We might, perhaps, find, had we fuller details, that the men of Bernicia and Deira made a harder fight for their lands and their churches than the West Saxon annals would lead us to suppose.

Still, after making all allowance for the meagreness of our authorities, there remains the indubitable fact that a heathen kingdom was established in the pure English land of Baeda and Cuthberht, while the Christian faith and the Saxon nationality held their own for ever in peninsular and half-Celtic Wessex.
The difference is doubtless due in part to merely surface causes.

East Anglia had long lost her autonomy, and, while sometimes ruled by Mercia, was sometimes broken up under several ealdormen.

For her and for Northumbria the conquest was but a change from a West Saxon to a Danish master.

The house of Ecgberht had broken down the national and tribal organisation, and was incapable of substituting a central organisation in its place.