The turbulent ambition of Norman barons threatened the sovereignity of William the Conqueror and of his son, the Red King, often enough, but these outbreaks promised no liberty for England. The fires of English revolt were stamped out utterly five years after Senlac, and the great Conqueror at his death left England crushed; but he left it under the discipline of religion, and he left it loyal to the authority of the crown, grateful for the one protection against the lawless rule of the barons. The English Chronicler, writing as “one who knew him and once lived at his court,” summed up the character of the Conqueror’s life and work in words that have been freely quoted through the centuries:-- “King William was wiser and mightier than any of his forerunners. He built many minsters, and was gentle to God’s servants, though stern beyond all measure to those who withstood his will.... So stark and fierce was he that none dared resist his will. Earls that did aught against his bidding he put in bonds, and bishops he set off their bishoprics, and abbots off their abbacies, and thanes he cast into prison. He spared not his own brother, called Odo, who was the chief man next to the king, but set him in prison. So just was he that the good peace he made in this land cannot be forgotten. For he made it so that a man might fare alone over his realm with his bosom full of gold, unhurt; and no man durst slay another man whatsoever the evil he hath done him; and if any man harmed a woman he was punished accordingly. He ruled over England, and surveyed the land with such skill that there was not one hide but that he knew who held it, and what it was worth, and these things he set in a written book. So mighty was he that he held Normandy and Brittany, won England and Maine, brought Scotland and Wales to bow to him, and would, had he lived two years longer, have won Ireland by his renown, without need of weapons. Yet surely in his time men had much travail and very many sorrows; and poor men he made to toil hard for the castles he had built. He fell on covetousness, and the love of gold; and took by right and by unright many marks of gold and more hundred pounds of silver of his people, and for little need. He made great deer-parks, and ordered that whoso slew hart or hind, him men should blind; and forbade men to slay deer or boar, and made the hare go free; he loved the big game as if he were their father. And the poor men that were oppressed he recked nought of. All must follow the king’s will if they would live, or have land, or even a quiet life.”