BEFORE THE CONQUEST 



but the excursions of their pirates were a very different matter and it 

 \yas against them that they constantly prayed the Romans for protec- 

 tion. The fact that they could not be given it was the last straw, and 

 when they were finally told to defend themselves they rose and evicted 

 the last handful of officials that had been left in the country. They were 

 free, but they were totally unfit to protect themselves against the 

 vigorous Northmen, and they soon fell a prey to the pirates, firstly to 

 those from Scotland and then to the Vikings who later came to rule 

 the Kingdom. 



King Arthur. 



There are those who would destroy romance and maintain that 

 King Arthur never existed, but even if one admits that they have con- 

 siderable grounds for their belief one likes to read Hakluyt's description 

 of how in the year 517 King Arthur, in the second year of his reign, 

 after subduing all parts of Ireland, sailed with his fleet to Iceland and 

 brought it under his subjection. There is a certain amount of internal 

 support for this story. It is known that Iceland had been colonised 

 from Ireland from earliest history, and if Arthur conquered the one it 

 is not at all improbable that he heard reports of the other. The story 

 goes on that he remained there all the winter, received the voluntary 

 homage of the King of Gotland and the King of Orkney, and then 

 returned to his country. 



Offa. 



We have it on one authority that Offa, King of Mercia, which was 

 until his time an inland state, gradually extended his borders to the 

 sea and built a fleet. Beyond the fact that legend has it that it was this 

 fleet that enabled him to talk to the great Charlemagne on equal terms 

 we know nothing of it, and in any circumstances it was not a national 

 force but only that of a petty king who was making himself bigger than 

 his fellows. According to the Saxon Chronicle, however, he was the 

 originator of the slogan that should always be kept in mind by the rulers 

 of the country — that " he who would be secure on land must be 

 supreme at sea." There is no record of King Offa's fleet ever having 

 been used in war. 



The Vikings. 



Originally the Vikings were the men of the Viks, or bays, but before 

 very long the term came to mean a Norse sea-rover, which was then 

 considered to be a very correct and aristocratic profession. Among 

 the Norsemen manhood was everything, and the regular method by 

 which a young man could prove his worth was by at least one piratical 

 expedition. In Iceland it was the only profession for a gentleman, and 

 there was no limiting the number of cruises to one or two. Their 

 ancestors are believed originally to have come from Asia, probably from 

 Bactria, near the Source of the River Oxus. When they migrated is 

 not certain, but the Viking age which concerns the history of shipping 

 begins about the year 789, when the first reported pirate expedition 



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