Prince the Dauphin fell into Passion called him Son of a Bastard and threw some of the Chessmen at his Head Upon which Prince Henry enraged took up the Chess-board and struck the Dauphin with such Fury on the Head that he laid him bleeding on the Ground and had killed him if his Brother Robert had not retained him and made him sensible how much more it concerned him to make his Escape than pursue his Revenge and thereupon they went down immediately took Horse and by the Help of their Speed or their own good Fortune got safe to Pontoise before they could be reached by the French that pursued them The King of France exasperated by this Accident and Indignity to his Son which revived an inveterate Malice or Envy he had against King William first demanded Satisfaction but at the same time prepared for Revenge both by raising an Army to invade Normandy and taking private Measures with Duke Robert to divest his Brother Henry of his Share in the Government and leave the Dominion of that Dutchy to the Duke according to his former Pretensions grounded upon his Father's Promise wherein the King of France as a Witness still pretended to be concerned The King of England seeing the War inevitable enters upon it with his usual Vigor and with incredible Celerity transporting a brave English Army invades France and takes several Towns in Poictou whilst the French took the City of Vernon by which Hostilities on both sides the first War began between England and France which seemed afterwards to have been entailed upon the Posterity and Successors of these two Princes for so many Generations to have drawn more noble Blood and been attended with more memorable Atchievements than any other National Quarrel we read of in any ancient or modern Story King William after taking of several Towns and spoiling much Country in Poictou and Xantonge returned to Rouen where by the Benignity of his own Nature and Levity of his Son 's he was the third time reconciled to Duke Robert and thereby disappointed those Hopes the King of France had conceived from his Practises with that Prince and as some write with his Brother Henry too and defeated his Pretext of assisting his Right in the Dominion of Normandy But Philip bent upon this War by other Incentives than those which appeared from the Favour of Duke Robert's Pretensions or Revenge of the Dauphin's Injury and moved both with the Jealousie of the King's Greatness and the Envy of his Glory and Felicity resolved to prosecute obstinately the Quarrel he had rashly begun and not esteeming the sudden though violent Motions of a youthful Heat between the two Princes a Ground sufficient to bear the Weight of a formal and declared War upon the News and Spight of Duke Robert's Reconciliation with his Father he sent to the King to demand Homage of him both for Normandy and England King William answered that he was ready to do him the Homage accustomed for Normandy but would do him none for England which he held only of God and his Sword The French King hereupon declared open War against him which was begun and pursued with great Heats and Animosities on both sides with equal Forces but unequal Fortune which favoured either the Justice of the King's Cause the Valour of his Troops or the Conduct of their Leader upon all Encounters He marched into France took Nantes and burnt it with many Villages about it saying That to destroy the Wasps their Nests must be burnt In the Heat of this Action and by that of the Fires which he too near approached he fell into a Distemper which forced him to retire his Army and return to Rouen where he lay sick for some time with ill Symptoms that gave his Friends Apprehension and Hopes to his Enemies During the Expectation of this Event both sides were quiet by a sort of tacit and voluntary Truce between them The King of France talking of his Sickness and mocking at the Corpulency to which he was grown of late Years said King William was gone only to lay his great Belly at Rouen and that he doubted he must be at Charge to set up Lights at his uprising The King of England being told this Scoff sent King Philip Word That he was ready to sit up after his lying in and that when he was churched he would save him the Charge of setting up Lights and come himself and light a thousand Fires in France No Injuries are so sensible to Mankind in general as those of Scorn and no Quarrels pursued between Princes with so much Sharpness and Violence as those which arise from personal Animosities or private Passions to which they are subject like other Mortal Men. The King recovered gathers the greatest Forces he could raise both of English and Normans marches into the Isle of France with Fire and Spoil where-ever he came approaches within Sight of Paris where that King was retired There King William sent him word that he was up and abroad and would be glad to