The Sun.
London, England, 1866-10-26 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—A few days ago England might have
celebrated, with very good reasons, the eighth cen-
tenary of an event which may be fairly regarded as
the foundation of this realm, and no small part of
our making as the British people. The Battle of
Hastings was fought on October 14, 1066, and on
that day the Conqueror became the possessor of
the sovereignty still enjoyed by his descendants
with ever-increasing glory and security. It was
one of the very few occasions in the history of the
world in which accidents, and trifles, and secondary
causes seem to have had no part, and in which the
authors, the preparation, the circumstances, and the
expectation all were suitable to the incalculable im-
portance of the results. The "great Baron" led to
these shores the noblest and most civilised race of
that age. He carefully armed himself with the
highest religious sanction, and a claim sufficient at
least for the wager of battle. Politic before his age,
he threw away no chance. With the eyes of all
Christendom upon him, he made the most elaborate
preparations on the opposite shore, aad secured by
diplomacy an important diversion on our northern
coast. It was greatly in his favour that he had to
encounter a thoroughly united realm, an ancient
and loved dynasty, a people proud of their unmixed
race, or a dominant class ; for in all these respects
England was made to his hands, and like a house
waiting for its lord and master. Indeed, with the
exception of the governing power which England was
then to receive, and to see speedily developed into
King, Lords, and Commons, it had a remarkable
resemblance to England of this day. It had been
made up of many races, engrafted on a stock of
unknown antiquity. Its people had always claimed
self-government and equal laws. The tribal sys-
tem and slavery—if pure and simple slavery had
ever existed in the island—had early given way to
the allodial system, and to that relation of master
and man which is become almost nature in this
country. England would have been a very barren
conquest, and could never have been more than
another Normandy, had the Conqueror not won the
people as well as the soil ; and, although he brought
over then and afterwards many thousand adven-
turers, whom he was able to plant all over the
country, all inquiry tends to prove how small, in the
first instance, was the change in the inhabitants of
this island, their manners, and their laws. At first
the two races lived apart; then the lordly Norman
element began to work like a leaven in the mixed
mass of this people,' as it has worked ever since,
and works at this day. Though there is not a family
in the island that could-claim a pure descent, had it
so foolish an ambition, yet Norman blood flows in
the meanest veins, producing everywhere and in
various classes the genius of mastery, of organisa-
tion, of handiness and helpfulness, of high moral
discipline, of loyal obedience, and paternal authority.
Daring these eight centuries we have undergone
changes so great, and seen events so extraordinary,
as to invite the remark that our history is the tale
of a novel-writer. But in the most important sense
we have been singularly changeless. For the whole

of this period we have been engaged more or less in
political controversies assuming various forms, but
almost invariably recognising the Dynasty, the Con-
stitution, 'the Church, the rights of property, the
legal system, local authority, and even territorial
arrangements of a less important character. Of these
things it is hard to say which is the oldest and most
respected in this country, and no sooner is any part
of our complex social and political system threatened
than the descendant, may be, of Saxon or British
patriots can point to chapter and verse of the Nor-
man records, with the presumption in favour of a
much greater antiquity. The Conquest, which found
Enland in no very peaceful and settled condition,
had to plant its steps in the smouldering embers, and
encounter and quench not a few rebellions. Then
came wars of succession, an evil old as the Heptarchy,
but also imported, and culminating in the battle of
Bosworth, near four centuries ago, since which we
have managed this business better. The Normans
brought with them some ecclesiastical controversies
which are still pending, and which have occasionally
influenced political affairs. We have claimed a na-
tional church, and one which tolerates dissent—a re-
turn, as some tell us, to British simplicity, but less
doubtfully fortified by Norman example. Profiting
by the example of the Norman barons, the Commons
claimed their place in legislation and laws. The land
was covered with castles, but burgesses grew bold ;
and when castles were levelled wholesale, there were
