Page:The Works of Shoshee Chunder Dutt, First Series, Vol 2.djvu/26

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20
THE MODERN WORLD.

been obliged to withdraw both his army arid his navy from the southern coast to repel an invasion in the north made When, after having defeated by Hadrada, king of Norway. Opel the other, his army was one enemy, he came back to r of the invaders, that his best numerically so inferior to that back upon London, and, by captains advised him to fall country about it, starve the Normans, laying waste the thereby to the Saxon fleet to reasserncorn also giving time munication with Normandy. But intercept s up, and his kindly heart re3ected the blood wa dit wa yiiig any part of the country waste: an lost. reasons that the battle of Hastings was t. Tht est to a brave people is a bitter draugh on thc foreign domination weighed heavily nd the violence of the Normans magnified its Saxons, a The consequence was that fierce local risings severity. stant, and were followed by revengeful cruelties on the part of the conquerors. William himself followed a remorseless policy, the ob3ect held in view by him being the annihilation of the Saxons as a distinct race. His efforts to crush them out were, however, unsuccessful; up bitter feuds arid jealousies between they only kept the the State. two parties in ding all Notwithstan this, however, the Norman Con- without quest was not its advantages. Previous to it no recog Go gie ble and Harold’s idea of la for these Conqu sense of were con England had nised position in Europe. The Romans had ruled as conq nerors, keeping themselves distinct f rom the people they coiquered, whom they corn- peiisated by protection and by instruction in their laws and inst itutions somewhat in the way in which the English are now civilising t heir subject races in India. The Saxous, who came after them, mixed with the Celts half-savages themselves; and were at best freely, but