Page:Public School History of England and Canada (1892).djvu/22

 by her had two sons, Harold and Harthacnut, who in turn succeeded him. They were wild, vicious, and brutal young men. Fortunately their reigns were soon over, Harthacnut, the last to rule, dying in 1042. The English then sent over to France for Edward, the son of Ethelred and Emma, and once more an English king ruled in England.

 

1. The Normans.—Edward, surnamed the Confessor on account of his being placed in the Calendar of Saints, was not wholly an English king, for his mother, Emma, was a Norman; and Edward himself had been brought up among the Normans, and in tastes and feelings was more Norman than English. We must explain who these Normans were, that now began to interfere in English affairs.

When England, in the time of Alfred, was troubled with the Northmen landing on her shores, France, too, was suffering from their ravages. Large boat-loads of these pirates sailed up the River Seine, and one band seized Rouen. The French king, being feeble and cowardly, gave a large tract of land along the Seine to Rollo, or Rolf, a famous chief of the Northmen, on condition that Rollo should become a Christian and settle quietly down. The land thus wrested from the French was called Normandy, and was ruled by Rollo and his descendants. After the Normans had been in France a while they became much more polished and civilized by being brought into contact with the French, who were a lively, quick-witted people with refined tastes for music, art, and architecture. Thus it came to pass that the Norsemen in France had a different language and were much more civilized than their kinsmen in England. It was among these people that Edward had been brought up, while his mother Emma was living in England as the wife of