real injustice and disregard of moral right could hardly be
surpassed in the annals of warfare, the conquerors strove to give
to every act of violence and wrong the technical sanction of law
and the appearance of equity.

This was easily done: first, by assuming that William was the
lawful successor of Edward the Confessor, and that all who had
opposed him were therefore in the position of conquered rebels; and
secondly, since the Pope had excommunicated Harold, and sanctioned
the invasion, by treating all his aiders and abettors as heretics
or schismatics.

Generally these harsh doctrines were pushed to their legitimate
consequences in cruel wrong inflicted upon an innocent people, and
the Anglo-Saxon thanes and nobles who survived the first years of
conquest were reduced to serfdom or beggary; but there were
exceptions. William doubtless intended at first to govern justly,
and strove to unite the two nations--English and Norman; therefore,
when the occasion offered, he bade his knights and barons who
aspired to an English estate marry the widows or daughters of the
dispossessed thanes, and so reconcile the conflicting interests.
Hence the blood of the old Anglo-Saxon lords flows in many a family
proud of its unblemished descent from the horde of pirates and
robbers, whom a century and a half in France had turned into the
polished Normans.

Alas! the varnish was often only skin deep.

"Scratch the Norman, you will find the Dane," said the old
proverb--none the less ruthless and cruel because of the gloss of a
superficial civilisation.

Within a few weeks after the fatal day of Senlac, all resistance on
the part of the disunited English, left without a recognised
leader, became hopeless; and William was crowned on Christmas Day
at Westminster Abbey, which on the previous feast of the Epiphany,
in the same year, as we reckon time, had witnessed the coronation
of his hapless rival. There he swore to be a just ruler to English
and Normans alike, and, doubtless, at the time he was sincere; but
history records how he kept his oath, and the course of our story
will illustrate it.

The lands of all who fought on Harold's side at Hastings were
announced to be forfeited; hence the widow and son of Edmund were
liable to be ejected from their home and possessions at Aescendune.

But the conduct of Wilfred on the night after the battle had won
him friends, and they pleaded for the youngster whose gallant
bearing had made