CHAPTER IX.
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.