it was termed among the Saxons and thereby distinguish'd from that of Villenage There were many great Tracts of barren wild or woody Lands left undisposed and in a manner waste so great Numbers of British Inhabitants having been extinguish'd by the Wars or retired into Wales Cornwal Britanny and Scotland and the new Saxons not content to share among them any Lands but such as were fruitful and fit to be cultivated These were enclosed or improved as well as inhabited by the new Proprietors and the others left wast as well as undisposed to any certain Owners The whole Country was as has been observed very full of all Sorts of wild Game in the Time of the Britains who lived at large without any Inclosures little Property and subsisted much upon Hunting Fishing and Fowling which they had all in common Upon the enclosing or cultivating of the fruitful Lands by the Saxons the wild Beasts naturally afraid of Neighbours whom they found to be all Enemies fled into the wild woody and desolate Tracts of Land where they found Shelter and fed though hardly yet out of common Sight and Noise And hereby all those Parts became replenish'd with all Sorts of Game especially with Red and Fallow-Deer and made all those several Extents of Ground which were afterwards called Forrests The Saxon Kings esteemed these to belong to the Crown by their Right to all Possessions that have no certain Owner and by their never having been disposed upon the first Divisions of Land in the Saxon Kingdoms nor afterwards by any Grants of the Crown This Right was not disputed nor any Use of it made further than for the King's Pleasure which yet was not by them restrained from the Nobles or Knights that were Borderers upon the Forrests who were so moderate in those more simple Ages as to commit no Excesses or destroy the Game which it was their Interest to preserve both for their Sport and the Quarry and for some use made of it for common Pasturage among all the bordering Neighbours William the Conqueror not only seised upon all these Forrests as Part of his own Demesns but made a very large one in Hampshire besides those he found by laying wast and leaving uninhabited great Extents of Land which he pretended to be fallen to the Crown by ancient Succession or by new Forfeitures and this he called the new Forrest which Name after so long a Course of Ages it still retains In all these Forrests he pretended an absolute Right and Dominion and in Pursuance thereof instituted new and arbitrary Laws of his own unused and unknown before in this Kingdom and very different from the Moderation of the Saxon Government He confined all hunting or fowling in these Forrests to himself or such as should have Right to it by his Concessions or Permissions He imposed Fines upon all Trespasses committed in them according to his own Pleasure and which seemed much to exceed the Fault or Value of the thing These he caused to be levied with great Rigor and Exaction and thereby debarred not only his Commoners but his Nobles too from a Liberty they had before always enjoy'd Though he took care not to provoke the Commoners by leaving Pasturage free for such of the Neighbours who lived most upon their Stock and thereby took no greeat Offence at the Restraint from their Sport which they had not Time from their Labour much to follow yet the Nobles and Knights who valued their Sports more than common Gains and made use of their Riches but for Encrease of their Pleasures resented this Restraint as a sensible Injury as an Invasion
between the Accuser and Accused and were usual in Actions both real and criminal where no evident Proof of Fact appeared from Witnesses or other Circumstances The Victor was acquitted and the Vanquished if not killed upon the Field was condemned These were performed with great Solemnities and either in Presence of the King who granted the Combat or of certain Judges by him appointed for that particular Case Both these Sorts of Trials this King abolished as unchristian and unjust and reduced all Causes to the Judgment of Equals or of a Jury of twelve Neighbours and by legal Forms Yet the last was some few times used in succeeding Reigns In the Beginnings of his Reign the Kingdom had been much infested by Outlaws and by Robbers and many Normans were secretly murthered by the Hatred of the English as they passed alone upon the Ways or the Fields especially in the Night To remedy this last Mischief he imposed a heavy Fine upon the Hundred where the Body of any Norman should be found slain whether any Discovery were made or no of the Author or Complices of the Fact For all Rapes and Robberies he caused them to be punished so severely by cruel Mutilations of Members and Hardships of Labour as left them miserable Spectacles or Warnings of their Crimes during the rest of their Lives By the Rigour of these Courses and cutting off the chief Cause of such Offences which grow from Idleness and Expences he reduced the whole Realm to such Security that 't is recorded in his Time how a fair Maiden with a Purse of Gold in her Hand might have travelled through the Realm without any Danger offered to her Honour or her Money Besides to prevent any Crimes that might be committed by Favour or Encouragement of the Night He ordered a Bell to be rung in each Parish at eight a Clock in the Winter and nine in the Summer after which every Man was to cover his Fire and stir no more abroad that Night And this was for that Reason called the Corfew or Couvrefew Bell. For the Safety of his State he erected several Castles in many Places most convenient of the Kingdom among which was the Tower of London and New-Castle upon Tyne either built or by this