Vortigern to establish the Kingdome in his own Line and as he thought to strengthen himself with these Strangers took to Wife Renix the daughter of Hengist his own Wife living and by his dotage on her being a beautiful Lady who knew to take the advantage of his love gave the Saxons those Preferments in the State as the Brittons neglected by him soon became a prey unto them This Alliance and the Fertility of the Land letting in so many of this populous and Warlike Nation that e're Men scarce perceived their danger they were undone And notwithstanding the Combination of the British Nobility with the deposing of Vortigern and Electing King his Son Vortimer a valiant Prince who gave them many stout Battles yet could they not prevail against the Saxons thus established but were forced to quit their Country and betake themselves to remote Mountains and Deserts leaving All to the Invaders Who after many Fortunes dividing the Land into seven Kingdomes extinguished both the Religion Language and even the Name thereof And in this Heptarchy it continued till Egbert K. of the West-Saxons An. 828. being three hundred fifty years after their Entrance subduing the other Kings obtained the whole Dominion to himself And to raze out the Memory of a Division Caused by an Edict the whole Kingdome to be called England of the Angles a people that possest the middle part of this Island § 6. But neither he nor his Successors quietly enjoyed it For the Danes having been first called in to aid the King of Northumberland against the other Kings sorely infested the Land and combining themselves with the Welch and Scots prevailed so much that from the raign of King Britric Anno 387. they continued to afflict the same the space of two hundred fifty five years and in the End by the negligent and ill Government of King Ethelred whose Luxury and Oppression had made way for Division they got the absolute Dominion of the Kingdom and held it twenty six years by three of their Kings successively Canutus governed it twenty years and left it to Harold who raigned two years Canutus the second succeeded his Brother Harold and at a Banquet at Lambeth either by Surfeit or Poison died in the Second year of his Reign When streight the People of the Land by a sudden and general Massacre redeemed themselves from that odious Yoke of a Foreign Subjection which was held to be the Third Dissolution of this State But I cannot see how it should be so accounted seeing that this Canutus never altered the Government but embraced the same Religion maintained the Laws he found and added many Constitutions for the good of the Kingdom And to get into the People's affections he married Emma sometimes Wife to King Ethelred and daughter to Richard Duke of Normandy to whom for his better strength he had likewise given his Sister to Wife And then the short Time of the Government in the Succession of his two Sons seems not to have bred any great Alteration in the state of the Kingdome but onely in the Change of the person of the Prince and the preferment of his Nation before ours which by reason of the long foregoing wars were made incompatible of each other § 7. But yet this gave the Cause to that great and last Mutation of State effected by the Norman For King Etheldred to make his party good against the Invasion of the Danes combined himself with Richard Duke of Normandy married his Sister Emma and by her had Issue Edward after King of England intitled the Confessor who with his Brother were there brought up out of the dangers of the Wars and by the assistance of the Duke reconveyed over after the death of the last Canutus and here invested in the Kingdom For which Offices of Kindness divers Preferments were in way of Gratification bestowed on the Normans as the Archbishoprick of Canterbury and other especial Places and Dignities Ecclesiastical in a manner throughout the whole Land which prepared an easier passage for the Invasion following when the death of this good King Edward without Issue to inherit left the Succession doubtful or else by the Iniquity of times made it seem so For Edgar surnamed Atheling sonne of Edward the Son of King Edmond Ironside had his Claim neglected Either in respect of his Youth which yet was no Barr to his Right or for want of Means and power to oppose against the ambition of others who having swaied the Fortune of the time under an easie-natured Prince had Opportunity enough to work for themselves Although the Worthiness of his Grandfather shewed in the Defence of his Country might seem to deserve to have his Issue remembred in their Right § 8. But the Earl Godwin what in respect that King Edward had matched with his Daughter and what with his own Greatness and popularity having long managed the State of the Kingdome made the Ascent easie for Harold his Son to get up to the Crown and by Crossing the right Line of Succession called up Destruction and Misery both upon his own Race and the whole Kingdome For though Harold had a shew of Title as being the Son of Thira sister to Canutus King of England yet seeing all the Land had received an Oath upon the Massacre and expulsion of the Danes never to have any King of that Nation to raign over them it might seem no lawful Claim But yet the Favour of the people which both his person and Valour had gotten with the Necessity of the Time that required a Man of Spirit and Courage to undertake