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