Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 1.djvu/119

 of Danish descent, that they were under Danish, not Anglo-Saxon law. From the first invasions of the Danes in 787, or from the end of the 8th century to the time of the Norman conquest in 1066, or nearly 300 years, the laws and usages of the Northmen had prevailed over this large portion of the island. This kingdom of Northumberland would, at the present day, be more populous and wealthy than either of the kingdoms of Sweden, Denmark, Hanover, Holland, Belgium, Saxony, or Wirtemburg, and had no doubt a proportional importance in those times. The Northmen, immediately previous to the Norman conquest, had conquered the whole of England, and held it from 1003 to 1041, for four successive reigns; viz. of Swein, Canute the Great, Harald Harefoot, and Hardicanute. In the laws of Edward the Confessor, as given by Lambart in 1568, and republished by Wheloch at the end of his edition of Bede, 1644, it is stated that for sixty-eight years previous to the Norman conquest, these Anglo-Saxon laws, originally framed by Edgar, had been out of use; and when William the Conqueror, in the fourth year of his reign, renewed these laws of Edward the Confessor, he was more inclined to retain the laws of the Northmen then in general use. If we strike off Wales, Cornwall, the western borders towards Scotland, and all comprehended in the kingdom of Northumberland, East Anglia, and other parts peopled by Northmen and their descendants, it is difficult to believe that the old Anglo-Saxon branch could have been predominant in the island, in numbers, power, and social influence; or could have prevailed to such an extent over the character and spirit of the population as to bury all social movement under the apathy and superstition in which they appear to have been sunk. The rebellions against William the Conqueror and his successors appear to have been almost always raised, or mainly supported,