not convinced! Joyous at the temporary defeat of Tostig, men said,
"Marry, a joke indeed, that the Norman will put his shaven head into the
hornets' nest! Let him come, if he dare!"

Still, with desperate effort, and at much risk of popularity, Harold held
together a force sufficient to repel any single invader. From the time
of his accession his sleepless vigilance had kept watch on the Norman,
and his spies brought him news of all that passed.

And now what had passed in the councils of William? The abrupt
disappointment which the Grand Assembly had occasioned him did not last
very long. Made aware that he could not trust to the spirit of an
assembly, William now artfully summoned merchant, and knight, and baron,
one by one. Submitted to the eloquence, the promises, the craft, of that
master intellect, and to the awe of that imposing presence; unassisted by
the courage which inferiors take from numbers, one by one yielded to the
will of the Count, and subscribed his quota for monies, for ships, and
for men. And while this went on, Lanfranc was at work in the Vatican.
At that time the Archdeacon of the Roman Church was the famous
Hildebrand. This extraordinary man, fit fellow-spirit to Lanfranc,
nursed one darling project, the success of which indeed founded the true
temporal power of the Roman pontiffs. It was no less than that of
converting the mere religious ascendancy of the Holy See into the actual
sovereignty over the states of Christendom. The most immediate agents of
this gigantic scheme were the Normans, who had conquered Naples by the
arm of the adventurer Robert Guiscard, and under the gonfanon of St.
Peter. Most of the new Norman countships and dukedoms thus created in
Italy had declared themselves fiefs of the Church; and the successor of
the Apostle might well hope, by aid of the Norman priest-knights, to
extend his sovereignty over Italy, and then dictate to the kings beyond
the Alps.

The aid of Hildebrand in behalf of William's claims was obtained at once
by Lanfranc. The profound Archdeacon of Rome saw at a glance the immense
power that would accrue to the Church by the mere act of arrogating to
itself the disposition of crowns, subjecting rival princes to abide by
its decision, and fixing the men of its choice on the thrones of the
North. Despite all its slavish superstition, the Saxon Church was
obnoxious to Rome. Even the pious Edward had offended, by withholding
the old levy of Pe