would make out the case on either side. It was easy to show that William always studiously gave himself out as a lawful claimant of the crown of his cousin, hindered from a peaceful accession only by the forcible entry of the usurper Harold. It was easy to show that he studiously professed to observe the laws of the predecessors from whom he claimed, that he really made no extensive changes in legislation, that the transfer of landed property from Englishmen to Normans was accomplished under various pretexts of legal right, and was, after all, much less complete than is often imagined. It was no less easy to prove, on the other side, that, whatever professions of lawful right William made to justify either his accession or his subsequent government, he was in very truth a conqueror, who came in by the sword and who governed by the sword. Whatever might be his professions, England did receive a foreign King and a foreign aristocracy; her ancient laws, if formally re-enacted, were practically trampled under foot; her broad lands were taken from their ancient owners, and divided among intruders alien in blood and language. This is, in short, one of those controversies in which both sides are right in what they assert and both wrong in what they deny. Allowing for a little natural exaggeration on either side, both pictures are substantially true. The only true view of the case is that which equally recognises both sets of facts, and works them out in their proper relation to each other.

Now the days are long past when the question as to the nature of William's accession was held to be of any practical political importance. But the two ways of looking at the matter still remain, and they probably always will remain, because each appeals with equal force to minds of a particular class. One class of observers is most forcibly struck by the great outward facts of history, great territorial conquests, revolutions of race and revolutions of language. Others dwell more upon formal laws and institutions, upon titles and usages, upon all those details which are dear alike to antiquaries and to lawyers, but which more general observers are often apt to pass by. To these two different classes the accession of William the Bastard must appear in two quite different lights. To the one it must seem the most unmitigated foreign conquest; in the eyes of the other it is little more than a change of dynasty. Now these two classes, answering exactly as they do to the two parties of the old controversy, are aptly and eloquently represented, the one by Thierry, the other by Sir Francis Palgrave. Sir Francis indeed, as having far more of the historic spirit, does not carry out his view to such extremes as

Thierry does; he does not deal so recklessly with his authorities; he does not so daringly trample under foot all that is to be said on the other side. Still he does represent one tendency, while Thierry represents the other; and the exact truth can only be got at by keeping always in mind two distinct sets of phenomena, each of which one of our rival historians brings forward to the prejudice of the other.

These two opposing views have now happily become quite independent of the political controversies with which they were long thought to be inseparably connected. Sir Francis Palgrave most certainly does not write in the interest of this or that political party; indeed his incidental remarks show him to be too independent a thinker to identify himself unreservedly with any party. Still more certain is it that Thierry, who, as an historian, represents the school of Brady, had not, as a politician, the slightest sympathy with that school. He writes throughout in the interest of the conquered; he amuses us by seeing the history of the eleventh century repeated in the history of the seventeenth, and by looking on the struggle between Charles I. and his Parliament as a continuation of the struggle between the Norman and the 'Saxon.' So the practical tendency of Sir Francis Palgrave's view, like that of Brady's adversaries, is to soften the most repulsive aspect of the Conquest, and this naturally leads to taking a more favourable view of the character of the Conqueror. Thierry's view, on the other hand, as setting the Conquest itself in the darkest light, naturally tends to do the like by the Conqueror and his followers. And he who is inclined to look more favourably on the Conqueror is naturally inclined to look less favourably on his opponents, to depreciate Harold and the whole family of Godwine. Practically, then, Sir Francis Palgrave may be looked on as a partisan of William and the Normans, though he is very far from being so extreme and undiscerning in his partisanship on their behalf as Thierry is in his partisanship against them.

Two great questions then arise, in examining both of which we must bear in mind the cautions which have just been given. These are, first, the character of the Conquest itself, involving the character of the Conqueror himself, his companions, and his opponents; secondly, the effects of the Conquest, immediate and permanent, on the destinies of the English people. In examining both of these questions we must take into our view both sets of facts, and keep a careful watch over both sets of tendencies. We must go carefully through our authorities;

we must sift them and weigh them and estimate the comparative value of each. In no part of history is this comparative process more imperative, because in no part of history are statements, even contemporary statements, more directly contradictory. And it is the more needful, because we have to charge both of our guides, Thierry and Sir Francis alike, not with any failure of research, not with any misrepresentation of their authorities, but with a neglect of the wide difference between one authority and another. Each, in his eagerness to catch at anything which falls in with his own theory, is often ready to put the most worthless writers on a level with the most trustworthy. This fault is far more conspicuous in Thierry than in Sir Francis Palgrave, but we cannot honestly say that Sir Francis is wholly free from it.

