Acceptance of the Norman nobility in an English character. been few indeed who remembered that William the Red, unlike his father, unlike Harold, unlike Cnut, did come of the stock of Cerdic and Woden by the spindle-side.[1] And, in admitting the change of dynasty, all was admitted which the change of dynasty immediately implied. Men who accepted the son could not ask for the wiping out of the acts of the father. They could not ask for a new confiscation and a new Domesday the other way. In accepting the son of the Conqueror, they also accepted the settlement of the Conqueror. His earls, his bishops, his knights, his grantees of land from Wight to Cheviot, were accepted as lawful owners of English lands and offices. But the very acceptance implied that they could hold English lands and offices only in the character of Englishmen, and that that character they must now put on.
Rufus' breach of his promises.
Englishmen not oppressed as such;
In this way the reign of William Rufus marks a stage
in the developement or recovery of English nationality
and freedom. And yet at the time the days of Rufus
must have seemed the darkest of all days. No reign
ever began with brighter promises than the real reign
of William the Red; for we can hardly count his reign
as really beginning till the rebellion was put down. No
reign ever became blacker. No king was ever more
distinctly placed on his throne by the good will of his
people. No other king was ever hated as William Rufus
lived to be hated. No other king more utterly and
shamefully broke the promises of good government by
which he had gained his crown. And yet we may doubt
whether William Rufus can be fairly set down as an
oppressor of Englishmen, in the sense which those words
would bear in the mouths of a certain school of writers.
His reign is rather a reign of general wrong-doing, a
reign of oppression which regarded no distinctions of
- ↑ See N. C. vol. ii. p. 308.
