HOW DUKE WILLIAM BECAME KING.
=1. The Election of Edgar.=--After the great battle, Duke William is
said to have expected that all England would at once bow to him. In
this hope he was disappointed. For a full month after the battle, no
one submitted to him except in the places where he actually showed
himself with his army. The general mind of England was to choose
another king and to carry on the war under him. But it was hard to
know whom to choose. Harold’s brothers were dead; his sons were young,
and it is not clear whether they were born in lawful wedlock. Edwin
and Morkere had by this time reached London; but no one in southern
England was the least likely to choose either of them. The only thing
left to do was to choose young Edgar, the last of the old kingly house.
The Wise Men in London therefore chose Edgar as king. He did one or
two acts of kingly power; but he was never full king, as not being
crowned. He would doubtless have been crowned at Christmas, had things
turned out otherwise. When he was chosen, Edwin and Morkere withdrew
their forces and went back to their own earldoms, taking their sister
Ealdgyth, the widow of Harold, with them to Chester. They most likely
thought, either that William would be satisfied with occupying the
lands which had been held by Harold and his brothers, or else that they
would be able to hold their own earldoms against him. By so doing,
they destroyed the last chance of England, which was for the whole land
to rally faithfully round Edgar. Southern England alone, weakened by
the slaughter on Senlac, was quite unable to withstand William.
=2. William’s March.=--After the battle William waited five days at
Hastings, thinking that men would come in and bow to him. But as none
came in, he marched on into Kent. The main strength of that land had
been cut off in the battle; resistance was therefore not to be thought
of, and one place submitted after another. So did Dover, where was
one of the few castles in England, and Canterbury. At this point
William’s march was checked by sickness; but even then he was able to
send messengers to Winchester. That city, the dwelling-place of the
widowed Lady Edith, also submitted. He then marched towards London; but
he did not cross the Thames; his policy was to win the great city by
first occupying the lands all round it. He however defeated a sally of
the men of London and burned the suburb of Southwark. He then marched
along the right bank of the Thames to Wallingford, where he crossed
the river. He then struck eastward to Berkhampstead, meaning to hem in
London from the north. After Berkhampstead, he had no need, in this
first campaign, to march any further as an enemy.
=3. William’s Election and Coronation.=--The men of London were at
first eager to carry on the war. But they were weakened by the treason
of the Northern earls, and, as William gradually came round to the
north of the city, their hearts failed them. The Wise Men and the
citizens at last agreed that there was nothing to be done but to submit
to William. So the King-elect Edgar gave up his claim, and went with
Archbishop Ealdred and the other chief men, and offered William the
crown. It is said that he had some scruple in accepting it while he
actually held so small a part of the kingdom; but he could not fail
to see how great a gain it would be to him in winning the rest, if he
could give himself out as the King of the English, lawfully chosen
and crowned. He therefore came to London, and on Christmas-day he was
regularly crowned and anointed by Ealdred, as Harold had been on the
day of the Epiphany. At his crowning his Norman soldiers kept guard
outside the minster. And when the people within were asked whether
they would have Duke William for their king, and they shouted, Yea,
Yea, the Normans outside thought that some harm was doing to the Duke;
so--a strange way of helping him, one would think--they set fire to the
houses near the church. Others rushed out of the church to quench the
fire, and there was much confusion and damage. Thus the new King’s old
and new subjects quarrelled on the very day of his crowning, though
hardly by any fault of his. Meanwhile a fortress, the first beginning
of the famous Tower of London, was rising to keep the city in order.
While it was building, the King withdrew to Barking in Essex, not far
from London.
=4. The Submission of the Northern Earls.=--While King William was
at Barking, most of the chief men of the north of England came and
bowed to him, as the chief men of the south had done at Berkhampstead.
Edwin and Morkere saw by this time that William had no mind for half
a kingdom; so they came and bowed to him, and were restored to their
earldoms. Most likely Waltheof did the same. So did Copsige, the former
favourite and lieutenant of Tostig, and other men of power in those
parts. William received them all graciously. But it would seem that
Oswulf did not come. At least it is certain that he gave the new King
some offence; for before long, in February, William deprived him of
his earldom and gave it to Copsige.
