but marked already by patient endurance, love of justice, and freedom
--the manly sense of duty rather than the chivalric sentiment of
honour--and that indestructible element of practical purpose and
courageous will, which, defying all conquest, and steadfast in all
peril, was ordained to achieve so vast an influence over the destinies
of the world.

To the Norman Duke, I believe, I have been as lenient as justice will
permit, though it is as impossible to deny his craft as to dispute his
genius; and so far as the scope of my work would allow, I trust that I
have indicated fairly the grand characteristics of his countrymen,
more truly chivalric than their lord. It has happened, unfortunately
for that illustrious race of men, that they have seemed to us, in
England, represented by the Anglo-Norman kings. The fierce and
plotting William, the vain and worthless Rufus, the cold-blooded and
relentless Henry, are no adequate representatives of the far nobler
Norman vavasours, whom even the English Chronicler admits to have been
"kind masters," and to whom, in spite of their kings, the after
liberties of England were so largely indebted. But this work closes
on the Field of Hastings; and in that noble struggle for national
independence, the sympathies of every true son of the land, even if
tracing his lineage back to the Norman victor, must be on the side of
the patriot Harold.

In the notes, which I have thought necessary aids to the better
comprehension of these volumes, my only wish has been to convey to the
general reader such illustrative information as may familiarise him.
more easily with the subject-matter of the book, or refresh his memory
on incidental details not without a national interest. In the mere
references to authorities I do not pretend to arrogate to a fiction