He had need to defend himself: for at every step the hostility of the people over whom he sought to rule displayed itself energetically. On arriving at St. Alban's the Normans found the way obstructed by a number of large trees thrown across the road. "Who has done this?" inquired William angrily. "I," replied the Abbot of St. Alban's, presenting himself before him; "and if others of my rank and profession had done as much, you would not have advanced as far as this." The conqueror did no harm to the proud abbot; but on the day of his coronation he surrounded Westminster Abbey with battalions of his Normans before entering beneath its majestic roof, attended by his barons and by the Saxons who in a small number had rallied round him. Stigand had submitted; but he had refused to crown the usurper. This duty, therefore, fell upon the Archbishop of York, Aldred, a prudent man, who was able to discern the signs of the times. At the moment when the duke entered the church the acclamations of the bystanders were so noisy that the Normans posted outside, believing that they were fighting in the sacred edifice, rushed into the neighboring houses and set them afire. {105} The cries of the inhabitants, the clatter of arms, frightened in their turn the spectators of the ceremony; they hurried in a crowd to the door, hastening to get out, and William soon found himself almost alone in the church with the priests and some devoted friends. The coronation ceremony, however, continued, and when the Duke of Normandy had issued from the church to appease the tumult he had become king of England. The Normans had dispersed to extinguish the fires or pillage the houses; the Saxons murmured against them under the sombre prognostications of a reign thus inaugurated by fire and sword. William left London almost immediately, and his first measures, mild and conciliatory in their nature, attracted around him a considerable number of Saxon chiefs, to whom he confirmed the title to their domains. A great extent of territory had already fallen into his hands, but the time for dividing the spoil had not yet arrived. In the month of March, 1067, William crossed over into Normandy, having entrusted the government of England to his brother, the Bishop of Bayeux. Was his object to place in security the treasures which he had acquired, or to give time for insurrections to break out in order to suppress them energetically? Whatever may have been his motives he remained eight months in Normandy, enriching the churches and abbeys with the spoils gathered in England, and conducting through his hereditary states the dangerous subjects whom he had brought in his suite, Stigand, Edwin, Morcar, and the youthful Edgar Atheling. {106}