Silver was
then of ten times the value, and was more than twenty times
more rare than at present; and consequently of all species
of luxury, plate must have been the rarest.]
But though every thing bure the face of joy and festivity, and William
himself treated nia new courtiers with great appearance of kindness, it
was impossible altogether to prevent the insolence of the Normans;
and the English nobles derived little satisfaction from those
entertainments, where they considered themselves as led in triumph by
their ostentatious conqueror.
In England affairs took still a worse turn during the absence of the
sovereign. Discontents and complaints multiplied every where; secret
conspiracies were entered into against the government; hostilities
were already begun in many places; and every thing seemed to menace a
revolution as rapid as that which had placed William on the throne. The
historian above mentioned, who is a panegyrist of his master, throws the
blame entirely on the fickle and mutinous disposition of the English,
and highly celebrates the justice and lenity of Odo's and Fitz-Osborne's
administration.[**] But other historians, with more probability, impute
the cause chiefly to the Normans; who, despising a people that had so
easily submitted to the yoke, envying their riches, and grudging the
restraints imposed upon their own rapine, were desirous of provoking
them to a rebellion, by which they expected to acquire new confiscations
and forfeitures, and to gratify those unbounded hopes which they had
formed in entering on this enterprise.
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