"The Prince of Salerno, Guaimar III., tried in vain to keep the
warrior-pilgrims at his court: but at his solicitation other companies
established themselves on the rocks of Salerno and Amalfi, until,
on Christmas Day, 1041, (exactly a quarter of a century before the
coronation here at Westminster of the Conqueror,) they gathered
their scattered forces at Aversa,[19] twelve groups of them
under twelve chosen counts, and all under the Lombard Ardoin, as
commander-in-chief." Be so good as to note that,--a marvellous
key-note of historical fact about the unjesting Lombards, I cannot
find the total Norman number: the chief contingent, under William
of the Iron Arm, the son of Tancred of Hauteville, was only of three
hundred knights; the Count of Aversa's troop, of the same number, is
named as an important part of the little army--admit it for ten times
Tancred's, three thousand men in all. At Aversa, these three thousand
men form, coolly on Christmas Day, 1041, the design of--well, I told
you they didn't _design_ much, only, now we're here, we may as well,
while we're about it,--overthrow the Greek empire! That was their
little game!--a Christmas mumming to purpose. The following year, the
whole of Apulia was divided among them.

[Footnote 19: In Lombardy, south of Pavia.]

I will not spoil, by abstracting, the magnificent following history
of Robert Guiscard, the most wonderful soldier of that or any other
time: I leave you to finish it for yourselves, only asking you to read
together with it, the sketch, in Turner's history of the Anglo-Saxons,
of Alfred's long previous war with the Norman Hasting; pointing out to
you for foci of character in each contest, the culminating incidents
of naval battle. In Guiscard's struggle with the Greeks, he encounters