Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
NEW YORK AND LONDON HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 1902
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and forty-nine, by
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York.
In selecting the subjects for the successive volumes of this series, it has been the object of the author to look for the names of those great personages whose histories constitute useful, and not merely entertaining, knowledge. There are certain names which are familiar, as names, to all mankind; and every person who seeks for any degree of mental cultivation, feels desirous of informing himself of the leading outlines of their history, that he may know, in brief, what it was in their characters or their doings which has given them so widely-extended a fame. This knowledge, which it seems incumbent on every one to obtain in respect to such personages as Hannibal, Alexander, Cæsar, Cleopatra, Darius, Xerxes, Alfred, William the Conqueror, Queen Elizabeth, and Mary Queen of Scots, it is the design and object of these volumes to communicate, in a faithful, and, at the same time, if possible, in an attractive manner. Consequently, great historical names alone are selected; and it has been the writer's aim to present the prominent and leading traits in their characters, and all the important events in their lives, in a bold and free manner, and yet in the plain and simple language which is so obviously required in works which aim at permanent and practical usefulness.
WILLIAM'S HORSE STEPPING ON THE EMBERS 281
The Norman Conquest.--Claim of William to the throne.--The right of the strongest.--Map of Normandy.--The English Channel.--Nature of the French coast.--Nature of the English coast.--Northmen and Danes.--Character of the Northmen.--Their descendants.--The Dukes of Normandy.--The first duke, Rollo.--History of Rollo.--His rendezvous on the Scottish coast.--Expedition of Rollo.--His descent upon Flanders.--Difficulties encountered.--Rollo passes the Straits of Dover.--Charles the Simple.--Defeated by Rollo.--Treaty of peace.--Its conditions.--The three ceremonies.--Rollo's pride.--Kissing the king's foot.--The baptism and marriage.--Rollo's peaceful and prosperous reign.--Description of Normandy.--Scenery.--Hamlets.--Chateaux.--Peasantry.--Public roads.--Rouen.--Its situation.--The port of Rouen.--Its name of Le Havre de Grace.--Intermingling of races.--Superiority of the Norman stock.