and he was only anxious that the
great abbey church of Westminster, which he had been building hard by
his own new palace on what was then a lonely place outside London,
should be consecrated before his death. The church, afterwards
superseded by the structure which now stands there, was built in the
new and lighter form of round-arched architecture which Eadward had
learned to admire from his Norman friends. It was consecrated on
December 28, =1065=, but the king was too ill to be present, and on
January 5, =1066=, he died, and was buried in the church which he had
founded. Harold was at once chosen king, and crowned at Westminster.

[Illustration: Tower in the earlier style. Church at Earl's Barton.
(The battlements are much later.)]

[Illustration: Tower in the earlier style. St Benet's Church,
Cambridge.]

[Illustration: Building a church in the later style. (From a drawing
belonging to the Society of Antiquaries.)]

21. =Harold and William. 1066.=--William, as soon as he heard of his
rival's coronation, claimed the crown. He was now even mightier than
he had been when he visited Eadward. In =1063= he had conquered Maine,
and, secure on his southern frontier, he was able to turn his
undivided attention to England. According to the principles accepted
in England, he had no right to it whatever; but he contrived to put
together a good many reasons which seemed, in the eyes of those who
were not Englishmen, to give him a good case. In the first place he
had been selected by Eadward as his heir. In the second place the
deprivation of Robert of Jumieges was an offence against the Church
law of the Continent, and William was therefore able to obtain from
the Pope a consecrated banner, and to speak of an attack upon England
as an attempt to uphold the righteous laws of the Church. In the third
place, Harold had at some former time been wrecked upon the French
coast, and had been delivered up to William, who had refused to let
him go till he had sworn solemnly, placing his hand on a chest which
contained the relics of the most holy Norman saints, to do some act,
the nature of which is diversely related, but which Harold never did.
Consequently William could speak of himself as going to take vengeance
on a perjurer. With some difficulty William persuaded the Norman
barons to follow him, and he attracted a mixed multitude of
adventurers from all the neighbouring nations by promising them the
plunder of England, an argume