L however, Lanfranc, an Italian, who was made archbishop of Canterbury, proved himself, by his wisdom and prudence, and by the influence he had with the king, which he used in trying to moderate the violences of his temper, one of the best friends the English had. During this time, Edgar Atheling had taken refuge with Malcolm, king of Scotland, who had given a kind reception to him, and to several nobles who had fled out of England with him. Malcolm married one of Edgar's sisters; and, assisted by the king of Denmark, made an attempt to drive out the Normans, and place Edgar on the throne of his ancestors. William soon obliged the Scots and Danes to retreat; and with a view, as is said, to place an impenetrable barrier between England and Scotland, he depopulated a tract of sixty miles north of the Humber, and made it quite a desert. The inhabitants, those who could, fled into Scotland, where they were humanely received. The rest perished miserably from cold and hunger: and the land, after this dreadful devastation, remained uncultivated for nine years. A. D. 1071. Malcolm being about to make a fresh attempt in favor of Edgar, William marched against him with a large army. The two armies met on the borders of Scotland, and a battle was about to ensue; but the two kings made peace with each other; one of the conditions of which was, that Edgar Atheling should be given up to William, who promised, if he would renounce his pretensions to the throne of England, to give him a mark a day, which was considered a very handsome allowance in those days. Edgar assented to these terms, and both he and William ever after continued true to their agreement. It seemed, however, as if William had been destined never to enjoy repose; for now that he had no more disturbances to fear from either the English or Scots, his throne and life were endangered by a conspiracy amongst his own Norman nobles, those very persons, to enrich whom he had been so often guilty of injustice and cruelty. This What became of Edgar Atheling? By what cruel measure did William repel the Scots and Danes? conspiracy was, however, discovered to him by the conscientiousness of Waltheoff, the only Saxon whom he had retained in his favor, and the only one of the conspirators who was punished, though his voluntary confession had preserved the king. Fresh vexations next awaited William in his own family, from the turbulent and ungoverned tempers of his sons; particularly of the two eldest, Robert and William. These princes had been in a state of enmity with each other; and it is said that a boyish frolic, in which one of them threw some water on his brother's head, was the beginning of the quarrel between them. At last, Robert, who was less malignant than William, but more passionate and headstrong, proceeded, from this quarrel with his brother, to an open rebellion against his father, whom, in an encounter, not knowing who it was, he wounded and struck off his horse. When he saw that it was the king with whom he had been engaged, his remorse and horror, at the thought of having been so nearly guilty of killing his own father, subdued in a moment all his rebellious and proud feelings: and he sprung from his horse in an agony of grief, and threw himself on his knees at the king's feet. William was too much offended to forgive his son; and, saying many bitter words to him, remounted, and returned to his own army: and it was some time before he would listen to Robert's contrite entreaties. At last, queen Matilda, who was a very good and pious woman, and who was made very unhappy by the dissentions in her family, prevailed with the king to pardon his son. One would have thought that, after all these turmoils, William would have been glad of some repose; but, on the contrary, on some trifling quarrel with Philip the First, king of France, he marched an army into that country, destroying and laying waste every thing: and as it was in the month of July, when the harvest was ripe, the devastation What was the character of Robert and William, the Conqueror's sons? To what occurrence did the rebellion of Robert against his father lead? By whose intercession was William reconciled to his son? E he made was very dreadful, particularly as he burnt every town and village he passed through. William's cruelty, at length brought on him its own punishment; for after burning the town of Mantes, his horse, flinching from the smoking ashes, made a violent plunge; and the king, being very corpulent, got a bruise, which in a few days caused his death. He died in 1087, at the abbey of St. Gervaise, near Rouen, and was buried at Caen. He was in the sixty-third year of his age, and had reigned twenty-one years in England. He married Matilda, daughter of the earl of Flanders, and had four sons and five daughters: Robert, to whom he left the dukedom of Normandy; William, king of England; Henry, to whom he left his mother Matilda's fortune; Richard, who died young; Adela married Stephen count de Blois, and five sons and daughters that died young. It is above 700 years since the death of William the Conqueror, and there are yet remaining two remarkable memorials of his reign and character. The one is the New Forest, in Hampshire; to make which, for the sake of enjoying the pleasure of the chase, he depopulated a large district, destroyed thirty villages, and drove out the inhabi tants. The other memorial is a less painful one. It is a book which he caused to be made, called Doomsday Book, being a survey of the whole kingdom, giving an account of the extent of every parish, with all particulars respecting it.