This overthrow of the conquering baronage, this union of the conquered with the king, brought about the fusion of the conquerors in the general body of the English people.

As early as the days of Henry the Second the descendants of Norman and Englishman had become indistinguishable.

Both found a bond in a common English feeling and English patriotism, in a common hatred of the Angevin and Poitevin "foreigners" who streamed into England in the wake of Henry and his sons.
Both had profited by the stern discipline of the Norman rule.

The wretched reign of Stephen alone broke the long peace, a peace without parallel elsewhere, which in England stretched from the settlement of the Conquest to the return of John.

Of her kings' forays along Norman or Aquitanian borders England heard little; she cared less.