BEFORE THE RESTORATION.

15

English extraction would have risen to eminence, except by chap.

becoming in speech and habits a Frenchman. -

England owes her escape from such calamities to an event separa-wliich her historians have generally represented as disastrous. Engiar.iHer interest was so directly opposed to the interest of her maD dy.rulers that she had no hope but in their errors and misfortunes.

The talents and even the virtues of her six first French Kingswere a curse to her. The follies and vices of the seventh wereher salvation. Had John inherited the great qualities of hisfather, of Henry Beauclere, or of the Conqueror, nay, had heeven possessed the martial courage of Stephen or ofRichard,and had theKing of France at the same time been as incapableas all the other successors of Hugh Capet had been, the Houseof Plantagenet must have risen to unrivalled ascendency inEurope. But, just at this conjuncture, France, for the firsttime since the death of Charlemagne, was governed by a princeof great firmness and ability. On the other hand Englandwhich, since the battle of Hastings, had been ruled generallyby wise statesmen, always by brave soldiers, fell under the do-minion of a trifier and a coward. From that moment herprospects brightened. John was driven from Normandy.

The Norman nobles were compelled to make their electionbetween the island and the continent. Shut up by the sea withthe people whom they had hitherto oppressed and despised,they gradually came to regard England as their country, andthe English as their countrymen. The two races so longhostile, soon found that they had common interests and com-mon enemies. Both were alike aggrieved by the tyranny of abad king. Both were alike indignant at the favour shown bythe court to the natives of Poitou and Aquitaine. The greatgrandsons of those who had fought under William and thegreat grandsons of those who had fought under Harold beganto draw near to each other in friendship; and the firstpledge of their reconciliation was the Great Charter, won