increasing their wealth and strength from generation to generation.
They were of Norman stock, knights and gentlemen in the full sense of
the word before the French Revolution, and we can detect in them here
and there a marked strain of the old Norse blood, carrying with it
across the centuries the wild Berserker spirit which for centuries
made the adventurous Northmen the terror of Europe. They were a strong
race evidently, these Washingtons, whom we see now only by glimpses
through the mists of time, not brilliant apparently, never winning the
very highest fortune, having their failures and reverses no doubt,
but on the whole prudent, bold men, always important in their several
stations, ready to fight and ready to work, and as a rule successful
in that which they set themselves to do.

In 1658 the two brothers, John and Lawrence, appeared in Virginia. As
has been proved by Mr. Waters, they were of the Sulgrave family,
the sons of Lawrence Washington, fifth son of the elder Lawrence of
Sulgrave and Brington. The father of the emigrants was a fellow of
Brasenose College, Oxford, and rector of Purleigh, from which living
he was ejected by the Puritans as both "scandalous" and "malignant."
That he was guilty of the former charge we may well doubt; but that he
was, in the language of the time, "malignant," must be admitted, for
all his family, including his brothers, Sir William Washington of
Packington, and Sir John Washington of Thrapston, his nephew, Sir
Henry Washington, and his nephew-in-law, William Legge, ancestor of
the Earl of Dartmouth, were strongly on the side of the king. In a
marriage which seems to have been regarded as beneath the dignity of
the family, and in the poverty consequent upon the ejectment from
his living, we can find the reason for the sons of the Rev. Lawrence
Washington going forth into Virginia to find their fortune, and flying
from the world of victorious Puritanism which offered just then so