missioners in 1862. The course of study necessary for this degree extends over three years, and includes attendance on a distinct course in Civil Law, Law of Scotland, Conveyancing, Public Law, Constitutional Law and History, and Medical Jurisprudence. The degree of Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) is conferred honoris causâ tantum.

In the Faculty of Divinity the degree of D.D., like that of LL.D. in the Faculty of Law, is honerary. The degree of Bachelor of Divinity (B.D.), which fell for some time into disuse, has been revived. It is only conferred on candidates who have completed their theological curriculum, and who pass a satis factory examination in the various branches of theology taught

Metaphysics.

Elementary Dynamics.

Plane Astronomy and Experimental Physics.

The examinations for graduation in Arts with honours take a much higher range in all the departments, but the limits of our space prevent us from giving the subjects of examination set down for April, 1870.

In the department of Pure Science the degrees are those of Bachelor of Science and Doctor of Science. There are two examinations for the degree of Bachelor, and a third for the degree of Doctor. The first examination is as to the general knowledge of the candidate in Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, Zoology, and Botany. For the second examination the candidate must select one of the following groups :-(a) The Mathematical Sciences, (b) the Physical Experimental Sciences, (c) the Natural Sciences. For the third, or Doctor of Science Examination, the candidate is required to profess the science which he intends to be the object of his future study, and also to select a particular branch of which he believes himself to possess a profound knowledge. The same degree is open to candidates who exhibit proficiency in some branch of the mental sciences.

By undergoing an examination in Languages and Comparative Philology, Masters of Arts of recognised universities may pass as Doctor of Philology. The fee for the degree of Doctor in Mental Science and Philology is £7 7s.

Under the head of Applied Science there are examinations which are not particularised. There are examinations for the degrees of Bachelor of Agriculture and Engineering, and Master of Agriculture, Engineering, and Veterinary Surgery.

The three Medical degrees conferred by the University are those of Bachelor of Medicine (M.B.), Master in Surgery (C.M.), and Doctor of Medicine (M.D.). Candidates who enter for these degrees must produce certificates of having attended complete courses on the subjects on which they are to be examined. A degree in Arts of any university of the United Kingdom, or of the Colonies, exempts the candidate from any preliminary examination.

The degree of Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.), in the Faculty of

BURSARIES, SCHOLARSHIPS, AND FELLOWSHIPS.

In the Faculty of Arts the bursaries, with various condi tions attached, amount to the number of fifty in all. The oldest are the bursaries, ten in number, with an annual allowance to each bursar of £20, founded at the beginning of the seventeenth century by the celebrated George Heriot. The bursaries vary from £100 to £4 10s. In several instances the bursar is entitled to hold his bursary for four years, subject to certain conditions. Some of the conditions are curious enough. For example: the patrons of the Dundas bursary, which yields an annual allowance of £12," are directed to prefer the mortifier's near relations; failing such, those of the surname of Dundas; and failing such, any other persons at their discretion." The bursaries in the Faculty of Arts, most of which are gained by competition, confer a great boon upon the poorer classes of students, even when the annual allowance does not amount to more than £5 or £10.

In the Faculty of Theology there are eleven presentation bursaries, and six competition bursaries. In the Faculty of Medicine there is one bursary, yielding an annual allowance of £20.

The University Scholarships, another class of endowments, which have recently received some important additions, now number twenty-two. The Mackenzie Scholarship-about £120 of annual value is open for competition to all graduates in Arts of not more than three years' standing at the time of the competition. The Drummond Scholarship, of the annual value of about £100, is open to all students who have graduated with honours in the department of Mathematics. The Bruce of Grangehill Classical, Philosophical, and Mathematical Scholarships, each of the annual value of £100, are open to Masters of Arts who have passed with honours. The Rhind Scholarships (2), the Fettes Scholarships (2), the Gilchrist Scholarships (3), the Pitt Club Divinity Scholarship, and the Whitworth Scholarships, are also of the annual value of £100. The "Whitworth's," tenable for three years, are under the management of the department of Science and Art, South Kensington, London. The remaining scholarships have an annual value of £80, £60, and £40.

