formed his resolution to invade Normandy, and lay it waste with fire and sword, and bring back Richard le Bon with him in chains to England, it remained only to execute his design. The English fleet sailed for the Cotentin, and landed a force which should have done great things. But if the Normans of the Cotentin were stout thieves, not the less were they stout soldiers. No greater error than that men must have clean consciences to be good warriors. The Normans rose to a man—and even to a woman—against the invaders. Knights and seamen and peasants and the peasants' wives, all armed; and the English were beaten so badly that they could not have been beaten worse, had their cause been utterly devilish. But few of them escaped,—probably those who had the sense to run first; and they got off in six ships, all the rest of the fleet falling into the hands of the Normans. The Norman Duke and the British Basileus proceeded to make peace, and the peace-making business led to a marriage, one of many royal marriages which have produced extraordinary consequences, and led to much fighting, as if there were a natural connection between wedlock and war. In private life, marriage not unfrequently leads to contention; in public life, contention often leads to marriage. Ethelred sought to "engraft the branch of Cerdic upon the stem of Rollo," in the hope of increasing the power of England. He asked for the hand of Emma, sister of Richard le Bon, and obtained it. This union was every way unfortunate, and prepared the road for the Conquest. The Normans who accompanied Emma to England, and those who followed her, are described as "subtle, intriguing, false, and capable of any act of treason which promised to further their own fortunes." They behaved as members of "superior races" generally behave in countries inhabited by "inferior races." They obtained power and place, and used their influence to the detriment of England. The king and queen did not live happily. One of their children was Edward the Confessor, who is popularly considered the very personification of the Saxon race, but who was half a Norman by birth, and wholly Norman by education; for the successes of the Danes compelled his family to become exiles, and his youth and earlier manhood were passed in Normandy.[1] When he became king, the Normans had matters pretty much their own way in England. He remembered that Robert, Duke of Normandy, father of William the Conqueror, had once made an attempt to restore the Saxon line in England, and that he failed only because his fleet was destroyed by a storm. Duke William's influence had aided in his elevation to the English throne. His gratitude was expressed at the expense of his people. Once crowned, Edward invited his Norman friends to England. That country soon swarmed with foreigners, with whom the king was more at home than he was with his own subjects. Their language, the Romane, was his language. It was the language of the higher classes, the language of fashion, "the court tune." Such strong places as then stood in England were garrisoned by foreigners, and other Normans were settled in the towns. The country was half conquered years before the year of Hastings.
Duke William visited England in 1051. He was most hospitably received, and it is supposed that what he saw caused him to form the plan that led to the Conquest. Edward admired his visitor; and on the death of Edward the Outlaw,—whom he had recalled from Hungary, with the intention of proclaiming him as heir to the crown,—he determined that William should be his successor. He bequeathed the English crown to the ruler of Normandy. Harold agreed to sup-
- ↑ "The heart of Emma clung more and more to her native land. Her feelings were inherited by the children who were afterward born to her,—they imbibed them at their mother's breast. Their hearts were thoroughly alienated from England, and the Normans and Normandy became as their kindred and their home."—Palgrave, Vol. III. p. 112. Edward's wife was Editha, daughter of Earl Godwin, and sister of Harold.
