The writer in the _Saxon Chronicle_, speaking from his own knowledge, says of William, “He was a very wise and a great man, and more honoured and more powerful than any of his predecessors. He was mild to those good men who loved God, but severe beyond measure towards those who withstood his will.... He was a very stern and wrathful man, so that none durst do anything against his will, and he kept in prison those earls who acted against his pleasure.... Truly there was much trouble in these times, and very great distress; he caused castles to be built, and oppressed the poor.... He made large forests for the deer, and enacted laws therewith, so that whoever killed a hart or a hind should be blinded. He loved the tall stags as if he had been their father. The rich complained and the poor murmured, but he was so sturdy that he recked nought of them; they must will all that the king willed, if they would live; or would keep their lands; or would hold their possessions; or would be maintained in their rights. Alas! that any man should so exalt himself, and carry himself in his pride over all!”[112] Ingulph speaks of the entire subjugation of the English people, and of their systematic exclusion from offices of honour. “Many of the chief men of the land, for some time, offered resistance to William, the new king, but, being afterwards crushed by his might and overcome, they at last submitted to the sway of the Normans.... So inveterately did the Normans at this period detest the English, that, whatever the amount of their merits might be, they were excluded from all dignities; and foreigners who were far less fitted, be they of any other nation whatever under heaven, would have been gladly chosen instead of them.”[113] Henry of Huntingdon uses language which the English of the present day, accustomed as they are to rear their heads proudly among the nations, can hardly understand. “In the twenty-first year of the reign of King William, when the Normans had accomplished the righteous will of God on the English Nation, and there was now no prince of the ancient regal race living in England, and all the English were brought to a reluctant submission, so that _it was a disgrace even to be called an Englishman_, the instrument of Providence in fulfilling its designs was removed from the world.”[114] “Many of the people,” as Holinshed tells us, “utterly refusing such an intolerable yoke of thraldom as was daily laid upon them, chose rather to leave all, both goods and lands, and after the manner of outlaws, got them to the woods with their wives, children, and servants, meaning from henceforth to live upon the spoils of the country adjoining, and to take whatsoever came next to hand.” Notwithstanding the heavy pressure of these evils good ensued. The political tempest resulted in the increased purity, health, and peace, of the national atmosphere.