more and more royal charters, with still larger li-
berties. The genius of the country was adverse to
all political pretensions of an unaccommodating and
overbearing character. The great Norman families
that felt and acted as heirs of the Conquest and
masters of the people gradually decayed, giving
place to a gentry of a more moderate bearing. The
wars of the Roses and the iron rule of the Tudors
are commonly said to have given the finishing
stroke to the confederacy of Norman chiefs that still
thought England their own. But what record that
stormy period left of itself fared ill at the hands of
succeeding generations, and we only know what sur-
vived. Thus gradually, and after many struggles,
the conquerors themselves. the Crown, the barons,
and the Church, have had to enter into compromises
with the people, and accept laws made in the interest
of the whole commonwealth. For six centuries
Parliament and the Courts of Law have been sub-
stantially what they are now. When we are speak-
ing of that which has grown, and gained, and lost,
and remained the same for eight centuries, we have
no choice but to call it England. England in Nor-
man hands acquired Ireland and Wales, mere after-
claps of the Conquest. She lost her continental
provinces, and with them the last links of Norman
fetters, for the Norman element from that day was
a social rather than a political influence. As soon
as the dream of French dominion had passed away,
England found a good sister, instead of a bad neigh-
bour, in the northern part of the island. Since that
she has lost the best part of North America, her own
children, and gained India and Australasia. They
are the largest losses and gains that history tells of,
and the superstructure may seem too large for the
basis of a single battle fought on the Sussex Downs
800 years ago. But that was not the scale by which
causes and effects were measured by the Saxon
Thanes, who, having watched the Normans disem-
barking on Michaelmas Eve, in the year 1066, and
then intrenching and hutting themselves, rode be-
yond the Humber to tell King Harold, Godwin's
son, what they had seen. They found him resting
at York, after having slain his namesake, the Nor-
wegian King. The Saxon King was no craven. He
rode from York to Sussex, gathered a second army,
and met the Normans at the hoary apple-tree—a
" sour apple-tree" for him. There he fell, and thou-
sands of his army with him, as the gigantic King of
N orway and his huge host had fallen a few days be-
fore. Within 15 days both the Harolds had got
their seven feet of English earth. That was the
masterstroke of the Norman Duke. Indeed, all
that we have done, and the whole series of our
conquests and acquisitions, far and wide, are but
echoes of the Norman original. The wandering
Celt, the hard-working Saxon, the adventurous
Dane, whatever the peculiar and inscrutable quali-
ties of the English race into which all are fused,
might have roamed, and laboured, and fought in
vain, but for the master Norman mind, that could
plan, and construct, and inspire; that neverintended
without doing, that seldom did without succeeding,
and that never began without completing its work.
That the succeeding chapters of so changeful a his-
tory should not belacking iu interest, and the pro-
blem of British greatness is still working itself out,
is both a natural and a necessary faith. It cannot be
said that we have attained to any consummation, or
even any resting-place, or any ideal so satisfactory
that we may now thank the Conquest for putting
the finishing stroke on our composition. But they
who would ameliorate our public policy or remodel
our institutions will never do this well, if at all, un-

less they fully recognise the character of the mate-
rials they have to deal with. The elements of our
race are indestructible, even though it be of the
mixed character proved by history and the evidence
of our own senses. We are what we have been made
by successive invasions, successive occupations, and
successive additions from various parts of the Con-
tinent. The refugees of poverty or persecutions to
whom we have given a home must outnumber many
times the entire Norman importation. But it is
plain to the bluntest senses and the dullest under-
standing that the men who conquered, held, go-
verned, built up this country till they were one with
it, and lost in a common unity, are still among us
and in us, in our institutions, our laws, our language,
our customs, public spirit, our policy, our very flesh
and blood. These are the actual ingredients, and these
the facts of the case that we have to deal with, and all
legislation that should ever attempt to mould and
fashion our race without caring what it is and what
it is made of will utterly and disastrously fail.