King much enlarged and garrisoned them by Norman or English Soldiers but all such as he most trusted and who were ready in Arms upon all Occasions Yet these Forts were look'd upon by the English as unnecessary in the Times of Peace and as Bridles upon the Liberties of the People rather than Preventions of Dangers of the Crown After these Institutions he applied himself to the Increase Order and Establishment of his Revenue and having as he believed satisfied the People in general by the Confirmation of their ancient and beloved Laws he thought he might be bolder with the Clergy whom he knew to be generally his Enemies and whose Clamours he the less feared from his own known Piety in frequenting Divine Worship in building and endowing several Monasteries in Presents to many Churches both in England and Normandy but especially in great Treasures which he sent frequently to Rome Therefore upon Pretence of his Enemies in the two last Revolts and such as were designed to be their Complices having conveyed their Plate Money and Jewels into the several Monasteries throughout the Kingdom he caused all the rich Abbies to be searched their Money Plate and Jewels which were not necessary or of common Use in Divine Service to be seized and thereby brought at once a mighty Treasure into his Coffers but an inveterate Hatred of the Clergy upon his Person and Reign and this was the last of those Actions that by the envenomed Pens of the Monkish Writers of that Age left such a Charge upon the Memory of this Prince by the Imputation of Cruelty Oppression Violence Exaction and the Breach or Change of Laws of the Kingdom either Human or Divine though the same Authors little consider how ill this agrees with the high Characters they themselves give of his Personal Qualities and Virtues Nor is it probable that so vicious Actions should proceed from so virtuous Dispositions or that so noble and excellent Qualities of any Prince should be esteemed by the present Age or celebrated to Posterity which had been accompanied by cruel infamous or depraved Actions during his Life Having with these Spoils of the Clergy as well as by the many Forfeitures of the revolted Nobles replenished his Coffers for the present he extended the Care of his Revenue not only to what might arrive in his own Life but also in the Times of succeeding Kings To this End he sent Commissioners into all the several Counties of the whole Realm who took an exact Survey and described in a Censual Roll or Book all the Lands Titles and Tenures throughout the whole Kingdom In this were distinctly set down not only every Barony each Knight's Fee every Plow-land but also what Owners by what Tenures at what Rents or Duties they held and what Stock they were possessed of and how many Villans upon their respective Estates All Lands that held anciently of the Crown or were by this King disposed upon Forfeitures he subjected to the usual Tenures of Baronies or Knight's Fees reserving in all the Dominion in chief to himself some Quitrents or Fines upon Death and Alienation and likewise the Custody of all Heirs of such Lands as were left under Age and the Disposal of their Fortunes besides what was assigned for their Maintenance till they came to Years of disposing their Estates and themselves This Book was composed after two old Examples of the same kind in the Times of Ethelbert and Alfred and was laid up as sacred in the Church of Winchester and for that Reason as graver Authors say was called Liber Domus Dei and by Abbreviation Domesday Book The vulgar Account is that the Name was derived from the Nature and so called because every Man was to receive his Doom by that Book upon any Dispute about the Value Tenure Payments or Services of his Lands upon Collection of the King 's ordinary Revenue or the raising of any extraordinary Taxes or Impositions And to make a President for the future or to satisfie the great Expences the King had been at for the compiling this great Roll of the Kingdom six Shillings was raised upon every Plow-land which made the Design of it less agreeable to the People though every Man's Right thereby received a new Evidence and no Injustice was complained of in the Digestion of so difficult a Work and of so various a Nature By this means the King came to an easie and exact Knowledge of his whole constant Revenue and so proportioned it to his Expences and the necessary Cares of having always a Fond or Reserve of present Treasure in his Coffers that after this Time we never find him plunged in any Difficulties for want of Money to supply many great Occasions that ensued in his
in Normandy and in a Church he had there built How the Ground that was opened to receive him was claimed at that instant by a Knight of the Country who alledged it had belonged to his Ancestors and himself and was violently or unjusty seised from them by the King so that his Funeral was fain to be deferred till an Agreement was made and the Value of the Ground paid to the Claimer with other invidious Circumstances which may argue the Ingratitude Avarice or other Vices of his Servants or Subjects then living but not defame the Memory or obscure the Glory of the Dead Thus ended all that was Mortal of this noble King and this renowned Conqueror for his Fame will never die but remain for ever in the most lasting Records of Time and Monuments of Glory among the Princes most celebrated for their brave Atchievements in War their wise Institutions in Peace the Length and Prosperity of their Lives and their Reigns In all which he must with Justice be confessed not to have been equalled by many if indeed by any we read of in Story I have made no mention of