his rival had amassed; and the rest, quartered upon wealthy
monasteries, relied patiently on the promises of one whose performances
had hitherto gone hand in hand with his power. There was another
circumstance which conduced much to the maintaining, as well as to the
making, his conquest. The posterity of the Danes, who had finally
reduced England under Canute the Great, were still very numerous in that
kingdom, and in general not well liked by nor well affected to the old
Anglo-Saxon inhabitants. William wisely took advantage of this enmity
between the two sorts of inhabitants, and the alliance of blood which
was between them and his subjects. In the body of laws which he
published he insists strongly on this kindred, and declares that the
Normans and Danes ought to be as sworn brothers against all men: a
policy which probably united these people to him, or at least so
confirmed the ancient jealousy which subsisted between them and the
original English as to hinder any cordial union against his interests.

When the king had thus settled his acquisitions by all the methods of
force and policy, he thought it expedient to visit his patrimonial
territory, which, with regard to its internal state, and the jealousies
which his additional greatness revived in many of the bordering princes,
was critically situated. He appointed to the regency in his absence his
brother Odo, an ecclesiastic, whom he had made Bishop of Bayeux, in
France, and Earl of Kent, with great power and preeminence, in
England,--a man bold, fierce, ambitious, full of craft, imperious, and
without faith, but well versed in all affairs, vigilant, and courageous.
To him he joined William Fitz-Osbern, his justiciary, a person of
consummate prudence and great integrity. But not depending on this
disposition, to secure his conquest, as well as to display its
importance abroad, under a pretence of honor, he carried with him all
the chiefs of the English nobility, the popular Earls Edwin and Morcar,
and, what was of most importance, Edgar Atheling, the last branch of the
royal stock of the Anglo-Saxon kings, and infinitely dear to all the
people.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1607.]

The king managed his affairs abroad with great address, and covered, all
his negotiations for the security of his Norman dominions under the
magnificence of continual feasting and unremitted diversion, which,
without an appearance of design, displayed his wealth and power, and by
that means fac