xperience however had taught the
Mercians the worthlessness of raids like these and Offa resolved to
create a military border by planting a settlement of Englishmen between
the Severn, which had till then served as the western boundary of the
English race, and the huge "Offa's Dyke" which he drew from the mouth of
Wye to that of Dee. Here, as in the later conquests of the West-Saxons,
the old plan of extermination was definitely abandoned and the Welsh who
chose to remain dwelled undisturbed among their English conquerors. From
these conquests over the Britons Offa turned to build up again the realm
which had been shattered at Burford. But his progress was slow. A
reconquest of Kent in 775 woke anew the jealousy of the West-Saxons; and
though Offa defeated their army at Bensington in 779 the victory was
followed by several years of inaction. It was not till Wessex was again
weakened by fresh anarchy that he was able in 794 to seize East-Anglia
and restore his realm to its old bounds under Wulfhere. Further he could
not go. A Kentish revolt occupied him till his death in 796, and his
successor Cenwulf did little but preserve the realm he bequeathed him. At
the close of the eighth century the drift of the English peoples towards
a national unity was in fact utterly arrested. The work of Northumbria
had been foiled by the resistance of Mercia; the effort of Mercia had
broken down before the resistance of Wessex. A threefold division seemed
to have stamped itself upon the land; and so complete was the balance of
power between the three realms which parted it that no subjection of one
to the other seemed likely to fuse the English tribes into an English
people.

CHAPTER III
WESSEX AND THE NORTHMEN
796-947

[Sidenote: The Northmen]

The union which each English kingdom in turn had failed to bring about
was brought about by the pressure of the Northmen. The dwellers in the
isles of the Baltic or on either side of the Scandinavian peninsula had
lain hidden till now from Western Christendom, waging their battle for
existence with a stern climate, a barren soil, and stormy seas. It was
this hard fight for life that left its stamp on the temper of Dane,
Swede, or Norwegian alike, that gave them their defiant energy, their
ruthless daring, their passion for freedom and hatred of settled rule.
Forays and plunder raids over sea eked out their scanty livelihood, and
at the close of the eighth century these raids found