blood of his grandfather nor the school of adversity had made of him the
man to deal with such a situation. In later life he impressed people as a
well-mannered, agreeable, and frank man, but no one ever detected in him
the stuff of which heroes are made. He was never consecrated king, though
the act would have strengthened his position, and one wonders if the fact
is evidence that the leaders had yielded only to a popular pressure in
agreeing upon him against their own preference, or merely of the haste
and confusion of events. One act of sovereignty only is attributed to
him, the confirmation of Brand, who had been chosen by the monks Abbot
of Peterborough, in succession to Leofric, of the house of Edwin and
Morcar, who had been present at the battle of Hastings and had died
soon after. William interpreted this reference of the election to Edgar
for confirmation as an act of hostility to himself, and fined the new
abbot heavily, but to us the incident is of value as evidence of the
character of the movement, which tried to find a national king in this
last male of Cerdic's line.

From Canterbury the invading army advanced directly upon London, and took
up a position in its neighbourhood. From this station a body of five
hundred horsemen was sent forward to reconnoitre the approaches to the
city, and the second battle of the conquest followed, if we may call that
a battle which seems to have been merely one-sided. At any rate, the
citizens intended to offer battle, and crossed the river and advanced
against the enemy in regular formation, but the Norman knights made short
work of the burgher battalions, and drove them back into the city with
great slaughter. The suburb on the south bank of the Thames fell into the
hands of the enemy, who burned down at least a part of it. William
gained, however, no further success at this point. London was not yet
ready to submit, and the river seems to have been an impassable barrier.
To find a crossing the Norman march was continued up the river, the