Charlemagne, was governed by a
prince of great firmness and ability. On the other hand England,
which, since the battle of Hastings, had been ruled generally by wise
statesmen, always by brave soldiers, fell under the dominion of a
trifler and a coward. From that moment her prospects brightened. John
was driven from Normandy. The Norman nobles were compelled to make their
election between the island and the continent. Shut up by the sea with
the people whom they had hitherto oppressed and despised, they gradually
came to regard England as their country, and the English as their
countrymen. The two races, so long hostile, soon found that they had
common interests and common enemies. Both were alike aggrieved by the
tyranny of a bad king. Both were alike indignant at the favour shown by
the court to the natives of Poitou and Aquitaine. The great grandsons of
those who had fought under William and the great grandsons of those who
had fought under Harold began to draw near to each other in friendship;
and the first pledge of their reconciliation was the Great Charter, won
by their united exertions, and framed for their common benefit.

Here commences the history of the English nation. The history of the
preceding events is the history of wrongs inflicted and sustained by
various tribes, which indeed all dwelt on English ground, but which
regarded each other with aversion such as has scarcely ever existed
between communities separated by physical barriers. For even the mutual
animosity of countries at war with each other is languid when compared
with the animosity of nations which, morally separated, are yet locally
intermingled. In no country has the enmity of race been carried farther
than in England. In no country has that enmity been more completely
effaced. The stages of the process by which the hostile elements were
melted down into one homogeneous mass are not accurately known to us.
But it is certain that, when John became King, the distinction between
Saxons and Normans was strongly marked, and that before the end of the
reign of his grandson it had almost disappeared. In the time of Richard
the First, the ordinary imprecation of a Norman gentleman was "May I
become an Englishman!" His ordinary form of indignant denial was "Do you
take me for an Englishman?" The descendant of such a gentleman a hundred
years later was proud of the English name.

The sources of the noblest rivers which spread fertility over
continen