But there may be a period in the history of a lowland race when they, too,
become historic for a while. There was such a period for the men of the
Eastern Counties; for they proved it by their deeds.
When the men of Wessex, the once conquering race of Britain, fell at
Hastings once and for all, and struck no second blow, then the men of the
Danelagh disdained to yield to the Norman invader. For seven long years
they held their own, not knowing, like true Englishmen, when they were
beaten; and fought on desperate, till there were none left to fight. Their
bones lay white on every island in the fens; their corpses rotted on
gallows beneath every Norman keep; their few survivors crawled into
monasteries, with eyes picked out, or hands and feet cut off, or took to
the wild wood as strong outlaws, like their successors and
representatives, Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John, Adam Bell, and Clym of the
Cleugh, and William of Cloudeslee. But they never really bent their necks
to the Norman yoke; they kept alive in their hearts that proud spirit of
personal independence, which they brought with them from the moors of
Denmark and the dales of Norway; and they kept alive, too, though in
abeyance for a while, those free institutions which were without a doubt
the germs of our British liberty.
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