the burden of war and the Trouble which the World they saw was like to grow into cast it upon him with hope to keep out the Misery of a foreign Subjection and the Insolency of Strangers § 8. But the whole Course of things being overcast and set for Storms and Alteration could not by any providence of Men be prevented Though this new King who is said to have crowned himself used all the Means that a wife and valiant Prince could do both for the well ordering of the State and all provisions for defence yet the disjointed Affections of Men tending to their private Ends and working several Wayes to get up to their Hopes either left the Ship of the State which contained them all to the mercy of the Waves and every Man cast to save himself where the greatest likelyhood of Mastery appeared or else distracted with the â—error of the approaching Mischief failed in their Spirits and courage to withstand it For the Diligence of Men becomes often dasht with their Fear in publick Tumults and with the very Cogitation of the Evil to come § 9. And the first Man which began to afflict his new Government was his own younger Brother Tosty who for a former conceived Hatred was easily set on by the Duke of Normandy and Baldwin Earle of Flanders whose Daughter he had married to assail the Isle of Wight and
to prepare the Way for the great After-work intended And having done much Mischeif on the Coast of Kent Harold with strong Navy forced him to draw towards the North parts where seeking to Land he was repulsed by the Earls Morcar and Edwin and forced to look Aid of the Scots and after of the King of Norway whom he induced to invade this Kingdom with great store of Men and Shipping These landing at Tinmouth and discomfiting their first Encounterers marched into the heart of England without Resistance But being come near to Stamford King Harold with a mighty army met them and after long Fight with the Loss of much Bloud and his best Men he finished that Action with the Death of Tosty and the King of Norway § 10. But from hence was he called with his wearied and broken Forces to a more fatal Business in the South For now William Duke of Normandy pretending a Right to the Crown of England both by the Testament of the late King Edward and also by Parentage upon the Advantage of the Time and the Disfurnishment of those parts Landed at Hastings Near to which Place was Fought that bloudy Battle wherein Harold Valianty Fighting amidst his Enemies Ended his Life and Reign which was scarce of one Year and the English with the loss of 20000. Men and the Flower of the Kingdom became the miserable Prey of the Normans § 11. But how so great a State as this could be with one Blow subdued by so small a Province in such sort as it could never after come to make any general Head against the Conqueror may seem strange and considerable But the Circumstances with the Disposition of that Time as may be Collected from the Writers that lived near it may somewhat though not altogether satisfy us in that point For they say the People of the Kingdom were by their being secure from their Foreign Enemies the Danes and their long Peace which had held in a manner from the Death of Edmon Ironside the space of fifty Years grown neglective of Arms and generally debauched with Luxury and Idlenesse The Clergy licentious and only Literaturâ tumultuariâ contenti Scholae non vitae discebant saith Malmesbury the Nobility given to Gluttony Venery and Oppression the Common sort to Drunkenness and all Disorder And they say that in the last Action of Harold at Stamford the bravest Men perished And himself growing insolent after the Victory retaining the Spoils without Distribution to the Souldiers made them discontent and unruly Or peradventure being not inured to be Commanded by Martial Discipline they were of themselves unmanageable and that coming to the Battle of Hastings with many mercenary Men and a discontented Army there was not that Valour and Resolution shewed as was meet in so important an Occasion Besides the Normans had a peculiar Militia or Fight with Bowes and Arrowes wherein they were Excellently practised and the English unacquainted with that Weapon were altogether unprovided for the Defence And thus they excuse the shame of our Nation THE REIGN OF WILLIAM the I. Anno I. § 12. BY these Advantages William the base Son of Robert Duke of Normandie having gotten the Victory in the Battle near Hastings Marched without any opposition towards London Where the Earls Edwin and Morcar Brothers of eminent Dignity and Respect in the Kingdom laboured with all their Power in solliciting the People for the Conservation of the State And to have Established Edgar Etheling next of the Royal Issue in the Soveraignty whereunto the rest of the Nobility had likewise consented had they not seen the Bishops averse or wavering And all Men generally transported with Fear or corrupted with new Hopes runing from themselves and their endanger'd Country and striving who should be first to entertain the present Fortune sought to preoccupate each other For streight upon his Approach to London the Gates was set all open the Archbishop of Canterbury Stigand with other Bishops the Nobility Magistrates and People all rendred themselves and their Obedience unto him and he returning plausible Promises of his future Goverment was within a short Time after Crowned at Westminster