Note 18 — PART I HIS EXPLOITS AT HOME AND ABROAD

The “conversion” of Saxony by Charles was of the most forcible kind. No Mohammedan ever offered the choice between the Koran and the edge of the sword more clearly than Charles put death or baptism before the Saxons. The “Saxon Poet,” who in the next century wrote in honour of the King who had destroyed the independence of his land, tells how Charles used the whole force of his army to drag the Saxons from the devil’s power; and remarks, as a matter of course, that persuasion and argument are not sufficient to turn the heathen from their faith.