The monuments which remain of this prince in England are the Tower, Westminster Hall, and London Bridge, which he built. The most laudable foreign enterprise which he undertook was the sending of Edgar Atheling, three years before his death, into Scotland, with a small army, to restore Prince Edgar, the true heir of that kingdom, son of Malcolm, and of Margaret, sister of Edgar Atheling; and the enterprise proved successful. It was remarked in that age, that Richard, an elder brother of William’s, perished by an accident in the new forest; Richard, his nephew, natural son of Duke Robert, lost his life in the same place after the same manner; and all men, upon the king’s fate, exclaimed that, as the Conqueror had been guilty of extreme violence in expelling all the inhabitants of that large district to make room for his game, the just vengeance of Heaven was signalized in the same place by the slaughter of his posterity. William was killed in the thirteenth year of his reign, and about the fortieth of his age. As he was never married, he left no legitimate issue.
In the eleventh year of this reign, Magnus, king of Norway, made a descent on the Isle of Anglesea; but was repulsed by Hugh, earl of Shrewsbury. This is the last attempt made by the northern nations upon England. That restless people seem about this time to have learned the practice of tillage, which thenceforth kept them at home, and freed the other nations of Europe from the devastations spread over them by those piratical invaders. This proved one great cause of the subsequent settlement and improvement of the southern nations.