d the throne of the eastern emperors.[130] To
the South another fleet collected, commanded by William of Normandy; he,
too, an extraordinary man, bastard of that Robert, known in legend as
Robert the Devil who had long since started on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem
from which he never returned. The Norman of Scandinavia and the Normans
of France were about to play a match of which England was the stake.

The Scandinavians were the first to land. Hardrada entered York, and for
a moment it seemed as if victory would belong to the people of the
North. But Harold of England rushed to meet them, and crushed them at
Stamford-bridge; his brother, the rebel Tosti, fell on the field of
battle, and Hardrada died of an arrow-wound in the throat. All was over
with Scandinavia; there remained the Normans of France.

Who were these Normans? Very different from those of the other army,
they no longer had anything Scandinavian or Germanic about them; and
thus they stood a chance of furnishing the Anglo-Saxons with the graft
they needed. Had it not been for this, their invasion would have carried
no more important result than that of the Danes in the ninth century;
but the consequences were to be very different. The fusion between
Rollo's pirates, and the already dense population of the rich province
called after them Normandy, had been long accomplished. It was less a
fusion than an absorption, for the natives were much more numerous than
the settlers. From the time of the second duke, French had again become
the language of the mass of the inhabitants. They are Christians; they
have French manners, chivalrous tastes, castles, convents, and schools;
and the blood that flows in their veins is mostly French. Thus it is
that they can set forth in the eleventh century for the conquest of
England as representatives of the South, of Latin civilisation, of
Romance letters, and of the religion of Rome. William comes blessed by
the Pope, with a banner borne before him, the gift of Alexander II.,
wearing a hair of St. Peter's in a ring, having secured by a vow the
favour of one of France's patrons, that same St. Martin of Tours, whose
church Clovis had enriched, and whose cape Hugues Capet had worn: whence
his surname.

No Beowulf, no northern hero is sung of in William's army; but there
resound the verses of the most ancient masterpiece of French literature,
at that time the most recent. According to the poet Wace, well informed,
since his father