see him abroad too But the French King resolved to let this Fury pass and appeared not in the Field which was left to the Mercy and Ravage of his Enemies The King riding about to observe his Advantages and give his Orders and straining his Horse to leap a Ditch in his Way bruised the Bottom of his Belly against the Pommel of his Saddle with such a Weight and so much Pain as gave him a Relapse of his Illness so lately recovered forced him to march his Army back into Normandy and to go himself to Rouen Here his Bruise turned to a Rupture and his Sickness encreasing with the Anguish of his Wound gave too soon and true Apprehensions of his Danger Yet he languished for some time which he made use of to do many Acts of great Charity and give other Testimonies of Piety and Resignation to the Will of God as well as to dispose the Succession and Affairs of his State leaving by his Testament the Dutchy of Normandy to his eldest Son Robert the Kingdom of England to William his second Son and all his Treasures which were very great to Henry his third After this he ended his Life in the full Career of Fortune and Victory which attended him to his Grave through the long Course of more than threescore Years Reign For he began that in Normandy about ten Years old and continued it above fourty Years before his English Expedition after which he reigned above twenty Years in England and died in or about the seventy second Year of his Age and the Year of our Lord 1087. Several Writers show their ill Talent to this Prince in making particular Remarks how his Corps was immediately forsaken by all his Friends and Followers as soon as he expired how the Monks of an Abbey he had founded were thereby induced to come of Charity and take the care of his Body and his Burial which he had ordered to be at Caen
it the Name of Ierne and this Name was communicated to all the rest of that Race who conquered and possessed the North of Ireland which from them was stiled by the Saxons Iren-land and by Abbreviation Ireland And the Original Name seems to have belonged rather to those Parts of Scotland than Ireland since it is given us by the ancientest Latin Verse that mentions it with the Epithet of Glacialis Ierne which agrees little with the Clymate of Ireland That these fierce Invaders were Scythians or Scyths which was their Vulgar Termination is probably conjectured if not ascertained not only from their Name but from the Seat of that Continent which is nearest to the North of Scotland This is Norway and is the utmost Western Province of that vast Northern Region which extends from thence to the farthest Bounds of Tartary upon the Eastern Ocean and was by the Ancients comprehended in that general Appellation of Scythia as well as divided into several other Barbarous Names and Countries Besides 't is both usual and rational that such great Transmigrations of People should be made from a worse to a better Clymate or Soil rather than to a worse which makes this probable to have proceeded from Norway than from lower and more fertile parts of Germany and the Island which is the nearest part of Land to that Continent of Norway retains still the Name of Schetland as the first point which is reported to have been touched by the Scots or Scyths in this Navigation Another Argument may be drawn from several Customs still remaining among the Old Northern Irish which are recorded to have been anciently among some of the Scythian Nations removing their Houses or Creats from one place to another according to the Seasons Burning of their Corn instead of Beating or Treading in other Countries Eating Blood they drew from living Cattle Feeding generally upon Milk and using little other Husbandry besides the Pasture and Breed of Cattle To this is added that the Mantle or Plad seems to have been the Garment in use among the Western Scythians as they continue still among the Northern Irish and the Highland Scots For their Language it must be confess'd there is not left the least Trace by which we may seek out the Original of this Nation for it is neither known nor recorded to have been used any where else in the World besides Ireland the High-lands of Scotland and the Isle of Man and must be allowed to be an Original Language without any Affinity to the Old British or any other upon the Continent and perhaps with less mixture than any other of those Original Languages yet remaining in any parts of Europe The Conjecture raised of its having come from Spain because some Spanish words are observed in it appears too light to be regarded when those very words are of the modern Spanish which is a Language not above seven or eight Hundred Years Old and compounded chiefly out of Old Roman and Gothick with a later intrusion of the Saracen among them And yet I know no better ground than this for the other Tradition of Ireland having been