obtaining from the Crown a charter letting the town to the burghers at a certain rent. By degrees they gained, usually by purchase, further privileges and more complete independence. They were still however liable to taxes, called tallages, at the pleasure of the King. Henry I. granted a charter to the citizens of London, by which he gave them large privileges. He permitted them to appoint their own sheriff, to have their ancient hunting-grounds,-a mighty favour from one of the Norman Kings, who were loth to let anyone hunt but themselves; and he freed them from the obligation to accept the trial by battle. To King John, the son of Henry II., London owed the privilege of choosing its own Mayor, an officer who, with his French title, first appears early in the reign of John's brother and predecessor on the throne, Richard I. The example set by the Kings in their cities and boroughs was followed by the great lords who held boroughs, to which they granted similar privileges. Trade gilds in like manner bought charters. These gilds or sworn brotherhoods were very old institutions in England, and in their earliest form were associations for religious purposes, for mutual defence against injury, or for mutual relief in poverty. Of the craft-gilds or associations of free handicraftsmen, the most ancient were those of the weavers. Henry I. chartered the weavers of Oxford, and also those of London, who paid him in return eighteen marks yearly. By this London charter the right of exercising the craft within the City, Southwark, or other places belonging to London, was confined to members of the gild. The craft-gilds were in fact a kind of trade-unions, though composed of masters; but these masters were but small people, for in those days there were no great employers of labour such as there are now, and therefore no large class of hired workmen. The merchant-gilds or gilds of traders by degrees grew into the governing bodies of their towns.

CHAPTER IX.

WILLIAM I.

William the Conqueror (1)—the confiscations (2)—completion of the Norman Conquest; harrying of the North; defence of the Isle of Ely; the Etheling Edgar; beheading of Waltheof (3) - Lanfranc; William's government; Domesday; the New Forest (4)-imprisonment of Odo; death of William; Battle Abbey (5)

1. The Norman Kings. William I., surnamed the Great and the Conqueror, 10661087.-The Norman King was a hard and strongwilled man, who never shrank from oppression or cruelty when they would serve his purpose, but who scarcely ever committed a merely wanton crime. He was ambitious of power, but he at any rate meant to use it well, and he had been a good ruler in his own land of Normandy. He was strong in body as in mind; no hand but his could bend his bow, and, although in later life he became excessively fat, he was always majestic in bearing. His wife, Queen Matilda, for whom he had a constant affection, was the daughter of Baldwin, Count of Flanders.

2. The Confiscations.-William, looking upon Harold as a mere usurper, claimed to be the lawful successor of the Confessor, and was careful to act in strictly legal form. According to his view, all Englishmen had been traitors, for they had either tried to keep him out, or at least not helped to bring him in ; and as traitors, all their estates might be confiscated, that is, taken possession of by the State. He at once confiscated a great deal, out of which he made grants to his followers; and every fresh disturbance or

rebellion was made a ground for confiscating more. The result was that the country got a set of foreign nobles, and that many Englishmen lost all, or nearly all, that they had, or became tenants under Norman lords; but every one, French or English, held his lands solely from the King's grace.

3. Completion of the Norman Conquest.— After an absence of less than six months, William went over to Normandy, to show himself in his new dignity. Yet in truth his conquest was only begun; and he had the West and the North still to win. That part of the country which was in his grasp he left under the rule of his half-brother Odo of Bayeux, and of his trusty friend William Fitz-Osbern, making the former Earl of Kent and the latter Earl of Hereford. These treated the English so oppressively that the King on his return found matters in a troublous state. Still he kept his hold on the south-eastern shires, and when he marched to conquer the West-country, English levies formed part of his army. It took him about three years and a half to get full possession of the land; for there was still spirit among the people. But a revolt here and a revolt there, with no common plan or leader, were useless against so good a soldier. The most formidable rising was in 1069, when the King of the Danes, Swegen Estrithson, sent a fleet to the help of the English in the North, who were joined by the Etheling Edgar. York, where the Normans had built two castles to command the Ouse, was the first point of attack. There the stalwart Earl Waltheof, so the story goes, took his stand by a gate; and as the Normans pressed forth one by one, their heads were swept off by his unerring axe. William took a savage method of crushing the North-country into obedience. At the head of his troops he marched through the length and breadth of the land between York and Durham, and deliberately made it a desert. For nine years the ground remained waste, no man

thinking it worth while to till it; and even a generation later ruined towns and uncultivated fields still bore witness to the cruelty of the Conqueror. The hitherto unconquered country between the Tyne and the Tees was harried in like manner, as also Cheshire and the neighbouring shires, the city of Chester being William's last conquest. More than 100,000 people, then no small part of the population, are said to have died of hunger and cold that winter. William was now master of the land, although a band of outlaws and insurgents, chief among them one Hereward, still held together in the Isle of Ely. In those days the rising ground of Ely was really almost an island, surrounded by streams and deep fens. When, after a brave defence, this last stronghold surrendered to William, Hereward, with a small band of comrades, escaped by water, and legend goes on to tell how he led an outlaw's life in the woods, and was the terror of the foreigners, until he made his peace with the King. One story says that he was nevertheless treacherously cut to pieces by a party of Normans. "Had there

been three more men in the land like him, the French would never have entered it," is said to have been the remark of one of his slayers. Of the other English leaders, Edgar, after finding shelter for some time with his brother-in-law King Malcolm III. of Scotland, made his peace and settled down in Normandy; and Morcar, who had been among the defenders of Ely, dragged out his life in captivity. Waltheof was taken for a time into high favour, being made Earl of Northumberland; but afterwards getting entangled in a conspiracy against William, he was sentenced to death. At early morn, May 31st, 1076, he was led outside Winchester to die. The headsmen grew impatient at the length of his prayers. "Let me at least say the Lord's Prayer for me and for you," pleaded the Earl; but ere he had finished, the executioner struck off his head as he knelt. The bystanders fancied that they

heard the severed head complete the prayer ; and by his countrymen Waltheof was honoured as a martyr.

4. William's Government.-William placed in the Archbishopric of Canterbury Lanfranc, a Lombard by birth, who was held to be the most learned man in Europe. Under the new Primate the Church of England was brought into closer connexion with that of Rome, and the bishoprics were gradually filled up with foreigners. The Norman King tried, though with small success, to learn English, and his rule was in some points good; but in later years he grew avaricious and grasping, shutting his eyes to any oppression by his officers if it brought him in money. In 1085, after consulting with the Witan, he decreed the making of Domesday-the great Survey of the country, in which every estate, as far north as the Tees, was entered, with its values at the time and in that of Edward. This work, so useful to the historian, was then looked on with distrust and indignation, as a step towards further taxation. Not a yard of land, not so much as an ox, or a cow, or a pig, was left unrecorded, so the Chronicler complains. William delighted in hunting, and his cruel law, which condemned the deerslayer to lose his eyes, was another grievance. The New Forest in Hampshire was made by him, and stories are told of his destroying houses and churches which stood in his way. Long after his time, the forests, which were constantly being increased, continued to be a cause of bitterness, on account of the severe laws for the protection of the game. To understand how a forest could be made, it must be explained that a forest was not merely a wood, but rather any uncultivated ground.

5. Death of William.-In his later years William was troubled by the rebellion of his eldest son Robert, who had been aggrieved by his father's refusal to make over to him the Duchy of Normandy. Odo of Bayeux