It was an evil thought, and all the more atrocious because manifold ties had been already gradually formed between the two populations. How could they ever become fused into one nation if the one was always plotting the destruction of the other? It was not merely by alliances of blood and family, but even still more by great common political and ecclesiastical interests that the English nationality, which contains both elements, was founded. And, in truth, the leading impulse towards it was that the conquerors, no less than the conquered, felt themselves oppressed by the yoke which the two supreme authorities laid on them, and hence both combined to oppose them. But centuries elapsed before this could be effected. The first occasion for it was given when the two authorities quarrelled with each other, and alternately called on the population to give its voluntary aid. For, as the authorities which represent the objective ideas are of different origin, they have never in our Western Europe remained more than a short time in complete harmony with each other. Each retains its natural claim to be supreme, and not to endure the supremacy of the other. The one has always more before its eyes the unity of the whole, the other the needs and rights of the several kingdoms and states. Amidst their antagonism European life has moulded itself and made progress. Close as their union was at the time of the Conquest of England, yet even then their quarrel broke out. Though the Conqueror pledged himself again to pay a tribute which the Anglo-Saxon kings had formerly charged themselves with, and which had been long unpaid, yet this was not sufficient for the Roman See: Gregory VII demanded to be recognised as feudal lord of England. But this was not what William understood, when he had allowed the papal banner to wave over the fleet that brought him to England. It was not from the Pope's authorisation that he derived his claim to the English crown, as if this had been merely transferred to him by the Papal See, but from the Anglo-Saxon kings, as whose heir and legal successor he wished to be regarded. He answered the Pope that he could enter into no other relation to him than that in which his predecessors in England had stood to previous popes.