century since the battle of
Hastings, perhaps the most important action that the modern world has
known, with the single exception of the conflict that checked the
advance of the Saracens in Europe in the eighth century,--if the battle
of Tours can properly be considered an event of modern history. The
issue of the battle of Hastings determined the course of English
history; and when we observe how influential has been the part of
England ever since it was fought, and bear in mind that the English
race, great as it is, can scarcely be said to have got beyond the
morning-time of its existence, we find it difficult to exaggerate the
importance of a conflict by which its career for eight hundred years has
been deeply and permanently colored. There is not a great event in
English or American annals which is not directly traceable to what was
done in the year 1066 by that buccaneering band which William the
Bastard led from Normandy to England, to enforce a claim that had
neither a legal nor a moral foundation, and which never could have been
established had Harold's conduct been equal to his valor, and had
Fortune favored the just cause. The sympathies of every fair-minded
reader of the story of the Conquest must be with the Saxons; and yet is
it impossible to deny that the event at Hastings was well for the world.
It is with Harold as it is with Hannibal: our feelings are at war with
our judgment as we read their histories. It is not possible to peruse
the noble account that Dr. Arnold has left us of the Carthaginian's
splendid struggle against the Roman aristocracy without feeling pained
by its result. The feelings of men are with the man, and adverse to the
order before which his genius failed. So is it with respect to Harold.
Hastings, like Zama, impresses us as having been a "dishonest victory,"
to borrow the words with which Milton so emphatically characterizes
Chaeronea. But "cool reflection" leads to other conclusions, and
justifies the earthly course of Providence, against which we are so
often disposed to complain. There can be no doubt, in the mind of any
moral man, that the invasion of England by Duke William was a wicked
proceeding,--that it was even worse than Walker's invasions of
Spanish-American countries, and as bad as an unprovoked attack on Cuba
by this country, such as would have been made had the pro-slavery party
remained in power. But it is not the less true that much good came from
William's action,