Excerpt from View of the State of Europe During the Middle Ages, Vol. 3 of 3<br><br>Under this prince, whose rare fortune as well as judicious conduct procured him the surname of Peaceable, the kingdom appears to have reached its zenith of prosperity. But his prema ture death changed the scene. The minority and feeble character of Ethelred II provoked fresh incursions of our enemies beyond the German Sea. A long series of disasters, and the inexplicable treason of those to whom the public safety was intrusted, over threw the Saxon line, and established Canute of Denmark upon the throne.<br><br>The character of the Scandinavian nations was in some meas ure changed from what it had been during their first invasions. They had embraced the Christian faith; they were consolidated into great kingdoms; they had lost some of that predatory and ferocious spirit which a religion invented, as it seemed, for pirates had stimulated. Those, too, who had long been settled in Eng land became gradually more assimilated to the natives, whose laws and language were not radically different from their own. Hence the accession of a Danish line of kings produced neither any evil nor any sensible change of polity. But the English still outnumbered their conquerors, and eagerly returned, when an Opportunity arrived, to the ancient stock. Edward the Confessor, notwithstanding his Norman favourites, was endeared by the mildness of his character to the English nation, and subsequent miseries gave a kind of posthumous credit to a reign not eminent either for good fortune or wise government.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.