Hence the power which men like Lanfranc or Anselm had over him; and it must be added that his life was exemplary as a private individual, his honour unsullied, his purity unstained.

Stern was the race of which he was the head and the ruling spirit.  Well does the old chronicler, Henry of Huntingdon, say: 

“God had chosen the Normans to humble the English nation, because He perceived that they were more fierce than any other people.”

And we modern English must remember that we are the descendants of old English and Normans combined.  They came to “high mettle” the blood of our race, and when the conquerors and the conquered were moulded into one people, the result was the Englishmen who won Crecy and Agincourt against overwhelming odds, whose very name was a terror to continental soldiery, as Froissart abundantly testifies.

Grieve as we may over the tyranny and wrong of the Conquest, England would never have been so great without it as she afterwards became.

Etienne knelt in the abbey chapel until the last worshippers had gone out, when a hand was laid upon his shoulder, and a gentle voice said: 

“The King awaits thee, my son, in the abbot’s audience chamber.”

In spite of his boldness, Etienne felt a strange tremor as he passed through the cloisters and approached the dreaded monarch.

But he himself belonged to the same stern race, and when the folding doors opened, and he saw the King seated in the abbot’s chair, he had perfectly recovered his composure.  With winning grace he bent the knee before his liege, and gazed into that face whose frown was death.

But it was not frowning now; the expression was almost paternal, for the Conqueror loved a gallant youth.

“Rise up, my son,” he said; “the holy father here tells me you bear stirring news.”

“My liege, he hath spoken rightly.  I have to tell of rebellion and sacrilege; our English vassals have risen against us, and my brave father has fallen by their hands; our castle is in their holding, and they have driven the brethren of St. Benedict homeless from their monastery.”

“And who has dared this deed?”

“Wilfred, son of the rebel who fell at Senlac.”

“Wilfred of Aescendune!  I remember the stripling when he sought his father’s corpse on the battlefield, but had heard that he had lost his life in the fire which consumed the monastery.”

“Nay, sire, he had fled to the rebels, and we doubt not now that he and the outlaws, with whom he found a home, fired the monastery, themselves, to cover his flight.”

“Tell me, then, what could have driven him to so violent a course, and tell me truly; for some cause there must have been.”

It must be remembered that, at this period, William had not given up all hope of reconciling the English to his rule.

“I know no cause, sire, save—­”

“Save what?” said he sternly, for Etienne hesitated.