hostility of Bernicia, while Cumbria was
conquered by Eadmund and turned adroitly to account in winning over the
Scots to his cause. The greater part of it was granted to their king
Malcolm on terms that he should be Eadmund's "fellow-worker by sea and
land." The league of Scot and Briton was thus finally broken up, and the
fidelity of the Scots secured by their need of help in holding down their
former ally. The settlement was soon troubled by the young king's death.
As he feasted at Pucklechurch in the May of 946, Leofa, a robber whom
Eadmund had banished from the land, entered the hall, seated himself at
the royal board, and drew sword on the cup-bearer when he bade him
retire. The king sprang in wrath to his thegn's aid, and seizing Leofa by
the hair, flung him to the ground; but in the struggle the robber drove
his dagger to Eadmund's heart. His death at once stirred fresh troubles
in the north; the Danelaw rose against his brother and successor, Eadred,
and some years of hard fighting were needed before it was again driven to
own the English supremacy. But with its submission in 954 the work of
conquest was done. Dogged as his fight had been, the Dane at last owned
himself beaten. From the moment of Eadred's final triumph all resistance
came to an end. The Danelaw ceased to be a force in English politics.
North might part anew from South; men of Yorkshire might again cross
swords with men of Hampshire; but their strife was henceforth a local
strife between men of the same people; it was a strife of Englishmen with
Englishmen, and not of Englishmen with Northmen.

CHAPTER IV
FEUDALISM AND THE MONARCHY
954-1071

[Sidenote: Absorption of the Northmen]

The fierceness of the northman's onset had hidden the real character of
his attack. To the men who first fronted the pirates it seemed as though
the story of the world had gone back to the days when the German
barbarians first broke in upon the civilized world. It was so above all
in Britain. All that tradition told of the Englishmen's own attack on the
island was seen in the northmen's attack on it. Boats of marauders from
the northern seas again swarmed off the British coast; church and town
were again the special object of attack; the invaders again settled on
the conquered soil; heathendom again proved stronger than the faith of
Christ. But the issues of the two attacks showed the mighty difference
between them. When the English ceased from their ons