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