The University Fellowships, four in number, are of recent foundation. The Guthrie Fellowship, of the annual value of about £100, is for proficiency in classical literature. The Hamilton Fellowship, of the same value, is for proficiency in Mental Philosophy. The University Endowment Fellowship, also £100, is open to competition among graduates of not more than three years' standing at the time of the competition. The Shaw Fellowship, which has an annual value of about £160, is intended for the encouragement of philosophy, mental and moral, and is awarded after competitive examination. In this connection may be included the Swiney Lectureship on Geology, which is of the annual value of £144, and which is in the patronage of the Trustees of the British Museum.

Efforts have been made in recent years to increase the endowments of the University, which is scantily provided in this respect. One of the objects of an association lately formed is to found scholarships and fellowships for the encouragement of the higher learning among the more advanced students. It is likewise in contemplation to increase the efficiency and usefulness of the university by the better endowment of existing chairs, and the foundation of new professorships. The appeals of Professor Blackie, almost pathetic in their urgency, may probably also have some effect in augmenting the number of benefactors of the University.

HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY.-I.

In his poetical "Essay on Man" Pope lays down the dogma that "the proper study of mankind is man;" and true as that is, that the human mind and its attributes should form the subject of man's investigations, it is no less true that his physical frame and its vital functions are subjects worthy of man's deepest study. It seems strange that amongst the multiplied branches of modern education Human Anatomy and Physiology should have found no place; but it is a fact that in our ordinary school teaching these most important subjects have been entirely ignored, and there is in consequence a most wide-spread and complete ignorance of even their most elementary facts. In this and following papers it is intended to give an account of the anatomy (structure) and physiology (functions) of the inuman body, which, whilst devoid of technicalities and minute description, shall yet show clearly the situation, and indicate the uses of the more important organs.

Before it is possible to understand the principles of Human Physiology, it is necessary that a correct idea should be formed of the human body and the various organs of which it is composed, for it would be absurd in the highest degree to attempt, for example, to explain the function of respiration without first describing the structure of the lungs and other organs concerned in its performance. It will be well first to examine the body as a whole, and try to understand something of its complex and wonderful mechanism, and afterwards consider the various organs in connection with the purposes they fulfil in the human economy. Examining then the human body, we shall find that, in accordance with that rule which so frequently obtains in Nature, it may be divided into three parts or systems: these are the bony skeleton, or Osseous system; the fleshy portion, or muscular system; and, lastly, that portion made up of the brain, spinal marrow, and nerve cords-the nervous system. Each of these must now be considered in their turn. We will take first that which may be

termed the foundation of the structure

THE OSSEOUS SYSTEM.

The zoologists place man in that great division of the animal kingdom called Vertebrata, the chief characteristic of which is that all the animals contained in it have an internal skeleton or hard portion upon which the external soft parts are moulded. This skeleton is composed of a varying number of pieces of what we call bone. With the external appearance of bone every one is, of course, perfectly familiar; it is hard, generally smooth, and, when fresh, of a pinkish-white colour; but if a section of any bone be made it is at once seen that it is composed of two differing parts—one, the external, is dense and compact like ivory; the inner, on the other hand, is spongy, full of small cells like a honeycomb, and is consequently called the cancellous or spongy texture. It has been said that in all bones both these structures are found, but the relative proportion of each varies according to the duties the bone has to perform; if strength and firmness are needed, the compact tissue is largely in excess; but where little strength is wanted, and lightness is essential, there is a thin external coating of compact tissue, and the bulk of the bone is made up of the cancellous structure. Chemically, bone is a compound of animal and mineral elements: the latter, which in the adult form two-thirds of the whole, are mainly salts of lime, principally the phosphate; the animal elements consist of albumen, gelatine, and fat.

