Normandy, or any promises that had been made to him at the time of his visit to England. Edward, to whom the Church has given the title of Saint and Confessor, was the last of the direct line of the West Saxon kings that ruled in England. Though his reign was peaceable and fortunate, he owed his prosperity less to his own abilities than to the conjunctures of the times. The Danes, employed in other enterprises, did not attempt those incursions which had been so troublesome to his predecessors, and fatal to some of them. The facility of his disposition made him acquiesce in the government of Godwin and his son Harold; and the abilities, as well as the power of these noblemen, enabled them, while they were entrusted with authority, to preserve domestic peace and tranquillity. The most commendable circumstance of Edward's government was his attention to the administration of justice; and he is said to have compiled, for that purpose, a body of laws, which he collected from the laws of Ethelbert, Ina, and Alfred. This compilation, if it ever existed, is now lost (for the laws that pass under Edward's name were composed afterwards), and it is thought that when we find the English in after-times asking for a renewal of King Edward's laws, they do not allude to any definite code, but simply to the old customs generally. But, while praising Edward for his rectitude of conduct, we ought not to forget that his weak dependence upon Norman favourites in the earlier part of the reign was the cause of infinite disaster to the nation in the years that followed his death. He was, in fact, as it has been often said, more fitted for a Norman cloister than for the English throne.