The English people are said to have been inclined in favour of Henry, from the circumstance of his having been born and educated in England. The advantage he thus possessed was improved to the utmost, and the new king exerted himself to obtain the goodwill of that portion of his subjects who, however trodden down and oppressed by the arrogant Norman barons, were, in fact, the strength and sinew of the nation. A charter of liberties was passed, in which Henry bound himself to restore the laws of Edward the Confessor--that is, the old customs of the country--and promised to restrict himself to his just claims over his tenants, making the same agreement binding in turn upon his tenants towards their vassals. This charter was the cause of great rejoicing among the people, and though the effects produced by it were less advantageous than was expected, it is remarkable as having supplied the groundwork for that more important concession which was afterwards obtained from King John.
These measures gave to Henry a greater popularity than had been enjoyed by either of his predecessors. The nation had no fears of foreign invasion. Some of the most pressing grievances had been redressed, and hopes were given of the removal of others; and although several generations had to pass away before the distinction of Norman and Saxon was entirely to merge into the general name of Englishman, the process had already commenced--a process which, rousing the slumbering English from the lethargy of years, and stimulating the energetic principles of the Norman character to their highest development, ultimately gave birth to a series of events which placed England foremost in the rank of nations.
Such was the state of affairs when the new king, rejecting all thoughts of an alliance with any of the princely families of the Continent, as the crowning act of reconciliation with his English subjects, offered his hand to the exiled and portionless daughter of Malcolm Canmore, a humble novice in the Abbey of Romsey, but the representative of a long and illustrious line of English princes.
We have seen how, on the death of Edward the Confessor, Harold obtained possession of the crown, and have recorded his defeat and death, and the flight of Edgar--"the noble child," as the English chroniclers fondly term him--with his mother and sisters to Scotland. The results of his voyage, and the marriage of his sister Margaret with the King of Scotland, have been already related.