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 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 223 might struggle to check her despotic husband, and to save the patrimony of her new-bom son, of an empei'or so famous in the next age under the name of Frederic the Second. Ten years Fmai ex- after this revolution, the French monarchs annexed to their Nomans. crown the duchy of Normandy ; the sceptre of her ancient dukes had been transmitted, by a grand-daughter of William the Conqueror, to the house of Plantagenet ; and the adventurous Normans, who had raised so many trophies in France, England, and Ireland, in Apulia, Sicily, and the East, were lost, either in victory or servitude, among the vanquished nations.