From its animal elements bone derives its toughness and elasticity, whilst its hardness and solidity are furnished by its mineral constituents. Either element may be taken away from bone without destroying its original form; thus if a bone is carefully burned all the animal constituents may be driven off, or if a bone is soaked in dilute muriatic or nitric acid, the mineral elements will be dissolved out, but in neither case will the external shape of the bone be changed. The animal portion of bone is that which is first formed, and in the early stages of embryo life is the sole constituent, the mineral elements being deposited in it. This fact explains why an inju. 7 which would fracture the bone of an adult only causes a child's bone to bend. Old bones, like dry sticks, snap readily; young bones, like green and growing boughs, easily bend, but break with difficulty. The human skeleton is made up of 254 distinct pieces of bone, and for convenience of description may be divided into a central column, the spine or backbone; three cavities-the

head, the thorax or chest, and the pelvis or abdomen; and two pairs of extremities, the arms and the legs.

The spine is a flexible column composed of twenty-four bones, called vertebræ, piled one on the other; anteriorly, it is solid, hollowed out into a canal to receive the spinal cord, one of to give support and strength to the body; posteriorly, it is the three great divisions of the nervous system. The length of the spine is generally rather more than a third of the body, and is divided into three regions: the cervical or neck (7 vertebra), the dorsal or back (12 vertebra), and the lumbar below, supports the thorax in the centre, and the head above. or loins (5 vertebræ); the solid anterior part rests on the pelvis

Each vertebra is composed of two main parts; the anterior, a semi-circular mass of bone, mainly composed of cancellous structure called the body, and posteriorly of two arches of bone, which spring from the sides of the body, and unite to enclose a hollow space-the spinal canal. These arches support various they articulate (form a joint) with the similar processes of projections called processes: the articular-so called because adjacent vertebrae-the transverse, and the spinous. It is the latter which are felt projecting when the hand is passed down the spine. These all, but especially the two latter, are bound together by strong fibrous bands or ligaments, and also give attachment to the powerful muscles by which the spine is moved in every direction. The main bond of union, however, between the vertebræ are thick plates of cartilage placed between and exactly corresponding in shape to the bodies of the vertebrae; these not only closely connect the bodies together, but by their elasticity act as buffers to break the force of concussions coming from above and below.

The two uppermost vertebræ differ from all the others in an important respect: the first-which is firmly attached to and supports the head, henco called the atlas-has nearly the whole of its body scooped out, leaving a small anterior canal; the missing piece is found attached to the upper surface of the body of the second vertebræ, the axis, where it forms a process jutting up into the anterior canal of the atlas, and forming the axis on which that bone revolves; it is confined to its proper position by a strong ligament, which divides the two canals of the atlas. When the head is turned from side to side, it is not the head turns on the spine, but the atlas that is carried round the pivot of the axis; to prevent this movement being excessive, which would risk displacement of the bones, and cause sudden death from compression of the spinal cord, strong check ligaments run from each side of the pivot of the axis to the back of the skull. As each individual vertebra is so firmly connected with its neighbour, if two vertebræ are separated from the rest and examined, the amount of movement between them will be found to be very limited; but in the spine, as a whole, very great freedom of motion in every direction is obtained.

The next portion of the skeleton we have to consider is the first of the cavities, the head, "the most strongly fortified part of the skeleton, the very citadel as it were of life," containing as it does the brain, the seat of the highest intellectual powers, and the centre and origin of the physical faculties.

The head is firmly attached to the first of the spinal vertebræ, and is considered by anatomists to be a continuation of the spinal column, formed of four vertebræ, modified for the purposes they have to fulfil. It is composed of twenty-two separate pieces of bone, eight of which form the skull or cranium, and fourteen the face. The cranium is in shape an egg-like dome, larger behind than before, and generally nearly, though seldom, quite symmetrical. It varies in its proportionate size according to the age, sex, and race of the individual; thus it is larger in proportion in the child than in the adult, in the male than in the female, and in the Caucasian or European races than in either the Ethiopian or Mongolian. The texture and density of the bones also vary, the skulls of barbarous nations being generally much harder, thicker, and heavier than those of Europeans.

The eight bones composing the skull are:-the occipital, a single curved flat bone, which forms the hinder portion of the skull, and presents on its under surface two processes, which articulate with the atlas and a large oval aperture corresponding in position to the spinal canal, and through which the spinal cord is continued into the brain; the parietal, a pair of irregularly quadrilateral-shaped bones, which join the

occipital, and meet each other in the centre, thus forming the middle of the top and sides of the skull. In front of these again is placed one large flat bone, shaped something like a cockleshell-the frontal; this completes the upper surface of the skull, and forms the forehead and the greater part of the bony cavities for the eyes (the orbits); inserted into a gap in the frontal, between the orbits, is placed the ethmoid (sieve-like), a very light spongy bone, which helps to complete the orbits, and contains the hinder portion of the passages of the nose. Placed one on each side of the skull, below the parietal joining them above and the occipital behind, are two irregularly-shaped bones, the temporal; these complete the sides of the skull, and contain the

externally, and forming strong bony arches to protect the others. In the first division are comprised the vomer, the two nasal bones, and the two inferior turbinated bones-these enter into the composition of the nose; the two lachrymal and two palate bones, which complete the walls of the orbit and the hinder portion of the hard palate.

The five larger bones are the two superior maxillary, upper jaw-bones; the two malar, cheek-bones; and the single large inferior maxillary, lower jaw-bone. The superior maxillary are irregularly-shaped bones, placed one on each side of the face, meeting in the centre; they form the largest part of the front of the face, the floor of the orbits, and the roof of the mouth, and into them are inserted the upper row of teeth.

internal organs of hearing, and also send forward a strong process to articulate with the cheek-bones, and from their under surface a thin process, which gives attachment to some of the muscles of the tongue and throat. Lastly, at the base of the skull, and hardly seen on its upper surface, is a bone shaped like a bat with its wings extended, the sphenoid (wedgelike); this articulates with all the other bones of the skull, and, like the keystone of an arch, binds them firmly together. The junctions of all the bones of the skull are in every instance those which are most conducive to strength and firmness: either the opposing surfaces are notched like a saw, the teeth accurately interlocking, or else the edge of one bone is bevelled off so as to overlay smoothly and exactly the edge of the adjacent bone.

The fourteen bones of which the face is composed may be divided into two classes: nine, which are small, light, and fragile, placed internally; and five, which are larger, placed

Just below, and to the outer side of the orbits, the superior maxillary are joined by a pair of thick flat pieces of bone, the malar or cheek-bones; these form the outer angles of the orbits, and send a pair of processes to join those of the temporal, and form with them strong arches to protect the sides of the face. The inferior maxillary is a strong bone. shaped like a horse-shoe, with the extremities prolonged upwards: each end of this bone ends in two processes, one for the attachment of a muscle; the other, a smooth globularshaped head, is received into a cup-shaped depression in the temporal bone, just below the orifice of the ear. This is the only instance amongst the articulations of the bones of the head and face where any degree of movement is permitted; in all the others firmness and strength are the desiderata; but here, by means of the cup and ball joint, the great and complex movements necessary for the performance of mastication are perfectly provided for.

HISTORIC SKETCHES.—XLV.

"DOWN WITH THE NORMANS!"-I.

FOR eighty years there was a cry in England which made the hearers of it tremble, for it had a most tremendous meaning. The eighty years in question were those between A.D. 1066 and 1146, and the cry was, "Down with the Normans!"

It may easily be guessed who they were that raised the cry, though the causes that led them to raise it are not so evident. The Saxons, Danes, and Celtic Britons, who formed the population of England at the time of the Norman conquest, had each and all yielded to the strong hand of the conquerors, and since the decisive battle at Hastings, had never made united or national resistance. In certain districts, under favourite chieftains, small bands stood desperately at bay, and gave the Normans the trouble of killing them before they would acknowledge their dominion. But the great body of the people, by no means united before the arrival of the Normans, seem to have lost heart, after those people were once in possession. It was only at intervals they rose with sudden energy and turned upon their oppressors, and then it was rather with the frenzy of despair, than with the steadiness of organised rebellion.

