The kingdom of Kenneth included central Scotland from sea to sea, Argyle and the Isles, Perthshire, Fife, Angus, and the Mearns. Lothian was still Northumbrian. The Vale of the Clyde, Ayr, Dumfries, and Galloway, were under a British king at Dumbarton. There were several independent chieftains in Moray and Mar; and Orkney and the northern and north- western fringes of the country, were dominated by Norsemen. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Danish Invasions of Britain. In the first quarter of the ninth century, invaders from lands farther north than Jutland—hence called Norsemen—played broadly the same parts in Britain as the Angles and Saxons had played three hundred years previously. These Norsemen, in their war galleys, prowled over the Northern Seas, plundering the coasts, and making first incursions and then settlements in Muscovy, Britain, and Gaul. They discovered and colonised Iceland. Many centuries before Columbus, they had sailed along the coast of North America, and even attempted settlements thereon. On the northern coast of France, Normandy, under its powerful dukes, had become almost an independent state. In their English invasions they are commonly called Danes, but in their own homes they formed three kingdoms, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Probably the invaders of England were mainly Danes. They were still “heathens,” _i.e._, of the old Scandinavian faith; and they held the Christian faith in supreme detestation. They were daring, fierce, and cruel; but still people of a kindred race, speaking dialects of the same Teutonic tongue; and when they settled in the land and became Christians, their language and manners differed so little from those of the Anglo-Saxons, that they did not remain a separate nation, as the Anglo-Saxons did from the British. It was more as if another Teuton tribe had come over and become joint occupants of the land. But, to begin with, they came as plunderers, taking their booty home. They ravaged Berkshire, Hampshire, and Surrey, destroying churches and monasteries. They invaded and took possession of East Anglia. They penetrated into Mercia; at Peterborough they burned the minster, slaying the abbot and his monks. They made extensive settlements in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.