Chapter II · THE FORMATION OF THE KINGDOM OF ENGLAND. 449–975. (continued 2)
Reading edition
Reign of Eadward the Martyr. 975–979.
But with Eadgar the glory of England sank. The reign of his elder son Eadward was short and troubled, 67and the young prince himself died by violence, most probably through the intrigues of an ambitious step-mother. |Reign of Æthelred the Unready. 979–1016.| He was succeeded by his brother Æthelred, a child, and one who would have been happy if he had always remained a child. In his time the Danish invasions began again, in a new form and with a more terrible effect than ever. In his time too begins that direct and intimate connexion between English and Norman history which shows that we are now approaching the days of the Norman Conquest, and that we have reached the first links in the chain of its direct causes. The reign of Æthelred will therefore claim a somewhat fuller treatment than that of a preliminary sketch.
Recapitulation.
We have thus traced out the steps by which the West-Saxon Kings, from Ecgberht onwards, founded that Kingdom of England which one conquest was to hand over to the King of the Danes and another conquest to the Duke of the Normans, but which was never again to be permanently divided, and which each conquest only served to unite more firmly. We have seen also how, along with the consolidation of their Teutonic kingdom, the same West-Saxon princes obtained a more extended and more precarious Empire over their Celtic neighbours. The later fate of the various Celtic portions of Britain has been widely different. In Cumberland no sign is left, and in Cornwall not many, that the dominion of the English King was once that of an external over-lord and not that |Union of Wales; [1293. 1536. 1830.]| of an immediate sovereign. On Wales the English dominion was pressed closer and closer, till all political and civil distinctions between Wales and England were wiped out, though the ancient language, and with it a distinct |of Scotland; [1328. 1707.]| and strong provincial feeling, still remains. Scotland, after various fluctuations, at last won complete independence of the English over-lord, and was finally united 68with England on equal terms as an independent kingdom. |Man still distinct.| Strange to say, the little realm of Man is the only part of the Empire of Eadgar which is not now thoroughly fused into the general mass of the United Kingdom.[81] But different as has been the later fate of the various portions of the dominions of Eadgar, his Teutonic Kingdom and his Celtic Empire both passed nearly untouched into the hands of the Norman Conqueror. In another preliminary Chapter I shall attempt a general picture of the condition and constitution of the Kingdom and Empire which were thus transferred. I shall then give some account of the history of Normandy up to the point which I have now reached in the history of England. I shall then be ready to go on with the more detailed history of the Norman Conquest itself and of the causes which immediately led to it, beginning with the reign of Æthelred the Second.
69