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ascended the throne of England, the Normans and the Saxons still remained distinct; and it was during his reign that the mingling of the two races began a process which never ceased until they became welded into one compact people, the English nation.2 Our aim shall be to study, not merely the lives of our kings and queens, nor the chronicles of war and victory, but to learn the real history of our English forefathers.

How the Saxons had fared before Henry came. -Henry became king after a time of terrible com

motion. The common people had suffered dreadful oppression. An old Chronicle3 gives us a full account of the horrible tortures inflicted upon the unhappy Saxons. Here is one sentence from it: "They hanged up men by their feet and smoked them with a foul smoke; some were hanged up by their thumbs, others by the head, and burning things were hung on to their feet." Another

old writer says,
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civil misery, England lay plague-stricken."

"Wounded and drained of blood by

Such tyranny could only make the Saxons loathe the Normans more than ever; union between tyrant and slave seemed impossible. We shall see, however, that all helped to work out the final grand result-a single race, speaking one language, subject to the same law.

The Normans desire a Change. Neither Stephen nor Matilda had been able to rule firmly. To retain their followers, both had allowed them to do whatever they pleased. Many a noble not only acted as "was right in his own eyes," but (having no fear of the law) eagerly did what he knew to be wrong. One tyrant fought with another; not a single Norman had any rest-it was just like an outbreak of riot in a crew of pirates-each one struggled with his neighbour, and all

were worn out.

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This was not all. Each of the rivals for the throne, Stephen in particular, had brought over bands of mercenaries from the Continent. These new-comers, too, joined in the battle for booty; and the Normans looked askance at the intruders,' who strove with them for a share in the plunder of the miserable Saxons. For the first time, the Normans in England looked upon people from the Continent as 'aliens; the disdainful 'con

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querors' of England had at last been forced to regard themselves as Englishmen.

Thus-partly from sheer exhaustion and partly from jealousy of the 'foreigner '—the Normans, as well as the suffering Saxons, longed for a change.

Norman Sympathy with the Saxons.-The wisest and best of the barons felt genuine pity for the oppressed; they were disgusted at the cruel lawlessness which prevailed, and their sympathy turned from their fellowNormans to those whom they had never before thought of as their fellow-countrymen.

To these we must add the leaders of the Church. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Theobald, was a wise and good man; he loved England, his 'country;' and it was to put an end to the misery that he had supported Henry II. in his demand for the throne. Ecclesiastical 8 Councils had deposed both Stephen and Matilda; they had not only admitted but repeatedly urged "the right of a nation to good government."

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Henry's Descent: Influence on our History.-Henry II. was not himself a Norman. His mother, Matilda, was the daughter of a Scottish princess of Saxon blood." His father, like himself, was Count of Anjou. The first count had been a rough hunter on the borders of Brittany,1o where the people were of the same race as the Welsh; he had won his coronet by helping the French king against the Norsemen, and his successors had always remained the enemies and rivals of the Dukes of Normandy. It was to win the alliance of the Count of Anjou, the only enemy whom he feared, that Henry I. had given his daughter Matilda in marriage to the count's son. Henry II. was then an Angevin,12 not a Norman; as he was by descent, so was he in character and feeling.

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