— This book is still preserved in the Tower; and all possessors of estates, who are curious to know to whom their lands belonged at the Conquest, whether it was arable or pasture, what was then its value, and, in some cases, what cattle it was stocked with, may there make themselves acquainted with these circumstances. The national appellation of Britons, that of the primitive islanders, in time gave place to that of Anglo-Saxons-the How and where did William die? Who were William's wife and children? What is the most memorable act of William? Who were the Anglo-Saxons? latter signifying Saxons born in England, so that a history of the Anglo-Saxons relates to the people who inhabited England from the Saxon to the Norman invasion. The Anglo-Saxons were divided into nobility and vassals; that is, into great landholders and the cultivators of their estates. The conquest changed the owners of property in England, but it did not much change the order of rank in the king's subjects. There were several degrees, and more distinct than classes of people in the present age. The highest in rank, after the king, were the barons, who were made rich and powerful by the lands of the Anglo-Saxon nobles. Another class was composed of Norman and foreign soldiers, who had helped to achieve the conquest of the island, and who settled on the lands that had been given to their leaders, and became their vassals and tenants. With this class became blended gradually the AngloSaxon thanes, or nobles, who were all degraded from their former rank, and stripped of the greater part of their possessions; and also the Anglo-Saxon ceorls, or farmers, who, if they had never taken up arms against the Conqueror, were allowed, on putting themselves under the protection of some Norman baron, to live without molestation. We may suppose, in general, that from this extensive class are chiefly derived the English gentlemen and farmers. Saxon and Norman are now melted together. But it was not till long after William and his followers were all dead and gone, that the descendants of the two nations could endure each other; the Normans holding in contempt the stupid ignorant Saxons; and the Saxons detesting their tyrannical oppressors. The clergy also formed a distinct numerous body. At the time of the Norman invasion, nearly a third part of the land is said to have belonged to monasteries, nunneries, and the clergy; and this is supposed to have been one great cause of the duke of Normandy's easy victory. William Who were the lords and tenants after the Conquest? What became of the Anglo-Saxon lords? Did the Saxons and Normans like each other? Were the clergy a numerous and wealthy class among the AngloSaxons? suffered the laboring classes to remain very much in the condition in which he found them. The lowest rank of the people had few, if any, rights of their own. These were usually, like the Russian peasants of our own times, considered as annexed to the estate on which they lived, and were bought and sold together with it. Domes tic slaves also were very numerous; and these were the most miserable and degraded of any. The children of these poor people were slaves equally with their parents: and thus the number of persons in the condition of slavery was very great; though there were many ways by which emancipation might be obtained, and many free laborers, who worked for hire, as the laborers of our own times do now. In towns there was another class of people called Burghers. These were tradesmen, or merchants, who joined together in little societies: but in this reign they had not become a numerous, or at least not a powerful body. William used every means in his power to introduce the Norman or French into England, and to eradicate the Anglo-Saxon language. He altered many of the old Saxon laws, and established Norman instead; which were all written in Norman-French; and he ordered that law-business should be carried on in that language. William also required that French, instead of Saxon, should be taught to the children in the schools: but it is easier to conquer a kingdom than to change a language: and after an ineffectual struggle, which lasted three centu ries, the Saxon got the better at last; and, with some intermixture of the Norman, forms the basis of the language we now speak. Were slaves numerous in England under the Norman Conqueror? Who were the burghers? How did William modify the Saxon tongue in England? Did he succeed in introducing the French into England? |