He at once assumed Wessex as his own peculiar dominion, and the political history of the English ends for two centuries.

Their social life went on, of course, as ever; but it was the life of a people in strict subjection to foreign rulers--Danish, Norman, or Angevin.

The story of the next twenty-five years at least belongs to the chronicles of Scandinavian Britain.
At the end of that time, however, there was a slight reaction.

Cnut and his sons had bound the kingdom roughly into one; and the death of Harthacnut left an opportunity for the return of a descendant of AElfred.
But the English choice fell upon one who was practically a foreigner.
Eadward, son of AEthelred by Ymma of Normandy, had lived in his mother's country during the greater part of his life.

Recalled by Earl Godwine and the witan, he came back to England a Norman, rather than an Englishman.