to their ancient laws, and by treating them on all occasions with the most engaging deportment.  He set up no pretences which arose from absolute conquest.  He confirmed their estates to all those who had not appeared in arms against him, and seemed not to aim at subjecting the English to the Normans, but to unite the two nations under the wings of a common parental care.  If the Normans received estates and held lucrative offices and were raised by wealthy matches in England, some of the English were enriched with lands and dignities and taken into considerable families in Normandy.  But the king’s principal regards were showed to those by whose bravery he had attained his greatness.  To some he bestowed the forfeited estates, which were many and great, of Harold’s adherents; others he satisfied from the treasures his rival had amassed; and the rest, quartered upon wealthy monasteries, relied patiently on the promises of one whose performances had hitherto gone hand in hand with his power.  There was another circumstance which conduced much to the maintaining, as well as to the making, his conquest.  The posterity of the Danes, who had finally reduced England under Canute the Great, were still very numerous in that kingdom, and in general not well liked by nor well affected to the old Anglo-Saxon inhabitants.  William wisely took advantage of this enmity between the two sorts of inhabitants, and the alliance of blood which was between them and his subjects.  In the body of laws which he published he insists strongly on this kindred, and declares that the Normans and Danes ought to be as sworn brothers against all men:  a policy which probably united these people to him, or at least so confirmed the ancient jealousy which subsisted between them and the original English as to hinder any cordial union against his interests.

When the king had thus settled his acquisitions by all the methods of force and policy, he thought it expedient to visit his patrimonial territory, which, with regard to its internal state, and the jealousies which his additional greatness revived in many of the bordering princes, was critically situated.  He appointed to the regency in his absence his brother Odo, an ecclesiastic, whom he had made Bishop of Bayeux, in France, and Earl of Kent, with great power and preeminence, in England,—­a man bold, fierce, ambitious, full of craft, imperious, and without faith, but well versed in all affairs, vigilant, and courageous.  To him he joined William Fitz-Osbern, his justiciary, a person of consummate prudence and great integrity.  But not depending on this disposition, to secure his conquest, as well as to display its importance abroad, under a pretence of honor, he carried with him all the chiefs of the English nobility, the popular Earls Edwin and Morcar, and, what was of most importance, Edgar Atheling, the last branch of the royal stock of the Anglo-Saxon kings, and infinitely dear to all the people.

[Sidenote:  A.D. 1607.]