This is at once obvious when we remember that the ground
of William's claim to the throne was a promise received from King
Edward personally, unconfirmed by council or witan, but endorsed for
his own part by Harold when shipwreck had placed him in Duke William's
power. Such were the true elements of the dispute.
It is true that the society of that time was, as I have said, all of
one piece both in England and in Gaul, but it is certain that in
England that society was less precisely organised, less conscious of
itself, less logical in its structure, in a word less real and more
barbarous than that of the Normans. The victory of Duke William meant
that the sluggish English system would be replaced or at any rate
reinvigorated by an energy and an intelligence foreign to it, without
which it might seem certain that civilisation here would have fallen
into utter decay or have perished altogether. The service of Duke
William then, while not so great as that of Caesar and certainly far
less than that of St Augustine, was of the same kind; he rescued
England from barbarism and brought us back into the full light of
Europe.
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