of England, he had in some sort to work the conquest of Normandy.
Of the ordinary work of a sovereign in a warlike age, the defence
of his own land, the annexation of other lands, William had his
full share. With the land of his overlord he had dealings of the
most opposite kinds. He had to call in the help of the French king
to put down rebellion in the Norman duchy, and he had to drive back
more than one invasion of the French king at the head of an united
Norman people. He added Domfront and Maine to his dominions, and
the conquest of Maine, the work as much of statesmanship as of
warfare, was the rehearsal of the conquest of England. There,
under circumstances strangely like those of England, he learned his
trade as conqueror, he learned to practise on a narrower field the
same arts which he afterwards practised on a wider. But after all,
William's own duchy was his special school; it was his life in his
own duchy which specially helped to make him what he was.
Surrounded by trials and difficulties almost from his cradle, he
early learned the art of enduring trials and overcoming
difficulties; he learned how to deal with men; he learned when to
smite and when to spare; and it is not a little to his honour that,
in the long course of such a reign as his, he almost always showed
himself far more ready to spare than to smite.

Before then we can look at William as an English statesman, we must
first look on him in the land in which he learned the art of
statesmanship. We must see how one who started with all the
disadvantages which are implied in his earlier surname of the
Bastard came to win and to deserve his later surnames of the
Conqueror and the Great.