[Joel_Mckay]

It was more that early English commoners had kept a more Germanic dialect, and french was slowly popularized with the aristocracy. =)

[nine_k]

French was forcibly thrust on the population in 1066, but of course the conquerors were the elite, and the defeated, their servants. So if you tend a cow, you call it with the Germanic word: cow, not vache. But if you consume its expensive meat, you name it in French: boef / beef, not rind(fleisch).