"Though many confiscations took place, in order to gratify the Norman army, yet the mass of property was left in the hands of its former possessors. Offices of high trust were bestowed upon Englishmen, even upon those whose family renown might have raised the most aspiring thoughts. But, partly through the insolence and injustice of William's Norman vassals, partly through the suspiciousness natural to a man conscious of having overturned the national government, his yoke soon became more heavy. The English were oppressed; they rebelled, were subdued, and oppressed again. ... An extensive spoliation of property accompanied these revolutions. It appears by the great national survey of Domesday Book, completed near the close of the Conqueror's reign, that the tenants in capite of the crown were generally foreigners. ... But inferior freeholders were much less disturbed in their estates than the higher. ... The valuable labours of Sir Henry Ellis, in presenting us with a complete analysis of Domesday Book, afford an opportunity, by his list of mesne tenants at the time of the survey, to form some approximation to the relative numbers of English and foreigners holding manors under the immediate vassals of the crown. ... Though I will not now affirm or deny that they were a majority, they [the English] form a large proportion of nearly 8,000 mesne tenants, who are summed up by the diligence of Sir Henry Ellis. ... {794} This might induce us to suspect that, great as the spoliation must appear in modern times, and almost completely as the nation was excluded from civil power in the commonwealth, there is some exaggeration in the language of those writers who represent them as universal reduced to a state of penury and servitude. And this suspicion may be in some degree just. Yet those writers, and especial the most English in feeling of them all, M. Thierry, are warranted by the language of contemporary authorities." _H. Hallam, The Middle Ages. chapter 8, part 2._