It may be asked, why did not the clansmen—the rank and file of the Irish people—put a stop to the insane feuds of their kings, princes, and chiefs? Because, we answer, they were accustomed to the tribal system and idea. Doubtless, they loved Ireland, in a general way, but were much more attached to their family tribe-land, and, above all, they adored the head of their sept and followed where he led, asking no questions as to the ethics of his cause. Had they been more enlightened regarding the art of government, they might have combined against their selfish leaders and crushed them. But the tribal curse was upon them, and is not yet entirely lifted. The Danes held the crown of England for about a quarter of a century after they were driven from power in Ireland. At last, after great difficulty, they were driven from the throne and the saintly Edward the Confessor, of the old Saxon line, was raised to the kingship of England. His successor, King Harold—a brave but, we fear, not a very wise man—is said by English historians to have “done homage”—an evil custom of those days—to William, Duke of Normandy, while on a visit to that country. At all events, William claimed the crown, which Harold, very properly, declined to surrender. William was an able and resolute, but fierce and cruel, warrior. He speedily organized a force of 60,000 mercenaries, mainly French-Normans, but with thousands of real Frenchmen among them, and, having provided himself with an immense flotilla—a wondrous achievement in that age of the world—succeeded in throwing his entire force on the English coast. Harold, nothing daunted, met him on a heath near Hastings, in Sussex, where the Saxon army had strongly intrenched itself, and would, perhaps, have been victorious had not it abandoned its position to pursue the fleeing Normans, who, with their accustomed martial skill, turned upon their disordered pursuers and repulsed them in return. The centre of the great conflict is marked by the ruins of Battle Abbey. The two armies were about equal in strength and fought the whole length of an October day before the combat was decided. Prodigies of valor were performed, but, at last, the brave Harold fell, and the remains of the Saxon army fled from that fatal field. William, soon afterward, occupied London. The Saxons made but small show of resistance, after Hastings, and, within a few years, “fair England” was parceled out among William’s Norman-French captains, who thus laid the foundation of the baronial fabric that, with one brief interval, has dominated England ever since. A few of the Saxon nobles managed, somehow, to save their domains—probably by swearing allegiance to William and marrying their lovely daughters to his chiefs—but, as a whole, the Saxon people became the serfs of the Norman barons, and were scarcely recognized even as subjects, until the long and bloody wars with France, in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries,