orthography, and would have been contemptuously abandoned to the
use of boors. No man of English extraction would have risen to
eminence, except by becoming in speech and habits a Frenchman.

England owes her escape from such calamities to an event which
her historians have generally represented as disastrous. Her
interest was so directly opposed to the interests of her rulers
that she had no hope but in their errors and misfortunes. The
talents and even the virtues of her first six French Kings were a
curse to her. The follies and vices of the seventh were her
salvation. Had John inherited the great qualities of his father,
of Henry Beauclerc, or of the Conqueror, nay, had he even
possessed the martial courage of Stephen or of Richard, and had
the King of France at the same time been as incapable as all the
other successors of Hugh Capet had been, the House of Plantagenet
must have risen to unrivalled ascendancy in Europe. But, just at
this conjuncture, France, for the first time since the death of
Charlemagne, was governed by a prince of great firmness and
ability. On the other hand England, which, since the battle of
Hastings, had been ruled generally by wise statesmen, always by
brave soldiers, fell under the dominion of a trifler and a
coward. From that moment her prospects brightened. John was
driven from Normandy. The Norman nobles were compelled to make
their election between the island and the continent. Shut up by
the sea with the people whom they had hitherto oppressed and
despised, they gradually came to regard England as their country,
and the English as their countrymen. The two races, so long
hostile, soon found that they had common interests and common
enemies. Both were alike aggrieved by the tyranny of a bad king.
Both were alike indignant at the favour shown by the court to the