The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866, page 159 by Various Authors
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nd, and that he failed only because his fleet was destroyed by a storm. Duke William's influence had aided in his elevation to the English throne. His gratitude was expressed at the expense of his people. Once crowned, Edward invited his Norman friends to England. That country soon swarmed with foreigners, with whom the king was more at home than he was with his own subjects. Their language, the Romane, was his language. It was the language of the higher classes, the language of fashion, "the court tune." Such strong places as then stood in England were garrisoned by foreigners, and other Normans were settled in the towns. The country was half conquered years before the year of Hastings.
Duke William visited England in 1051. He was most hospitably received, and it is supposed that what he saw caused him to form the plan that led to the Conquest. Edward admired his visitor; and on the death of Edward the Outlaw,--whom he had recalled from Hungary, with the intention of proclaiming him as heir to the crown,--he determined that William should be his successor. He bequeathed the English crown to the ruler of Normandy. Harold agreed to support this arrangement. On his death-bed, Edward said to Harold and his kinsmen, "Ye know full well, my lords, that I have bequeathed my kingdom to the Duke of Normandy, and are there not those here whose oaths have been given to secure his succession?" The person to whom the crown should have gone was Edgar Atheling, son of Edward the Outlaw, and a lineal descendant of Ironside. Neither William nor Harold had any claim to the succession, whereas Edgar's claim was as good as that of the Prince of Wales to the throne of Great Britain is to-day. That Edward did not nominate Edgar must be attributed, in part at least, to the conviction that his nomination would be treated with contempt by the partisans of both William and Harold. He feared, it is probable, that the nomination of Edgar would give England up to the horrors of war, and that, after that prince should