When William set out, some days afterwards, to make his entry into the city, he found, on his way to St. Alban’s, the road blocked with huge trunks of trees recently felled.  “What means this barricade in thy domains?” he demanded of the abbot of St. Alban’s, a Saxon noble.  “I did what was my duty to my birth and mission,” replied the monk:  “if others, of my rank and condition, had done as much, as they ought to and could have done, thou hadst not penetrated so far into our country.”

On entering London after all these delays and all these precautions, William fixed, for his coronation, upon Christmas-day, December 25th, 1066.  Either by desire of the prelate himself or by William’s own order, it was not the archbishop of Canterbury, Stigand, who presided, according to custom, at the ceremony; the duty devolved upon the archbishop of York, Aldred, who had but lately anointed Edgar Atheling.  At the appointed hour, William arrived at Westminster Abbey, the latest work and the burial-place of Edward the Confessor.  The Conqueror marched between two hedges of Norman soldiers, behind whom stood a crowd of people, cold and sad, though full of curiosity.  A numerous cavalry guarded the approaches to the church and the quarters adjoining.  Two hundred and sixty counts, barons, and knights of Normandy went in with the duke.  Geoffrey, bishop of Coutanees, demanded in French, of the Normans, if they would that their duke should take the title of King of the English.  The archbishop of York demanded of the English, in the Saxon tongue, if they would have for king the duke of Normandy.  Noisy acclamations arose in the church and resounded outside.  The soldiery, posted in the neighborhood, took the confused roar for a symptom of something wrong, and in their suspicious rage set fire to the neighboring houses.  The flames spread rapidly.  The people who were rejoicing in the church caught the alarm, and a multitude of men and women of every rank flung themselves out of the edifice.  Alone and trembling, the bishops with some clerics and monks remained before the altar and accomplished the work of anointment upon the king’s head, “himself trembling,” says the chronicle.  Nearly all the rest who were present ran to the fire, some to extinguish it, others to steal and pillage in the midst of the consternation.  William terminated the ceremony by taking the usual oath of Saxon kings at their coronation, adding thereto, as of his own motion, a promise to treat the English people according to their own laws and as well as they had ever been treated by the best of their own kings.  Then he went forth from the church King of England.