Nothing in the early existence of Britain indicated the greatness she was destined to attain.  Of the western provinces which obeyed the Caesars, she was the last conquered, and the first flung away.  Though she had been subjugated by the Roman arms, she received only a faint tincture of Roman arts and letters.  No magnificent remains of Roman porches and aqueducts are to be found in Britain, and the scanty and superficial civilisation which the islanders acquired from their southern masters was effaced by the calamities of the 5th century.

From the darkness that followed the ruin of the Western Empire Britain emerges as England.  The conversion of the Saxon colonists to Christianity was the first of a long series of salutary revolutions.  The Church has many times been compared to the ark of which we read in the Book of Genesis; but never was the resemblance more perfect than during that evil time when she rode alone, amidst darkness and tempest, on the deluge beneath which all the great works of ancient power and wisdom lay entombed, bearing within her that feeble germ from which a second and more glorious civilisation was to spring.

Even the spiritual supremacy of the Pope was, in the dark ages, productive of far more good than evil.  Its effect was to unite the nations of Western Europe in one great commonwealth.  Into this federation our Saxon ancestors were now admitted.  Learning followed in the train of Christianity.  The poetry and eloquence of the Augustan age was assiduously studied in the Mercian and Northumbrian monasteries.  The names of Bede and Alcuin were justly celebrated throughout Europe.  Such was the state of our country when, in the 9th century, began the last great migration of the northern barbarians.

Large colonies of Danish adventurers established themselves in our island, and for many years the struggle continued between the two fierce Teutonic breeds, each being alternately paramount.  At length the North ceased to send forth fresh streams of piratical emigrants, and from that time the mutual aversion of Danes and Saxons began to subside.  Intermarriage became frequent.  The Danes learned the religion of the Saxons, and the two dialects of one widespread language were blended.  But the distinction between the two nations was by no means effaced, when an event took place which prostrated both at the feet of a third people.

The Normans were then the foremost race of Christendom.  Originally rovers from Scandinavia, conspicuous for their valour and ferocity, they had, after long being the terror of the Channel, founded a mighty state which gradually extended its influence from its own Norman territory over the neighbouring districts of Brittany and Maine.  They embraced Christianity and adopted the French tongue.  They renounced the brutal intemperance of northern races and became refined, polite and chivalrous, their nobles being distinguished by their graceful bearing and insinuating address.