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William might now call himself, like his West-Saxon predecessors, Bretwalda and Basileus of the isle of Britain. This was the highest point of his fortune. Duke of the Normans, King of the English, he was undisputed lord from the march of Anjou to the narrow sea between Caithness and Orkney. The exact terms of the treaty between William's royal vassal and his overlord are unknown.
He enriched "Orosius" by a sketch of the new geographical discoveries in the North. He gave a West-Saxon form to his selections from Bæda. In one place he stops to explain his theory of government, his wish for a thicker population, his conception of national welfare as consisting in a due balance of the priest, the thegn, and the churl.
But the rock and the buildings nowhere better seen than from the Mount of Dol are still there, a most striking object from every point of the landscape, Saint Michael "in peril of the sea" seeming to watch over the bay which bears his name, as from his height at Glastonbury he seems to watch over the flats and the hills peopled with the names alike of British and of West-Saxon heroes.
For, on getting to Erfurt, he finds his Soubise-Hildburghausen Army off on retreat among the inaccessible Hills still farther westward; and has to linger painfully there, and to detach, and even to march personally against other Enemies; and then, these finished, to march back towards his Erfurt ones, who are taking heart in the interim: and, in short, from September 1st to November 5th, there are two months of confused manoeuvring and marching to and fro in that West-Saxon region, which are very intricate to readers.
The anarchy which had driven Ine from the throne broke out in civil strife which left Wessex an easy prey to Æthelbald, the successor of Ceolred in the Mercian realm. Æthelbald took up with better fortune the struggle of his people for supremacy over the south. He penetrated to the very heart of the West-Saxon kingdom, and his siege and capture of the royal town of Somerton in 733 ended the war.
If the visitor chance not only to be an Englishman but a West-Saxon, he will feel yet more at home at seeing a land where the apple-tree takes the place of the vine, and where his host asks special payment for wine, but supplies "zider" for nothing. But above all things, look at the men. Those broad shoulders and open countenances seem to have got on the wrong side of the Channel.
It was the hostility of the states around it to the West-Saxon rule which had roused so often revolt in the Danelaw; but from the time of Brunanburh we hear nothing more of the hostility of Bernicia, while Cumbria was conquered by Eadmund and turned adroitly to account in winning over the Scots to his cause.
The raid ended in a crushing defeat which broke the West-Saxon strength, but a British poet in verses still left to us sings piteously the death song of Uriconium, "the white town in the valley," the town of white stone gleaming among the green woodlands.
After fighting his country's battles, and at a time when most men were content with military honor, he began to learn Latin, that he might translate the works that would be most helpful to his people. More important than any translation is the English or Saxon Chronicle. This was probably at first a dry record, especially of important births and deaths in the West-Saxon kingdom.
Foreigners ruled and owned the land, and "native" became synonymous with "serf." Their common lot, however, gave birth to a common feeling. The Norman was more alien to the Mercian than had been Northumbrian or West-Saxon, and rival tribes at last discovered a bond of unity in the impartial rigour of their masters.
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