the morals of highwaymen, the sturdiness of
barbarians with the plasticity of culture, eloquent in the
council-chamber and the field, dear to their soldiers for their
bravery and to women for their beauty, equally eminent as generals
and as rulers, restrained by no scruples but such as policy
suggested, restless in their energy, yet neither fickle nor rash,
comprehensive in their views, but indefatigable in detail, these
lions among men were made to conquer in the face of overwhelming
obstacles, and to hold their conquests with a grasp of iron. What
they wrought, whether wisely or not for the ultimate advantage of
Italy, endures to this day, while the work of so many emperors,
republics, and princes has passed and shifted like the scenes in a
pantomime. Through them the Greeks, the Lombards, and the Moors were
extinguished in the south. The Papacy was checked in its attempt to
found a province of S. Peter below the Tiber. The republics of
Naples, Gaeta, Amalfi, which might have rivalled perchance with
Milan, Genoa, and Florence, were subdued to a master's hand. In
short, to the Normans Italy owed that kingdom of the Two Sicilies
which formed one-third of her political balance, and which proved
the cause of all her most serious revolutions.

[1] King Roger in the mosaics of the Martorana Church at
Palermo wears the dalmatic, and receives his crown from
the hands of Christ.

Roger, the youngest of the Hauteville family, and the founder of the
kingdom of Sicily, showed by his untamable spirit and sound
intellect that his father's vigour remained unexhausted. Each of
Tancred's sons was physically speaking a masterpiece, and the last
was the prime work of all. This Roger, styled the Great Count, begat
a second Roger, the first King of Sicily, whose son and grandson,
both named William, ruled in succession at Palermo. With them the
direct line of the house of Hauteville expired. It would seem as if
the energy and fertility of the stock had been drained by its
efforts in the first three generations. Constance, the heiress of
the family, who married Henry VI. and gave birth to the Emperor
Frederick II., was daughter of King Roger, and therefore third in
descent from Tancred. Drawing her blood more immediately from the
parent stem, she thus transmitted to the princes of the race of
Hohenstauffen the vigour of her Norman ancestry unweakened. This was
a circumstance of no small moment in the history of Europe. Upon