by Aldred Archbishop of York for that Stigand was not held Canonically Invested in that See and yet was thought to have been a principal Adherent to this Enterprise § 13. Here according to the accustomed Form in his Coronation the Bishops and Barons of the Realm took their Oath to be his true and Loyal Subjects and he reciprocally being required thereunto by the Archbishop of York made his personal Oath before the Altar of Saint Peter to defend the holy Church of God and the Rectors of the same to govern the universal people subject unto him justly with care to establish equal Laws for the preservation of Justice and upright Judgment to be used amongst them and taking Hostages for his more Security and Order for the Defence and Government of his Kingdome § 14. At the opening of the Spring then next following he returns into Normandy so to settle his Affairs there as they might not distract him from his Business in England which required his whole powers And to leave all sure behind him he committed the Rule of the Kingdom in his Absence to Odo Bishop of Bayeux his half-Brother by the Mothersside and to his cozen Fitz-Osborn whom he had made Earl of Hereford taking with him the chiefest Men Natives of the State who were likeliest to be Heads to a Revolt as the Arch-Bishop Stigand lately discontented Edgar Atheling a Titular Edwin and Morcar with many other Bishops and Noblemen In his Absence which was all that whole Summer nothing was here attempted against him but only that Edric surnamed the Forrester in the County of Hereford called in the Kings of the Welch to his Aid and Forraged onely the remote Boders of that Country The rest of the Kingdome stood quiet expecting what would become of that new World wherein as yet they found no great Alteration their Lawes and Liberties remaining still the same they did and might hope by this Accession of a new Province the State of England would be inlarged in Dominion abroad and not impaired in profit at home by reason the Nation was but small and being a plentifull and not over-peopled Country they were not likely to impester them § 15. The King now grown to this power soon settled his Estate in Normandy which in his Youth he had alwayes found turbulent within and overhardly neighboured abroad and secured him of that side of the World wherein he was much advantaged by the Time For Philip the first then King of France was a Child who otherwise would never have suffered the Normans being so stubborn and little affectionate to that Crown to have grown to such Greatness and besides was under the Curature of Baudovin Earl of Flanders his Uncle by the Mother whose Daughter King William of England had to wife which Alliance indeed gave him the greatest Means to
the same maner and took none but from such as after his Possession of the Crown Rebelled against him or were slain in the Wars § 34. He imposed no new Taxations on the State and used those he found very moderately As Danegelt being a Tax raised by the former Kings of two Shillings upon every Hilde-Land to maintain the Wars against the Danes he would not have it made an Annual payment but only taken upon urgent Occasion And it was seldom gathered in his Time or his Successors Scutagium or Escuage which was also then an Imposition of Mony upon every Knight's Fee afterwards only imployed for the Service in Scotland was never Levied but in Like Occasions for Stipends and Donatives to Souldiers § 35. Only one Exaction he he was forced to raise to cure a Mischief which arose by his Means In the begining of this Reign the Rancor of the English towards the New-come Normans was such as finding them single in Woods and remote Places they secretly murthered them and the Deed doers for any the severest Courses taken could never be discovered Whereupon it was ordained that the Hundred wherein a Norman was found slain and the Murther not taken should be condemned to pay the King some thirty-six pounds and some twenty eight pounds according to the Quantity of the Hundred And this was done to the End the Punishment being generally inflicted it might particularly deter them and hasten the Discovery of the Malefactor by whom so many must otherwise be interessed This Mulct and the seizing into his Hands the Church Treasure before-noted though both were done by the especial commanding Warrant of Necessity were much taken to heart in the Kingdom both by the Clergy and Common People § 36. And yet otherwise was he to both very gratious and beneficial For upon petition made unto him he relieved the Oppression of such as were Tenants at will of their Lords which were a very great Number and began after this manner All those who were discovered to have had a Hand in any Rebellion and were pardoned only to injoy the Benefit of Life having all their Lively-hood taken from them became Vassails unto those Lords to whom the Possessions were given of all such Lands as were forfeited by Attainders And if by their diligent Service they could attain any Portion of Ground they held it but only so long as it pleased their Lords without having any Estate for themselves or their Children and were oftentimes miserably cast out upon the sudden contrary to Promise upon any small Displeasure Whereupon it was ordained that whatsoever they had obtained of their Lords by any obsequious Service or agreed for upon any Lawful Pact they should hold by an