(15) Dr. Pauli does not scruple to give him this title in his admirable monograph, “_Simon von Montfort Graf von Leicester, der Schöpfer des Hauses der Gemeinen_.” The career of the Earl should be studied in this work, and in Mr. Blaauw’s “Barons’ War.” (16) “Numquam libertas gratior exstat Quam sub rege pio.”—Claudian, ii. Cons. Stil. 114. (17) Macaulay, i. 15. “England owes her escape from such calamities to an event which her historians have generally represented as disastrous. Her interest was so directly opposed to the interest of her rulers that she had no hope but in their errors and misfortunes. The talents and even the virtues of her six first French Kings were a curse to her. The follies and vices of the seventh were her salvation.... England, which, since the battle of Hastings, had been ruled generally by wise statesmen, always by brave soldiers, fell under the dominion of a trifler and a coward. From that moment her prospects brightened. John was driven from Normandy. The Norman nobles were compelled to make their election between the island and the continent. Shut up by the sea with the people whom they had hitherto oppressed and despised, they gradually came to regard England as their country, and the English as their countrymen. The two races so long hostile, soon found that they had common interests and common enemies. Both were alike aggrieved by the tyranny of a bad King. Both were alike indignant at the favour shown by the court to the natives of Poitou and Aquitaine. The great grandsons of those who had fought under William and the great grandsons of those who had fought under Harold began to draw near to each other in friendship; and the first pledge of their reconciliation was the Great Charter, won by their united exertions, and framed for their common benefit.” (18) I have tried to work out the gradual character of the transfer of lands and offices under William in various parts of the fourth volume of my History of the Norman Conquest; see especially p. 22, et seqq. The popular notion of a general scramble for everything gives a most false view of William’s whole character and position. (19) See Norman Conquest, i. 176. (20) This is distinctly asserted in the Dialogus de Scaccario (i. 10), under Henry the Second: “Jam cohabitantibus Anglicis et Normannis, et alterutrum uxores ducentibus vel nubentibus, sic permixtæ sunt nationes, ut vix discerni possit hodie, de liberis loquor, quis Anglicus quis Normannus sit genere; exceptis duntaxat ascriptitiis qui villani dicuntur, quibus non est liberum obstantibus dominis suis a sui statûs conditione discedere.”