But that same frenzy of despair was a terrible thing. Those who were possessed by it knew they could lose no more than life, for they had been carefully stripped of everything they once had; and at the time we speak of, life itself was not worth having upon the conditions the Normans were willing to give. They died daily who lived under the foreigners' harsh rule. There was no security that the breath would not be beaten out of them in one way or another, and men of spirit and strength said, "Rather than be so cruelly oppressed, rather than see these wrongs done to our fellows, let us up and be doing. Let us quit us like men, and take satisfaction out of the lives of these robbers, for all the ills they do. Our lands are gone, our property is seized, our children are made slaves of, our princes are become servants, the whole land groans under the heavy weight of tyranny, and in a little while we shall cease to exist." Thoughts like these were constantly present to the English mind, acting upon it as an angry irritant; and when some special act of Norman wickedness brought them more vividly than usual before it, the indignant blood rushed up into the Englishmen's cheeks, they griped their sword-handles with significant firmness, and when they found an occasion for leosing their countrymen upon their enemies, they availed themselves of it with savage alacrity. To the hoarse music, "Down with the Normans!" they rushed to the slaughter, leaving the quality of mercy behind them. Looking forward to their own death as the almost certain consequence of what they were doing, they seemed bent on wallowing as long as they could in the blood of their hated oppressors; and by killing as many of them as was possible, to please the sad shades of their countrymen who had been sent to their account by them. We propose to show some of the causes which the English had to hate the Normans; to mention some of the instances in which they rose against them; and to point out when and why "Down with the Normans!" was heard no longer in the island.

Under no circumstances can the conquest of a country be made without bringing frightful misery upon the conquered. Apart from the mere act of conquest, the battles lost, and the property destroyed, there must be a peculiar aversion in the minds of the people for those who have come, whether they would or no, to settle among them in quality of superiors. There must always be, even with the greatest of conquerors, something peculiarly galling to the vanquished in the mere presence of the victors. Every time they see one of them they are painfully reminded of their relation to them; the memory of friends killed by them, of farms and towns destroyed by them, must be ever green so long as the generations last in whose time the conquest was effected. Time "that cures severest woe" alone can soften these asperities, and blend the two peoples into an harmonious whole. Time will do this sooner or later, according as the conduct of the stronger towards the weaker is kind or cruel.

But years must intervene, generations pass away, before the gulf can be bridged over, if the conquerors, after their conquest, rule harshly and grieve the people. The Normans trod upon the English, and seemed disposed to squeeze the life-blood out of them. Their cruelties were remembered for well nigh a

VOL. V.

century, and for eighty years rang at intervals throughout England the cry which is placed at the top of the page.

As to the Normans' cruelties, let us hear what the chroniclers tell us about them. But first a word about the chroniclers themselves. They were all of them monks or churchmen of some description, for it was considered a mean thing for any one else to know how to read and write. Even the powerful men who held large territories affected to think it a disgrace to write. On deeds of grant and all documents requiring their subscription, they scratched their mark under the direction of the clerk, and affixed their seal. Writing was quite beyond them. They seem to have had a notion that a gentleman who could write must of necessity become a forger. Douglas, when Marmion quarrelled with him before quitting Tantallon Castle, gave expression to his suspicions of his guest, who for a moment, he thought, might have forged the king's name to his own safe-conduct :

"A letter forged! St. Jude to speed!
Did ever knight so foul a deed?
Thanks to St. Bothan, son of mine,
Save Gawain, ne'er could pen a line."

