of sovereign power.  They distributed justice, they made war and peace at pleasure.  The sovereign, with great pretensions, had but little power; he was only a greater lord among great lords, who profited of the differences of his peers; therefore no steady plan could be well pursued, either in war or peace.  This day a prince seemed irresistible at the head of his numerous vassals, because their duty obliged them to war, and they performed this duty with pleasure.  The next day saw this formidable power vanish like a dream, because this fierce undisciplined people had no patience, and the time of the feudal service was contained within very narrow limits.  It was therefore easy to find a number of persons at all times ready to follow any standard, but it was hard to complete a considerable design which required a regular and continued movement.  This enterprising disposition in the gentry was very general, because they had little occupation or pleasure but in war, and the greatest rewards did then attend personal valor and prowess.  All that professed arms became in some sort on an equality.  A knight was the peer of a king, and men had been used to see the bravery of private persons opening a road to that dignity.  The temerity of adventurers was much justified by the ill order of every state, which left it a prey to almost any who should attack it with sufficient vigor.  Thus, little checked by any superior power, full of fire, impetuosity, and ignorance, they longed to signalize themselves, wherever an honorable danger called them; and wherever that invited, they did not weigh very deliberately the probability of success.

The knowledge of this general disposition in the minds of men will naturally remove a great deal of our wonder at seeing an attempt founded on such slender appearances of right, and supported by a power so little proportioned to the undertaking as that of William, so warmly embraced and so generally followed, not only by his own subjects, but by all the neighboring potentates.  The Counts of Anjou, Bretagne, Ponthieu, Boulogne, and Poictou, sovereign princes,—­adventurers from every quarter of France, the Netherlands, and the remotest parts of Germany, laying aside their jealousies and enmities to one another, as well as to William, ran with an inconceivable ardor into this enterprise, captivated with the splendor of the object, which obliterated all thoughts of the uncertainty of the event.  William kept up this fervor by promises of large territories to all his allies and associates in the country to be reduced by their united efforts.  But after all it became equally necessary to reconcile to his enterprise the three great powers of whom we have just spoken, whose disposition must have had the most influence on his affairs.