d; yet in other departments of human activity not more
richly gifted than their kindred who produced Cynewulf and Caedmon,
Aidan and Bede, Coifi and Dunstan. And who shall affirm from what
branch of the stock the architects of the sky-searching cathedrals
sprang?

Senlac is thus in the line of Heptarchic battles; it is the last
struggle for the political supremacy over all England amongst those
various sections of the Northern races who in the way of six hundred
years make England, and who in their religious and political character
lay the unseen foundations of Imperial Britain.

Two traits of the Norman character impress the greatest of their
contemporary historians, William of Malmesbury--the Norman love of
battle and the Norman love of God. Upon these two ideas the history of
the Middle Age turns. The crusader, the monk, the troubadour, the
priest, the mystic, the dreamer and the saint, the wandering scholar
and the scholastic philosopher, all derive thence. Chivalry is born.
The knight beholds in his lady's face on earth the image of Our Lady in
Heaven, the Virgin-Mother of the Redeemer of men. From the grave of
his dead mistress Ramon Lull withdraws to a hermit's cell to ponder the
beauty that is imperishable; and over the grave of Beatrice, Dante
rears a shrine, a temple more awful, more sublime than any which even
that age has carved in stone.

Into this theatre of tossing life, the nation which the followers of
Cerdic and Knut and of William the Conqueror have formed enters
greatly. In thought, in action, in art, something of the mighty role
which the future centuries reserve for her is portended. The immortal
energy, the love of war, the deep religious fervour of England find in
the Crusades, as by God's own assignment, the task of her heart's
desire. We have but to turn to the churches of England, to study the
Templars carved upon their sepulchres, to know that in that great
tournament of the world the part of the Franks, if the noisier and more
continuous, was not more earnest. How singular is the chance, if it be
chance, which confronts the followers of the new faith with a Penda,
and the followers of the crescent with a Richard Lion-heart! Upon the
shifting Arabic imagination he alone of the infidels exercises enduring
sway. The hero of Tasso has no place in Arab history, but the memory
of Richard is there imperishably. Richard's services to England are
not the theme of common praise, yet, if