_M._--These questions are not relevant to the matter in hand, to which I am pledged; still I will gladly tell you what I have heard hereon from the natives themselves. After the conquest of the realm, after the just overthrow of the rebels, when the king himself and the king’s barons traversed the new country, a careful enquiry was made touching those who fought against the king in battle and saved themselves by flight. To all of these, and to the heirs also of those who had fallen in battle, all hope of the lands and estates and revenues which they had before possessed was denied; they thought it much to enjoy the privilege of continuing to live under their enemies. But as for those who were summoned to the war and had not yet assembled, or had not been present through domestic or any necessary occupations, when in the course of time they had won the favour of their lords by devoted service, they began to acquire possessions for themselves only, without hope of passing them on to an heir, at the will of their lords. But as time passed and they became hateful to their lords and were everywhere driven from their possessions, with none to restore what had been taken away, a general complaint of the natives reached the ear of the king, that if they were thus hated of all and spoiled of their goods, they would be forced to cross to alien peoples. Counsel was at length taken hereon, and it was decreed that what their merits might earn from their lords by a lawful covenant should be granted to them by inviolable right, but that they should claim nothing for themselves by right of heredity from the time of the conquest of the race. The wise discretion of this provision is manifest, the more so as they would thus be bound in every way in their own interests to strive henceforth to win the favour of their lords by devoted service. So, therefore, any member of the conquered people who possesses estates or any such thing, has acquired them not because they were thought to be due to him by hereditary right, but because he has gotten them by his merits or by covenant. THE STATUTES OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. =Source.=--_Bodleian Rawlinson_, C. 641, in Stubbs, Select Charters. First, he desired that above all things one God should be worshipped throughout the whole of his realm, one faith in Christ kept always inviolate, and peace and security observed between the English and the Normans. We have decreed also that every freeman affirm by covenant and oath that within and without England they will be loyal to king William, and will keep his honour in all fealty with him, and defend him against his enemies.