The lay nobles thus being wilfully ignorant how to write, all history-writing as well as other pen-work was left to the clergy. And so we find all the sources from which early history is drawn to be monkish chronicles—" stories" written by the churchmen in the quiet nooks and retreats which the institution they served provided for them. As might be expected, we get frequent mention of events which immediately concern the order of the writers. Was any new abbey founded, we get the fullest information about the size of the house, the extent of the lands attached to it, and the amount of its revenue. If any baron or prince have fleeced a religious house, we are sure to hear of it at length, and sometimes not in the sweetest or softest of language; and it is to be feared that, in the warmth of their zeal for the Holy Church, the writers often painted the devil a little blacker than he really was, and threw so much dirt at the people who were against them, that they have remained spattered and spotted unto this day. Many events which would have been more interesting to posterity are omitted, or are very scantily noticed; and one cannot help feeling that less room given to what is mentioned, and more given to what is not, would have been an advantage of considerable importance. Again, the nationality of the writer sometimes breaks out in rude bursts of anger or of scorn. The writers of the AngloSaxon chronicle have very severely handled the Norman invaders, describing them as guilty of all manner of crimes and wrongs; and the Norman monks, when they mention the English at all, do so in language which shows that they held them no higher than the swine they tended, or at most, as living bipeds whom it was a duty to enslave. It is only by reading both with a certain amount of diffidence, that a fair estimate can be formed of the truth of either. But on the whole we have great cause to rejoice over what we possess. Without these chronicles, the era which we, because of our ignorance about it, call the Dark Age, would be wrapped in perpetual gloom: we should have had but a few landmarks, such as are furnished by the Statutebook, the rolls of manors, and the bare records of towns, to guide us in our search after the history of those times. There would have been no connected chronicle of events from which to shape a history, and to direct from one great landmark to another. Domesday Book would have stood alone like some great mountain surrounded by water-bearing certain internal evidence of what it was, but without an atom of assistance from any other thing to say how it came there. The charter of Henry I., copies of which were hidden away in abbeys, until Archbishop Langton pulled them out and built up the Great Charter upon them, would perhaps have come next, like another mountain peak, standing out of the silent waters of Time; but the information to be got from it would have been of a rather speculative character, had it not been that William, the monk of Malmesbury, Henry of Huntingdon, and other diligent scribes, told us all they knew about it, and invested the isolated charter-roll with real historical interest. Reigns in which no public mark was made on parchments so as to tell the children yet unborn what their fathers had done, would have passed our notice, and remained for ever in the dark, had not these same men written short accounts of them, and drawn, as they have done, vivid little word-pictures, in which we see a very great

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deal in a very small space. Stephen's reign, for instance, would have been a sort of undefined blot, had not the monks jotted down bits of information here and there. We should have had a vague notion that it was a very bad time for England, but we should have known nothing at all for certain about it, if the nameless writer in the Saxon chronicle had not written his story-and it is an account of men who wore "garments all of blood"-in which he speaks of 1,100 castles being in the land, how the rich men made the poor work at their castles, and how the castles were "filled with devils and with evil men; how "the land was all ruined by their deeds, and it was said openly that Christ and his saints slept." Besides the fact that these chronicles are nearly the only sources from which early history can be derived, there is in them much that is very attractive on other scores. Throughout, even in the parts where the longest bows are pulled-and they are sometimes very long indeed-they bear signs of the complete faith the writers had in the truth of what they were writing-they have a cool freshness reminding of the quiet homes where they were written, and a terse, quaint style of expression which is very forcible. Robert of Gloucester gives us an outline clear and sharp, which we can fill up with any amount of detail at leisure, when he says, "The days of King William (the Conqueror) were days of vexation and sorrow, so that much people of England thought his life too long." No words could be more powerful than those already quoted, "it was openly said that Christ and his saints slept," to show the utter wretchedness of the suffering people. How much is meant by the awfully short sentence," not a single habitation was left between York and Durham!"

As books of sterling worth-containing whole mines of information, and as books eminently amusing-these old chronicles will well repay the trouble of reading them. The earlier books are written in Latin, and the later in Norman-French; but those who are unable to read them in their original shape, may enjoy them in their modern English dress, as they are now to be procured in a convenient and readable form, and are moreover within the reach of people with small incomes. At the foot is a list of the books from which the materials for this account of the Normans and English have been drawn. But to commence the account itself.

