276 THE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE absorbed Maine, defeated the Duke of Brittany, and wrenched fiefs away from the Capetians. But when Edward died childless, the Witan chose Harold, son of Godwine, the leader of the anti-Norman party in Edward's reign. Wil- liam thereupon determined to invade England. The pope approved of his expedition because Harold's party had ousted the Archbishop of Canterbury, a Norman, and re- placed him by an Englishman without papal permission. William's vassals were as keen to conquer more territory as he was, and various feudal nobles from outside Normandy were allured by the prospect of new fiefs and plunder to join his forces. He also stirred up Tostig, an unworthy brother of Harold, who was in exile and who was aided by Harold Hardrada of Norway and by contingents from the Norse colonies in Ireland, the Orkneys, and Shetlands, and from the King of Scotland. Tostig and Hardrada in- vaded northern England and defeated the Earls of North, umbria and Mercia, but Harold hurried north to the res- cue and defeated and killed both Tostig and Hardrada in the battle of Stamford Bridge. But meanwhile William's army had been enabled to land unopposed on the south coast. Harold hurried south to meet him, but now he in his turn was defeated and slain at the battle of Hastings or Senlac. William soon took London and forced the Witan to elect him king, and by 1071 he had crushed all rebellion. Before the Norman conquest the Anglo-Saxon monarchy had shown a tendency to fall apart into four or five great English earldoms, which, as the names Northumbria and Mercia mentioned above show, followed the lines of the former independent kingdoms. The earls re- placed the former ealdormen in the various shires. Besides this tendency in the direction of feudal states, it should be noted that the kings h ad come to rely chiefly in th eir govern- ment and wars upon a nobility of service called "thegns." It was with these personal followers that they filled up the Witan to secure a subservient majority, and to them they granted or "booked" lands. Immunities, too, had been granted, and some_ private indiv iduals had military ret ain-
