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16 conquest had ended in the settlement of its conquerors… But whatever titles kings might assume, or however imposing their rule might appear, Northumbrian remained apart from West Saxon, Dane from Englishman.

“Through the two hundred years that lie between the flight of Aethelred from England to Normandy and that of John from Normandy to England our story is a story of foreign rule. Kings from Denmark were succeeded by kings from Normandy, and these by kings from Anjou. Under Dane, Norman, or Angevin, Englishmen were a subject race, conquered and ruled by foreign masters; and yet it was in these years of subjection that England first became really England… The English Lords themselves sank into a middle class as they were pushed from their place by a foreign baronage who settled on English soil.”

“In 800 A.D.” says Mr. West, in his modern history, revised edition, page 4, “Europe was still sunk deep in the barbarism that followed the long anarchy of the invasions, and the brief revival of Charlemagne had not gone far toward restoring civilisation. Schools and learning were almost extinct; commerce hardly existed; communication between district and district was almost impossible; money was so scarce that revenue had to be collected in produce; and manners and morals were alike deplorable.” There has been hardly any period in the history of India about which anything so disparaging can be said. Again says Mr. West, “From 814 to about 1100, Europe had three cen-