sternation of the late defeat, and trembling under
the bolts of the Papal excommunication, were unable to plan any method
of defence: insomuch that, when he had passed the Thames and drew near
to London, the clergy, the citizens, and the greater part of the nobles,
who had so lately set the crown on the head of Edgar, went out to meet
him; they submitted to him, and having brought him in triumph to
Westminster, he was there solemnly crowned King of England. The whole
nation followed the example of London; and one battle gave England to
the Normans, which had cost the Romans, the Saxons, and Danes so much
time and blood to acquire.

At first view it is very difficult to conceive how this could have
happened to a powerful nation, in which it does not appear that the
conqueror had one partisan. It stands a single event in history, unless,
perhaps, we may compare it with the reduction of Ireland, some time
after, by Henry the Second. An attentive consideration of the state of
the kingdom at that critical time may, perhaps, in some measure, lay
open to us the cause of this extraordinary revolution. The nobility of
England, in which its strength consisted, was much decayed. Wars and
confiscations, but above all the custom of gavelkind, had reduced that
body very low. At the same time some few families had been, raised to a
degree of power unknown in the ancient Saxon times, and dangerous in
all. Large possessions, and a larger authority, were annexed to the
offices of the Saxon magistrates, whom they called Aldermen. This
authority, in their long and bloody wars with the Danes, it was found
necessary to increase, and often to increase beyond the ancient limits.
Aldermen were created for life; they were then frequently made
hereditary; some were vested with a power over others; and at this
period we begin to hear of dukes who governed over several shires, and
had many aldermen subject to them. These officers found means to turn
the royal bounty into an instrument of becoming independent of its
authority. Too great to obey, and too little to protect, they were a
dead weight upon the country. They began to cast an eye on the crown,
and distracted the nation by cabals to compass their designs. At the
same time they nourished the most terrible feuds amongst themselves. The
feeble government of Edward established these abuses. He could find no
method of humbling one subject grown too great, but by aggrandizing in
the same excessive