THE CONQUEROR 1071-1085 [Sidenote: The Foreign Kings] In the five hundred years that followed the landing of Hengest Britain had become England, and its conquest had ended in the settlement of its conquerors, in their conversion to Christianity, in the birth of a national literature, of an imperfect civilization, of a rough political order.

But through the whole of this earlier age every attempt to fuse the various tribes of conquerors into a single nation had failed.

The effort of Northumbria to extend her rule over all England had been foiled by the resistance of Mercia; that of Mercia by the resistance of Wessex.
Wessex herself, even under the guidance of great kings and statesmen, had no sooner reduced the country to a seeming unity than local independence rose again at the call of the Northmen.

The sense of a single England deepened with the pressure of the invaders; the monarchy of AElfred and his house broadened into an English kingdom; but still tribal jealousies battled with national unity.

Northumbrian lay apart from West-Saxon, Northman from Englishman.