Eadwine and Morcar and the rest of the English nobles soon did homage to William; but the realm was only half subdued, for, save in the south-east, where the whole manhood of the land had been cut off at Hastings, the English had submitted more for want of leaders and union than because they regarded themselves as conquered. It remained to be seen how the new king would deal with his realm, whether he would make himself well loved by his subjects, as Cnut had done, or whether he would become a tyrant and oppressor. William, though stern and cruel, was a man politic and just according to his lights. He wished to govern England in law and order, and not to maltreat the natives. But he was in an unfortunate position. He knew nothing of the customs and manners of the English, and could not understand a word of their language. Moreover, he could not, like Cnut, send away his foreign army, and rely on the loyalty of the people of the land. For his army was a rabble of mercenaries drawn from many realms outside his own duchy, and he had promised them land and sustenance in England when they enlisted beneath his banner. Accordingly, he had to begin by declaring the estates of all who had fought at Hastings, from Harold the king down to the smallest freeholder, as forfeited to the crown. This put five-sixths of the countryside in Wessex, Essex, Kent, and East Anglia into the king's hands. These vast tracts of land were distributed among the Norman, French, Flemish, and Breton soldiery, in greater and smaller shares, to be held by feudal tenure of knight-service from the king's hands. [Sidenote: =Other freeholders become tenants of the crown.=] In the rest of England, those of the native landowners who had not fought at Hastings were allowed to "buy back their lands." That is, they paid William a fine, made him a formal surrender of their estates, and then received them back from him under the new feudal obligations, becoming _tenants-in-chief_ of the crown; agreeing to hold their manors directly from the king as his personal dependents and vassals. So there was no longer any land in England held by the old German freehold tenure, where every man was the sole proprietor of his own soil. [Sidenote: =Risings in the west and north.=]