in England whose formal homage should carry with it as little of practical obedience as his own homage to the King of the French.  A Norman earl of all Wessex or all Mercia might strive after such a position.  William therefore forsook the old practice of dividing the whole kingdom into earldoms.  In the peaceful central shires he would himself rule through his sheriffs and other immediate officers; he would appoint earls only in dangerous border districts where they were needed as military commanders.  All William’s earls were in fact marquesses, guardians of a march or frontier.  Ode had to keep Kent against attacks from the continent; William Fitz-Osbern had to keep Herefordshire against the Welsh and the independent English.  This last shire had its own local warfare.  William’s authority did not yet reach over all the shires beyond London and Hereford; but Harold had allowed some of Edward’s Norman favourites to keep power there.  Hereford then and part of its shire formed an isolated part of William’s dominions, while the lands around remained unsubdued.  William Fitz-Osbern had to guard this dangerous land as earl.  But during the King’s absence both he and Ode received larger commissions as viceroys over the whole kingdom.  Ode guarded the South and William the North and North-East.  Norwich, a town dangerous from its easy communication with Denmark, was specially under his care.  The nominal earls of the rest of the land, Edwin, Morkere, and Waltheof, with Edgar, King of a moment, Archbishop Stigand, and a number of other chief men, William took with him to Normandy.  Nominally his cherished friends and guests, they went in truth, as one of the English Chroniclers calls them, as hostages.

William’s stay in Normandy lasted about six months.  It was chiefly devoted to rejoicings and religious ceremonies, but partly to Norman legislation.  Rich gifts from the spoils of England were given to the churches of Normandy; gifts richer still were sent to the Church of Rome whose favour had wrought so much for William.  In exchange for the banner of Saint Peter, Harold’s standard of the Fighting-man was sent as an offering to the head of all churches.  While William was in Normandy, Archbishop Maurilius of Rouen died.  The whole duchy named Lanfranc as his successor; but he declined the post, and was himself sent to Rome to bring the pallium for the new archbishop John, a kinsman of the ducal house.  Lanfranc doubtless refused the see of Rouen only because he was designed for a yet greater post in England; the subtlest diplomatist in Europe was not sent to Rome merely to ask for the pallium for Archbishop John.