Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/211

 THE WEST IN THE CRUSADING ERA 199 establish a real control over this great district which was known as the Danelagh. On the other hand, the Celtic kings of the western Scots succeeded in extending their own supremacy over the lands between the Forth and the Tweed. But at the beginning of the eleventh century the flagrant misrule of Ethelred the Redeless enabled the King of Denmark to make common cause with the Danes of the Danelagh, and England in compel the English to acknowledge his sovereignty, the Eleventh Canute the Great became King of England and Century - Denmark ; and there was a likelihood that a great Scandinavian dominion would be established, of which England would form a part. But there was no second Canute to follow the first ; the dominion broke up, and the English recalled a king of the line of Alfred, Edward the Confessor, who had been brought up in exile at the Norman court. Canute, in pursuance of his Imperial schemes, had divided England into great provinces, which in some degree corresponded to the great feudal domains in France and Germany ; and again it seemed probable that the Crown would be dominated by great feudatories. The English Crown had always gone by election, though, except in the case of the Danish kings, the election had been limited in practice to the royal family of Wessex and com- monly to the eldest son ; but, on the death of Edward the Confessor, the election fell on the greatest of the earls, Harold. William, Duke of Normandy, however, claimed that both Edward and Harold had promised the succession to him. He invaded England, overthrew Harold at the battle The Gorman of Hastings, and caused himself to be elected King Conquest, of England. King Harald of Norway had struck 1066, his own stroke for the Crown and lost, at the battle of Stamford Bridge, a few days before Hastings. Sweyn, King of Denmark, would have challenged William had the English been ready to support him; but though there was an English revolt, its figurehead was Edgar the Atheling, the young prince of the house of Wessex. Sweyn drew back, and William used the revolt as an excuse for forfeiting most of the land of England, and bestowing it on his Norman followers.