But the design proved impracticable. The English had been split into
fierce parties long before he came, and the West Saxon, the Mercian
Angle, and Northumbrian Dane hated one another still, and all hated the
Norman alike; and his Norman, French, and Breton importations lost no
love among themselves, and viewed the English natives as conquered
beings, whose spoil was unjustly withheld from them by the Duke King.
Rebellion began: by ones, twos, and threes, the nobles revolted,
and were stamped out by William's iron heel, suffering his fierce,
unrelenting justice--that highest justice that according to the Latin
proverb becomes, in man's mind at least, the highest injustice. So
England lay, trampled, bleeding, indignant, and raising a loud cry of
misery; but, in real truth, the sufferers were in the first place the
actual rebels, Saxon and Norman alike; next, those districts which had
risen against his authority, and were barbarously devastated with fire
and sword; and lastly, the places which, by the death or forfeiture of
native lords, or by the enforced marriage of heiresses, fell into the
hands of rapacious Norman adventurers, who treated their serfs with the
brutal violence common in France.
Otherwise, things were left much as they were. The towns had little or
no cause of complaint, and the lesser Saxon gentry, with the Franklins
and the Earls, were unmolested, unless they happened to have vicious
neighbors.
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