If they could not drive William out of what he had already won,
they would at least keep him from coming any further. Exeter, the
greatest city of the West, was the natural centre of resistance;
the smaller towns, at least of Devonshire and Dorset entered into a
league with the capital. They seem to have aimed, like Italian
cities in the like case, at the formation of a civic confederation,
which might perhaps find it expedient to acknowledge William as an
external lord, but which would maintain perfect internal
independence. Still, as Gytha, widow of Godwine, mother of Harold,
was within the walls of Exeter, the movement was doubtless also in
some sort on behalf of the House of Godwine. In any case, Exeter
and the lands and towns in its alliance with Exeter strengthened
themselves in every way against attack.

Things were not now as on the day of Senlac, when Englishmen on
their own soil withstood one who, however he might cloke his
enterprise, was to them simply a foreign invader. But William was
not yet, as he was in some later struggles, the de facto king of
the whole land, whom all had acknowledged, and opposition to whom
was in form rebellion. He now held an intermediate position. He
was still an invader; for Exeter had never submitted to him; but
the crowned King of the English, peacefully ruling over many
shires, was hardly a mere invader; resistance to him would have the
air of rebellion in the eyes of many besides William and his
flatterers. And they could not see, what we plainly see, what
William perhaps dimly saw, that it was in the long run better for
Exeter, or any other part of England, to share, even in conquest,
the fate of the whole land, rather than to keep on a precarious
independence to the aggravation of the common bondage. This we
feel throughout; William, with whatever motive, is fighting for the