way it should be filled up. Those days showed that the land was still an English land, that the choice of its ruler rested in the last resort with the true folk of the land. Those days ruled that Normans and English should become one people; but they further ruled, if there could be any doubt about the matter, that they were to become one people by the Normans becoming Englishmen, not by the English becoming Normans. It is significant that, in recording the next general rebellion, the Chronicler no longer marks the traitors as "the richest Frenchmen that were on this land;" they are simply "the head men here on land who took rede together against the King."[1]
How far confirmed.
The Norman dynasty accepted.
But, if in this way the Conquest was undone, if it was
ruled that England was still to be England, in another
way the Conquest was confirmed. The English people
showed that the English crown was still theirs to bestow;
but at the same time they showed that they
had no longer a thought of bestowing it out of the house
of their Conqueror. When the English people came together
at the bidding of the Conqueror's son, when they
willingly plighted their faith to him and called on him,
as King of the English, to trust himself to English
loyalty, they formally accepted the Conquest, so far
as it took the form of a change of dynasty. Men
pressed to fight for King William against the pretender
Robert; not a voice was raised for Eadgar or Wulf
or Olaf of Denmark. The stock of the Bastard of
Falaise was received as the cynecyn of England, instead
of the stock of Cerdic and Woden; for there must have
- ↑ We have seen that, in describing the rebellion of 1088, the words of the Chronicler are, "þa riceste Frencisce men þe weron innan þisan lande wolden swican heora hlaforde þam cynge." In 1101 we read simply, "þa sona þæeræfter wurdon þa heafod men her on lande wiðerræden togeanes þam cynge."
