A knight was the
peer of a king; and men had been used to see the bravery of private
persons opening a road to that dignity. The temerity of adventurers was
much justified by the ill order of every state, which left it a prey to
almost any who should attack it with sufficient vigour. Thus, little
checked by any superior power, full of fire, impetuosity, and ignorance,
they longed to signalize themselves wherever an honourable danger called
them; and wherever that invited, they did not weigh very deliberately
the probability of success. The knowledge of this general disposition in
the minds of men will naturally remove a great deal of our wonder at
seeing an attempt, founded on such slender appearances of right, and
supported by a power so little proportioned to the undertaking as that
of William, so warmly embraced and so generally followed, not only by
his own subjects, but by all the neighbouring potentates. The counts of
Anjou, Bretagne, Ponthieu, Boulogne, and Poictou, sovereign princes;
adventurers from every quarter of France, the Netherlands, and the
remotest parts of Germany, laying aside their jealousies and enmities to
one another, as well as to William, ran with an inconceivable ardour
into this enterprise; captivated with the splendour of the object, which
obliterated all thoughts of the uncertainty of the event.
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