anciently planted from Spain and esteem the few Spanish words to have been introduced only by Traffick of the South-west parts of Ireland to Spain It seems probable that from what part soever of the Continent this Nation Sailed upon this Adventure they were driven away by the force or fear of some other Invaders and in so great numbers that the Natives remaining neither preserved any where their Name or Language but were either destroy'd by the Conquerors or blended into the Masse of the new Nations who seated themselves in their Country as we find the Old British to have been in England by the Conquests and Inundations of the Saxons The time of this Expedition is yet less in view nor does Buchanan or any other Author that I know of pretend to tell or so much as conjecture further than upon a supposition of the Scots coming first out of Ireland without alledging any Authority for that neither I know no way of making any guesses at a matter so obscure without recourse to the Runick Learning and Stories by which we find that the Asiatick Scythians under the Names of Getes or Goths and the Conduct of Odin their Captain their Law-giver at first and afterwards one of their Gods are esteemed to have begun their Expedition into the North-west parts of Europe about the time that the Roman Arms began first to make a great noise and give great fears in Asia which was in the Reigns of Antiochus first and then of Mithridates How long the Arms of Odin and his Successors were imployed in the Conquest and Settlement of that vast Kingdom which contained all the Tracts of Country surrounding the Baltick Sea is not agreed upon in these Runick Stories but 't is necessary Norway must have been the last they possessed in their Western Progress and I am apt to think the Scyths may have been driven by them to seek nearer Seats in our Islands and that 't is probable to have been some time of the first Century Whenever it was it seems more agreed that after the first Entrance of the Scots into Caledonia they subdued much of the Country mingled with the the rest of the Native Picts continued long to infest the Frontier Parts of the Roman Colonies in Britain with great fierceness and many various Events and would possibly have made much greater noise and impressions upon the Romans if their greater Numbers had not been drawn another way by so great a Drain as that of Ireland which they totally conquered and long possessed This is the best Account I have been ever able to give my self of these ancient Times and Events in the Northern Parts of our Islands being a matter that has imployed so many unskilful Pens in so much idle Trash and worthless Stuff as they have left upon it but all involved in such groundless Traditions and vanity of Fables so obscured by the length of Time and darkness of unlearned Ages or covered over with such gross Forgeries made at Pleasure by their first Inventers that I know few ancient Authors upon this subject worth the pains of Perusal and of dividing or refining so little Gold out of so much course Oar or from so much Dross And I have the rather made this Excursion because I have met with nothing in Story more Obscure and often observed with wonder that we should know less of Ireland than of any other Country in Europe For besides its having been anciently planted by the Scots and taken their Name and then after several Centuries been subdued and much of it planted by the Danes we know nothing certain of the Affairs or Revolutions of that Island till the English began their Conquests there under the Ensigns of Henry the Second For the Danish Establishments there we neither know the Time nor the manner they either began or ended though
or agreement of Times or Actions by the few and mean Authors of those barbarous and illiterate Ages and perhaps the rough course of those lawless Times and Actions would have been too ignoble a Subject for a good Historian About the Year 8 o. after many various Events and Revolutions between the several Races of the Heptarchy Ecbert descended from the West-Saxon Kings having inherited most of the Successions from the Prowess and Exploits of his Ancestors and acquired others by his own became the first sole King or Monarch of England as it now was distinguished from the Principality of Wales possessed by the old Britains and from that part of the Island to the North of Tweed possessed by the Picts and Scots and by the Saxons stiled by one common Name of Scotland This famous Adventure of the Saxons in England was atchieved by the Force and Confluence of such Multitudes from the Coasts of Germany which lie between the Belgick and Baltick Shores that some Parts of their Native Countries were left almost dispeopled to fill again by new Swarms from the great Northern Hive and the Number of Saxons and Angles Iutes and other Nations that came over were not