the meeting and asked all the thegns to give his wife the lands unreservedly which her kinswoman had granted her, and they did so. Then Thurkil rode to St. AEthelbert's minister, with the consent and cognizance of the whole assembly, and had it recorded in a gospel book." Chapter 4 The Times: 1066-1100 William came from Normandy, France, to conquer England. He claimed that the former King, Edward, the Confessor, had promised the throne to him when they were growing up together in Normandy, if Edward became King of England and had no children. The Conquerer's men and horses came in boats powered by oars and sails. The conquest did not take long because of the superiority of his military expertise to that of the English. He organized his army into three groups: archers with bows and arrows, horsemen with swords and stirrups, and footmen with hand weapons. Each group played a specific role in a strategy planned in advance. The English army was only composed of footmen with hand weapons such as spears and shields. They fought in a line holding up their shields to overlap each other and form a shieldwall. The defeat of the English was thought to have been presaged by a comet. At Westminster, he made an oath to defend God's holy churches and their rulers, to rule the whole people subject to him with righteousness and royal providence, to enact and hold fast right law, and to utterly forbid rapine and unrighteous judgments. This was in keeping with the traditional oath of a new king.