to unite against the Danes. To the momentary enthusiasm that
had gathered around Harold many energetic supporters succeeded a gloomy
dejection. Real life exhibited the same contrasts as literature. Stirred
by sudden impulses, the natives vainly struggled to free themselves,
incapable even in this pressing danger of combined and vigorous action;
then they mournfully submitted to fate. The only contemporary
interpreter of their feelings known to us, the Anglo-Saxon chronicler,
bewails the Conquest, but is more struck by the ravages it occasions
than by the change of domination it brings about. "And Bishop Odo and
Earl William [Fitz-Osbern]," he says, "remained here and wrought castles
widely throughout the nation, and oppressed the poor people, and ever
after that it greatly grew in evil. May the end be good when God will."
So much for the material disaster, now for the coming of the foreigner:
"And then came to meet him Archbishop Ealdred [of York], and Eadgar
child and Earl Eadwine, and Earl Morkere, and all the best men of
London, and then, from necessity, submitted when the greatest harm had
been done, and it was very imprudent that it was not done earlier, as
God would not better it for our sins."[138]

People with a mind so full of elegiac sentiments fall an easy prey to
men who know how to _will_. Before dying William had taken everything,
even a part of Wales; he was king of England, and had so completely
changed the fortunes of his new country that its inhabitants, so used to
invasions, were never again to see rise, from that day to this, the
smoke of an enemy's camp.

II.

From the outset William seems to have desired and foreseen it.
Practical, clear-minded, of firm will, imbued with the notion of State,
he possessed in the highest degree the qualities his new subjects most
lacked. He knew neither doubts nor vain hesitations; he was an optimist,
always sure of success: not with the certitude of the blind who walk
confidently to the river, but with the assurance of clear-sighted
people, who leave the goddess Fortune so little to do, it were a miracle
if she did less for them. His lucid and persistent will is never at
fault. In the most critical moment of the battle a fatal report is
circulated that the duke has been killed; he instantly tears off his
helmet and shows himself with uncovered face, crying: "I am alive! here
I stand, and by God I shall conquer!"[139]

All his life, he conforms his actions to