The History of the Anglo-Saxons

No great historical events mark the existence of the Anglo-Saxons as a separate people, subsequent to the reign of William II. Still, however, the necessary intercourse between the lords of the soil and those oppressed and fierier beings by whom that soil was cultivated, occasioned the gradual formation of a dialect. And from this necessity arose by degrees the structure of our present English language in which the speech of the victors and the vanquished have been so happily blended together.