they should take, and doubtful in what manner they should fill the vacant throne.  However, in this emergency it was necessary to take some resolution.  The party of Edgar Atheling prevailed, and he was owned king by the city of London, which even at this time was exceedingly powerful, and by the greatest part of the nobility then present.  But his reign was of a short duration.  William advanced by hasty marches, and, as he approached, the perplexity of the English redoubled:  they had done nothing for the defence of the city; they had no reliance on their new king; they suspected one another; there was no authority, no order, no counsel; a confused and ill-sorted assembly of unwarlike people, of priests, burghers, and nobles confounded with them in the general panic, struck down by the consternation of the late defeat, and trembling under the bolts of the Papal excommunication, were unable to plan any method of defence:  insomuch that, when he had passed the Thames and drew near to London, the clergy, the citizens, and the greater part of the nobles, who had so lately set the crown on the head of Edgar, went out to meet him; they submitted to him, and having brought him in triumph to Westminster, he was there solemnly crowned King of England.  The whole nation followed the example of London; and one battle gave England to the Normans, which had cost the Romans, the Saxons, and Danes so much time and blood to acquire.

At first view it is very difficult to conceive how this could have happened to a powerful nation, in which it does not appear that the conqueror had one partisan.  It stands a single event in history, unless, perhaps, we may compare it with the reduction of Ireland, some time after, by Henry the Second.  An attentive consideration of the state of the kingdom at that critical time may, perhaps, in some measure, lay open to us the cause of this extraordinary revolution.  The nobility of England, in which its strength consisted, was much decayed.  Wars and confiscations, but above all the custom of gavelkind, had reduced that body very low.  At the same time some few families had been, raised to a degree of power unknown in the ancient Saxon times, and dangerous in all.  Large possessions, and a larger authority, were annexed to the offices of the Saxon magistrates, whom they called Aldermen.  This authority, in their long and bloody wars with the Danes, it was found necessary to increase, and often to increase beyond the ancient limits.  Aldermen were created for life; they were then frequently made hereditary; some were vested with a power over others; and at this period we begin to hear of dukes who governed over several shires, and had many aldermen subject to them.  These officers found means to turn the royal bounty into an instrument of becoming independent of its authority.  Too great to obey, and too little to protect, they were a dead weight upon the country.  They began to cast an eye on the crown, and distracted the nation by cabals to