The storm seemed to have drifted utterly away; and the land passed from a hundred years of ceaseless conflict into a time of peace.

Here as elsewhere the northman had failed in his purpose of conquest; but here as elsewhere he had done a mighty work.

In shattering the empire of Charles the Great he had given birth to the nations of modern Europe.

In his long strife with Englishmen he had created an English people.

The national union which had been brought about for a moment by the sword of Ecgberht was a union of sheer force which broke down at the first blow of the sea-robbers.