of his father's sin. In all history, Wil- liam received developed his faculties, liam is the only individual to whom and made him one of the chief men of such an epithet has adhered through- his age ; and in 1066 he prepared to out his life and fortunes. Was the assert his right to the English crown. · word of affront ever applied to Alphonso, the stern father of the noble house

third son of Edward III., who was son of Edward

II., who was son of Edward I., who was son of of Braganza, by any one except a Cas- Henry III., who was son of John, who was son of tilian ? Not so William ;

-a bastard

Henry II., who was son of Matilda (by Geoffrey was William at the hour of his birth;

Plantagenet, Count of Anjou), who was daughter of

Henry I. (by Matilda of Scotland, sister of Edgar a bastard in prosperity ; a bastard in Atheling, and therefore of the Saxon blood royal), adversity ; a bastard in sorrow; a bas. who was son of William the Conqueror. Thus tard in triumph ; a bastard in the ma

Queen Victoria is descended legitimately from the

Conqueror, not only through Lionel, Duke of Clarternal bosom; a bastard when borne

ence, Edward III.'s third son, but also through that to his horror-inspiring grave. “Wil- monarch's fifth son, Edmund, Duke of York, whose liam the Conqueror' relatively, but

second son, the Earl of Cambridge, married the

great-granddaughter of the Duke of Clarence. Had • William the Bastard’ positively; and

the great struggle of the English throne in the fifa bastard he will continue so long as teenth century been correctly named, it would stand the memory of man shall endure.” in history as the contest between the lines of Clar

ence (not York) and Lancaster. In virtue of her Sir Francis seems to have forgotten

descent from Henry VII., Queen Victoria shares the Bastard of Orleans. Nevertheless, “the aspiring blood of Lancaster," which was so and in spite of his illegitimacy, William

mounting that it brought the worst of woes on Eng

land. Henry VII. was the son of Margaret Beaubecame ruler of Normandy when he

fort (by Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond), who was but a child, bis father abdicating was the daughter of John, Duke of Somerset, who the throne, and forcing the Norman

was the son of John, Earl of Somerset, who was

the son of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, fourth baronage to accept the boy as his suc

son of Edward III. ; but the mother of the Earl of cessor; and that boy thirty years later Somerset was, at the time of his birth, not the wife, founded a royal line that yet endures

but the mistress of the Duke of Lancaster, though

he married her late in life, and in various ways obin full strength, Queen Victoria being tained the legitimation of the children she had borne the legitimate descendant of William of him, - facts that could not remove the great fact of Normandy. The training that Wil- their illegitimacy, if marriage is to count for anyThe Norman barons were at first double emblem of military and ecclesidisinclined to support their lord's claim astical investiture. Of the sixty thouupon England. Their tenures did not sand men that formed the Norman bind them to cross the sea. But at

army, Normans formed the smallest last they were won over to the support portion, and most of their number were of his cause, on the promise of receiving not of noble birth. the lands of the English. He called William sailed on the 28th of Sepupon foreigners to join his army, prom- tember, and landed his army on the ising them the plunder of England. 29th, without experiencing any resist“ All the adventurers and adventurous ance. Harold was in the North, conspirits of the neighboring states were tending with and defeating the Northinvited to join his standard,” and his men, one of whose leaders was his invitation was accepted. “ William brother Tostig. As soon as he republished his ban,” says Thierry, “in ceived intelligence of William's landthe neighboring countries; he offered ing he marched south, bent upon giving gold, and the pillage of England to immediate battle, though his mother every able man who would serve him and his brother Gurth and other relawith lance, sword, or crossbow. A tives, and many of his friends, strongmultitude accepted the invitation, com- ly counselled delay. This counsel was ing by every road, far and near, from good, for his force was to William's as north and south. They came from one to four ; and even a week's delay Maine and Anjou, from Poitiers and might have so far strengthened the Brittany, from France and Flanders, Saxons as to have enabled them to from Aquitaine and Burgundy, from the fight on an approach to equal terms Alps and the banks of the Rhine. All with the invaders. But Harold rejected the professional adventurers, all the all advice, and pressed forward to acmilitary vagabonds of Western Europe, tion so imprudently as to countenance, hastened to Normandy by long march- in a superstitious age, the notion that es; some were knights and chiefs of he was urged on by an irresistible war, the others simple foot-soldiers and power, which had decreed his destrucsergeants-of-arms, as they were then tion. Certainly he did not display called; some demanded money - pay, much sagacity before battle, though others only their passage, and all the both skill and bravery in it were not booty they might win. Some asked for wanting on his part. The battle of land in England, a domain, a castle, Hastings was fought on the 14th of a town; others simply required some October, 1066. The Normans were the rich Saxon in marriage. Every thought, assailants; but for six hours — from every desire of human avarice pre- nine in the morning till three in the sented itself. William rejected no one,