=5. William’s Position.=--William was now King of the English, as far
as a regular election and coronation and the submission of the chief
men of the land could make him so. But it must not be thought that he
had as yet any real authority over the whole kingdom. He had actual
possession of the south-eastern part, from Hampshire to Norfolk. Of
the chief cities he held London, Winchester, Canterbury, Norwich,
and most likely Oxford. And it would seem that he was acknowledged
in part of Herefordshire, where a Norman, Osbern by name, one of the
old builders of Richard’s Castle, had been sheriff under Edward. But
in all northern, western, and north-western England, he was only king
so far as that there was no other king. No Norman soldier had been
seen anywhere near York, Exeter, Lincoln, or Chester. The submission
of the earls carried with it no real obedience on the part of their
earldoms. But it suited William’s policy, now that he was acknowledged
as king, to act in all things as if he had full power everywhere. Thus
he restored to Edwin and the rest the lands and offices which he had as
yet no means of taking from them. Thus he professed to give the earldom
of Oswulf to Copsige. This last story teaches us what the real state
of things was. The truth is that Copsige, an enemy of Oswulf’s, wished
to supplant him. It suited his ends to be able to use William’s name,
and it suited William to give him authority to do so. But William was
not able to give Copsige any real power in Northumberland. Very soon
after he had gone thither as the earl appointed by the new king, he was
killed by the partisans of Oswulf, who kept the earldom till later in
the year he was himself killed by a robber.
=6. William’s Confiscations and Grants of Land.=--In William’s reading
of the law, he had himself been, ever since Edward’s death, not indeed
full king, which he could not be till he was crowned and anointed, but
the only person who had a right to become king. Those who had hindered
him from taking his crown peaceably, those above all who had fought
against him at Senlac, were rebels and traitors. Harold, he held,
was no king, but only an usurper; in the legal language of William’s
reign, he is never called King but only Earl, and all his acts as king
are looked on as of no strength. In short, in William’s view, as no
Englishman had fought for him, as many Englishmen had fought against
him, the whole land of the kingdom, except of course Church land, was
forfeited to the crown. He might, if he chose, take it all, and either
keep it himself or grant it to whom he would. But in the greater part
of England he could not as yet do this, and he was too wise to try to
do it anywhere all at once. Much land in England, that which was called
_folkland_, was in the beginning the common land of the nation. This
had been for a long time coming more and more to be looked on as the
land of the king. And now that the king was a foreign conqueror, the
change was fully carried out, and the _folkland_ passed to the new
king as his own. So did the great estates of Harold and the rest of
the house of Godwine, and of others who had died on Senlac. All this
King William took to himself, to keep as the _demesne_ of the crown or
to reward his Norman followers, as he would. As for the lands of men
who submitted quietly, he seems at first to have commonly granted them
back again. For this he often took a payment; we read of the English
generally buying back their lands, and also of particular cases where
this was done. But it was the universal rule that no man, Norman or
English, had any right to lands, whether he had held them before or
not, unless he could prove a grant from King William, which was best
proved by having the King’s writ and seal to show. Thus, from the very
beginning of his reign, as any man, Norman or English, offended him or
did him good service, William was always seizing on land and making
grants of land till, by the end of his reign, by far the greater part
of the land of England had changed hands. Most of it was granted to
Normans or other strangers, but Englishmen who in any way won his
favour both kept their old lands and received new grants. All this
began now; but it only began; it was only step by step that the chief
offices and estates of England passed from the hands of Englishmen into
the hands of strangers. As yet it was only in south-eastern England
that he could either take or grant anything.
=7. William’s Visit to Normandy.=--King William now thought that it was
time to go for a while to his own land; so he crossed into Normandy
for the feast of Easter in the year 1067. It was natural that he
should wish to show himself to his old friends and subjects in his new
character of King and Conqueror. And it was part of his policy too to
treat England as if it was thoroughly his own, and thereby to see how
far it really was so. In so doing it was needful to provide for the
government of the kingdom while he was away. The north he could not
help leaving as it was; the part of the kingdom which was really in his
power he put under the rule of his brother Bishop Odo and his chief
friend William Fitz-Osbern. To them he also gave earldoms, Kent to Odo
and Hereford to William. But neither then nor afterwards did he set
earls in the old fashion over the whole land; he set them only on the
coasts or borders which were likely to be attacked. Thus the Earl of
Hereford had to keep the land against the Welsh, and the Earl of Kent
to keep it against any attacks from the mainland. Then the King called
on all the chief men of England to go in his train to Normandy. He took
with him Edgar the king of a moment, Archbishop Stigand, the Earls
Edwin, Morkere, and Waltheof, and other men of power in the land. They
all went as his honoured guests and friends, though they were in truth
rather to be called hostages and prisoners. He then passed through many
parts of Normandy and gave gifts to many churches. He stayed there till
December. By that time events had happened which called him back to
England.