William’s army consisted of 60,000 men; not all his own subjects, (for his duchy could not furnish and maintain such a force) but made up chiefly of adventurers, or soldiers of fortune, who had engaged in the expedition, on the promise of forfeited lands, in proportion to the numbers they brought with them. Accordingly, some are said to have afterward bestowed on them no less than 700 manors, others 5, 4, 3, 2, and 100, or less; insomuch that all the land in England, if we except the royal demesnes, the church lands, and those annexed to the cities and boroughs, were in no more than about 700 hands, whose wide possessions were again distributed among their numerous vassals, according to the principles of the feudal system, which was now completely introduced and established in England. {328} In consequence of this change, it became a fundamental maxim, and necessary principle of our English tenures, that the king is the universal lord and original proprietor of all the lands in his kingdom, and that no man doth or can possess any part of it, but what has, mediately or immediately, been derived from him, to be held upon feudal services. This engrafting of the feudal tenure on almost all the land in the kingdom, is said to have been the most important alteration which our civil and military policy then underwent. {329a} The great lords held their lands of the king, by certain services, as all their vassals held theirs also of them. Thus the king had the whole power of the country closely connected with, and dependent upon himself. This state of things was calculated, no doubt, to secure the kingdom from external danger, and may be considered as laying the foundation of that high military character which England afterwards held among its neighbours. A vast demesne was now set apart for the king, amounting to 1422 manors, together with many other lands which had never been erected or formed into manors. Besides these he had the profits of all his feudal tenures, his worships, marriages, and reliefs; the benefit of excheats, either upon failure of heirs, or forfeiture; the goods of felons and traitors; the profits of his courts of justice; besides many other casualties, which amounted to an immense revenue; insomuch that the Conqueror, as we are informed, had no less than 1060_l._ 10_s._ a day, the annual amount of which, allowing for the comparative value of moneys &c. was equal to several millions (perhaps twenty or more) of ours. {329b} So large a revenue might probably justify the saying of Fortescue, that originally the King of England was the richest in Europe.