DANES, SAXONS, AND NORMANS;
OR,
Stories of our Ancestors.
BY
J. G. EDGAR,
AUTHOR OF "BOYHOOD OF GREAT MEN," "CAVALIERS AND ROUNDHEADS," ETC.
LONDON:
S. O. BEETON, 248, STRAND.
1863.
PREFACE.
In the following pages I have endeavoured to tell in a popular way the
story of the Norman Conquest, and to give an idea of the principal
personages who figured in England at the period when that memorable
event took place; and I have endeavoured, I hope not without some
degree of success, to treat the subject in a popular and picturesque
style, without any sacrifice of historic truth.
With a view of rendering the important event which I have attempted to
illustrate, more intelligible to the reader, I have commenced by
showing how the Normans under Rolfganger forced a settlement in the
dominions of Charles the Simple, whilst Alfred the Great was
struggling with the Danes in England, and have recounted the events
which led to a connexion between the courts of Rouen and Westminster,
and to the invasion of England by William the Norman.
It has been truly observed that the history of the Conquest is at once
so familiar at first sight, that it appears superfluous to multiply
details, so difficult to realize on examination, that a writer feels
himself under the necessity of investing with importance many
particulars previously regarded as uninteresting, and that the defeat
at Hastings was not the catastrophe over which the curtain drops to
close the Saxon tragedy, but "the first scene in a new act of the
continuous drama." I have therefore continued my narrative for many
years after the fall of Harold and the building of Battle Abbey, and
have traced the Conqueror's career from the coast of Sussex to the
banks of the Humber and the borders of the Tweed.
For the same reason I have narrated the quarrels which convulsed the
Conqueror's own family--have related how son fought against father,
and brother against brother--and have indicated the circumstances
which, after a fierce war of succession in England, resulted in the
peaceful coronation of Henry Plantagenet, and the establishment of
that great house whose chiefs were so long the pride of England and
the terror of her foes.
J. G. E.
ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
ROLFGANGER AND HIS COMRADES:--Rolfganger's banishment--Settles
in France--Ludicrous incident during the ceremony of
Rolfganger's taking the oath of fealty to Charles the Simple