340

HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

g h a p. to spiritual censures, till he himself had giveniv. his consent to their excommunication **. These1&70. regulations were worthy of a sovereign , andkept united the civil and ecclesiastical powers,which the principles, introduced by this princehimself, had an immediate tendency to separate.

But the Englill) had the cruel mortification tofind, that their king’s authority, however acquiredor however extended , was all employed in theiroppression ; and that the scheme of their sub-jection , attended with every circumstance ofr insult and indignity " , was deliberately formedby the prince, and wantonly prosecuted by hisfollowers William had even entertaitrfcd thedifficult project of totally abolishing the Englishlanguage ; and , for that purpose, he ordered ,that, in all schools throughout the kingdom ,the youth should be instructed in the Frenchtongue, a practice which was continued fromcustom till after the reign of Edward III. andwas never indeed totally discontinued in England.The pleadings in the supreme courts of judicaturewere in French e! : The deeds were often drawnin the same language : The laws were composedin that idiom " : No other tongue was used atcourt : It became the language of all fashionable

' Eadmer, p. 6. " Order. Vital. p. 523. H. Hunt.

p. 370. " Ingulf, p. 71.

,J 36. Ed. III. cap. 15. Selden. Spicileg. ad Eadmer,p. 189. Fortefcue de laud. leg. Angl. cap. 48.

" Chron. Rothom, A. D. 1066.