' Accordingly, we find that this great
conqueror, at his coronation on the Christmas day succeeding
his victory, took an oath at the altar of St. Peter, Westminster,
in sense and substance the very same with that which the
Saxon kings used to take at their coronations. * * And at
Barkhamstead, in the fourth year of his reign, in the presence
of Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, for the quieting of
the people, he swore that he would inviolably observe the good
and approved ancient laws which had been made by the devout
and pious kings of England, his ancestors, and chiefly by King
Edward; and we are told that the people then departed in good
humor." Kelham's Preliminary Discourse to the Laws of
William the Conqueror. See, also, 1 Hale's History of the
Common Law, 186.
Crabbe says that William the Conqueror "solemnly swore that
he would observe the good and approved laws of Edward the
Confessor." Crabbe's History of the English Law, p. 43.
The successors of William, up to the time of Magna Carta,
probably all took the same oath, according to the custom of the
kingdom; although there may be no historical accounts extant
of the oath of each separate king.
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