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Let us recur briefly to the history. With William the Conqueror a great
change had been introduced into England: under him and his immediate
successors--his son William Rufus, his nephew Henry I., the usurper
Stephen, and Henry II.,--the efforts of the "English kings of Norman race"
were directed to the establishment of their power on a strong foundation;
but they began, little by little, to see that the only foundation was that
of the unconquerable English people; so that popular rights soon began to
be considered, and the accession of Henry II., the first of the
Plantagenets, was specially grateful to the English, because he was the
first since the Conquest to represent the Saxon line, being the grandson
of Henry I., and son of _Matilda_, niece of Edgar Atheling. In the mean
time, as has been seen, the English language had been formed, the chief
element of which was Saxon. This was a strong instrument of political
rights, for community of language tended to an amalgamation of the Norman
and Saxon peoples.


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