Page:15 decisive battles of the world Vol 2 (London).djvu/16

, the Normans were the Paladins of the world. Their brilliant qualities were sullied by many darker traits of pride, of merciless cruelty, and of brutal contempt for the industry, the rights and the feelings of all, whom they considered the lower classes of mankind.

Their gradual blending with the Saxons softened these harsh and evil points of their national character, and in return they fired the duller Saxon mass with a new spirit of animation and power. As Campbell boldly expressed it, "They high-mettled the blood of our veins." Small had been the figure which England made in the world befor [sic] the coming over of the Normans; and without them she never would have emerged from insignificance. The authority of Gibbon may be taken as decisive, when he pronounces that, "Assuredly England was a gainer by the Conquest." And we may proudly adopt the comment of the Frenchman, Rapin, who, writing of the battle of Hastings more than a century ago, speaks of the revolution effected by it as, "the first step by which England is arrived to that height of grandeur and glory we behold it in at present."

The interest of this eventful struggle, by which William of Normandy became king of England, is