. He now openly aspired to the
succession; and insisted, that since it was necessary, by the confession
of all, to set aside the royal family, on account of the imbecility of
Edgar, the sole surviving heir, there was no one so capable of filling
the throne, as a nobleman of great power of mature age, of long
experience, of approved courage and abilities, who, being a native
of the kingdom, would effectually secure it against the dominion and
tyranny of foreigners. Edward, broken with age and infirmities, saw the
difficulties too great for him to encounter; and though his inveterate
prepossessions kept him from seconding the pretensions of Harold, he
took but feeble and irresolute steps for securing the succession to the
duke of Normandy.[**] [6] While he continued in this uncertainty, he was
surprised by sickness, which brought him to his grave on the fifth of
January, 1066, in the sixty-fifth year of his age, and twenty-fifth of
his reign.

[* Order. Vitalis, p. 492.]

[** See note F, at the end of the volume.]

This prince, to whom the monks gave the title of Saint and Confessor,
was the last of the Saxon line that ruled in England. Though his reign
was peaceable and fortunate, he owed his prosperity less to his own
abilities than to the conjunctures of the times. The Danes, employed
in other enterprises, at tempted not those incursions which had been
so troublesome to all his predecessors, and fatal to some of them. The
facility of his disposition made him acquiesce under the government of
Godwin and his son Harold; and the abilities, as well as the power of
these noblemen, enabled them, while they were intrusted with authority,
to preserve domestic peace and tranquillity. The most commendable
circumstance of Edward's government was his attention to the
administration of justice, and his compiling, for that purpose, a body
of laws which he collected from the laws of Ethelbert, Ina, and Alfred.
This compilation, though now lost, (for the laws that pass under
Edward's name were composed afterwards,[*]) was long the object of
affection to the English nation.

[* Spelm. in verbo Belliva.]

Edward the Confessor was the first that touched for the king's evil: the
opinion of his sanctity procured belief to this cure among the people:
his successors regarded it as a part of their state and grandeur to
uphold the same opinion. It has been continued down to our time; and
the practice was first dropped by t