Archbishop of York, was there to complete the submission of the Church;
bishops of several sees were also present, and chief men of the state,
among whom Edwin and Morcar are mentioned by one of the chroniclers who
had earlier sent them home to the north. Possibly he is right in both
statements, and the earls had returned to make their peace when they
saw that resistance was hopeless. These men William received most
kindly and with good promises, and Edgar in particular he embraced and
treated like a son.

This deputation from London, headed by their nominal king, came to offer
the crown to William. For him and for the Normans the decisive moment of
the expedition was now come. A definite answer must be made. According to
the account we are following, a kind of council of war of the Norman and
other barons and the leaders of the army seems to have been held, and to
this council William submitted the question whether it would be better to
take the crown now, or to wait until the country was more completely
subdued and until his wife Matilda could be present to share the honour
with him. This is the question which we are told was proposed, but the
considerations which seem to have led to the final decision bear less
upon this than upon the question whether William should be king at all or
not. We have before this date no record of any formal decision of this
question. It had been doubtless tacitly understood by all; the crown was
more or less openly the object of the expedition; but the time had now
come when the question stood as a sharp issue before William and before
his men and must be frankly met. If the Duke of the Normans was to be
transformed into the King of the English, it could be done only with the
loyal support of his Norman followers; nor is it at all likely that, in a
state so thoroughly feudal as Normandy, the suzerain would have ventured
to assume so great an increase of rank and probable power without the
express consent of his vassals, in disregard of what was certainly the