The History of England from the Accession of James II, vol 1 | Page 8

the
resemblance more perfect than during that evil time when she alone
rode, amidst darkness and tempest, on the deluge beneath which all the
great works of ancient power and wisdom lay entombed, bearing within
her that feeble germ from which a Second and more glorious
civilisation was to spring.
Even the spiritual supremacy arrogated by the Pope was, in the dark
ages, productive of far more good than evil. Its effect was to unite the
nations of Western Europe in one great commonwealth. What the

Olympian chariot course and the Pythian oracle were to all the Greek
cities, from Trebizond to Marseilles, Rome and her Bishop were to all
Christians of the Latin communion, from Calabria to the Hebrides.
Thus grew up sentiments of enlarged benevolence. Races separated
from each other by seas and mountains acknowledged a fraternal tie
and a common code of public law. Even in war, the cruelty of the
conqueror was not seldom mitigated by the recollection that he and his
vanquished enemies were all members of one great federation.
Into this federation our Saxon ancestors were now admitted. A regular
communication was opened between our shores and that part of Europe
in which the traces of ancient power and policy were yet discernible.
Many noble monuments which have since been destroyed or defaced
still retained their pristine magnificence; and travellers, to whom Livy
and Sallust were unintelligible, might gain from the Roman aqueducts
and temples some faint notion of Roman history. The dome of Agrippa,
still glittering with bronze, the mausoleum of Adrian, not yet deprived
of its columns and statues, the Flavian amphitheatre, not yet degraded
into a quarry, told to the rude English pilgrims some part of the story of
that great civilised world which had passed away. The islanders
returned, with awe deeply impressed on their half opened minds, and
told the wondering inhabitants of the hovels of London and York that,
near the grave of Saint Peter, a mighty race, now extinct, had piled up
buildings which would never be dissolved till the judgment day.
Learning followed in the train of Christianity. The poetry and
eloquence of the Augustan age was assiduously studied in Mercian and
Northumbrian monasteries. The names of Bede and Alcuin were justly
celebrated throughout Europe. Such was the state of our country when,
in the ninth century, began the last great migration of the northern
barbarians
During many years Denmark and Scandinavia continued to pour forth
innumerable pirates, distinguished by strength, by valour, by merciless
ferocity, and by hatred of the Christian name. No country suffered so
much from these invaders as England. Her coast lay near to the ports
whence they sailed; nor was any shire so far distant from the sea as to
be secure from attack. The same atrocities which had attended the

victory of the Saxon over the Celt were now, after the lapse of ages,
suffered by the Saxon at the hand of the Dane. Civilization,--just as it
began to rise, was met by this blow, and sank down once more. Large
colonies of adventurers from the Baltic established themselves on the
eastern shores of our island, spread gradually westward, and, supported
by constant reinforcements from beyond the sea, aspired to the
dominion of the whole realm. The struggle between the two fierce
Teutonic breeds lasted through six generations. Each was alternately
paramount. Cruel massacres followed by cruel retribution, provinces
wasted, convents plundered, and cities rased to the ground, make up the
greater part of the history of those evil days. At length the North ceased
to send forth a constant stream of fresh depredators; and from that time
the mutual aversion of the races began to subside. Intermarriage
became frequent. The Danes learned the religion of the Saxons; and
thus one cause of deadly animosity was removed. The Danish and
Saxon tongues, both dialects of one widespread language, were blended
together. But the distinction between the two nations was by no means
effaced, when an event took place which prostrated both, in common
slavery and degradation, at the feet of a third people.
The Normans were then the foremost race of Christendom. Their valour
and ferocity had made them conspicuous among the rovers whom
Scandinavia had sent forth to ravage Western Europe. Their sails were
long the terror of both coasts of the Channel. Their arms were
repeatedly carried far into the heart of: the Carlovingian empire, and
were victorious under the walls of Maestricht and Paris. At length one
of the feeble heirs of Charlemagne ceded to the strangers a fertile
province, watered by a noble river, and contiguous to the sea which
was their favourite element. In that province they founded a mighty
state, which gradually extended its influence over the neighbouring
principalities of Britanny and Maine. Without laying aside