and came back to King Harald. The king was highly pleased with this; for it is the common ob- servation of all people that the man who fosters another's children is of less consideration than the other. From these transactions between the two kings it appears, that each wanted to be held greater than the other; but, in truth, there was no injury to the dignity of either, for each was the upper king in his own kingdom till his dying day."
But whatever may have been the relation of the Danelaw to the Scandinavian homeland, there can be no doubt of the importance of this great settle- ment, viewed in its relation to the country beyond its borders. It was a first step towards the conquest of England. The hard fighting of Wessex, the genius of Ælfred, had for the moment checked the con- queror's advance. But what he had won was never lost. Small as were the differences of manners and institutions between Englishman and Dane, the Danelaw preserved an individuality and character which even the re-conquest by the West - Saxon kings failed to take from it. If it submitted for a while to English rule it remained a Danish and not an English land; and when the final attack of the Danish kings fell on England, the rising of the Danelaw, in Swein's aid, showed that half his work was done already to his hand. From the landing of Ivar to the landing of Cnut the attack of the Dane on Britain is really a continuous one; but the heri- tage of their victory was to pass into the hands of a later conqueror, and the bowing of all England to a Norman king is only the close of a work which be- gan in the parting of Northern and Central England among the Danish holds.
The Dane. law and England.
-123-
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Publication Information: Book Title: The Conquest of England. Contributors: John Richard Green - author, Alice Stopford Green - author. Publisher: Harper & Brothers Publishers. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1884. Page Number: 123.
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