The main authorities for the history of the Conquest consist of several contemporary and nearly contemporary writers, English and Norman. And alongside of the written chronicles we may place what is virtually a chronicle in another material, and whose early date we are glad to find fully admitted by Sir Francis Palgrave. We mean the famous Tapestry of Bayeux. There are also those contemporary charters and documents which do not come under the head of chronicles, beginning of course with the great Domesday Survey. It is from these sources that we must draw our real knowledge as to the events of the Conquest. Later writers must be used with even more caution than usual, for we are dealing with a history of which almost every detail is matter of dispute, and the true version of which was corrupted so very early. Still even later writers have a secondary use, as vehicles of tradition, as showing what their times thought of earlier times, and as witnessing mainly by negative testimony, what the final results of the Conquest were and what they were not. Our materials will therefore fall under four heads, First, English writers contemporary or nearly so; Secondly, Norman authorities of the same period, including the Bayeux Tapestry; Thirdly, Domesday and other contemporaneous documents; Fourthly, later writers of all sorts, from the middle of the twelfth century onwards. In reckoning up these sources, it is not without a feeling of national pride that we place on our list two authorities to which no other country can supply a parallel, namely Domesday and the Saxon Chronicle.

This last venerable record stands absolutely alone; no other nation can show a strictly historical work written at so early a date in the vulgar tongue. And, as written in the vulgar

tongue, it is invaluable beyond all other authorities as a record of the real mind of the time. Other writers tell us with greater fulness what Kings and Princes did; no other book tells us in the same way what the mass of the people thought of their deeds. The work of the good old English annalists has about it a real life to which no Latin writer can ever attain, and its pathetic simplicity not uncommonly approaches the sublime. Every Englishman, we might say every man of Teutonic speech, may be proud of such a possession.

The Chronicle forms, to a considerable extent, the basis of the Latin Chronicle of Florence of Worcester. Florence, clear, simple, straightforward, recording events under their years, never seduced into irrelevant digressions, never carried away by the lures of a pseudo-classical eloquence, stands at the head of the Latin historians of the period.

It is in these two sources that we must look for the purest English traditions of the Conquest itself. The authors of the Chronicle were doubtless strictly contemporary; the writer who gives that wonderful picture of William the Conqueror claims directly to speak from personal knowledge of the King; Florence, too, who died in 1118, may well have remembered William's invasion. In these writers we see absolutely no trace of Norman influence. They are not only English in feeling as opposed to Norman; they are more; they distinctly assert the lawfulness of Harold's accession and the excellence of his government. The Conquest itself, and the events which. immediately led to it, are subjects which they avoid as much as possible. They give very few details of William's invasion, and are absolutely silent as to its causes. From them we should learn nothing of Edward's alleged bequest of the Crown to William, or of Harold's alleged oath of fealty to him. We do not look upon this silence as disproving the facts; but we think that it shows that they were facts which were little known in England at the time that they happened, and which the contemporary generation of Englishmen dwelt on afterwards as little as they could. In the next generation, as we shall presently see, men learned to feel differently.

Along with these we may place another writer who certainly cannot be called an historian of the Conquest, but who is most remarkable, if only for his silence about the matter. This is the author of the anonymous Latin Life of Edward the Confessor edited by Mr. Luard in the series of Chronicles and Memorials. This biography was clearly written after the Conquest, and as it is dedicated to Queen Eadgyth, it must have been written between 1066 and 1075. It is totally silent

as to William's invasion or even as to Harold's reign as King. Such a silence is more impressive that any words could have been. But the writer gives a glowing description of the merits of Harold's government as Earl, and he is most valuable as a contemporary, evidently thoroughly well-informed, bearing full witness, under the hostile Norman rule, to the real character of the calumniated House of Godwine.

In the next generation another spirit arises. To men who did not remember Godwine and Harold they became convenient scape-goats on whom to lay the sins of the nation. Nothing was easier than to find out that Harold's perjury had brought on the Norman invasion, and that Harold's rashness in fighting with insufficient numbers* had caused that invasion to be successful. This sort of talk fell in alike with Norman and with English feeling. To lay all the blame on the King, a King too, it might now be said, wrongfully chosen to the prejudice of the right royal line, was more consoling to national pride than to bring out the manifest fact that Harold was the one great man that England possessed, that he alone could keep the divided land together, and that, when he was gone, it fell, as a divided land must fall, piecemeal into the hands of the invader. Of this view we may take Eadmer and Henry of Huntingdon as the representatives. They are quite English in feeling, but they turn decidedly against Harold, and enlarge on his supposed perjury, about which the Chronicle and Florence hold their peace. This same version is also strangely thrust into the midst of the narrative of Florence, by his copyist Simeon of Durham, who, for the affairs of the north of England, is himself a primary authority. The Historia Novorum' of Eadmer, the English monk, the faithful attendant of Anselm, form a monograph rather than a chronicle. The work is one of the

The beginnings of this charge may be seen even in Florence, devoted as he is to Harold. It is mixed up, however, with charges against those who deserted him, especially the northern carls Eadwine and Morkere. On the other hand, the Norman writers are fond of dwelling on the vast numbers of the English. In cases of this sort we must always allow for exaggeration on both sides; still there may be germs of truth in both accounts. Harold's forced march from York may have hindered him from bringing a sufficient number of picked troops, while the irregular levies of Sussex and the neighbouring counties may have flocked to his standard in myriads. The Tapestry too bears out this view. The English host seems to contain a vast multitude of half-armed darters, while Harold's terrible battle-axe-men appear in comparatively small numbers.