Nations have their characters, like individuals, and
we have ours, though, as in the case of most men,
it is various. It is painfully evident that our cousins
across the Atlantic inherit this variety, and that no
success is to be expected from the attempeto make
one quality, one class, one type of men the normal
citizen and ordinary unit in that society. What we
see there is the violent antagonism of numbers,
strong chiefly in the weakness with which they allow
themselves to be massed and moulded against a
minority with stronger hereditary qualities. These
are given to be helpmeets for one another, not for
the triumph of 3ne or for mutual destruction. But
the greatest of all losses a nation can suffer is the
loss or the degradation of those whose very appear-
ance and manner mark them for mastery find head-
ship, and whom instinct, education, and position all
combine to qualify for responsibility and command.
But it is not at all necessary that we should sup-
pose England still divided into Norman, Saxon,
Dane, or Briton. The truth is, the medley is com-
plete, that the type of each race may come out any-
where, and each one of us may be all. It is enough
that the qualities are in us, and the traditional
parts remain to be filled. In no country in the
world is the relation of master and servant so
firmly established, so thoroughly developed, and
conducive to such great and happy results as in this
country. No doubt it is the creation of our history.
Ireland has never passed through the feudal sys-
tem ; for though it had its Norman conqueror, it
had not gone through the previous training and
formation which made the Norman Conquest so
beneficial to this country. The result is that the
Irishman will be at once master and servant, land-
lord, tenant, and labourer, his own lawmaker, his
own minister of justice,—indeed, everything in one.
That he may be a faithfal servant when his nature
inclines that way none can doubt ; but his will
independence
which inclines to that personal
which crumbles society into units, and ends in social
dissolution. When he does find his master it is on
the soil andamong the race conquered by and finally
associated with the Norman. But if we say that
the English master and servant are the best of our
race, as it now exists, and if we seem to read its
origin in the successive conquests of this island
always by a race superior to the last, we are only
asserting what is evident in the framework of Eng-
lish society, in the qualities that fit people for one
or both of these positions. To be a good master, it
is often said, a man must be a good servant, or have
been a good one ; and to be a good Englishman a
man must be at once Celt, Saxon, Dane, Norman,
and whatever else has contributed to form the British
character.

POST.—Prussia may easily miss the opportunity
which was opened up at Sadowa. It requires con-
summate tact to improve a great but inconclusive
victory, and the Prussian Government has already
made more than one false step on the high ground
which it took up. What is worse still, it has appa-
rently gone out of the plain straight way on con-
siderations which may only be accounted for at the
expense of its character—the self-respect which it
was expected to display, and the dignity and for-
bearance befitting its position. The circumstance
that, with complex problems to be resolved, and in
the presence of undissembled difficulties, this Go-
vernment should have stepped aside, as it were,
from the path of discretion to concern itself about a
simple wedding present, is significant not merely
because the Princess Dagniar is the affianced bride
of the Czarewitcb, and the sister of the Princess of
Wales, but because it is in itself evidence of an
almost incredible want of confidence. We do not
for a moment suppose that, in forbidding the Danish
Schleswigers to express the regard they entertain
for the daughter of their former Sovereign, the Go-
vernment of Berlin intended to offer an insult to

the imperial and royal families interested in her ap-
proaching marriage ; but the act reveals apprehen-
sions which a strong Government would not expe-
rience, and which a weak Government should seek
to conceal, and it is, moreover, unspeakably mean
in all its aspects. Such things, paltry as they seem,
and paltry as they really are, cannot fail to pro-
duce a painful and lasting impression on the public
mind. They excite feelings of indignation or of
contempt, and Prussia, in the plenitude of her
power, is subjected to hatred or to scorn through
her own wrongdoing. It is these " trifles light
as air" that turn the scale of enterprises, and
provoke opposition by the mistrust which they
justify. This, too, unfortunately, is a sample of
the irritating and vexatious proceedings to which
the Prussian Government has condescended in the
hour of its success. The annexation of Hanover
and Frankfort may be vindicated, and so may the
humiliation of Saxony; but a high-handed policy
ought to be carried out consistently. Powers that
make war and dictate peace should stand erect
before the world, and observe the conditions of
their action with scrupulous exactitude. One more
instance will suffice to show that Prussia is capri-
cious and hesitating. The grand Duchy of Baden
has, by the vote of its Chamber of Deputies, declined
the Prussian alliance. This also may appear to be
a very small matter. But it must be borne in mind
that the Deputies were advised by their Government
that " the adhesion of Baden to the Northern Union
was for them a question of existence, and the sole
way leading to the unity of Germany." In point of
fact, they were reqUested to vote away their inde-
pendence, which is substantially what Prussia exacts.
