A new age of our history opens in this submission of one English people to another.
When the two kingdoms were united under a common lord the period of national formation began.

If a new England sprang out of the mass of English states which covered Britain after its conquest, we owe it to the gradual submission of the smaller peoples to the supremacy of a common political head.

The difference in power between state and state which inevitably led to this process of union was due to the character which the conquest of Britain was now assuming.

Up to this time all the kingdoms which had been established by the invaders had stood in the main on a footing of equality.

All had taken an independent share in the work of conquest.