[1] Speed, 441. This was said to "the Conqueror," and this Abbot of
St. Alban's paid dearly for the patriotism which had then become
treason.
[2] A circumstance which Milton has recorded.
[3] Our great lawyers probably imagined that the honour of the
country is implicated in the title usually accorded to William the
Norman; SPELMAN, the great antiquary, and BLACKSTONE, the historian
and the expounder of our laws, have absolutely explained away the
assumed title of "the Conqueror" to a mere technical feudal term of
"_Conquestor, or acquirer of any estate out of the common course of
inheritance_." The first purchaser (that is, he who brought the
estate into the family which at present owns it) was styled "the
Conqueror," _and such is still the proper phrase in the law of
Scotland_. RITSON is indignant at what he calls "a pitiful forensic
quibble."
But another great lawyer and lord chancellor, the sedate WHITELOCKE,
positively asserts that "William only conquered Harold and his army;
for he never was, nor _pretended to be_, the conqueror of England,
although the _sycophant monks of the time_ gave him that
title."--Whitelocke's "Hist. of England," 33.
In a charter, granting certain lands for the church of St. Paul's,
which Stowe has translated from the record in the Tower, William
denominates himself, "by the grace of God, _King of Englishmen_" (Rex
Anglorum), and addresses it "to all his well-beloved _French and
English people_, greeting."--Stowe's "Survey of London," 326, Edit.
1603. Did William on any occasion declare that he was "the Conqueror"
as well as the sovereign of England? When William attempted to learn
the Saxon language, it is obvious that he did not desire to remind
his new subjects that he ruled as Voltaire sang of his hero,--
------------------qui regna sur la France,
Par droit de Conquete et par droit de Naissance.
[4] The final history of these citadels may illustrate that verse of
Goldsmith which reminds us--
"To fly from PETTY TYRANTS--to THE THRONE!"
In the short space of seventy years the owners of those castles
bearded even majesty itself; these lords, by their undue share of
power, were in perpetual revolt; till two royal persons, though
opposed to each other, Stephen and Maude, decreed for their mutual
interest the demolition of fifteen hundred and fifteen castles. They
were razed by commission, or by writs to the sheriffs; and a law was
further enacted that "none hereafter, without license, should
embattle his house." And thus was broken this aristocracy of castles.
See two dissertations on "Castles," by Sir ROBERT SUTTON, and by
AGARD; "Curious Discourses by Eminent Antiquaries," i. 104 and 188.
This number of castles seems incredible; possibly many were
"embattled houses." My learned friend, the Rev. Joseph Hunter, an
antiquary most versant in manuscripts, inclines to think there may be
some scriptural error of the ancient scribe, who was likely to add or
to leave out a cipher, without much comprehension of the numerals he
was transcribing without a thought, like what happened to the eleven
thousand virgins of St. Ursula.
[5] Speed, 440.
[6] A curious fact discovered by Mr. Turner in a Cottonian manuscript
has brought this circumstance to our knowledge. In a grant of land in
Cornwall, an Anglo-Saxon king, after mentioning the Saxon name of the
place, adds, "which the inhabitants there called, _barbarico nomine_,
by the barbarous name of Pendyfig;" which was the British or Welsh
name.--"Vindication of the Ancient British Poems," 8.
[7] Camden has noticed this striking circumstance in his "Britannia."
See also Percy's Preface to Mallett's "Northern Antiquities," xxxix.
[8] See his Preface to the prose romance of "La Fleur des Batailles."
[9] Miss Gurney, who has honourably been hailed as "the Elstob of her
age," privately printed her own close version of the "Saxon
Chronicle" from the printed text, 1810. Happy lady! who, when
sickness had made her its prisoner, opened the "Saxon Chronicle;" and
she learned that she might teach the learned.
The Rev. Dr. INGRAM, principal of Trinity College, Oxon, has since
published his translation, accompanied by the original, a collation
of the manuscripts, and notes critical and explanatory. 1823. 4to. A
volume not less valuable than curious.