only sufficient to Conquer and Wast this whole Province but even to Plant and People it soon again with numerous and new Inhabitants So as by them succeeded in this Island not only a Change of Government as by the Roman Arms but a Change of the very People or Nation that inhabited or possessed the Lands of this whole Province This induced a Change likewise of Names of Language of Customs of Laws of Arms of Discipline of Possessions of Titles of Religion and even of the whole Face of Nature through this whole Kingdom So as we may justly date the Original of all these amongst us as well as our Nation it self from these our Saxon Ancestors Britain which was before a Roman Province was now grown a Saxon Kingdom and instead of its former Name was called England The Language which was either Latin or British was now grown wholly Saxon or English The Land that was before divided into Roman Colonies or Governments was so now into Shires with Names given to them by the Saxons as they first possessed or afterwards thought fit to distinguish them The Habits in Peace and Arms in War the Titles of Officers in both as well as of great Counsellors to their Kings or great Proprietors of Lands came to be all according to the Saxon Forms and Usage The Laws of this Country which before were Roman changed now into Old Saxon Customs or Constitutions Their Princes or Leaders of their several Nations became Konings or Kings of the Territories they had subdued They reserved part of the Lands to themselves for their Revenue and shared the rest among their chief Commanders by great Divisions and among their Soldiers by smaller shares The first who had the great Divisions were called Earls or Barons those of the smaller were Knights and the smallest of all were Freemen who possessed some Proportions of free Lands and were thereby distinguished from the Villens that held nothing but at the Will of the Landlord In this universal Transformation Religion it self had a share like all the rest and received new Forms and Orders with the new Inhabitants whilst all that was Roman or British expired together in this Country The Britains began early to receive the Christian Faith and as is reported from some of the Disciples themselves And this was so propagated among them that when the Romans left the Province they were generally Christians and had their Priests and Bishops from the ancient and Apostolick Institution The Saxons were a sort of Idolatrous Pagans that worshipped several Gods peculiar to themselves among whom Woden Thor and Frea were the chief which left their Memory still preserved by the common names of three days in the Week This Religious Worship they introduced with them and continued long in England till they subdued the Britains reduced it under their Heptarchy of Saxons Kings persecuted the British Christians and drove them with their Religion into Wales where they continued under their Primitive Priests and Bishops who with their Monks were all under the Surintendance of one Arch-Priest or Bishop of Carleon or Chester the Bound of the British Principality About the year 600. or soon after Pope Boniface sent Austin the Monk to Preach the Gospel in England to the Heathen Saxons who landing at Dover was received with Humanity by Ethelbert King of the South Saxons and being admitted with four or five of his Companions as well-meaning Men to teach and explain the Doctrin and Mysteries of Christianity among these ignorant and barbarous People they so well succeeded that they converted at first great numbers of the common sort and at length the King himself whose example gave easie way for introducing the Christian Faith into his whole Kingdom which from thence spread into all the Countries subject to the Saxon Heptarchy Thus Religion came to be Establish'd in England under the Rites and Forms and Authority of the Roman Church by which Austin was instituted chief Bishop in England and seated by the Saxon King at Canterbury But his Jurisdiction though admitted in all the Saxon Territories was not received by the British Priests or People in Wales though endeavoured by many missions from Austin and his Successors and even by Wars and Persecutions of the Saxons upon the Old British Christians at the instigation of the New Romish Priests in one of which near Carleon Twelve Hundred of the poor British Monks are said to have been slaughtered while they were apart in the Field at their Prayers for the success of the British Army With this Account of a new face and state of Persons and of Things both Natural Civil and Religious establish'd in England I return to the Period I left of the Saxon Heptarchy which being extinguish'd by long and various Revolutions among themselves made way for the Reign of Ecbert the first sole King or Monarch of England about the year 830. It might have been reasonably expected