The History of England, Volume I · Chapter 19Consequences of the Battle of Hastings.—Submission of the English.— Settlement of the Government.—King's Return to Normandy.—Discontents of the English.—Their Insurrections.—Rigours of the Norman Gove
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[MN 9th Sept. Death and character of William the Conqueror.] Few princes have been more fortunate than this great monarch, or were better entitled to grandeur and prosperity, from the abilities and the vigour of mind which he displayed in all his conduct. His spirit was bold and enterprising, yet guided by prudence: his ambition, which was exorbitant, and lay little under the restraints of justice, still less under those of humanity, ever submitted to the dictates of sound policy. Born in an age when the minds of men were intractable and unacquainted with submission, he was yet able to direct them to his purposes; and partly from the ascendant of his vehement character, partly from art and dissimulation, to establish an unlimited authority. Though not insensible to generosity, he was hardened against compassion; and he seemed equally ostentatious and equally ambitious of show and parade in his clemency and in his severity. The maxims of his administration were austere; but might have been useful, had they been solely employed to preserve order in an established government [x]; they were ill calculated for softening the rigours which, under the most gentle management, are inseparable from conquest. His attempt against England was the last great enterprise of the kind which, during the course of seven hundred years, has fully succeeded in Europe; and the force of his genius broke through those limits, which first the feudal institutions, then the refined policy of princes, have fixed to the several states of Christendom. Though he rendered himself infinitely odious to his English subjects, he transmitted his power to his posterity, and the throne is still filled by his descendants: a proof, that the foundations which he laid were firm and solid, and that, amidst all his violence, while he seemed only to gratify the present passion, he had still an eye towards futurity. [FN [x] M. West. p. 230. Anglia Sacra, vol. i. p. 258.]
Some writers have been desirous of refusing to this prince the title of Conqueror, in the sense which that term commonly bears; and, on pretence that the word is sometimes in old books applied to such as make an acquisition of territory by any means, they are willing to reject William's title, by right of war, to the crown of England. It is needless to enter into a controversy, which, by the terms of it, must necessarily degenerate into a dispute of words. It suffices to say, that the Duke of Normandy's first invasion of the island was hostile; that his subsequent administration was entirely supported by arms; that in the very frame of his laws, he made a distinction between the Normans and English, to the advantage of the former [y]; that he acted in every thing as absolute master over the natives, whose interest and affections he totally disregarded; and that if there was an interval when he assumed the appearance of a legal sovereign, the period was very short, and was nothing but a temporary sacrifice, which he, as has been the case with most conquerors, was obliged to make of his inclination to his present policy. Scarce any of those revolutions, which both in history and in common language, have always been denominated conquests, appear equally violent, or were attended with so sudden an alteration both of power and property. The Roman state, which spread its dominion over Europe, left the rights of individuals in a great measure untouched; and those civilized conquerors, while they made their own country the seat of empire, found that they could draw most advantage from the subjected provinces, by securing to the natives the free enjoyment of their own laws and of their private possessions. The barbarians who subdued the Roman empire, though they settled in the conquered countries, yet being accustomed to a rude uncultivated life, found a part only of the land sufficient to supply all their wants; and they were not tempted to seize extensive possessions, which they knew neither how to cultivate nor enjoy. But the Normans and other foreigners, who followed the standard of William, while they made the vanquished kingdom the seat of government, were yet so far advanced in arts as to be acquainted with the advantages of a large property; and having totally subdued the natives, they pushed the rights of conquest (very extensive in the eyes of avarice and ambition, however narrow in those of reason) to the utmost extremity against them. Except the former conquest of England by the Saxons themselves, who were induced, by peculiar circumstances, to proceed even to the extermination of the natives, it would be difficult to find in all history a revolution more destructive, or attended with a more complete subjection of the ancient inhabitants. Contumely seems even to have been wantonly added to oppression [z]; and the natives were universally reduced to such a state of meanness and poverty, that the English name became a term of reproach; and several generations elapsed before one family of Saxon pedigree was raised to any considerable honours; or could so much as attain the rank of baron of the realm [a]. These facts are so apparent from the whole tenour of the English history, that none would have been tempted to deny or elude them, were they not heated by the controversies of faction; while one party was ABSURDLY afraid of those ABSURD consequences, which they saw the other party inclined to draw from this event. But it is evident that the present rights and privileges of the people, who are a mixture of English and Normans, can never be affected by a transaction, which passed seven hundred years ago; and as all ancient authors [b] who lived nearest the time, and best knew the state of the country, unanimously speak of the Norman dominion as a conquest by war and arms, no reasonable man, from the fear of imaginary consequences, will ever be tempted to reject their concurring and undoubted testimony. [FN [y] Hoveden, p. 600. [z] H. Hunt. p. 370. Brompton, p. 980. [a] So late as the reign of King Stephen, the Earl of Albemarle, before the battle of the Standard, addressed the officers of his army in these terms, PROCERES ANGLIAE CLARISSIMI ET GENERE NORMANNI, &c. Brompton, p. 1026. See farther Abbas Rieval, p. 339, &c. All the barons and military men of England still called themselves Normans. [b] See note [L], at the end of the volume.]
King William had issue, besides his three sons who survived him, five daughters, to wit, (1.) Cicely, a nun in the monastery of Feschamp, afterwards abbess in the Holy Trinity at Caen, where she died in 1127. (2.) Constantia, married to Alan Fergent, Earl of Britany. She died without issue. (3.) Alice, contracted to Harold. (4.) Adela, married to Stephen, Earl of Blois, by whom she had four sons, William, Theobald, Henry, and Stephen; of whom the elder was neglected on account of the imbecility of his understanding. (5.) Agatha, who died a virgin, but was betrothed to the King of Gallicia. She died on her journey thither, before she joined her bridegroom.