The maxims of his administration were austere, but might have been useful, had they been solely employed to preserve order in an established government:[*] they were ill calculated for softening the rigors which, under the most gentle management, are inseparable from conquest.
[* M.West.p.

230.

Anglia Sacra, vol.i.p.

258.] His attempt against England was the last great enterprise of the kind, which, during the course of seven hundred years, has fully succeeded in Europe, and the force of his genius broke through those limits which first the feudal institutions, chen the refined policy of princes, have fixed to the several states of Christendom.

Though he rendered himself infinitely odious to his English subjects, he transmitted his power to his posterity, and the throne is still filled by his descendants; a proof that the foundations which he laid were firm and solid, and that, amidst all his violence, while he seemed only to gratify the present passion, he had still an eye towards futurity.
Some writers have been desirous of refusing to this prince the title of conqueror, in the sense which that term commonly bears; and on pretence that the word is sometimes in old books applied to such as make an acquisition of territory by any means, they are willing to reject William's title, by right of war, to the crown of England.