King Ecgbert died long ere the invaders had reached this stage of insolence. The variety of the invaders was not at first very nice; their fleets were not national armaments gathered by great kings, but squadrons of some vessels collected by some lively and enterprising adventurer. They seemed about to rend the land in twain, but they really cured the English of their desperate particularism, and drove all of the tribes to take as their common rulers the one great line of native kings which survived the Danish storm, and maintained itself for four generations of determined preventing towards the invaders. On the continent the main impact of the viking invasions was to sprint the empire of Charles the nice into fragments, and to aid in producing the numberless petty states of feudal Europe. The emperor gave the impression to be threatening the independence of the North, and in terror and resentment the Scandinavian peoples turned first to strike at the encroaching Frank, and soon after to assail the other Christian kingdoms which lay behind, or on the flank of, the Empire. At any rate England was as helpless as the Empire when first the Danish and Norwegian galleys began to cross the North Sea, and to beat down both sides of Britain searching for for prey.
The one probability in opposition to them was that, if caught too removed from the base-fort where they’d run their galleys ashore, they might find their communication with the sea minimize off, and be forced to fight for their lives surrounded by an infuriated countryside. But it’s not till the 9th century that we find this phenomenon growing normal. Offa had to win back by long wars what his kinsman had misplaced; he grew to become so highly effective that we find the pope calling him Rex Anglorum, as if he had been the one king within the island. In this island they did a lot to help the transformation of the mere Bretwaldaship of Ecgbert into the monarchy of all England. But he introduced his Bretwaldaship to a great finish by inflicting a crushing defeat on them at Hingston Down, hard by the Tamar, in all probability in 836, and died ere the year was out, leaving the ever-growing downside to his son Æthelwulf. He annexed Kent and East Anglia, overawed Northumbria and Wessex, each hopelessly faction-ridden on the time, was handled virtually as an equal by the emperor Charles the great, and died still on the peak of his power. Such amalgamations grew to become potential after a time, when many of the native royal strains died out, and unifying influences, of which a common Christianity was probably the most highly effective, sapped the strength of tribal satisfaction.
None of these programs were doable to a king of the 7th or 8th centuries: even of their heathen days the English were not wont to massacre their overwhelmed kinsmen as they massacred the unfortunate Celt. A kingdom like Kent or East Anglia, even after long subjection to a robust overlord, rose and reasserted its independence immediately on listening to of his death. Even at college I used to be just ‘Lennon.’ Nobody ever considered me as cuddly! In a sequence of rulings from 1969 to 1973, the Court dominated that the franchise might be restricted in some circumstances to those “primarily fascinated” or “primarily affected” by the outcome of a specialized election, however not within the case of school boards or bond points, which affected taxation to be paid by all residents. This was primarily related to protecting the franchise of freedmen, nevertheless it additionally utilized to non-white minorities, such as Mexican Americans in Texas. Norfolk, however, played the coward; the bull got here practically a year too late, and the rebellion of the earls (1569) was easily crushed. With fifty or 100 ships they’d fall upon some unhappy area, harry it for many miles inland, and provide battle to the landsfolk unless the latter came out in overpowering pressure.
Kent once more grew to become a kingdom, and two successive Mercian sovereigns, Beornwulf and Ludica, fell in battle whereas vainly trying to get better Offa’s supremacy over East Anglia and Wessex. He beat Beornwulf of Mercia at Ellandune (A.D. The same phenomenon was seen with regard to the Mercian kings of the 8th century; the long reigns of the two conquerors Æthelbald and Offa covered eighty years (716-796), and it may need been supposed that after such a term of supremacy Mercia would have remained permanently at the head of the English kingdoms. The power of Mercia or Northumbria is likely to be mustered for a single battle, but could not provide a standing military to hold down the vanquished. If within the seventh century the successive great Northumbrians-Edwin, Oswald, Oswio and Ecgfrith-had been Supremacy of Northumbria. Ere lengthy they grew so bold that they’d stay ashore for months, braving the forces of an entire kingdom, and sheltering themselves in nice palisaded camps on peninsulas or islands when the enemy pressed them too arduous. Already ere Ecgbert ascended the throne of Kent the brand new enemy had made his first tentative appearance on the British shore.