After the battle of Hastings had been fought, William did not advance at once into the heart of the country, for he was afraid to leave the south-east coast in the hands of the English. Some of his men had landed at Romney by mistake, and had been defeated and slain by the people. He marched along the coast, burning and destroying all the towns. He seized Dover, and fortified it anew, and then set out towards London. On his way through Kent he was attacked by a body of English under the command of Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, and obliged to promise, as a condition of their surrender, that the men of Kent should have their privileges and be as free as they were before. London seemed inclined to hold out. A large force was gathered there, and the most powerful of the Saxon chiefs commanded it. Edgar Atheling, the young king, kept a sort of court in the city. The Normans themselves expected resistance. But Edwin and Morkar, Earls of Northumbria and Mercia, getting some disgust about the places assigned to them in London, withdrew with their forces, which were considerable, and went off to their districts, thinking to hold their own against the Normans, even if the metropolis should fall. Meantime the invaders had overrun the counties of Surrey, Sussex, and Hants, laying them waste with fire and sword, and destroying the inhabitants. They had crossed the Thames at Wallingford, in Berkshire, and pitched a fortified camp at Berkhamp: stead. The citizens of London, conscious of weakness and deceived by the smooth words and rich presents which had been given to their envoys, offered the keys of the city to William. Edgar himself, with the principal chiefs of his party, went to Berkhampstead and made submission. William in return promised to be gentle in his conduct towards the people, and marched on towards London, ravaging the country on every side. The building of the Tower was the immediate consequence of this surrender by the Saxons, and shortly after the entry of William into London, he was crowned King of England in

* Thierry's "Norman Conquest," the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Henry of Huntingdon, William of Malmesbury, Robert of Gloucester, Ordericus Vitalis,

Westminster Abbey, taking an oath, which he broke within six hours of making it, to treat the Anglo-Saxon people as well as the best king ever chosen by them.

Their

Edwin and Morkar gave their adhesion, but the people they governed did not. William was afraid as yet to go north, and occupied himself in securing what he had already taken. Exact inventories were made of all property public and private, in the conquered districts, with a view to their confiscation. Then a confiscation committee was appointed, the more effectually to carry out the plans of the conquerors. A list of all the English who had directly or indirectly favoured Harold was drawn up, and their property of every description was forfeited. children were disinherited, and "were only too grateful for being allowed to retain their lives." Those who had not taken arms were deprived because they might have done so; and under one pretext or another, the people were grievously op pressed. The spoil was divided among the followers of the Conqueror, the Conqueror himself receiving the largest share. Simple soldiers had rich Saxon widows and maidens given them to wife. All that the people had was plundered. They swore allegiance, but in their hearts they did not hold the foreigner legal King of England. Edgar was king to them, and they bided the time when they might show for whom they were.

Ordericus Vitalis says that "ignoble grooms, base scum of armies, did as they pleased with the noblest women, and left them nothing but to weep and to wish for death. Those licentious knaves were amazed at themselves; they went mad with pride and astonishment at beholding themselves so powerful, at having servants richer than their own fathers had ever been. Whatever they willed, they deemed it fully permissible to do; they shed blood at random, tore the bread from the mouths of the wretched people, and took everything, money, goods, land."

The horrible tyranny and oppression of these men stirred the very souls of the Saxons. They watched eagerly for an opportunity to resist, and when Eustace, Count of Boulogne, was known to be in open enmity with William, the Kentish men sent to him with offers of assistance if he would come over and attack Dover. He came accordingly with a force sufficient to have reduced the garrison of that place, and was joined by the Saxons from all the country round, and probably would have succeeded in what he had in hand, but for the report that Eudes, the warlike Bishop of Bayeux, was marching with a strong force to intercept him. The count made a hasty retreat, and finally made peace with the Conqueror, leaving his Saxon allies to their fate. What this fate was may be gathered from Thierry's words. He says that "the chiefs who governed the subjected provinces outvied each other in oppressing the natives, the people of rank equally with the commons. Bishop Eudes and Fitz Osbern, inflated with new power, scorned the com plaints of the oppressed people, and refused all remedy; if their soldiers pillaged the houses or violated the wives of the English, they applauded them, and punished the unfortunate sufferers who dared to complain." But up to this time the northern counties of England were free from the presence of the Normans. From Boston Wash to the Tweed the people lay as yet unaffected by the disasters which had befallen their countrymen in the south.