that a wise and fortunate Prince at the Head of so great a Dominion and so brave and numerous a People as the English after the Expulsion of the Picts and Scots out of his Country into the rough Northern Parts and of the Britains into the North-west Corners of the Island should not only have enjoyed the Fruits of Peace and Quiet but left much Felicity as well as greatness to many succeeding Generations both of Prince and People Yet such is the instability of Human Affairs and the weakness of their best Conjectures That Ecbert was hardly warm in his united Throne when both he and his Subjects began to be alarmed and perplexed at the approach of new and unknown Enemies and this Island exposed to New Invasions About this time a mighty Swarm of the Old Northern Hive who had possessed the Seats about the Baltick
introduced new Terms new Forms of Pleading and of Process new Names of Offices and of Courts and with them all the litigious Customs and Subtelties of the Norman Pleas and Conveyances who were a witty but contentious People instead of the old English Simplicity in their common Suits Pleas or Conveyances which were plain brief without Perplexities made with good meaning kept with good Faith and so followed by little Contention and that determined by speedy Justice and Decision of Monthly Courts in every County Among the Saxons it was usual to grant Lands and Houses by bare Words and with the Delivery of some trivial Gift as an Horn a Sword an Arrow a Helmet and yet the simple Honesty of those Times and People left such Grants little subject to any Disputes or Contentions But the Conqueror reduced all Grants to Writing to Signature and to Witnesses which brought in Cavils and Actions grounded upon Punctilious Errors in Writing Mistakes in Expression which in much writing must sometimes happen either by Hast Weakness or perhaps by Fraud of Conveyancers and with Design to leave matter of Contentions by which they subsist as Physicians by Diseases Notwithstanding all these Arts of the Prince and Industry of his Ministers to introduce the Norman Language in England yet all was frustrated by the Over-ballance of Numbers in the Nations in Proportion to the Strangers and assisted by a general Avertion in the English to change their Language which they thought would be succeeded by that of their Laws and Liberties So that in this very Reign instead of the English speaking Norman the Normans began generally by Force of Intermarriages ordinary Commerce and Conversation to use the English Tongue which has ever since continued and composed the main Body of our Language though changed like others by Mixture of many new Words and Phrases not only introduced by this great Revolution but by the Uses and Accidents of each succeeding Age. It seems very remarkable and very different what happened in Scotland about this Time and upon this Subject for upon the great Recourse of English Nobles and Gentlemen into Scotland seeking Refuge from the first Dangers and and Terrors of the Norman Conquest and afterwards of many more who fled there in Pursuit of Edgar's Pretensions and joyned with the Scots in two Invasions of England but chiefly upon Malcolm's fond Affection of his English Wife Sister to Prince Edgar his Learning and commonly using or favouring her Language the usual Compliance and Conformity of Courtiers to the Customs of their Prince and the general Humour of Kindness in the Scots at that time to the Person or Rights of Edgar and to all his Adherents that lost their own Country to follow his Fortunes the English Language grew in this King's Reign to be generally spoken not only in the Court of Scotland but in several Counties thereunto adjacent and among most of the Nobles in remoter Provinces and so it has ever since remained as have many English Families in those Parts habituated and with Time naturalized among them and the ancient barbarous Scotch Tongue has been left current only in the more Northern or Northwest and mountainous Parts of that Kingdom and in the Islands that seeem to have been first and most entirely possessed by the Scyths or Scots who so long ago invaded and conquered the Northern Parts of Britain and Ireland The contrary of this unusual Change in Language appears to have succeeded in England since in a little time nothing remained of the Norman Language in common Use besides the Translation of our common Law which though deduced from the ancient Saxon Streams yet the Sound and Forms and Practice came to be Norman like Rivers which still run from their original Sources but yet often change their Taste from the Soils through which they take their Course and sometimes from Accidents of great Inundations which for the present change them but leave them to return to their natural Streams A singular and instructive Example how strange a Difference there is in the Compliance