After William's victory at Hastings and march on London (SS74, 107),
the National Council chose him sovereign,--they would not have dared
to refuse,--and he was crowned by the Archbishop of York in
Westminster Abbey. This coronation made him the legal successor of
the line of English kings. In form, therefore, there was no break in
the order of government; for though William had forced himself upon
the throne, he had done so according to law and custom, and not
directly by the sword.
Great changed followed the conquest, but they were not violent. The
King abolished the four great earldoms (S64), and restored national
unity. He gradually dispossessed the chief English landholders of
their lands, and bestowed them, under strict feudal laws, on his
Norman followers. He likewise gave all the highest positions in the
Church to Norman bishops and abbots. The National Council now changed
its character. It became simply a body of Norman barons, who were
bound by feudal custom to meet with the King. But they did not
restrain his authority; for William would brook no interference with
his will from any one, not even from the Pope himself (S118).
But though the Conqueror had a tyrant's power, he rarely used it like
a tyrant. We have seen[1] that the great excellence of the early
English government lay in the fact that the towns, hundreds, and
shires were self-governing in all local matters; the drawback to this
system was its lack of unity and of a strong central power that could
make itself respected and obeyed. William supplied this power,--
without which there could be no true national strength,--yet at the
same time he was careful to encourage the local system of self-
government. He gave London a liberal charter to protect its rights
and liberties (S107). He began the organization of a royal court of
justice; he checked the rapacious Norman barons in their efforts to
get control of the people's courts.
[1] See SS2, 3 of this Summary.
Furthermore, side by side with the feudal cavalry army, he maintained
the old English county militia of foot soldiers, in which every
freeman was bound to serve. He used this militia, when necessary, to
prevent the barons from getting the upper hand, and so destroying
those liberties which were protected by the Crown as its own best
safeguard against the plots of the nobles.
Next, William had a census, survey, and valuation made of all the
estates in the kingdom outside London which were worth examination.
The result of this great work was recorded in Domesday Book (S120).
By means of that book--still preserved--the King knew what no English
ruler had known before him; that was, the property-holding population
and resources of the kingdom. Thus a solid foundation was laid on
which to establish the feudal revenue and the military power of the
Crown.
Finally, just before his death, the Conqueror completed the
organization of his government. Hitherto the vassals of the great
barons had been bound to them alone. They were sworn to fight for
their masters, even if those masters rose in open rebellion against
the sovereign. William changed all that. At a meeting held at
Salisbury, 1086, he compelled every landholder in England, from the
greatest to the smallest,--sixty thousand, it is said,--to swear to be
"faithful to him against all others" (S121). By that oath he "broke
the neck of the Feudal System" as a form of government, though he
retained and developed the principle of feudal land tenure. Thus at
one stroke he made the Crown the supreme power in England; had he not
done so, the nation would soon have fallen prey to civil war.