agreeable prospect of future
tranquillity; and it appeared more probable that they would henceforth
become formidable to their neighbours, than be exposed to their
inroads and devastations. But these flattering views were soon
overcast by the appearance of the Danes, who, during some centuries,
kept the Anglo-Saxons in perpetual inquietude, committed the most
barbarous ravages upon them, and at last reduced them to grievous
servitude.

The Emperor Charlemagne, though naturally generous and humane, had
been induced by bigotry to exercise great severities upon the pagan
Saxons in Germany, whom he subdued; and besides often ravaging their
country with fire and sword, he had in cool blood decimated all the
inhabitants for their revolts, and had obliged them, by the most
rigorous edicts, to make a seeming compliance with the Christian
doctrine. That religion, which had easily made its way among the
British Saxons by insinuation and address, appeared shocking to their
German brethren, when imposed on them by the violence of Charlemagne,
and the more generous and warlike of these pagans had fled northward
into Jutland, in order to escape the fury of his persecutions.
Meeting there with a people of similar manners, they were readily
received among them; and they soon stimulated the natives to concur in
enterprises, which both promised revenge on the haughty conqueror, and
afforded subsistence to those numerous inhabitants with which the
northern countries were now overburdened [g]. They invaded the
provinces of France, which were exposed by the degeneracy and
dissensions of Charlemagne's posterity; and being there known under
the general name of Normans, which they received from their northern
situation, they became the terror of all the maritime and even of the
inland countries. They were also tempted to visit England in their
frequent excursions; and being able, by sudden inroads, to make great
progress over a people who were not defended by any naval force, who
had relaxed their military institutions, and who were sunk into a
superstition which had become odious to the Danes and ancient Saxons,
they made no distinction in their hostilities between the French and
English kingdoms. Their first appearance in this island was in the
year 787 [h], when Brithric reigned in Wessex. A small body of them
landed in that kingdom, with a view of learning the state of the
country; and when the magistrate of the place questioned the