On the other had, the King seized a tract of over sixty thousand acres in Hampshire for a hunting ground, which he named the New Forest.[1] It was said that William destroyed many churches and estates in order to form this forest, but these accounts appear to have been greatly exaggerated. The real grievance was not so much the appropriation of the land, which was sterile and of little value, but it was the enactment of the savage Forest Laws. These ordinances made he life of a stag of more value than that of a man, and decreed that anyone found hunting the royal deer should have both eyes torn out (S205).
[1] Forest: As here used, this does not mean a region covered with woods, but simply a section of country, partially wooded and suitable for game, set apart as a royal park or hunting ground. As William made his residence at Winchester, in Hampshire, in the south of England (see map facing p. 38), he naturally took land in that vicinity for the chase.
120. The Great Survey; Domesday Book, 1086.
Not quite twenty years after his coronation William ordered a survey and valuation to be made of the whole realm outside of London. The only exceptions were certain border counties on the north were war had left little to record save heaps of ruins and ridges of grass-grown graves (S109).
The returns of that survey were known as Domesday or Doomsday Book. The English people said this name was given to it, because, like the Day of Doom, it spared no one. It recorded every piece of property and every particular concerning it. As the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" (S46) indignantly declared, "not a rood of land, not a peasant's hut, not an ox, cow, pig, or even a hive of bees escaped."
While the report showed the wealth of the country, it also showed thje suffering it had passed through in the revolts against William. Many towns had fallen into decay. Some were nearly depopulated. IN Edward the Confessor's reign (S65) York had 1607 houses; at the date of the survey it had but 967, while Oxford, which had had 721 houses, had then only 243.
The census and assessment proved of the highest importance to William and his successors. The people indeed said bitterly that the King kept to book constantly by him, in order "that he might be able to see at any time of how much more wool the English flock would bear fleecing." The object of the work, however, was not to extort money, but to present a full and exact report of the financial and military resources of the kingdom which might be directly available for revenue and defense.
121. The Great Meeting; the Oath of Allegiance to William, 1086.
In the midsummer following the completion of Domesday Book, William summoned all the barons and chief landholders of the realm, with their principal vassals or tenants, to meet him on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire.[1] It is said that the entire assemblage numbered sixty thousand. There was a logical connection between that summons and the great survey (S120). Each man's possesions and each man's responsibility were now known. Thus Domesday Book prepared the way for the action that was to be taken there.
[1] See map of England facing p. 436. Wiltshire is in the south of England. Alfred had established the seat of government at Winchester in Hampshire, but under Edward the Confessor and Harold it was transferred to Westminster (London); the honor was again restored to Winchester by William, who made it his principal residence. This was perhaps the reason why he chose Salisbury Plain (the nearest open region) for the great meeting. It was held where the modern city of Salisbury stands.
The place chosen was historic ground. On that field William had once reviewed his victorious troops. Toward the north of the widespread plain rose the rugged columns of Stonehenge (S3), surrounded by the burial mounds of prehistoric peoples. On the south rose the fortified hill of Old Sarum, scarred by British and by Roman entrenchments. William probably made his headquarters in the Norman castle then standing on that hill. On the plain below were the encampments of all the chief landholders of England.
122. The Oath of Allegiance.
There William the Conqueror finished his work. There not only every baron, but every baron's free vassal or tenant, from Cornwall to the Scottish borders, bowed before the King and swore to be "his man" (S86). By that act England was made one. By it, it was settled that every landholder in the realm, of whatever condition, was bound first of all to fight in behalf of the Crown, even if in so doing he had to fight against his own lord.[1] The barons broke this oath in the next reign (S130), but the moral obligation to keep it still remained binding.
[1] See SS86, 150; see also the Constitutional Summary in the Appendix, p. v, S6. Even if the men should disregard this oath of allegiance, they could not help feeling that the principle it represented had been acknowledged by them.
123. What William had done.
A score of years before, William had landed, seeking a throne to which no law had given him any claim whatever (S67).[2] But Nature had elected him to it when she endowed him with power to take, power to use, and power to hold. Under Harold, England was a kingdom divided against itself (S71). It was fortunate for the country that William came; for out of chaos, or affairs fast drifting to chaos, his strong hand, clear brain, and resolute purpose brought order, beauty, safety, and stability. We may say, therefore, with an eminent Fernch historian, that "England owes her liberties to her having been conquered by the Normans."[3]
[2] "William, in short, had no king of right to the crown, whether by birth, bequest, or election." (E. A. Freeman's "Short History of the Norman Conquest," p. 65.) [3] Guizot; see also note 1 on page 64.
124. William's Death (1087).
In less than a year from that time, William went to Normandy to quell an invasion led by his eldest son, Robert. As he rode down a steep street in Mantes, his horse stumbled and he received a fatal injury. He was carried to the priory of St. Gervase, just outside the city of Rouen.
Early in the morning he was awakened by the great cathedral bell. "It is an hour of praise," his attendant said to him, "when the priests give thanks for the new day." William lifted up his hands in prayer and expired.
125. His Burial (1087).
His remains were taken for interment to St. Stephen's church, which he had built in the city of Caen, Normandy. As they were preparing to let down the body into the grave, a man suddenly stepped forward and forbade the burial. William, he said, had taken the land, on which the church stood, from his father by violence. He demanded payment. The corpse was left on the bier, and inquiry instituted, and not until the debt was discharged was the body lowered to its last resting place.
"Thus," says the old chronicle, "he who had been a powerful king, and the lord of so many territories, possessed not then of all his lands more than seven feet of earth," and not even that unttil the cash was paid for it. But William's bones were not to rest when finally laid in the grave, for less than five centuries later (1532) the French Protestants dug them up and scattered them.
126. Summary (1066–1087).
The results of the Norman Conquest may be thus summed up:
1. The Conquest was not the subjugation of the English by a different race, but rather a victory won for their advantage by a branch of their own race.[1] 2. It found England a divided country (S71); it made it a united kingdom. It also united England and Normandy (SS108, 191), and brought the new English kingdom into closer contact with the higher civilization of the Continent. This introduced fresh intellectual stimulus, and gave to the Anglo-Saxon a more progressive spirit. 3. It modified the English language by the influence of the Norman-French element, thus giving it greater flexibility, refinement, and elegance of expression. 4. It substituted for the fragile and decaying structures of wood generally built by the Saxons, Norman castles, abbeys, and cathedrals of stone. 5. It hastened influences, which were already at work, for the consolidation of the nation. It developed and completed the feudal form of land tenure, but it made that tenure strictly subordinate to the Crown, and so freed it, in great measure, from the evils of Continental feudalism (SS86, 150). 6. It reorganized the English Church and defined the relation of the Crown to that Church and to the Pope (S118). 7. It abolished the four great earldoms (S64), which had been a constant source of weakness, danger, and division; it put an end to the Danish invasions;