Excerpt from The Conquest of England, Vol. 2 of 2

The upgrowth of the kingly power had been brought about, as we have seen, by a number of varied in¿uences. It had drawn new strength from the dying out of the other royal stocks leaving the house of Cerdie alone, and from the high character of the kings of Alfred's line. A long series of victories, the constant sight and recognition of the king as head of the national host, and the religious character with which the leadership in war against a heathen foe invested him, had added to the royal dignity and new claims to authority had sprung from the gradual up-building of England, and the extent of dominion brought under the king's rule, from the balance of Danish and anti-danish parties in the realm, and from the king's position as common political centre of the English provinces. Along with the advance thus brought about in the authority of the Crown, there went on a change in the old Teutonic conception of kingship, and an imitation of Imperial claims aided by intercourse with the Imperial court. The solemn coronation of the king, the oath of fidelity, the identification of loyalty with personal troth to the personal king, the doctrine of treason, the haughty claims to a far-reaching supremacy, the vaunting titles assumed in charters, all point to a new conception of royalty. But the royal claims lay still far ahead of the real strength of the Crown. There Was a want of administrative machinery in actual con nexion with the government, responsible to it.

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