"By right of conquest William claimed nothing. He had come to take his crown, and he had unluckily met with some opposition in taking it. The crown-lands of King Edward passed of course to his successor. As for the lands of other men, in William's theory all was forfeited to the crown. The lawful heir had been driven to seek his kingdom in arms; no Englishman had helped him; many Englishmen had fought against him. All then were directly or indirectly traitors. The King might lawfully deal with the lands of all as his own. ... After the general redemption of lands, gradually carried out as William's power advanced, no general blow was dealt at Englishmen as such. ... Though the land had never seen so great a confiscation, or one so largely for the behoof of foreigners, yet there was nothing new in the thing itself. ... Confiscation of land was the every-day punishment for various public and private crimes. ... Once granting the original wrong of his coming at all and bringing a host of strangers with him, there is singularly little to blame in the acts of the Conqueror." _E. A. Freeman, William the Conqueror, pages 102-104, 126._ "After each effort [of revolt] the royal hand was laid on more heavily: more and more land changed owners, and with the change of owners the title changed. The complicated and unintelligible irregularities of the Anglo-Saxon tenures were exchanged for the simple and uniform feudal theory. ... It was not the change from alodial to feudal so much as from confusion to order. The actual amount of dispossession was no doubt greatest in the higher ranks." _W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, chapter 9, section. 95._ ENGLAND: A. D. 1069-1071. The Camp of Refuge in the Fens.