The Evolution of an Empire | Page 6

which drove men to sell themselves and families and wear the
collar of servitude. The slave was not under the lash; but he was a mere
chattel, having no more part than cattle (from whom this title is derived)
in the real life of the state.
In addition to this, political and social changes had been long
modifying the structure of society in a way tending to degrade the
general condition. As the lesser Kingdoms were merged into one large
one, the wider dominion of the king removed him further from the

people; every succeeding reign raising him higher, depressing them
lower, until the old English freedom was lost.
The "folk-moot" and "Witenagemot" [Footnote: Witenagemot--a
Council composed of "Witan" or "Wise Men."] were heard of no more.
The life of the early English State had been in its "folk-moot," and
hence rested upon the individual English freeman, who knew no
superior but God, and the law. Now, he had sunk into the mere
"villein," bound to follow his lord to the field, to give him his personal
service, and to look to him alone for justice. With the decline of the
freeman (or of popular government) came Anglo-Saxon degeneracy,
which made him an easy prey to the Danes.
The Northmen were a perpetual menace and scourge to England and
Scotland. There never could be any feeling of permanent security while
that hostile flood was always ready to press in through an unguarded
spot on the coast. The sea wolves and robbers from Norway came
devouring, pillaging, and ravaging, and then away again to their own
homes or lairs. Their boast was that they "scorned to earn by sweat
what they might win by blood." But the Northmen from Denmark were
of a different sort. They were looking for permanent conquest, and had
dreams of Empire, and, in fact, had had more or less of a grasp upon
English soil for centuries before Alfred; and one of his greatest
achievements was driving these hated invaders out of England. In 1013,
under the leadership or Sweyn, they once more poured in upon the land,
and after a brief but fierce struggle a degenerate England was gathered
into the iron hand of the Dane.
[Sidenote: Danish Kings, 1013 to 1042]
Canute, the son of Sweyn, continued the successes of his father,
conquering in Scotland Duncan (of Shakespeare's "Macbeth"), and
proceeded to realize his dream of a great Scandinavian empire, which
should include Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and England. He was one
of those monumental men who mark the periods in the pages of History,
and yet child enough to command the tides to cease, and when
disobeyed, was so humiliated he never again placed a crown upon his
head, acknowledging the presence of a King greater than himself.
Conqueror though he was, the Dane was not exactly a foreigner in
England. The languages of the two nations were almost the same, and a
race affinity took away much of the bitterness of the subjugation, while

Canute ruled more as a wise native King than as a Conqueror.
But the span of life, even of a founder of Empire, is short. Canute's
sons were degenerate, cruel, and in forty years after the Conquest had
so exasperated the Anglo-Saxons that enough of the primitive spirit
returned, to throw off the foreign yoke, and the old Saxon line was
restored in Edward, known as "the Confessor."
[Sidenote: Edward the Confessor, 1042 to 1066]
Edward had qualities more fitted to adorn the cloister than the throne.
He was more of a Saint than King, and was glad to leave the affairs of
his realm in the hands of Earl Godwin. This man was the first great
English statesman who had been neither Priest nor King. Astute,
powerful, dexterous, he was virtual ruler of the Kingdom until King
Edward's death in 1066, when, in the absence of an heir, Godwin's son
Harold was called to the empty throne.
Foreign royal alliances have caused no end of trouble in the life of
Kingdoms. A marriage between a Saxon King and a Norman Princess,
in about the year 1000 A.D., has made a vast deal of history. This
Princess of Normandy, was the grandmother of the man, who was to be
known as "William the Conqueror." In the absence of a direct heir to
the English throne, made vacant by Edward's death, this descent gave a
shadowy claim to the ambitious Duke across the Channel, which he
was not slow to use for his own purposes.
He asserted that Edward had promised that he should succeed him, and
that Harold, the son of Godwin, had assured him of his assistance in
securing his rights upon the death of Edward the Confessor. A
tremendous indignation stirred his righteous soul when he heard of the