A war, and especially a civil war, always drags in its wake a long train of disastrous consequences. The longer it lasts, the more difficult is the return to peace. The miserable internecine strife which had lasted, with brief interruptions, since Harold Gille's ascension of the throne (1130), had weaned a whole generation from the pursuits of peace, accustoming it to scenes of bloodshed and violence. It had added to the natural risks of industrial occupations, and made rebellion, as it were, a legitimate profession. The thousands of homeless vagabonds who infest every imperfectly organized society, and the numerous class who, by nature, are criminally inclined, will always seize such an opportunity to support themselves, at the expense of society, and will far rather endure the dangers and hardships of a perpetual war than the wearing routine and sustained activities of peace. The material was therefore at hand for continued rebellion, and as long as the supply of pretenders showed no signs of giving out, there was every prospect that the king would have his hands full. Only the gradual destruction of the turbulent and the greater chances of the survival of the friends of order would, in the end, decide the struggle in favor of the latter. The problem is, however, more complicated than it appears to be, for the gradual destruction of the turbulent came, in the course of time, to mean the destruction of the warlike spirit itself. And a century after peace had been concluded, a period of decline set in, which continued for four hundred years.