will put his shaven head into the hornets' nest! Let him come, if he
dare!"

Still, with desperate effort, and at much risk of popularity, Harold
held together a force sufficient to repel any single invader. From
the time of his accession his sleepless vigilance had kept watch on
the Norman, and his spies brought him news of all that passed.

And now what had passed in the councils of William? The abrupt
disappointment which the Grand Assembly had occasioned him did not
last very long. Made aware that he could not trust to the spirit of
an assembly, William now artfully summoned merchant, and knight, and
baron, one by one. Submitted to the eloquence, the promises, the
craft, of that master intellect, and to the awe of that imposing
presence; unassisted by the courage which inferiors take from numbers,
one by one yielded to the will of the Count, and subscribed his quota
for monies, for ships, and for men. And while this went on, Lanfranc
was at work in the Vatican. At that time the Archdeacon of the Roman
Church was the famous Hildebrand. This extraordinary man, fit fellow-
spirit to Lanfranc, nursed one darling project, the success of which
indeed founded the true temporal power of the Roman pontiffs. It was
no less than that of converting the mere religious ascendancy of the
Holy See into the actual sovereignty over the states of Christendom.
The most immediate agents of this gigantic scheme were the Normans,
who had conquered Naples by the arm of the adventurer Robert Guiscard,
and under the gonfanon of St. Peter. Most of the new Norman
countships and dukedoms thus created in Italy had declared themselves
fiefs of the Church; and the successor of the Apostle might well hope,
by aid of the Norman priest-knights, to extend his sovereignty over
Italy, and then dictate to the kings beyond the Alps.