usual feudal practice. The decision of the council was favourable, and
William accepted the crown. Immediately a force of men was sent forward
to take military possession of the city and build, after the Norman
fashion, some kind of defences there, and to make suitable preparation
for the coming of the king who was to be. The interval William occupied
in his favourite amusement of the chase, and his army in continuing to
provide for their various wants from the surrounding country and that
with no gentle hand.

Whatever may have prevented the coronation of Edgar, there was to be no
unnecessary delay about William's. Christmas day, the nearest great
festival of the Church, was fixed upon for the ceremony, which was to
take place in the new abbey church of Westminster, where Harold had been
crowned and where the body of Edward lay. The consecration was to be
performed by Aldred, Archbishop of York. No Norman, least of all William,
who had come with the special blessing of the rightful pope, could allow
this sacred office to Stigand, whose way to the primacy had been opened
by the outlawry of the Norman archbishop Robert, and whose paillium was
the gift of a schismatic and excommunicated pope. With this slight
defect, from which Harold's coronation also suffered, the ceremony was
made as formal and stately as possible. Norman guards kept order about
the place; a long procession of clergy moved into the church, with the
duke and his supporting bishops at the end. Within, the old ritual of
coronation was followed as nearly as we can judge. Englishmen and
Frenchmen were asked in their own languages if they would have William to
be king, and they shouted out their approval; William then took oath to
defend the Church, to rule justly, to make and keep right law, and to
prevent disorders, and at last he was anointed and crowned and became
King of the English in title and in law. But all this had not taken place
without some plain evidence of the unusual and violent character of the