268 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

Appendix hardly any ambition to attend those public councils,I. there was no danger of the assembly's becoming, too numerous for the dispatch of the little business ,which was brought before them.

Ti>e Aristo- It is certain , that, whatever we may determinecracy. concerning the constituent members of the

AY ittenagemot , in whom, with the king, thelegislature resided , the Anglo-Saxon govern-ment , in the period preceding the Normanconquest, was become extremely aristocratical:The royal authority was very limited; the people ,even if admitted to that assembly, were of littleor no weight and consideration. We havehints given us in historians of the great powerand riches of particular noblemen : And it couldnot but happen, after the abolition of theHeptarchy, when the king lived at a distancefrom the provinces , that those great proprietors,who resided on their estates , would muchaugment their authority over their vassals andretainers , and over all the inhabitants of theneighbourhood. Hence the immeasurable powerassumed by Harold , Godwin , Leofric , Siward ,IVlorcar , Edwin , Edric , and Alfric, who con-trolled the authority of the kings and renderedthemselves quite necessary in the government.The two latter, though detested by the people,on account of their joining a foreign enemy,still preserved their power and influence; and wemay therefore conclude , that their authoritywas sounded, not on popularity, but on family-rights and possessions There is one Athelstan,