Transcriber’s Note: Italic text is enclosed in _underscores_, boldface
in =equals signs=.
A SHORT HISTORY
OF THE
NORMAN CONQUEST
OF
ENGLAND
BY
EDWARD A. FREEMAN, D.C.L., LL.D.
_Late Regius Professor of Modern History in the
University of Oxford_
Third Edition
OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
1908
HENRY FROWDE, M.A.
PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
LONDON, EDINBURGH
NEW YORK AND TORONTO
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
I. INTRODUCTION 1
II. THE ENGLISH AND THE NORMANS 6
III. THE EARLY DEALINGS BETWEEN ENGLISH AND NORMANS 16
IV. THE YOUTH OF DUKE WILLIAM 30
V. HAROLD EARL AND KING 39
VI. THE TWO HAROLDS 55
VII. THE COMING OF DUKE WILLIAM 64
VIII. THE GREAT BATTLE 76
IX. HOW DUKE WILLIAM BECAME KING 86
X. HOW KING WILLIAM WON THE WHOLE KINGDOM 93
XI. KING WILLIAM’S LATER WARS 108
XII. HOW KING WILLIAM RULED THE LAND 118
XIII. THE TWO WILLIAMS 128
XIV. THE RESULTS OF THE NORMAN CONQUEST 134
XV. THE LATER HISTORY 148
INTRODUCTION.
I have here told, in the shape of a primer, the same tale which I have
already told in five large volumes. I have only to say that, though
the tale told is the same, yet the little book is not an abridgement
of the large one, but strictly the same tale told afresh. I shall be
well pleased if I am able some day to tell the same tale on a third and
intermediate scale.
SOMERLEAZE, WELLS,
_June 5, 1880_.
THE NORMAN CONQUEST OF ENGLAND.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
=1. Meaning of the Norman Conquest.=--By the Norman Conquest of
England we understand that series of events during the latter part
of the eleventh century by which a Norman Duke was set on the throne
of England, and was enabled to hand down the crown of England to his
descendants. The Norman Conquest of England does in truth mean a great
deal more than the mere transfer of the crown from one prince or one
family to another, or even than the transfer of the crown from a prince
born in the land to a prince who came from beyond sea. It means a great
number of changes of all kinds which have made the history and state of
our land ever since to be very different from what they would have been
if the Norman Conquest had never happened. For the Norman Duke could
not be set on the throne of England without making many changes of all
kinds in the state of England. But the fact that a Norman Duke was set
on the throne of England is the central point of the whole story of the
Norman Conquest of England. That story must tell how William Duke of
the Normans became William King of the English. It must also tell how
it came about that the Norman Duke could be made King of the English;
that is, it must tell something of the causes which led to the Norman
Conquest. It must also tell of the changes which came of the way in
which the Norman Duke was made King of the English. That is, it must
tell something of the effects which followed on the Norman Conquest.
And, in order to make the causes of the Conquest rightly understood,
it must tell something of the state of things among both the Normans
and the English before the Norman Conquest of England happened. And, in
order to make the effects of the Conquest rightly understood, it must
go on to tell something of the times for some while after the Conquest
itself, that we may see the way in which the changes which followed on
the Conquest were wrought, and how they have had an effect on English
history ever since.
=2. Meaning of the word Conquest.=--We may now ask a little further
what is the meaning of the word _conquest_, whether there can be
more kinds of conquest than one, and whether the Norman Conquest of
England has anything about it which is either like or unlike any other
conquest. Now the word _conquest_ strictly means the winning or getting
of anything, whether rightly or not, or whether by force or not. It
might mean, for instance, the winning of land, whether a kingdom or
anything smaller, by strength of war, or it might mean winning it by
sentence of law. And this first meaning of the word has something
specially to do with the Norman Conquest of England. For when King
William was called the _Conqueror_, it did not at first mean that he
had won the crown of England by force; for he claimed it as his own by
law. But though he claimed it as his own by law, he had in fact to win
it by force; we can therefore rightly speak of the _Conquest_ and the
_Conqueror_ in the sense which those words now commonly bear, that of
winning a land and the rule over it by strength of war. For, though
Duke William claimed the crown as his own by law, he could get it only
by coming into our land with an army and overthrowing and killing our
king in fight; and when he had got the crown and was called King, he
had still to win the land bit by bit, often by hard fighting, before he
had really got the whole kingdom into his hands. The Norman Conquest of
England was therefore a conquest in the best known meaning of the word;
it was the winning of the land by strength of war.
