Page:Sussex Archaeological Collections, volume 6.djvu/34

 while it exhibited the Norman supremacy in these southern parts of the kingdom. Seven hundred years ago a Saxon might have turned from it with aversion. We live in happier times. The distinction of Norman and Saxon has passed away. Look in the house of peers, how few there are who can be traced in male descent from any person who came in with the Conqueror, and in the few cases where this may be done on at least plausible evidence, how much of Saxon blood is blended with the Norman.

It has been the good fortune also of Battle Abbey to have afforded, ever since the dissolution, a place of residence to persons of distinction. One of them, Lady Montacute, was a very remarkable person, as the printed account of her life shows. The remains have been valued as a choice if I may not say as a sacred possession, and never more than now. To maintain such an edifice as the great church of the monastery was not to be thought of when its revenues were taken from it; to keep up all the buildings intended for the residence of perhaps several hundred persons was equally impossible; but observing the noble gateway and other remains I read with much surprise and some concern what Professor Lappenberg has written, knowing that his high historical reputation will cause what he says to be received throughout Europe as a true account.—"All these visible monuments of the battle of Leulac and the conquest of England are no more; crumbled and fallen are the once lofty halls of Battle Abbey, and by a few foundation stones in the midst of a swamp are we alone able to determine the spot where it once reared its towers and pinnacles." How much there is that is mere rhetoric in this, we who are now assembled within its ancient walls, can testify.