C. and had conquered
England. During four centuries the country then remained
a Roman province. But when the Barbarians began to
threaten Rome, the garrisons were called back from the frontier
that they might defend the home country and Britannia
was left without a government and without protection.
As soon as this became known among the hungry Saxon
tribes of northern Germany, they sailed across the North Sea
and made themselves at home in the prosperous island. They
founded a number of independent Anglo-Saxon kingdoms
(so called after the original Angles or English and the Saxon
invaders) but these small states were for ever quarrelling with
each other and no King was strong enough to establish himself
as the head of a united country. For more than five hundred
years, Mercia and Northumbria and Wessex and Sussex
and Kent and East Anglia, or whatever their names, were
exposed to attacks from various Scandinavian pirates. Finally
in the eleventh century, England, together with Norway and
northern Germany became part of the large Danish Empire
of Canute the Great and the last vestiges of independence
disappeared.
The Danes, in the course of time, were driven away but no
sooner was England free, than it was conquered for the fourth
time. The new enemies were the descendants of another tribe
of Norsemen who early in the tenth century had invaded
France and had founded the Duchy of Normandy.
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