immediately afterwards, and on the 25th of August, 1060, his son Philip I. succeeded him, under the regency of Baldwin, count of Flanders, father of the Duchess Matilda.  Duke William was present in state at the coronation of the new king of France, lent him effectual assistance against the revolts which took place in Gascony, reentered Normandy for the purpose of holding at Caen, in 1061, the Estates of his duchy, and at that time published the famous decree observed long after him, under the name of the law of curfew, which ordered “that every evening the bell should be rung in all parishes to warn every one to prayer, and house-closing, and no more running about the streets.”

The passion for orderliness in his dominion did not cool his ardor for conquest.  In 1063, after the death of his young neighbor Herbert II., count of Maine, William took possession of this beautiful countship; not without some opposition on the part of the inhabitants, nor without suspicion of having poisoned his rival, Walter, count of Vexin.  It is said that after this conquest William meditated that of Brittany; but there is every indication that he had formed a far vaster design, and that the day of its execution was approaching.

From the time of Rollo’s settlement in Normandy, the communications of the Normans with England had become more and more frequent, and important for the two countries.  The success of the invasions of the Danes in England in the tenth century, and the reigns of three kings of the Danish line, had obliged the princes of Saxon race to take refuge in Normandy, the duke of which, Richard I., had given his daughter Emma in marriage to their grandfather, Ethelred II.  When, at the death of the last Danish king, Hardicanute, the Saxon prince Edward ascended the throne of his fathers, he had passed twenty-seven years of exile in Normandy, and he returned to England “almost a stranger,” in the words of the chronicles, to the country of his ancestors; far more Norman than Saxon in his manners, tastes, and language, and surrounded by Normans, whose numbers and prestige under his reign increased from day to day.  A hot rivalry, nationally as well as courtly, grew up between them and the Saxons.  At the head of these latter was Godwin, count of Kent, and his five sons, the eldest of whom, Harold, was destined before long to bear the whole brunt of the struggle.  Between these powerful rivals, Edward the Confessor, a pacific, pious, gentle, and undecided king, wavered incessantly; at one time trying to resist, and at another compelled to yield to the pretensions and seditions by which he was beset.  In 1051 the Saxon party and its head, Godwin, had risen in revolt.  Duke William, on invitation, perhaps, from King Edward, paid a brilliant visit to England, where he found Normans everywhere established and powerful, in Church as well as in State; in command of the fleets, ports, and principal English places.  King Edward received him “as his own son, gave