Transcribed from the 1913 Macmillan and Co. edition by DavidPrice,

WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

BY
EDWARD A. FREEMAN
D.C.L., LL.D.

REGIUSPROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OFOXFORD

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN’S SQUARE, LONDON

1913

COPYRIGHT

First Edition printed March1888.
Reprinted July 1888, 1890, 1894, 1898, 1903, 1907,1913

PREFACE

This small volume, written as thefirst of a series, is meant to fill quite another place from theShort History of the Norman Conquest, by the sameauthor.  That was a narrative of events reaching over aconsiderable time.  This is the portrait of a man in hispersonal character, a man whose life takes up only a part of thetime treated of in the other work.  We have now to look onWilliam as one who, though stranger and conqueror, is yetworthily entitled to a place on the list of Englishstatesmen.  There is perhaps no man before or after himwhose personal character and personal will have had so direct aneffect on the course which the laws and constitution of Englandhave taken since his time.  Norman as a Conqueror, as astatesman he is English, and, on this side of him at least, heworthily begins the series.

16 St. Giles’, Oxford,
      6th February1888.

CONTENTS