the form. His son, William II, had to obtain election in order to
secure the throne against the claims of his elder brother Robert, and
Henry I followed his example for similar reasons. Each had to make
election promises in the form of a charter; and election promises,
although they were seldom kept, had some value as reminders to kings of
their duties and theoretical dependence upon the electors. Gradually,
too, the kings began to look for support outside their Norman baronage,
and to realize that even the submerged English might serve as a
makeweight in a balance of opposing forces. Henry I bid for London's
support by the grant of a notable charter; for, assisted by the order
and communications with the Continent fostered by Norman rule, commerce
was beginning to flourish and towns to grow. London was already
distancing Winchester in their common ambition to be the capital of the
kingdom, and the support of it and of other towns began to be worth
buying by grants of local government, more especially as their
encouragement provided another check on feudal magnates. Henry, too,
made a great appeal to English sentiment by marrying Matilda, the
granddaughter of Edmund Ironside, and by revenging the battle of
Hastings through a conquest of Normandy from his brother Robert,
effected partly by English troops.

But the order, which the three Norman sovereigns evolved out of chaos,
was still due more to their personal vigour than to the strength of the
administrative machinery which they sought to develop; and though that
machinery continued to work during the anarchy which followed, it could
not restrain the feudal barons, when the crown was disputed between
Henry's daughter Matilda and his nephew Stephen. The barons, indeed,
had been more successful in riveting their baronial yoke on the people
than the kings had been in riveting a monarchical yoke on the barons;
and nothing more vividly illustrates the utter subjection of Anglo-