William the Conqueror

THE years which saw the settlement of England, though not years of constant fighting like the two years between the march to Exeter and the fall of Chester, were not years of pe...

ENGLAND was now fully conquered, and William could for a moment sit down quietly to the rule of the kingdom that he had won. The time that immediately followed is spoken of as a...

THE coronation of William had its effect in a moment. It made him really king over part of England; it put him into a new position with regard to the rest. As soon as there was...

IF William’s early reign in Normandy was his time of schooling for his later reign in England, his school was a stern one, and his schooling began early. His nominal reign began...

OF two events of these last years of the Conqueror’s reign, events of very different degrees of importance, we have already spoken. The Welsh expedition of William was the only...

IF the time that has been suggested was the real time of Harold’s oath to William, its fulfilment became a practical question in little more than a year. How the year 1065 passe...

THE statesmanship of William had triumphed. The people of England had chosen their king, and a large part of the world had been won over by the arts of a foreign prince to belie...

IF William came back from England looking forward to a future crown, the thought might even then flash across his mind that he was not likely to win that crown without fighting...

THE lord of Normandy and Maine could now stop and reckon his chances of becoming lord of England also. While our authorities enable us to put together a fairly full account of b...

WHILE William was strengthening himself in Normandy, Norman influence in England had risen to its full height. The king was surrounded by foreign favourites. The only foreign ea...

THE history of England, like the land and its people, has been specially insular, and yet no land has undergone deeper influences from without. No land has owed more than Englan...