HALLEY'S COMET 503 



are entitled to go further and claim that the natural, obvious 

 and only reasonable conclusion from these premises is that the 

 comet of 1066 was a potent factor in determining the issue of 

 that historic engagement, the Battle of Hastings. 



What language can convey the full significance of this 

 conclusion ? For what does it mean ? Let those who can 

 picture to themselves the consequences to-day of William's 

 defeat at Hastings. England, geographically, no doubt would 

 stand where she does ; but politically ?— nationally ? — socially ? 

 can any one venture a suggestion ? And those Englishmen, 

 whose name is legion, through whose veins courses Norman 

 blood — would any and which of them have been born ? These 

 are far-reaching questions which the present visit of this comet 

 has suggested, and are more than sufficient to invest that event 

 with that peculiar and vital interest to all Normans to which 

 allusion was made in the opening sentences. 



As this is the first reappearance of Halley's comet since its 

 identification as the comet which inspired and stimulated the 

 Normans in 1066, is it not natural that their descendants in 

 1909 should hail its return ? and should they not regard it 

 with a feeling of almost reverent affection ? For, apart and 

 distinct from the immense responsibilities which I have laid 

 at its door, it remains the one silent living witness which 

 links them with those ancestors of theirs who nearly eight 

 hundred and fifty years ago under William, Duke of Normandy, 

 added a glorious chapter to history — not to the history of an 

 empire, but to the history of the civilised world — a chapter 

 entitled The Norman Conquest. 



