_The Conquest._--Permit me to point out the erroneous historical idea which
obtains in the use of this phrase. Acquisition out of the common course of
inheritance is by our legists called _perquisitio_, by the feudists
_conquisitio_, and the first purchaser (he who brought the estate into the
current family) the _conquereur_. The charters and chronicles of the age
thus rightly style William the Norman _conquisitor_, and his accession
_conquæstus_; but now, from disuse of the foedal sense, with the notion of
the forcible method of acquisition, we annex the idea of victory to
conquisition,--a title to which William never pretended.