The prevalence of this superstitious spirit became dangerous to some of William's successors, and incommodious to most of them; but the arbitrary sway of this king over the English, and his extensive authority over the foreigners, kept him from feeling any immediate inconveniences from it. He retained the church in great subjection, as well as his lay subjects; and would allow none, of whatever character, to dispute his sovereign will and pleasure. He prohibited his subjects from acknowledging any one for pope whom he himself had not previously received: he required that all the ecclesiastical canons, voted in any synod, should first be laid before him, and be ratified by his authority: even bulls or letters from Rome could not legally be produced, till they received the same sanction: and none of his ministers or barons, whatever offences they were guilty of, could be subjected to spiritual censures till he himself had given his consent to their excommunication [m]. These regulations were worthy of a sovereign, and kept united the civil and ecclesiastical powers, which the principles introduced by this prince himself had an immediate tendency to separate. [FN [m] Eadmer, p. 6.] But the English had the cruel mortification to find that their king's authority, however acquired or however extended, was all employed in their oppression; and that the scheme of their subjection, attended with every circumstance of insult and indignity [n], was deliberately formed by the prince, and wantonly prosecuted by his followers [o]. William had even entertained the difficult project of totally abolishing the English language; and, for that purpose, he ordered, that in all schools throughout the kingdom, the youth should be instructed in the French tongue; a practice which was continued from custom till after the reign of Edward III., and was never indeed totally discontinued in England. The pleadings in the supreme courts of judicature were in French [p]: the deeds were often drawn in the same language: the laws were composed in that idiom [q]: no other tongue was used at court: it became the language of all fashionable company; and the English themselves, ashamed of their own country, affected to excel in that foreign dialect. From this attention of William, and from the extensive foreign dominions long annexed to the crown of England, proceeded that mixture of French which is at present to be found in the English tongue, and which composes the greatest and best part of our language. But amidst those endeavours to depress the English nation, the king, moved by the remonstrances of some of his prelates, and by the earnest desires of the people, restored a few of the laws of King Edward [r]; which, though seemingly of no great importance towards the protection of general liberty, gave them extreme satisfaction, as a memorial of their ancient government, and an unusual mark of complaisance in their imperious conquerors [s]. [FN [n] Order. Vital. p. 523.