of a Nation with the Humour of a Prince they love or of one they fear Besides these Changes in the Language of our Laws and the Forms of Pleas which were generally disaffected by the English Subjects this Norman King either upon Pretence of Justice and Piety or else of Necessity and Safety abolished several ancient Saxon Institutions and made several new which how reasonable or how useful soever yet bred ill Blood among the Nobles and Clergy of England though the People contented themselves with the Continuance of their ancient Laws and thought all they did or suffered for the King's Service well rewarded while they might preserve what they called the Laws of Edward the Confessor And the King was so wise as often to renew his Oath to maintain them for the general Satisfaction of the People For the rest he took all Jurisdiction and Judgment in civil Causes wholly out of the Hands of the Bishops where it had been placed in the whole Saxon Succession after their Conversion to Christianity And restrained the Clergy to the Exercise and Administration of their Ecclesiastical Power He endeavoured to abolish two ancient Forms of Trial used among the Saxons with great Reverence even during their Christian Worship though they were but Remainders of their old Pagan Superstition but so rooted in the Opinion of the People as not to be dispossessed by new Reason or Religion These were the Trials Ordeal and of Camp-fight The first was either by Fire or by Water and used only in Criminal Cases where the Accusation was strong the Suspicions great but no Proofs evident In that of Fire the Person accused was brought into an open Place upon even Ground several Plow-shares heated red hot were laid before them at unequal Distances over which they were to walk blindfold and if they escaped any Harm were adjudged innocent if their Feet were burned by treading upon the hot Irons they were condemned as guilty In the other of Water the accused were thrown into the Water if they sunk immediately they were esteemed innocent and guilty if they swam either because it seemed against the Nature of heavy Bodies or that the clear Element would not receive them but rejected them as polluted Persons The first Trial was for those of better Condition and the other for those of inferiour and both were chiefly used upon Accusations of Unchastity of Poysoning or of Sorcery These Trials though grounded upon no Reason yet were thought approved by long Experience and the rather I suppose because any sncceeding Proofs of Innocence were as difficult to find as any precedent Evidence of Guilt And they were commonly called the Judgments of God and performed with solemn Oraisons and other Ceremonies that amused or rather enchanted the ignorant People into an Opinion of their being sacred as well as just The Trials of Camp-fight were performed by single Combat in Lists appointed for that Purpose
having never lost but one which was Fitz-Auber He was a Prince deep in his Designs bold in his Enterprises firm in his Prosecution excelling in the Order and Discipline of his Armies and choice in his Officers both of his Army and his State But admirable in Expedition and Dispatch of Civil as well as Military Affairs never deferring till to Morrow what should be done to Day Above all he was careful and prudent in the Management of his Treasure and finding a Temper between the Bounty of his own Nature and the Necessity of his Affairs proportioning always the Expences of his Gifts his Buildings his Enterprizes to the Treasure he was master of for defraying them designing nothing out of his Compass and thereby compassing all he seemed to design He was religious in frequenting Divine Service giving much Alms building Abbies and endowing them sending Presents of Crosses of Gold rich Vestures and Plate to many other Churches and much Treasure to Rome He was a great Lover of Learning and though he despised the loose ignorant Saxon Clergy he found in England yet he took Care and Pleasure to fill Ecclesiastical Dignities here with Persons of great Worth and Learning from abroad as Lanfranc Durand Anselm with many more He was a Lover of Virtue in others and Hater of Vice for being naturally very kind to his half Brother Odon Bishop of Bayeux having made him Earl of Kent given him great Revenues entrusted him in his Absence with the Government of the Realm yet finding him a Man of incurable Ambition Avarice Cruelty Oppression and Prophaneness he at length wholly disgraced him and kept him in Prison during all the rest of his Reign which seems to have been a just Punishment of his Crimes and Sacrifice to the English he had cruelly oppressed in the King's Absence rather than a greediness of his Treasures as some envious Writers would make it appear Yet by the Consent of them all and the most partial or malicious to his Memory as well as others