The "folk-moot" and "Witenagemot" [Footnote: Witenagemot--a Council
composed of "Witan" or "Wise Men."] were heard of no more. The life of
the early English State had been in its "folk-moot," and hence rested
upon the individual English freeman, who knew no superior but God, and
the law. Now, he had sunk into the mere "villein," bound to follow his
lord to the field, to give him his personal service, and to look to him
alone for justice. With the decline of the freeman (or of popular
government) came Anglo-Saxon degeneracy, which made him an easy prey to
the Danes.

The Northmen were a perpetual menace and scourge to England and
Scotland. There never could be any feeling of permanent security while
that hostile flood was always ready to press in through an unguarded
spot on the coast. The sea wolves and robbers from Norway came
devouring, pillaging, and ravaging, and then away again to their own
homes or lairs. Their boast was that they "scorned to earn by sweat
what they might win by blood." But the Northmen from Denmark were of a
different sort. They were looking for permanent conquest, and had
dreams of Empire, and, in fact, had had more or less of a grasp upon
English soil for centuries before Alfred; and one of his greatest
achievements was driving these hated invaders out of England. In 1013,
under the leadership or Sweyn, they once more poured in upon the land,
and after a brief but fierce struggle a degenerate England was gathered
into the iron hand of the Dane.

[Sidenote: Danish Kings, 1013 to 1042]

Canute, the son of Sweyn, continued the successes of his father,
conquering in Scotland Duncan (of Shakespeare's "Macbeth"), and