inviolable Law during their own Lives § 37. And for the Clergy other than in this one Act he maintained all their Immunities and Priviledges and they grew very much under him But this it seems was the Cause that made them so much disfigure his Worthiness and leave his Memory in so black Colours to Posterity as they did in delineating his Tyranny Rigor and Oppression when the Nature and Necessary Disposition of his Affairs do much excuse him therein and shew that he was a Prince of a most active Virtue whose Abilities of Nature were equal to his Undertakings of Fortune as preordained for so great a Work And though he might have some Advantage of the Time wherein we often see Men prevail more by the Imbecilities of others than their own Worth Yet let those Times be well examined his Strength and Eminency if we take his just Measure where of an exceeding Proportion Neither wanted he those Encounters and Concurrences of sufficient able Princes his Neighbours to put him to the Trial thereof having on one side the French to grapple withal on the other the Dane far mightier in People and Shipping than himself strongly sided in the Kingdom as greedy to recover their former Footing here as ever and as well or better prepared § 38. But this name of Conquest which ever imports Violience and Misery is of so harsh a found and so odious in nature as a people subdued seldom gives the Conquerour his due tho' never so worthy And especially to a Stranger whom only time must naturalize and let in by degrees into their Liking and good Opinion Wherein also this King was greatly advantaged by reason of his twenty years Government which had much impaired the Memory of former Customs in the younger sort and well inured the elder to the present Usances and Form of State Whereby the Rule was made more easy to his Sons who tho' they were far inferiour to him in Worth were a little better beloved then he and the rather for that they were content somewhat to unwrest the Sovereignty from the Height whereunto he had strained it which brought the State to a better proportion of Harmony § 39. Of those who were the especial Men of Employment in his Reign time has shut us out from the knowledge of many it being in the Fortune of Kings to have the Names and Memory of their Counsellors like Rivers in the Ocean Buried in their Glory Yet these we find principally mentioned in Stories First William Fitz-Osborne Earl of Hereford the especial Mover and Counsellor of this Voiage of England reported also to have furnished forty Ships at his own Charge for the Enterprise Odo Bishop of Bayeux and Earl of Kent sometimes his Viceroy in England and seems also to have managed the Finances but of such excessive Avarice that he gathered so much Treasure as he went about to buy the Papacy and attempting to go to Rome about the same the King staid him at Home in a fair Prison and excused the matter upon Exclamation made in this sort that he only Imprisoned the Earl of Kent not the Bishop of Bayeux Beside he had Lanfranc a Man of universal Learning and an excellent Lawyer Born in Lumbardy who peradventure might introduce something of the Constitutions of that Province to the making up our Laws which in many things seem to participate with theirs And no doubt he had many others else For being of a strong Constitution of Judgment he could not but be strongly furnished in that kind seeing ever weak Princes have weak Sides and our most renowed Kings have been best underset with Counsel and happily served with the ablest Officers § 40. He had a fair issue by Maud his Wife Four Sons and Five Daughters To Robert his Eldest Son he left the Dutchy of Normandy to William the Kingdom of England and to Henry his Treasure with an Annual Pension of 8000. pounds to be paid him by his two Brothers Richard that was his Second Son Died in his Youth of a surfeit taken by Hunting in the New Forrest and began the fatal Misfortune that followed of that place by the Death of King William the Second there slain with an Arrow and of Richard the Son of Robert Duke of
his Conâ—uest Besides he had made the Pope most sure unto him by promising if hee subdued this Kingdome to hold it of the Church for which Alexander uppon his enterprize sent him a Banner and a Hair of Saint Peter He held strict Amity also with the Princes of France that bordered upon him and might interrupt his Affairs as with the Earls of Anjou Poictou Main Ponthieu Bologne and others to every one of whom he had promised Lands in England upon their Aids lent him And to keep fair with the State of France in general he ingaged himself to their King to hold this Kingdome from him and to do him homage for the same by which means he so strongly under set himself as made his Fortune such as it was § 16. And now having disposed his Affairs in Normandy he returns towards Winter into England Where he was to satisfie three sorts of men First the especial Adventurers in the Action Secondly those of his own People whose Merits or Nearness deserved Recompence whereof the Number being so great many must have their Expectations Fed though not satisfied Thirdly the People of this Kingdom by whom he must now subsist For being not able with his own Nation so to People the same as to defend it if he should proceed to a general Extirpation of the Natural Inhabitants he was likewise to give them Satisfaction Wherein he had more to do