and the superior nobility of his birth. A union also in
government opened to them the agreeable prospect of future tranquillity;
and it appeared more probable that they would thenceforth become
formidable to their neighbors, than be exposed to their inroads and
devastations. But these flattering views were soon overcast by
the appearance of the Danes, who, during some centuries, kept the
Anglo-Saxons in perpetual inquietude, committed the most barbarous
ravages upon them, and at last reduced them to grievous servitude.

The emperor Charlemagne, though naturally generous and humane, had been
induced by bigotry to exercise great severities upon the pagan Saxons in
Germany, whom he subdued; and besides often ravaging their country with
fire and sword, he had, in cool blood, decimated all the inhabitants
for their revolts, and had obliged them, by the most rigorous edicts,
to make a seeming compliance with the Christian doctrine. That religion,
which had easily made its way among the British Saxons by insinuation
and address, appeared shocking to their German brethren, when imposed on
them by the violence of Charlemagne; and the more generous and warlike
of these pagans had fled northward into Jutland, in order to escape
the fury of his persecutions. Meeting there with a people of similar
manners, they were readily received among them; and they soon stimulated
the natives to concur in enterprises which both promised revenge on
the haughty conqueror, and afforded subsistence to those numerous
inhabitants with which the northern countries were now overburdened.[*]
They invaded the provinces of France, which were exposed by the
degeneracy and dissensions of Charlemagne's posterity; and being there
known under the general name of Normans, which they received from their
northern situation, they became the terror of all the maritime and even
of the inland countries. They were also tempted to visit England in
their frequent excursions; and being able, by sudden inroads, to make
great progress over a people who were not defended by any naval force,
who had relaxed their military institutions, and who were sunk into a
superstition which had become odious to the Danes and ancient Saxons,
they made no distinction in their hostilities between the French and
English kingdoms. Their first appearance in this island was in the year
787,[**] when Brithric reigned in Wessex. A small body of them landed in
that kingdom, with a view of learning