But the conquest in 1066, completed the change. The court of William consisted principally of foreigners who could speak no language but French. Most of the high offices and rich livings in the kingdom were filled with Normans, and the castles which, by order of the conqueror, were built in different parts of the country, were garrisoned by foreign soldiers, in whom the king might most safely confide.[175] Public business was transacted in the French, and it became dishonorable or a mark of low breeding, not to understand that language. Indeed under the first reigns after the conquest, it was a disgrace to be called an _Englishman_. In this depressed state of the English, their language could not fail to be neglected by the polite part of the nation. But as the body of the nation did not understand French, there must have been a constant effort to root it out and establish the English. The latter however gained ground slowly during the two first centuries of the revolution. But in the reign of king John, Normandy, which had been united with England under the Norman princes, was taken by the French, 1205, and thus separated from the British dominions. In the next reign (Henry III.) some regulations were made between the two kingdoms, by which the subjects of either were rendered incapable of holding lands in the other. These events must have restrained, in some degree, the intercourse between the two kingdoms, and given the English an opportunity to assume their own native character and importance. In this reign the English began to value themselves upon their birth, and a knowlege of the English language was a recommendation, tho not a requisite, in a candidate for a benefice. It appears also by the passage of Higden before quoted, that the practice of construing Latin into French, in the schools, had closed before his time. This, with the other causes before assigned, contributed to root out the French, and make the English reputable; and in the reign of Edward III. produced the act, mentioned in the text, in favor of the English. This act did not produce a total change of practice at once; for we find the proceedings in parliament were published in French for sixty years after the pleas in courts were ordered to be in English, and the statutes continued in French about 120 years after the act, till the first of Richard III. It may be observed that the royal assent to bills was in some instances given in English during the reign of Henry VI. _Be it ordained as it is asked: Be it as it is axed._[176] But the royal assent is now declared in French. [E], page 66 and 34. Sir William Temple's stile, tho easy and flowing, is too diffuse: Every page of his abounds with tautologies. Take the following specimen from the first page that presents itself on opening his third volume.