Such a change was indeed inevitable.

For not only had the English to win the new England, but they had also to keep it and extend it.

During four hundred years a constant smouldering warfare was carried on between the foreigners and the native Welsh on their western frontier.

Thus the townships of each colony entered into a closer union with one another for military purposes, and so arose the separate chieftainships or petty kingdoms of early England.

But the king's power was originally very small.