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 Norma