natives of Poitou and Aquitaine. The great grandsons of those who
had fought under William and the great grandsons of those who had
fought under Harold began to draw near to each other in
friendship; and the first pledge of their reconciliation was the
Great Charter, won by their united exertions, and framed for
their common benefit.

Here commences the history of the English nation. The history of
the preceding events is the history of wrongs inflicted and
sustained by various tribes, which indeed all dwelt on English
ground, but which regarded each other with aversion such as has
scarcely ever existed between communities separated by physical
barriers. For even the mutual animosity of countries at war with
each other is languid when compared with the animosity of nations
which, morally separated, are yet locally intermingled. In no
country has the enmity of race been carried farther than in
England. In no country has that enmity been more completely
effaced. The stages of the process by which the hostile elements
were melted down into one homogeneous mass are not accurately
known to us. But it is certain that, when John became King, the
distinction between Saxons and Normans was strongly marked, and
that before the end of the reign of his grandson it had almost
disappeared. In the time of Richard the First, the ordinary
imprecation of a Norman gentleman was "May I become an
Englishman!" His ordinary form of indignant denial was "Do you
take me for an Englishman?" The descendant of such a gentleman a
hundred years later was proud of the English name.

The sources of the noblest rivers which spread fertility over
continents, and bear richly laden fleets to the sea, are to be