clergy to our church, judges to our tribunals, rule and discipline to our monasteries, instructors to our architects, and teachers to our schools. We must proceed in our enumeration of the Norman gifts, and add, "who, beside the misery which their conquest caused to the generation then in being, gave, for many ages, tyrants to our peasantry, and brutal oppressors to our burghers and artizans." For there is a dark side of the Norman character, which the historian of English liberty must not omit; and even the aristocrats of ancient republican Rome were surpassed by the Norman nobility in pride, in state craft, in merciless cruelty, and in coarse contempt for the industry, the rights, and feelings of all whom they considered the lower classes of mankind.

Hitherto in speaking of the Normans in Normandy, we have been considering their usages and their characteristics, so far only as they themselves were concerned. It remains to view and judge them relatively to others.

The warriors of Rolf, and their descendants, were not the whole population of Normandy; they formed only a small minority of the human beings who lived in that province. The peasantry, whom the Norse conquerors found there, were not extirpated or evicted, but became part of the property of the new lords of the soil. They were taken with the land, like the other animals that were found on it. The mere fact of the foreign conquerors making slaves of the conquered natives, would present in itself nothing remarkable. Such was the established practice of ancient and medieval times, nor can we say that modern ages have been pure from it. But the domination of the Normans over their villeins (as the Neustrian peasants were termed) was marked by its peculiar oppressiveness; and especially by the tyranny of the

forest-laws which the Normans established. Sir Francis Palgrave says of this, that though the Normans did not destroy the old inhabitants of Neustria, "the conquerors gave the widest construction to the law of property; air, water, and earth were all to be theirs-fowl, fish, and beasts of chase, where the arrow could fly, the dog could draw, or the net could fall-sportsmen and huntsmen, the Danish lords appropriate to themselves all woodland and water, copse and grove, river, marsh, and mere. Their usurpation of the rights previously enjoyed in common occasioned in the days of Rollo's great grandson a fearful rebellion; and the spirit of the forest laws, the pregnant source of misery to old England, has perhaps acquired additional bitterness in our present age; we retain the evil, whilst our pariahs have lost the compensation which mitigated mediæval tyranny.”

It is worth while to read in the old Norman chronicler, William of Jumiege, his narrative of the insurrection, which Palgrave refers to; not only for the information which it gives respecting its immediate subject, but, still more, for the insight which it affords into the prevailing sentiments among the Normans with respect to the labouring classes. Count Ranulph's cruelty to the insurgent peasants might be attributed to provocation or to individual ferocity of character. But De Jumiege wrote coolly and deliberately; and the tone in which he speaks of the sufferings and the duties of the peasantry, may be taken as accurately representing the general opinion of the Norman lords. After eulogizing the virtues of the then reigning duke Richard, De Jumiege says, "While he abounded in such goodness, it happened that in his youth a certain seminary of pestiferous dissensions arose within his dukedom of Normandy. For the peasants,

62 RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE CONSTITUTION.

one and all, throughout the various counties of Normandy, holding many assemblies, resolved to live at their own free-will; so that they should enjoy their own rights as to forest and to fishery, without the barrier of the law. previously ordained. And for the purpose of establishing these schemes, two delegates were elected by each assembly of the mad rabble, who were to meet in a central convention for the purpose of confirming these resolutions. And when the duke knew it, he forthwith appointed Count Ranulph with a multitude of soldiers to repress the fierceness of the peasants, and disperse their rustic convention. And he, not delaying to do the duke's bidding, captured forthwith all the delegates, with some other peasants and having cut off their hands and feet, he sent them back in that helpless state to their comrades; to check them from such practices, and to be warning to them not to expose themselves to something still worse. And when the peasants received this lesson, they forthwith abandoned their assemblies and their debates, and returned to their proper places at their ploughs."*

* William of Jumiege, book v. chap. 2.

CHAPTER VI.

The Norman Conquest.-Extent of the Changes which it caused. -Numerical Amount of the Norman and Anglo-Saxon Populations.-Amount of Loss of Life caused by the Conquest.-Probable Number of the Normans and other New-comers from Continental Europe. Did the Population increase in the Century and a-half preceding the signing of Magna Carta?-The Miseries of Stephen's Reign.-Period of Tranquillity under Henry II.-Probable Amount of Population in 1215.

THE morning of the 29th day of September, 1066, saw a host of the Norman chivalry land upon the coast of the South Saxons (Sussex), and the setting sun of the following 14th day of October saw them the conquerors and lords of England. * The last of the Saxon kings, with his brethren, and most of the bravest Thanes of the south and centre of the island, lay dead on the field of Senlac. The two great Northern Earls, Edwin and Morcar, were timid and irresolute. There was no vigorous native chief to renew the war. The fortification of the strong places throughout England had been neglected: and as there was no post whither the shattered remains of Harold's army could retreat, and where they could halt in safety until reinforcements arrived, and until

* See the Battle of Hastings, cisive Battles of the World." chap. 8 of "The Fifteen De

further measures of defence could be organized, a single defeat placed the whole country in the power of the invader.

Duke William had, indeed, some slight pretexts of right to the English crown, besides the cogent title of the sword. His relationship to Edward the Confessor, and the alleged bequest of the sovereignty of England to him by that king, gave a colourable excuse, both to his own conduct in undertaking his great enterprise, and to the conduct of the Saxons who submitted to him, instead of prolonging a hopeless war after the battle of Hastings.

He was crowned King of England by the Saxon archbishop with the ancient Saxon forms, and after taking the coronation oath of the Saxon kings, on Christmas Day, 1066. At first his rule was comparatively mild. By confiscating the large estates of King Harold and Harold's family, and principal adherents, William obtained the means of appeasing (if he could not satisfy) the rapacity of his followers, while he left for a time the greater number of the English landowners in the enjoyment of their property. But, under any disguise, conquest is to a brave people a bitter draught. The sense of foreign domination, and the insolence of William's Norman barons and prelates weighed heavily on the spirits of Saxon Thane and Saxon Ceorl. Then came fierce local risings, with delusive partial successes over the foreigners; soon crushed by the disciplined troops and the high military genius of the Conqueror. Then followed more sweeping confiscations, and darker cruelties: the results not so much of hasty anger, as of a stern, remorseless policy. William resolved that his English subjects should fear him, if they hated him; and no feeling of mercy