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England under Foreign Kings
England under Foreign Kings; Part 6

England under Foreign Kings; Part 6

William followed up the survey by his third great measure. He assembled every free tenant of land to a great "gemot" or meeting at Salisbury, and made them all swear allegiance to him direct. This "oath at Salisbury" made it the duty of every mesne-tenant to obey the king first and his feudal superior after. If his feudal superior called on him to come out and fight against the king, his answer would be that his first duty was: Obey the king. This clipped the wings of the great feudal nobles. On the Continent they could defy the crown by bringing their vassals into the field. The king had no hold over the vassals, save through the feudal lord. If the feudal lord were a rebel, he had no hold at all. But in England after the oath at Salisbury the nobles were no longer so dangerous; they could not make sure of their vassals' support. Here is the real difference between English and Continental feudalism; this is why Edward I and Edward III and Henry V were strong kings, ruling a united realm, while in France Philip IV, Charles V, and Louis XI were hampered and thwarted by half independent feudal princes.

William did not live to reap the full benefit of these measures. In 1087 he went to war with the King of France. While his men were sacking and burning the town of Mantes, his horse, struck by a falling beam, reared and threw the king hard against the pommel of his saddle. From this hurt he never recovered, dying a few weeks after at Rouen.

William was a hard man, who was never held back by any ideas of mercy when he thought it needful to be stern. The harrying of Yorkshire, the laying waste of the New Forest to make himself a hunting park, the imprisonment of Odo, the execution of Waltheof, all show him ruthless, at times even cruel. Yet his strong government, rule of a foreign conqueror though it was, had one great merit that counterbalances all his harshness. He united the kingdom under his own firm sway. Under Edward the Confessor and Harold the power of the Crown had dwindled, while that of the great earls had grown. We have noticed already that Godwin and Leofric and Siward are not unlike the turbulent barons whose quarrels brought about the Wars of the Roses. This tendency to disunion and lawlessness William crushed.

And there is another side to the Norman Conquest which must not be omitted. Had the Saxons been strong and vigorous and united, they would probably have flung off the Normans. Their failure goes to show that the Saxon character had declined, or at any rate was lacking in some of the great qualities that make a nation. The invasion of the Normans, the rule of a conquering -race, and the eventual fusion of Norman and Saxon blood made, out of much adversity, the "Englishman" who proved himself stiffer material than his Saxon forefathers, and possessed the enterprise and vigour which they seem to have lacked or lost.

England under Foreign Kings; Part 6

Chronology