s include not only the English and their
descendants overseas but many who are called Scotch and Irish, because,
though of Anglo-Norman blood, they or their forefathers were born in
Scotland or Ireland. Soldiers and sailors like Wellington, Kitchener,
and Beatty are as Anglo-Norman by descent as Marlborough, Nelson, and
Drake, though all three were born in Ireland. They are no more Irish
Celts than the English-speaking people in the Province of Quebec are
French-Canadians. They might have been as good or better if born Irish
Celts or French-Canadians. But that is not the point. The point is
simply a fact without which we cannot understand our history; and it is
this: that, for all we owe to other folk and other things than fleets,
our sea-girt British Empire was chiefly won, and still is chiefly kept,
by warriors of the sea-borne "Hardy-Norseman" breed.

THE SEA-FARER

Desire in my heart ever urges my spirit to wander,
To seek out the home of the stranger in lands afar off.
There is no one that dwells on earth so exalted in mind,
So large in his bounty, nor yet of such vigorous youth,
Nor so daring in deeds, nor to whom his liege lord is so kind,
But that he has always a longing, a sea-faring passion
For what the Lord God shall bestow, be it honour or death.
No heart for the harp has he, nor for acceptance of treasure,
No pleasure has he in a wife, no delight in the world,
Nor in aught save the roll of the billows; but always a longing,
A yearning uneasiness hastens him on to the sea.

_Anonymous_.

_Translated from the Anglo-Saxon_.

CHAPTER VI

THE IMPERIAL NORMAN

(1066-1451)

The Celts had been little more than a jumble of many different tribes
before the Romans came. The Romans had ruled England and the south of
Scotland as a single country. But when they left it the Celts had let
it fall to pieces again. The Norsemen tried, time after time, to make
one United Kingdom; but they never quite succeeded for more than a few
years. They had to wait for the empire-building Normans to teach them
how to make, first, a kingdom and then an empire that would last.

Yet Offa, Edgar, and Canute went far towards making the first step by
trying to raise a Royal Navy strong enough to command at least the
English sea. Offa, king of Mercia or Middle England (757-796) had no
sooner fought his way outwards to a sure foothold on the coast than he
began building a fleet s