afternoon they were repulsed ; and says the Norman chronicle, and satis- had the Saxons been content to hold fied every one as well as he could. He their ground, victory would have been gave, beforehand, a bishopric in Eng- theirs. But they left the position they land to a monk of Fescamp, in return had so valiantly maintained, to pursue for a vessel and twenty armed men.”* the Normans, when the latter feigned The Pope was William's chief support- to fly. Even then they fought with er. Harold and all his adherents were heroic resolution, and might have reexcommunicated, and William received gained the day, had not Harold fallen. a banner and ring from Rome, the Soon after, the English position was - wbose writings do honor to the sex, and fairly en

stormed, and the king's brother, Gurth,

was slain. The combat lasted till the plished ladies of the sixteenth century whose solid coming on of darkness. Fifteen thouattainments have so long been matter of despairing sand of the victors are said to have admiration. * Histoire de la Conquête de l'Angleterre par les

fallen,-a number as great as the enNormans, Tom. I. Pp. 237, 238.

tire English army.

title their authors to be ranked with those accom

The event of the battle of Hastings II. over the Italians, that the House placed all England, ultimately, at the of Hohenzollern has triumphed over disposition of the Normans, though the House of Hapsburg, that President many years elapsed before the coun- Johnson rules at Washington, and that try was entirely conquered. Had the Queen Victoria sits in the seat of Akbar English possessed a good government, or Aurungzebe, are facts which must all or leaders who enjoyed general confi- be attributed to the decision made by dence, their defeat at Hastings would the sword at Hastings, no matter what not have reduced them to bondage, or may have been the particular process have converted their country into a of events after that battle.

It is possinew world. But they, who were even ble that the misery consequent on the slavishly dependent on their govern- victory of the Normans has been exagment for leading, had no government; gerated, though a great deal of sufferand they were just as destitute of chiefs ing must have followed from it. But who were competent to assume the lead there can be no exaggeration of the at so dark a crisis. Taking advantage general consequence of the success of of circumstances so favorable to his the Normans. That determined the purpose, William soon made himself future course of the world, and will king, but had most of his work to do continue to determine it long after long after he was crowned. The bat- the Valley of the Amazon shall be tle of Hastings, therefore, was decisive far more thickly inhabited, and better of the future of England and of the known, than to-day is the Valley of British race.

Saxon England disap- the Danube. peared; Norman England rose.

The There is one popular error with rechange was perfect, and quite warrants gard to the Norman Conquest which Lord Macaulay's emphatic assertion, it may not be amiss to correct. It is that “the battle of Hastings, and the taken for granted by most persons who events which followed it, not only have written on it, that the triumph of placed a Duke of Normandy on the William was the triumph of an arisEnglish throne, but gave up the whole tocracy over a people, and we often population of England to the tyranny hear the Saxons spoken of as demoof the Norman race," — and that “the crats who were subdued by aristocrats. subjugation of a nation by a nation This is an entirely erroneous view of has seldom, even in Asia, been more the whole subject. So far as there was complete.” The nation that finally was a contest at Hastings between aristoformed by a union of the Saxons and crats and democrats, the Normans were the Normans, and which was seven or champions of democracy, and the Saxeight generations in forming, was a ons of the opposite principle. The very different nation from that which Saxon aristocracy was very powerful, had been ruled by the Confessor. It and its power was steadily increasing was a nation that was capable of every for generations before the Conquest; form of action, and had little in com- and had there not been a foreign invamon with the Saxons of the eleventh sion, it is altogether probable that the century. It matters nothing whether English system soon would have bethe Conqueror introduced the feudal come strictly oligarchical. One of the system into England, or whether he chief causes of Harold's failure was his found it there, or whether that system inability to command the prompt supis almost entirely an imaginary crea- port of some of the greatest nobles, as tion, as most probably is the fact. We Earls Edwin and morcar, who paid know that the event called the Nor- bitterly for their backwardness in after man Conquest wrought great changes in days. Something of this may be attribEngland, and through England in the uted to the weakness of his title to the world; and that Napoleon III. reigns crown, but the mere fact that such men over the French, and Victor Emanuel could so powerfully influence events at

a time when the very existence of the English more, than to see the fair and country was at stake, is enough to noble English maidens and widows show how strong were the insular aris- compelled to accept these despicable tocrats; and it was this selfish aris- adventurers as their husbands. Of this tocracy that was destroyed by the Nor- we have an example in Lucia, the mans, most of whom were upstarts, the daughter of Algar, for Talboys seems very scum of Europe having entered to have been a person of the lowest deWilliam's army.

