er Giffard, found their opportunity when the French had entered the unfortified town of Mortemer and had given themselves up to revelry.  Fire and sword did the work.  The whole French army was slain, scattered, or taken prisoners.  Ode escaped; Guy of Ponthieu was taken.  The Duke’s success was still easier.  The tale runs that the news from Mortemer, suddenly announced to the King’s army in the dead of the night, struck them with panic, and led to a hasty retreat out of the land.

This campaign is truly Norman; it is wholly unlike the simple warfare of England.  A traitorous Englishman did nothing or helped the enemy; a patriotic Englishman gave battle to the enemy the first time he had a chance.  But no English commander of the eleventh century was likely to lay so subtle a plan as this, and, if he had laid such a plan, he would hardly have found an English army able to carry it out.  Harold, who refused to lay waste a rood of English ground, would hardly have looked quietly on while many roods of English ground were wasted by the enemy.  With all the valour of the Normans, what before all things distinguished them from other nations was their craft.  William could indeed fight a pitched battle when a pitched battle served his purpose; but he could control himself, he could control his followers, even to the point of enduring to look quietly on the havoc of their own land till the right moment.  He who could do this was indeed practising for his calling as Conqueror.  And if the details of the story, details specially characteristic, are to be believed, William showed something also of that grim pleasantry which was another marked feature in the Norman character.  The startling message which struck the French army with panic was deliberately sent with that end.  The messenger sent climbs a tree or a rock, and, with a voice as from another world, bids the French awake; they are