The black boats of the northmen were so many wedges that split up the fabric of the roughly-built realm.

But the very agency which destroyed the new England was destined to bring it back again, and to breathe into it a life that made its union real.

The peoples who had so long looked on each other as enemies found themselves fronted by a common foe.

They were thrown together by a common danger and the need of a common defence.

Their common faith grew into a national bond as religion struggled hand in hand with England itself against the heathen of the north.