entire North submitted without a blow. "The king of Scots, and all the
Scottish kin, and Ragnald [Danish king of York], and the sons of Eadulf
[English kings of Bamborough], and all who dwell in Northumbria, as well
English as Danes and Northmen and others, and also the king of the
Strathclyde Welsh and all the Strathclyde Welsh, sought him for father
and for lord." This was in 924. Next year, Eadward "rex invictus" died,
over-lord of all Britain from sea to sea, while the whole country south
of the Humber, save only Wales and Cornwall, was now practically united
into a single kingdom of England.

But the seeming submission of the North was fallacious. The Danes had
reintroduced into Britain a fresh mass of incoherent barbarism, which
could not thus readily coalesce. The Scandinavian leaven in the
population had put back the shadow on the dial of England some three
centuries. Æthelstan, Eadward's son, found himself obliged to give his
sister in marriage to Sihtric or Sigtrig, Danish king of the Yorkshire
Northumbrians, which probably marks a recognition of his vassal's
equality. Soon after, however, Sihtric died, and Æthelstan made himself
first king of all England by adding Northumbria to his own immediate
dominions. Then "he bowed to himself all the kings who were in this
island; first, Howel, king of the West Welsh; and Constantine, king of
Scots; and Owen, king of Gwent [South Wales]; and Ealdred, son of
Ealdulf of Bamborough; and with pledge and with oaths sware they peace,
and forsook every kind of heathendom." In the West, he drove the Welsh
from Exeter, which they had till then occupied in common with the
English, and fixed their boundary at the Tamar. But once more the
pretended vassals rebelled. Constantine, king of Scots, threw off his
allegiance, and Æthelstan thereupon "went into Scotland, both with a
land host and a ship host, and harried a mickle deal of it." In 937, the
feudatories made a final and united effort to throw off the West Saxon