any great Councils or Assemblies held in this King's Reign because I find no clear Evidence of the Nature or Constitution the Times or the Occasions of them whether like those used in the Saxon Reigns or like the Parliaments in Normandy or whether that Style was introduced here in this King's Time or that of his Sons who succeeded him It appears that he often assembled the Nobles and Barons of the Realm but whether upon the Solemnity of some great Festivals or some Occasions of more Importance either for the Honour of his Court or Consultation of his Affairs I find not so well recorded nor so easie to determine as some will have it It is agreed only that there were two general Assemblies of the Clergy one about the sixth Year of his Reign upon a Controversie between the Archbishops of Canterbury and York about the Primacy which was therein determined in favour of the first The other about erecting some new Bishopricks or translating their Sees from some decayed and smaller Towns to others grown in that Age more populous and opulent The Lichfield Chronicle also relates how in the fourth Year of his Reign he summoned out of every County the Nobles the Wise Men and such as were learned in their own Law that he might from them learn what were their ancient Laws and Customs After which the Laws of St. Edward were conserved and by him confirmed throughout the whole Kingdom I have not been so particular as other Writers in the Names of Places or of Persons or Distinction of Years because in such Antiquity of Times and Variety of Authors I find them very hard to be ascertained Besides the Disagreement among Writers is so great in assigning the Years to the several Actions of this Prince that so important an Affair as that of framing the Doomesday Book is by some referred to the eighth by others to the thirteenth and by some to the nineteenth Year of his Reign And many others are left in the same Uncertainty I have likewise omitted the Accounts and Remarks wherein some Writers have busied their Pens of strange Comets Inclemencies of Seasons raging Diseases or deplorable Fires that are said to have happened in this Age and Kingdom and are represented by some as Judgments of God upon this King's Reign Because I rather esteem them Accidents of Time or Chance such as happen in one Part or other of the World perhaps every Age at some Periods of time or from some Influence of Stars or by the conspiring of some natural or casual Circumstanstances and neither argue the Virtues or Vices of Princes nor serve for Example or Instruction to Posterity which are the great Ends of History and ought to be the chief Care of all Historians For this Reason as well as to comply with common Custom it may not be improper or unnecessary to end the wise politick and prosperous Reign with the just Character of this renowned Prince Since all great Actions in the World and Revolutions of States may be truly derived from the Genius of the Persons that conduct and govern them so as by comparing both together and observing the Causes as well as Events it may be easie to discern by what Personal Qualities and Dispositions of Princes the happy and glorious Successes of their own Fortunes with the Greatness and Felicity of their States are generally atchieved for to attribute such great Events to Time or to Chance were to destroy the Examples and confound the Consequences of all Virtues and Vices among Men. William surnamed the Conqueror was of the tallest Stature among those common in his Age and Country his Size large and his Body strong built but well proportioned His Strength such as few of his Court could draw his Bow His Health was great and constant which made him very active in his Business and his Pleasures till about the Decline of his Age he grew something corpulent from all which I suppose came the Story in some Norman Writers that he was eight Foot high or the Size of Hercules As he was of goodly Personage so his Face was lovely but of a Masculine Beauty the Loins being strong rather than delicate his Eyes were quick and lively but when moved something fierce his Complection Sanguine his Countenance very pleasant when he was gay and familiar when he was serious something severe His Pastimes were chiefly hunting and feasting in the first he spent much Time used great Exercise and yet much Moderation of Diet. In his Feasts which were designed for Magnificence or Conversation to know or to be known among his Nobles and not for Luxury he was courteous affable familiar and often pleasant and which made him the more so to his Company was easie at those Times in granting Suits and Pardons It is by all agreed that he was chaste and temperate which with a happy Constitution and much Exercise preserved not only his Health but Vigor to the last Decline of his Age. He was of sound natural Sense and shewed it not only in his own Conduct and Reasoning upon all great Occasions but also in the Choice of his Ministers and Friends wherein no Prince was happier or wiser than he He talked little never vaunted observed much was very secret and used only Lanfranc Archbishop of Canterbury with an universal Confidence both as a Counsellor and a Friend to whom he was ever meek and gentle though to others something austere as if this Conqueror had been himself subdued by the Wisdom and Virtue of that excellent Man In his Purposes he was steddy but not obstinate and though constant to his Ends yet appliable to Occasions as appeared by his favouring and trusting the Normans in his Troubles of England and the English in those of Normandy and was either very wise or very happy in the Arts of gaining Enemies and retaining Friends