We doubt if ever gree.” Ivo Talboys, or Taillebois, was there was a greater triumph effected by one of the Conqueror's followers, and the poor and the lowly-born over the rich his chief gave him lands in the fen and the well-born, than that which was country, near the monastery of Croygained at Hastings, though it required land; and this chance of a locality some years to make it complete. Ac- may have had something to do with cording to the common report,” says Sir the reputation he bas, for it brought F. Palgrave, “sixty thousand knights him under the lash of the famous Inreceived their fees, or rather their liv- gulphus, Chronicler of Croyland, (if he ings, to use the old expression, from the was that Chronicler,) who charges him Conqueror. This report is exaggerat- with all manner of crimes, — and with ed as to number; but the race of the reason good, for he bore himself with Anglo - Danish and English nobility great harshness toward the brethren and gentry, the Earls and the greater of the great Croyland monastery, — an Thanes, disappears; and with some unpardonable offence. Low as he was exceptions, remarkable as exemplifying by birth, Taillebois received the hand of the general rule, all the superiorities of Lucia, sister of the Saxon Earls Edwin the English soil became vested in the and Morcar, and became very wealthy. Conqueror's Baronage. Men of a new From this union came “the great line race and order, men of strange man- whence sprang the barons of Kendal ners and strange speech, ruled in Eng- and Lancaster." The last descendant land. There were, however, some of this Norman baron of William's great mitigations, and the very suffer- creation and of the Saxon Lucia died ings of the conquered were so inflicted in 1861, a pauper in the workhouse of as to become the ultimate means of Shrewsbury, — Emily Taillebois, a girl national prosperity; but they were to of eighteen. be gone through, and to be attended There were thousands of such fellows with much present desolation and mis- as Taillebois in William's army, and, ery. The process was the more pain- though all were not so lucky as he, many ful because it was now accompanied of them drew good prizes in the lottery by so much degradation and contumely. of war, and founded, at the expense of The Anglo-Saxons seem to have had the noblest Saxons, families from which a very strong aristocratic feeling, men are proud to be descended. Sir great respect for family and dignity of Walter has used this fact in “Ivanhoe,” blood. The Normans, or rather the when he makes the usually silent Athhost of adventurers whom we must of elstane reply with so much eloquence necessity comprehend under the name to De Bracy's insolent remark that the of Normans, had comparatively little; princes of the House of Anjou conand not very many of the real old and ferred not their wards on men of such powerful aristocracy, whether of Nor- lineage as his. “My lineage, proud mandy or Brittany, settled in England. Norman,” replied Athelstane, “is drawn The great majority had been rude, and from a source more pure and ancient poor, and despicable in their own coun- than that of a beggarly Frenchman, try, - the rascallions of Northern Gaul: whose living is won by selling the these, suddenly enriched, lost all com- blood of the thieves whom he assempass and bearing of mind ; and no one bles under his paltry standard. Kings circumstance vexed the spirit of the were my ancestors, strong in war and

a

wise in council, who every day feast- compared with it. The silver, the gold, ed in their hall more hundreds than the vases, vestments, and crucifixes thou canst number individual follow- crested with jewels, the silken garers; whose names have been sung by ments for men and women, the rings, minstrels, and their laws recorded by necklaces, bracelets, wrought delicately Wittenagemotes; whose bones were in gold and resplendent in gems, ininterred amid the prayers of saints, and spired the Continental barbarians with over whose tombs minsters have been rapture, and in their imaginations builded.” There can be no doubt that made England appear the Dorado of Saxons as far-descended as Scott rep- those times.” One of the writers of resents Athelstane to have been were that day states that “incredible treastreated worse than he, and that Saxon ures in gold and silver were sent from ladies of the highest birth and greatest the plunder of England to the Pope, wealth experienced the fate of the con- together with costly ornaments, which quered in much severer measure than would have been held in the highest it became known to Rowena. Scott estimation even at Byzantium, then has been accused of exaggerating the universally regarded as the most opueffects of the Conquest, but his glow- lent city in the world.” All this ing picture is by no means overcharged, implies that the Saxon aristocracy were if we look at the effect of that change very rich, and it is far from unlikely on the higher classes of the vanquished that it was the desire to preserve their people. The Saxons were very wealthy, property that led them to offer so little and the invaders obtained an amount resistance to William, - a fatally misof spoil that astonished them, the ac- taken course, for the invading advencounts of which remind the reader of turers had entered England in search what was told of the extraordinary of other men's property, and were not acquisitions made by the ruffians who to be kept quiet by the quietness of the formed the force of Pizarro in Peru. owners thereof. The aristocracy alone Years after the day of Hastings, we could afford such plunder as that deare told, William “bore back with scribed, and that so much of it was him, to his eager and hungry country, obtained shows how extensive must the plunder of England, which was have been the spoliation, and how so varied in kind, so prodigious in thoroughly Saxon nobles were stripped amount, that the awe-stricken chroni- of their possessions by the low-born clers maintain that all the Gauls, if ragamuffins who were induced by Wilransacked from end to end, would have liam's recruiting sergeants to enlist failed to supply treasures worthy to be under his black banner.

THE NOVELS OF GEORGE ELIOT.

THE

HE critic's first duty in the pres- in other cases he will have to content

nce of an author's collective works himself with conscientious inductions. is to seek out some key to his method, In a writer so fond of digressions as some utterance of his literary convic- George Eliot, he has reason to expect tions, some indication of his ruling the- that broad evidences of artistic faith ory. The amount of labor involved in will not be wanting. He finds in “ Adan inquiry of this kind will depend very am Bede" the following passage: much upon the author. In some cases “ Paint us an angel if you can, with the critic will find express declarations ; a floating violet robe and a face paled