fforts of
the Romans, Saxons, and Danes; and equal difficulties might have been
apprehended by William in this bold and hazardous enterprise. But there
were several vices in the Anglo-Saxon constitution, which rendered it
difficult for the English to defend their liberties in so critical an
emergency. The people had in a great measure lost all national pride and
spirit by their recent and long subjection to the Danes; and as Canute
had, in the course of his administration, much abated the rigors of
conquest, and had governed them equitably by their own laws, they
regarded with the less terror the ignominy of a foreign yoke, and
deemed the inconveniences of submission less formidable than those of
bloodshed, war, and resistance. Their attachment also to the ancient
royal family had been much weakened by their habits of submission to
the Danish princes, and by their late election of Harold or their
acquiescence in his usurpation. And as they had long been accustomed
to regard Edgar Atheling, the only heir of the Saxon line, as unfit
to govern them even in times of order and tranquillity, they could
entertain small hopes of his being able to repair such great losses as
they had sustained, or to withstand the victorious arms of the duke of
Normandy.

That they might not, however, be altogether wanting to themselves in
this extreme necessity, the English took some steps towards adjusting
their disjointed government, and uniting themselves against the common
enemy. The two potent earls, Edwin and Morcar, who had fled to London
with the remains of the broken army, took the lead on this occasion: in
concert with Stigand, archbishop of Canterbury, a man possessed of great
authority and of ample revenues, they proclaimed Edgar, and endeavored
to put the people in a posture of defence, and encourage them to
resist the Normans.[*] But the terror of the late defeat, and the near
neighborhood of the invaders, increased the confusion inseparable from
great revolutions; and every resolution proposed was hasty, fluctuating,
tumultuary; disconcerted by fear or faction; ill planned, and worse
executed.

William, that his enemies might have no leisure to recover from their
consternation or unite their counsels, immediately put himself in motion
after his victory, and resolved to prosecute an enterprise which nothing
but celerity and vigor could render finally successful. His first
attempt was against Rornney, whose inhabitants he severel