=3. Different kinds of Conquests.=--Now this fact that Duke William
claimed the English crown as his own by law, and yet had to win it
in battle at the head of a foreign army, had a great deal to do with
the special character of the Norman Conquest of England, and with the
effect which that Conquest has had on the history of England ever
since. There have been at different times conquests of very different
kinds. Sometimes a whole people has gone from one land to another; they
have settled by force in a land where other men were dwelling, and have
killed or driven out the men whom they found in the land, or have let
them live on as bondmen in their own land. Here is mere force without
any pretence of right, and a conquest like this can happen only among
people who are quite uncivilized, as we English were when we first came
to the island of Britain. The Norman Conquest was nothing at all like
this; the English were neither killed nor driven out nor made slaves,
but went on living in their own land as before. The Norman Conquest
was, so to speak, less of a conquest than conquests of this kind. But
it was much more of a conquest than some other conquests of another
kind have been. In some conquests of later times all that has happened
has been something of this kind. A king has won a kingdom by force, or
he has added some new lands to the kingdom which he had before. The
changes made by such a conquest may be only what we may call political
changes, changes in the government and most likely to some extent in
the law. Such a conquest may be made with very little change which
directly touches private men; it may be made without turning anybody
out of his house or land. Indeed many men may even keep on the public
offices which they held before. Now the Norman Conquest of England,
though not so much as the other kind of conquest, was much more than
this. For though the English nation was not killed or driven out, yet
very many Englishmen had their lands, houses, and offices taken from
them and given to strangers. And this happened specially with the
greatest estates and the highest offices. These passed almost wholly to
strangers. It was not merely that a foreign king won the English crown,
but that his foreign followers displaced Englishmen in nearly all the
highest places in the English kingdom.
=4. Nature of the Norman Conquest.=--Now this special character of the
Norman Conquest of England, as being more than one kind of conquest and
less than another, came chiefly of the fact that a prince who claimed
the English crown by law did in truth win it by force of arms. No one
in England supported his claim; he had to make it good at the head of
a foreign army. And when he had thus won the crown, he had at once
to make himself safe in the strange land which he had conquered, and
to reward those who had helped him to conquer it. He therefore very
largely took away the lands and offices of the English who had fought
against him, and gave them to the Normans and other strangers who had
fought for him. But, as he claimed to be king reigning according to
law, he gave them those lands and offices to be held of the English
crown, according to English law. From this, and from many other
causes, it came about that the descendants of the Normans who settled
in England step by step become, as we may say, Englishmen, if not by
blood yet by adoption. For several generations after the Conquest the
high places of the land, the great estates and chief offices, were
almost always held by men of Norman or other foreign blood. But in a
very few generations these men learned to speak English and to have the
feelings of Englishmen. The effect of the Norman Conquest of England
was neither to make England subject to Normandy nor to make it a Norman
land. It gave to England a much higher place in the world in general
than it had held before. At home, Englishmen were neither driven out
nor turned into Normans, but the Normans in England were turned into
Englishmen. But in this work of turning themselves into Englishmen,
they made, bit by bit, many changes in the laws of England, and in the
language, manners, and thoughts of Englishmen.
=5. Causes of the Norman Conquest.=--We have thus seen what kind of
a work the Norman Conquest of England was, as compared with other
conquests of our own and of other lands. It is well thoroughly to
understand this in a general way before we begin to tell our tale at
all at length. And before we come to tell the tale of the Conquest
itself, we must try clearly to understand what kind of people both
Englishmen and Normans were at the time when the Normans crossed the
sea to conquer England. We must see what were the real causes, and
what were the immediate occasions, which led to an event which seems
so strange as that a Norman Duke should give out that he had a right
to the English crown, and that he should actually be able to win it by
war. And to do this, we must run lightly over the history both of the
English and of the Normans down to the time when they first began to
have any dealings with one another.