The West-Saxon king who succeeded to the power of Offa was Ecgbert, the ancestor of all the subsequent monarchs of Britain down to our own day.[4] He was a prince who had seen many troubles in his youth, having been driven over sea by his kinsman and forced to take refuge with Charles the Great. He spent some years in the court and army of the Frankish monarch, but was called to the throne of Wessex in 800, on the death of his unfriendly cousin. In a long reign that lasted for thirty-six years, Ecgbert not only subdued the small kingdoms of Kent and Sussex, and made the Welsh princes of Cornwall do him homage, but he even dared at last to attack his powerful neighbours the Mercians. At the battle of Ellandun, in Wiltshire (823), he defeated and slew King Beornwulf, the unworthy heir of Offa's greatness. Shortly after Mercia did him homage, and the Northumbrians, sorely vexed by civil wars, soon followed the example of their southern neighbours. Thus Ecgbert became over-lord of Britain, in the same sense that Eadwine and Offa had previously held the title. But the dominion of the kings of Wessex was destined to be of a more enduring nature than that of their predecessors. This was not so much due to their own abilities as to the changed condition of the state of England. Not only were there strong tendencies arising towards unity within the English realms--due most especially to the influence of their common Church--but pressure from without was now about to be applied in a way that forced the English to combine. Before Ecgbert had come to the throne, and even before Offa was dead, the first signs had been seen of the coming storm that was to sweep over England in the second half of the ninth century. The Danes had already begun to appear off the coasts of the island. FOOTNOTES: [3] The Hwiccas held the lands conquered by Ceawlin on the lower Severn, the modern counties of Worcester and Gloucester. [4] All kings, both Anglo-Saxon and Norman, since 820, descend from Ecgbert save Cnut, the two Harolds, and William I. The Conqueror's wife, Matilda of Flanders, had English blood in her veins, so William is the only exception in his line. CHAPTER IV. THE DANISH INVASIONS, AND THE GREAT KINGS OF WESSEX. The English chronicles have accurately fixed for us the date of the first raid of the Northmen. In 787, three strange ships were seen off the Dorsetshire coast. From them landed a small band of marauders, who sacked the port of Wareham, and then hastily put to sea and vanished from sight. This insignificant descent was only the first of a series of dreadful ravages. A few years later, in 793, a greater band descended on Lindisfarne, the holy island of St. Cuthbert off the Bernician coast, the greatest and richest monastery of northern England. Thenceforth raids came thick and fast, till at last the sword of the invaders had turned half England into a desert. [Sidenote: =The Vikings.=]