It is instructive to see how in this same assembly William bestowed several great offices.  The earldom of Northumberland was vacant by the slaughter of two earls, the bishopric of Dorchester by the peaceful death of its bishop.  William had no real authority in any part of Northumberland, or in more than a small part of the diocese of Dorchester.  But he dealt with both earldom and bishopric as in his own power.  It was now that he granted Northumberland to Gospatric.  The appointment to the bishopric was the beginning of a new system.  Englishmen were now to give way step by step to strangers in the highest offices and greatest estates of the land.  He had already made two Norman earls, but they were to act as military commanders.  He now made an English earl, whose earldom was likely to be either nominal or fatal.  The appointment of Remigius of Fecamp to the see of Dorchester was of more real importance.  It is the beginning of William’s ecclesiastical reign, the first step in William’s scheme of making the Church his instrument in keeping down the conquered.  While William lived, no Englishman was appointed to a bishopric.  As bishoprics became vacant by death, foreigners were nominated, and excuses were often found for hastening a vacancy by deprivation.  At the end of William’s reign one English bishop only was left.  With abbots, as having less temporal power than bishops, the rule was less strict.  Foreigners were preferred, but Englishmen were not wholly shut out.  And the general process of confiscation and regrant of lands was vigorously carried out.  The Kentish revolt and the general movement must have led to many forfeitures and to further grants to loyal men of either nation.  As the English Chronicles pithily puts it, “the King gave away every man’s land.”

William could soon grant lands in new parts of England.  In February 1068 he for the first time went forth to warfare with those whom he called his subjects, but who had never submitted to him.  In the course of the year a large part of England was in arms against him.  But there was no concert; the West rose and the North rose; but the West rose first, and the North did not rise till the West had been subdued.  Western England threw off the purely passive state which had lasted through the year 1067.  Hitherto each side had left the other alone.  But now the men of the West made ready for a more direct opposition to the foreign government.  If they could not drive William out of what he had already won, they would at least keep him from coming any further.  Exeter, the greatest city of the West, was the natural centre of resistance; the smaller towns, at least of Devonshire and Dorset entered into a league with the capital.  They seem to have aimed, like Italian cities in the like case, at the formation of a civic confederation, which might perhaps find it expedient to acknowledge William as an external lord, but which would maintain perfect internal independence.  Still, as Gytha, widow of Godwine, mother of Harold, was within the walls of Exeter, the movement was doubtless also in some sort on behalf of the House of Godwine.  In any case, Exeter and the lands and towns in its alliance with Exeter strengthened themselves in every way against attack.