German unity, as it is understood at Berlin, signifies
the enlargement of the Prussian State, and the
Northern Union is the means to that end. Now, the
end may be right—that is to say, the union of Ger-
many under the Prussian monarchy might eventu-
ally prove beneficial to the whole of the German
community; and we know from history—from the
history of our own country----how right ends have
been arrived at. But precisely because the ques-
tion is one rather of expediency than of morality,
the means employed should be, ostensibly at least,
moral means. In other words, the mission of
Prussia does not admit of any double dealing.
When the fortress of Konigstein is claimed from a
State occupied by Prussian troops, the claim is in-
telligible. If it is not given up it will be taken—
that is understood. But when the Prime Minister
of Baden declares that its existence depends on
the will of Prussia, the representatives of the in-
habitants of the Duchy have to consider whether
he speaks with authority, and, in effect, whether
he is their Minister or a Prussian missionary. In
short, a national movement cannot be worked out
with the machinery of a conspiracy. Everybody is
prepared to allow that revolutions are not made
with rosewater, but, to last and wear well, they
should have a solid foundation. This was exempli-
fied in Baden a few years since, when Prussia was
endeavouring to stamp out the theory of German
unity. The unionists of 1848-9 had no foundation
to stand upon, and they could not resist the Prus-
sian bayonets. At present, however, the Germans
are not offered unity, but are asked to walk with
Prussia in a way which she says will lead to it. They
are invited to shut their eyes and be guided by
Count Von Bismarck, and told that there is no
alternative between submission and extinction. But
recollecting that the people of Hanover and Frank-
fort were differently dealt with, the Baden Depu-
ties may not unreasonably think that they see
another course. They can hardly imagine that
Prussia would beg for anything which she was com-
petent to demand, and looking at the situation from
that point of view, there would be scope for free and
refreshing speculation. Further, the Prussian Go-
vernment is protesting too much. Its relations with
the Governments of St. Petersburg and the Hague
may be quite satisfactory. There may be no mis-
understanding anywhere. But, be that as it may, if
the policy of Prussia is not defined it can hardly fail
to be misapprehended, and if the Government which
aspires to lead Germany cannot permit the poor
Schleswigers to congratulate the fair daughter of
their nationality, the misapprehension may be ag-
gravated by obvious inferences. If the fear be pro-
vident its manifestation is susceptible of another iilter-
pretation. Just so, also, if Baden can stand in the
way of German unity as it is pointed out by Prussia,
the vote of its Chamber of Deputies may be thought
to represent something beyond what it expresses. For
ourpart, we are not persuaded that the Germans as a
nation desire union as the Italians did. In all else they
may be equally well qualified to appreciate it ; but
we doubt very much if the minor States are ready
to renounce their independence, such as it is. Those
of them that have been conquered had, of course,
no choice ; and for the rest there only remains the
chance to which we adverted yesterday, and which
may or may .not have been considered in Baden.
But one thing is certain. Prussia could not com-
pel Germany to embrace her proposition by force,
unless, indeed, it was provided beforehand that
other Powers were to be passive spectators of the
conflict ; and as this happens to be a fact which no

protesting can shake, it might be well for the
Prussian Government to devote a portion of the
attention which it bestows on the English papers,
and occasionally on the journals of St. Petersburg/
to matters which, if they were properly explained,
might not be misunderstood.