of battle abbey was a rich and splendid place through many a troubled year though now it is a gray ruin overgrown with ivy but the first work he had to do was to conquer the english thoroughly and that as you know by this time was hard work for any man he several he burned and many towns he laid waste scores upon scores of miles of pleasant country he destroyed innumerable lives at length of can with other representatives of the clergy and the people went to his camp and submitted to him the insignificant son of was proclaimed king by others but nothing came of it he fled to scotland afterward where his sister who was young and beautiful married the king himself was not important enough for any body to care much about him on christmas day william was crowned in westminster abbey under the title of william the first but he is best known as william the conqueror a child s history of england it was a strange one of the who performed the ceremony asked the in french if they have duke william for their king they answered yes another of the put the same question to the in english they too answered yes with a loud shout the noise being heard by a guard of horse soldiers outside was mistaken for resistance on the part of the english the guard instantly set fire to the neighboring houses and a tumult ensued in the midst of which the king being left alone in the abbey with a few priests and they all being in a terrible fright together was hurriedly crowned when the crown was placed upon his head he swore to govern the english as well as the best of their own i dare say you think as i do that if we except the great alfred he might pretty easily have done that numbers of the english had been killed in the last disastrous battle their estates and the estates of all the who had fought against him there king william seized upon and gave to his own knights and many great english families of the present time acquired their english lands in this way and are very proud of it but what is got by force must be maintained by force these were obliged to build castles all over england to defend their new property and do what he would the king could neither soothe nor the nation as he wished he gradually introduced the language and the customs yet for a long time the great body of the english remained sullen and on his going over to to visit his subjects there the the conqueror of his half brother whom he left in charge of his english kingdom drove the people mad the men of even over to take possession of their old enemy count of who had led the when the man was slain at his own fire side the men of aided by the and commanded by a chief named the wild drove the out of their some of those who had been of their lands together in the north of england some in scotland some in the thick woods and and they could fall upon the or upon the english who had submitted to the they fought and murdered like the desperate that they were were set on foot for a general of the like the old of the in short the english were in a mood all through the kingdom king william fearing he might lose his conquest came back and tried to the london people by soft words he then set forth to repress the country people by stem deeds among the towns which he and where he killed and the inhabitants without any distinction none young or old armed or were oxford york in all these places and in many others fire and sword worked their utmost horrors and made the land dreadful to behold the streams and rivers were with blood the sky was blackened with smoke the fields were of ashes the were heaped up with dead such are the fatal re vol i � f a child s history of england suits of conquest and ambition although william was a harsh and angry man i do not suppose that he deliberately meant to work this shocking ruin when he invaded england but what he had got by the strong hand he could only keep by the strong hand and in so doing he made england a great grave two sons of by name and came over from ireland with some ships against the but were defeated this was scarcely done when the in the woods so harassed york that the governor sent to the king for help the king a general and a large force to occupy the town of the bishop of that place met the general outside the town and warned him not to enter as he would be in danger there the general cared nothing for the warning and went in with all his men that night on every hill within sight of signal fires were seen to blaze when the morning dawned the english who had assembled in great strength forced the gates rushed into the town and the every one the english afterward the to come and help them the came with two hundred and forty ships the joined them they captured york and drove the out of that city then william the to go away and took such vengeance oa the english that all the former fire and sword smoke and ashes death and ruin were nothing compared with it in melancholy songs and stories it was still sung and told by cottage fires on winter evenings a hundred years afterward how in those william the dreadful days of the there was not from the river to the river one inhabited village left nor one 