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HISTORY OF ENGLAND,

cn r AP - their skill in negotiation, and by a natural eloquence whichthey assiduously cultivated. It was the boast of one of theirhistorians that the Norman gentlemen were orators from thecradle. But their chief fame was derived from their militaryexploits. Every country, from the Atlantic Ocean to theDead Sea, witnessed the prodigies of their discipline andvalour. One Norman knight, at the head of a handful ofwarriors, scattered the Celts of Connaught. Another foundedthe monarchy of the Two Sicilies, and saw the emperors bothof the East and of the West fly before his arms. A third, theUlysses of the first crusade, was invested by his fellow soldierswith the sovereignty of Antioch; and a fourth, the Tancredwhose name lives in the great poem of Tasso, was celebratedthrough Christendom as the bravest and most generous of thechampions of the Holy Sepulchre.

The vicinity of so remarkable a people early began to pro-duce an effect on the public mind of England. Before theConquest, English princes received their education in Nor-mandy. English sees and English estates were bestowed onNormans. The French of Normandy was familiarly spokenin the palace of Westminster. The court of Rouen seems tohave been to the court of Edward the Confessor what the courtof Versailles long afterwards was to the court of Charles theSecond.

The Nor- The battle of Hastings, and the events which followed it,

quest, not only placed a Duke of Normandy on the English throne,but gave up the whole population of England to the tyranny ofthe Norman race. The subjugation of a nation by a nationhas seldom, even in Asia, been more complete. The countrywas portioned out among the captains of the invaders. Strongmilitary institutions, closely connected with the institution ofproperty, enabled the foreign conquerors to oppress thechildren of the soil. A cruel penal code, cruelly enforced,guarded the privileges, and even the sports, of the alien

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