Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/53

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sea, we mark the beginnings of a state of things which has ceased only within our own memories. The rivalry between France and Normandy grows, now that England is ruled by Norman kings, into a rivalry between France and England. In will, if not in deed, the reign of Rufus forestalls the reigns of Edward the Third and Henry the Fifth. It sets England before us in a character which she kept through so many ages, the character of the wealthy land which could work with gold as well as with steel, the land whence subsidies might be looked for to flow into the less well-filled coffers of the princes of the mainland. In the reign of Rufus we see England holding an European position wholly different from what she had held in earlier days. She passes in some sort from the world of the North into the world of the West. That change was the work of the Conqueror; but it is under his son that we see its full nature and meaning. The new place which England now holds is seen to be one which came to her wholly through her connexion with Normandy; it is no less seen to be one which she has learned to hold in her own name and by her own strength.

And, if we pass from the domain of political history into the domain of personal character and personal incident, we shall find few periods of the same length richer in both. The character of William Rufus himself, repulsive as from many points it is, is yet a strange and instructive study of human nature. The mere fact that no prince ever made a deeper personal impression on the minds of the men of his own age, the crowd of personal anecdotes and personal sayings which, whether true or false, bear witness to the depth of that impression, all invite us to a nearer study of the man of whom those who lived in his own day found so much to tell, and so much which at first sight seems strange