than in his Battle at Hastings seeing all Remunerations with discharge of Monies must be raised out of the Stock of the Kingdom which could not be pleasing to the State in general And all Preferments and Dignities conferred on his must be either by Vacancies or displacing others which needs must breed very feeling Grievances in particular And yet we find no great Men thrust out of their Rooms but such as put themselves out by their Revolting after his Establishment in the Crown § 17. In the second Year of his Reign no Exaction was made to raise Treasure for these Satisfactions so that it seems he contented himself and his for the time only with what he found here ready and with filling up their Places who were slain in these two last Battles or fled as many were out of the Kingdom with the Sons of Harold But the English Nobility incompatible of these new Concurrents found notwithstanding a Disproportion of Grace and a darkning of their Dignities by the Interposition of so many as must needs lessen their Light And doubting daily to be more impaired in Honour and Estate all the Chiefest of them conspired and fled some into Scotland some into Denmark to try if by Aid from abroad they might recover themselves and their Greatness again at home § 18. Amongst these the Cheifest was Edgar Atheling intitled Englands Darling with shewed the Peoples Zeal to his Bloud and with him besides his Mother Agatha and his two Sisters Christine and Margaret fled the Earls Edwin and Morcar Marleswin Hereward Gospatric and Siward and shortly after Stigand and Aldred the two Arch-Bishops with many other Noblemen and divers of the Clergy Those that fled into Scotland were all Hospitably received of King Malcolm whom it concerned to look to his own his Neighbour's House being thus on Fire and to succour a Party against so dangerous an Incommer Which made him not only to entertain them but to enter League with them for the Publick safety And to combine himself the more firmly he Married Margaret the Sister of Edgar by whom the Bloud of our antient Saxon Kings was conjoyned with the Norman in Henry the Second and so became English again § 19. These Noblemen with the Aid of the Scots and Danes in the third year of this King's Reign raised great Commotions in the North beyond Humber and wrought very valiantly themselves to recover their lost Country But now it being too late and the Occasion not taken before the settling of the Government whilest it was new and brandling they prevailed nothing but gave Advantage to the Conqueror to make himself more then he was for all Conspiracies of Subjects that succeed not advance the Soveraignty And nothing gave Root to the Normans planting here more then the petty Revolts made by scattered Troops in several parts begun without Order and weakly seconded without Resolution whereas nothing could be done for the general Recovery but by the general rising of the People which seldom we see to happen And for this the new King had taken good Order First by disarming them then by sorbidding them Assemblies and all secret Intercourse upon heavy Penalties that every Man at the closing of the Day by the Warning of a Bell should cover his Fire and go to bed by making them to be bound Pledges one for another to answer for their Obedience and Loyalty by building divers Fortresses in several parts of the Kingdom to awe the Country and to hold them in with many such like provisions § 20. So that these Lords though they did as they might hold him doing in the North and imbroil themselves in an unsuccessful Businesse yet he having all the South settled under his Power with well practised and prepared Forces could not but needs tire and consume them in the end and in the mean Time invest the Normans in their Rooms and possessions forfeited by this Attempt As the Earldom and all the Lands which Edwin held in Yorkshire were given to Alanus Earl of Brittain his Nephew the Archbishoprick of Canterbury conferred on Lanfranc an Italian That of York on Thomas his Chaplain a Norman and all the rest both of the Clergy and others which fled and were out had likewise their Places supplied by Normans § 21. And now the King having appeased the Commotion in the West where the Sons of Harold had landed with Forces out of Ireland and Wales and also represt the Rebellion of Oxford he takes his Journy in Person Northward with all Expedition least the Enemy there should grow too great in Heart and Opinion by the Defeat of his Lieutenant with 700 Normans at Durham and the great Slaughter of his People made at York Where at his first coming he so wrought as he corrupted the Generals of the Danes with Mony and sent them well contented away and then set upon the Army of the Earls weakened both in Strength and Hope by this Departure of their Confederates and put them to Flight Which done he utterly wasted and laid desolate all that goodly Country between York and Durham the space of Sixty Miles that it might be no more a Succour to the Revolter And the like Course he used on all the Coasts where any certain Landings were known thereby to prevent Invasions and so returned to London where he seized into his Hands all the Plate Jewels and Treasure within all the Monasteries of England pretending that the Rebels and their Assisters had conveyed their Riches into these Religious Houses as into Places Priviledged and free from Seizure to