Chapter 1. Our story begins with the day when you were born, and
that first time you entered upon the great and arduous journey which
has marked out your future for all time to come. I, your father, have
tracked you from that day forward, to the hour when you stood in the
midst of your life, and made your choice between a life of comfort and
a life of labor and renown; I, who love you above all things, would
know the consequences of this choice. And here you stand, the man of
destiny, and the great hero of the ages, the noblest of the sons of the
great land which was once ours, yet the land which shall never be ours
again. You say, and truly, that you will leave us for a long time, and
that my time with you will not be much longer. Before you leave us,
let me talk with you of your future; not alone of your fame, the fame
which will make us proud, for that is all the world knows; not alone
of your name, for the love you bear us and your devotion to your
father and your family, but let me talk of the fate that lies before
you, the destiny which already is making of you the great leader, the
high-priest and the prophet of a new and brave race. To know the
course of your life, to follow in your footsteps in those of a hero,
you will need all that the knowledge and the love of parents can give
to you, but I will lay all those treasures at your feet, and I will
give you a love which no one else could give you, and a devotion, and
constancy, and respect. I will tell you all I know of your life,
because you may not guess much, if anything of all these things; and I
will ask you to promise me that all my wishes shall be first in your
heart and in your mind, and that the welfare of all men, and of all
countries, and of all times will be yours in your noble heart. And
first, when I ask you this, let me speak of our island home; for
perhaps it is in that that we can show you most what your life will
be. We are a poor people, we Normans, and yet there are few in the
world to whom we are not close and dear, as to those who are of our
race. We owe our strength and our happiness to those mighty days when
our land was free and powerful; and if ever we get our land again, we
shall be great and happy, and the world shall know it. And yet,
although we owe our life to the Normans, and although they have
protected and ruled us, although they may have made us great, yet all
has not been good with them. Their hands have been heavy upon us, for
they have crushed us for a thousand years. I have seen our children,
the sons of Normans, rise against their fathers, and have heard them
speak ungrateful words against them. My boy, the Normans have not been
good to you, nor to your race; we do not forget this, and in the
future we shall, I know, be of one mind with them. But to you I have
no bitter thoughts, as to others, for you are of our blood, and though
we cannot have our country, yet we shall do what we can to be loyal and
to love our neighbours. And first of all, I will tell you of your own
country, our own land. I know it well, from my youth upward, when
nevertheless it has been strange to me in these past years. I do not
like your land, and I cannot love it, but it is yours. I love all
these islands, which do me so much honor, for they are the flower of my
country, but that is not what I want to say to you. I will begin with
London, where I dwell, the London where you were born, which is at
present our London, our capital city. You may know it by the trees
around, and by the river which runs through the country, and by the
beautiful houses which you may see rising one above the other, until
you get to the city wall. Those are the houses in the city, and the
houses outside the city are the manor-houses, and some of them may be
rich and old, and others may be mean. There are no castles or strong
bastions about your country, and there are few walls, for it is a
pleasant land. If your father is ever King of England, the manor-
houses outside the city walls will be kept for your use, but he may not
always be King, and then you must leave our own old castles and go to
that, which you will not like either. It will be new to you, for
wherever you live they will make for you a house like this; but in
England you will not lack for good pastimes, for the people are merry
and contented, they do no work, and they love to hear tales, sing, and
dance. When you want great deeds and strong struggles and to fight
your way up to the top, you must go to the land that has strong fort
walls, that has castles and strong bastions; your own country will not
give you such things. And when you go away from England, when you
leave our London for another town, and the manors of your home, then
you may do what you will, you can make a great soldier of your time;
but when you go out of England to the strong and far lands, where you
must be a commander and a captain, you can do great deeds there, and
you can command other great and strong men, and you may, by hard
working and learning, do much good for your race, and the country will
be proud of you. In England you may be a servant and do your master's
work; in the far country, where you will be, you will command many men,
and have honour among those that are honoured; but I know that your
father's son will go to the wide and unknown lands, where the people
have great souls and great bodies, where the land is wide and the
forests thick, where there are no laws, and where there are no
manor-houses, and where no king reigns. In such a land you will be
your own master; you will have to help yourself; you will not go into
one man's land to be his servant, to be his horse, or his dog. I speak
to you of that land now, because I am old, and my heart is weary of
long toil and of strife and of the fear of death; I am well content to
sit by the fire and to read good books and pray, and to be happy in my
son. In all these things you are my better, and I have nothing but
praise and love for you. But why should I speak of the far country?
You will know when you go there, and when you come back from it, and
then we shall be rejoiced. You were born to be great and strong, for
that was your destiny; and we will not begrudge you your happiness.
But what of your country, of the place where I dwell? As I said, I
know it well, from my youth; I was here in my youth, in the town which
is my home, but since that I have often been away from it. I am old
and gray, and the stones of London are my friends and my home. The
sun and the rain have been kind to me here, and I can remember no city
that has been fairer. Here, where I live, many people come to the old
tomb which has been built over my father, and who can forget the
beautiful inscription upon it? You will have your own way to the
country; you will never know London, for you are to dwell in the
wandering land. I will not tell you of it, for I know you will do what
you will with your future; you will be the best judge of that. But the
good God will make your mind and heart wise, and will give you all
which you ask for, and will make you a great and a good man, and a
builder of the kingdom of men. It was by such a man that the Lord did
Israel great things; by a man with a sword in his hand, who went with
men from place to place. As you are yourself a man of destiny and of
work, you must be a great one, and you will have to travel much,
perhaps into the East and into the North, or even far to the North
into strange places. And though I say it of your country, it will not
make you any fonder of it, nor of us your people. You will not love us
for our country, but yet you will be ready to help us when we ask you.
You will be a good king to England, though England will not know
