35/83 Their lives were, indeed, commonly spared; but their estates were confiscated, and either annexed to the royal demesnes, or conferred with the most profuse bounty, on the Normans and other foreigners.[***] While the king's declared intention was to depress, or rather entirely extirpate, the English gentry,[****] [8] it is easy to believe that scarcely the form of justice would be observed in those violent proceedings;[*****] and that any suspicions served as the most undoubted proofs of guilt against a people thus devoted to destruction. p.79. W.Malms, p.103.Hoveden, p.451.Chron.Abb. |