Fitz-Osbern, and Odo the
warrior-prelate, William's half-brother, had been left as his regents in
England. Little do they seem to have cared for William's promise to the
English people that they were to be ruled still by the laws of Edward the
Confessor, and that where a grant of land was made to a Norman, he was to
hold it as the Englishman had done before him, with no heavier burdens on
himself, but with no heavier burdens on the poor folk who tilled the land
for him. Oppression began, lawlessness, and violence; men were ill-treated
on the highways; and women--what was worse--in their own homes; and the
regents abetted the ill-doers. "It seems," says a most impartial
historian, [Footnote: The late Sir F. Palgrave.] "as if the Normans,
released from all authority, all restraint, all fear of retaliation,
determined to reduce the English nation to servitude, and drive them to
despair."
In the latter attempt they succeeded but too soon; in the former, they
succeeded at last: but they paid dearly for their success.
Hot young Englishmen began to emigrate. Some went to the court of
Constantinople, to join the Varanger guard, and have their chance of a
Polotaswarf like Harold Hardraade. Some went to Scotland to Malcolm
Canmore, and brooded over return and revenge. But Harold's sons went to
their father's cousin; to Sweyn--Swend--Sweno Ulfsson, and called on him
to come and reconquer England in the name of his uncle Canute the Great;
and many an Englishman went with them.
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