He is agreed to have been a Prince of great Strength Wisdom Courage Clemency Magnificence Wit Courtesie Charity Temperance and Piety This short Character and by all agreed is enough to vindicate the Memory of this noble Prince and famous Conqueror from the Aspersions or Detractions of several malicious or partial Authors who have more unfaithfully represented his Reign than any other Period of our English History Having taken a full View of this King in his Actions and his Person it remains only that we consider the Consequences that both of them had upon the Condition of this Kingdom which will be best discovered by the Survey of what it lost what it preserved and what it gained by this famous Conquest England thereby must be confessed to have lost first very great Numbers of brave English Men who fell in the Battle of Hastings and in two Wars afterwards by the Revolt of the Nobles and Invasion of the Scots in Favor of Edgar Atheling Likewise many Nobles and Gentlemen who disdaining all Subjection to a forreign and conquering Power retired into Scotland Ireland Denmark and after the Extinction of their Hopes by the Suppression of all Endeavours in Favour of Edgar's Right never returned but left their Families habituated in those Countries choosing if they must live under a forreign Dominion to do it rather abroad than at home In the next Place England lost the true Line of their ancient Saxon Kings who were a Race of just good and pious Princes governed by such known Laws and with such Moderation and were so beloved of their People as makes it observed by Writers that no popular Insurrection ever happened in any of the Saxon Reigns Lastly England by the Conquest lost in a great Measure the old Plainness and Simplicity of the Saxon Times and Customs of Life who were generally a People of good Meaning plain Dealing contended with their own little coveting or imitating their Neighbours and living frugally upon the Product of their own fruitful Soil For the Profusion of Meats at our English Tables came in with the Danes and the Luxury of them was introduced first by the Normans and after encreased by the more frequent Use of Wines upon the Accession of Guienne to this Crown What we preserved is remarkable in three Particulars not usual upon great Conquests for first we preserved our Name which was lost by the Saxon Invasions but that of England then succeeding the other of Britain has ever since continued Next we preserved our Language or the old English Tongue which has made the Body and Substance of what still remains though much enlarged and polished since those Times by the transplanting many Words out of forreign Languages especially Latin and French In the last Place we preserved our Forms of Government our Laws and Institutions which have been so much celebrated by ancient Writers and have been so obstinately defended by our Ancestors and are by Chancellor Fortescue who writ in the Time of Henry the Sixth averred to have been preserved through the five several Governments in this Island of Normans Danes Saxons Romans and Britains and so to have continued for a longer Course of Time than those of Rome or Venice or any other Nation known in Story But this I doubt is not so easily proved as affirmed though it may be with more Certainty of the three first which is sufficient to illustrate the Antiquity of our Constitutions without Recourse to strained or uncertain Allegations For what we gained by our Loss in this Conquest though it seems a Contradiction yet it may be observed in many more Particulars than the other two First England grew much greater both in Dominion and Power abroad and also in Dignity and State at home by the Accession of so much Territory upon the Continent For though the Normans by the Conquest gained much of the English Lands and Riches yet England gained Normandy which by it became a Province to this Crown Next it gained greater Strength by the great Numbers of Normans and French that came over with the Conqueror and after his Establishment here and incorporated with the English Nation joyning with them in the same Language Laws and Interests Then we gained much by the great Encrease of our Naval Power and Multitude of Ships wherein Normandy then abounded by the Advantage of more and better Havens than in later Ages This with the perpetual Intercourse between England and Normandy and other Parts of the Continent gave us a mighty Encrease of Trade and Commerce and thereby of Treasure to the Crown and Kingdom which appeared first in so great a Mass as was left by the Conqueror to Prince Henry his younger Son England by the Conquest gained likewise a natural Right to the Dominion of the narrow Seas which had been before acquired only by the great Naval Power of Edgar and other Saxon Kings But the Dominion of narrow Seas seems naturally to belong like that of