or disappearing. Few philanthropists
ever became so rapidly anonymous. It is the great glory of the Norman
adventurer that he threw himself heartily into his chance position; and
had faith not only in his comrades, but in his subjects, and even in his
enemies. He was loyal to the kingdom he had not yet made. Thus the
Norman Bruce becomes a Scot; thus the descendant of the Norman Strongbow
becomes an Irishman. No men less than Normans can be conceived as
remaining as a superior caste until the present time. But this alien and
adventurous loyalty in the Norman, which appears in these other national
histories, appears most strongly of all in the history we have here to
follow. The Duke of Normandy does become a real King of England; his
claim through the Confessor, his election by the Council, even his
symbolic handfuls of the soil of Sussex, these are not altogether empty
forms. And though both phrases would be inaccurate, it is very much
nearer the truth to call William the first of the English than to call
Harold the last of them.

An indeterminate debate touching the dim races that mixed without record
in that dim epoch, has made much of the fact that the Norman edges of
France, like the East Anglian edges of England, were deeply penetrated
by the Norse invasions of the ninth century; and that the ducal house of
Normandy, with what other families we know not, can be traced back to a
Scandinavian seed. The unquestionable power of captaincy and creative
legislation which belonged to the Normans, whoever they were, may be
connected reasonably enough with some infusion of fresh blood. But if
the racial theorists press the point to a comparison of races, it can
obviously only be answered by a study of the two types in separation.
And it must surely be manifest that more civilizing power has since been
shown by the French when untouched by Scandinavian blood than by the
Scandinavians when untouched by French blood. As much fighting (and more
ruling) was done by the Crusaders who were never Vikings as by the
Vikings who were never Crusaders. But in truth there is no need of such
invidious analysis; we may willingly allow a real value to the
Scandinavian contribution to the French as to the English nationality,
so long as we firmly understand the ultimate historic fact that the
duchy of Normandy was about as Scandinavian as the town of Norwich. But
the debate has another danger, in that it tends to exaggerate even the
personal