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At last the Normans burst in at the centre, each baron and knight striving to be the first to pluck down the standards, the one the king's own cognizance, the other the national banner, that waved side by side. One after another the thanes were smitten down. Not one asked for quarter, not one turned his back upon the foe.
As the Normans in England had become Anglified, and in Scotland Scottified, so in Ireland they became Ersefied. Scattered amongst the tribes, they learnt their ways.
Perhaps it was impossible that after more than five centuries of close intercourse, Normans should remain Normans, and Saxons, Saxons. Perhaps, after all, her neighbours were wiser than herself. Such ideas did occasionally present themselves to Miss Thorne's mind and make her sad enough.
My birth was neither distinguished nor sordid. What, however, was but a foible with Scott was a passion in James Boswell, who has on numerous occasions obtruded his genealogical tree in such a manner as to render necessary some acquaintance with his family and lineage. The family of Boswell, or Bosville, dates from the Normans who came with William the Conqueror to Hastings.
One sees the same thing in the old Welsh Romances: tales from of old retold by men fired with immense racial hopes, with a view to fostering such hopes in the minds of their hearers. The bards saw about them the rude life and disunion of the Welsh, and the far greater outward culture of the Normans; and their stock in trade was a tradition of ancient and half-magical Welsh grandeur.
Surnames as well as Christian names were often taken from the names of saints. From such a beautiful name as St. Hugh the Normans had Hugon, and from this we get the rather commonplace names of Huggins, Hutchins, Hutchinson, and several others. So St. Clair is still a surname, though often changed into Sinclair. St. Gilbert is responsible for the names Gibbs, Gibbons, Gibson, etc.
That, perhaps, is a clue to the magnificent achievements of the Normans, in the spiritual world even more than in the material world. August 10. On leaving France by the boat from Dieppe I selected a seat close to which, shortly afterwards, three English people two young women and a man came to occupy deck-chairs already placed for them by a sailor and surrounded by their bags and wraps.
Yet it is but just here to recall that much of the horror and odium which has accumulated on his memory is posthumous and retrospective. Some of his cotemporaries were no better in their private lives than he was; but then they had no part in bringing in the Normans.
For the moment all resistance seemed at an end. The policy outlined at Roncaglia could at length be put in force through the length and breadth of Lombardy; and Frederic departed for Germany, leaving trustworthy lieutenants to complete the vindication of his Italian rights. It only remained to try conclusions with a recalcitrant Pope and the evasive Normans of the South.
The Saxons had now been for four centuries in Britain, the older inhabitants of which Celts like the Gauls and Irish they had cruelly harassed, just as the Milesian Irish oppressed their Belgic predecessors, and as the Normans, in turn, will be found oppressing both Celt and Saxon in England and Ireland.
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