Next came northern pirates, who would be not so much interested in the mild climate of the Island, as in the creeks and landing-places of its shores. They, too, have left relics of their occupation, chiefly in the graves furnished with utensils and ornaments of heathen life. But when Jutes and Saxons had destroyed the Roman civilisation, they fell under another influence spread from the Mediterranean. Bishop Wilfred of Selsey has the credit of planting, or replanting, Christianity in the Island. It could hardly have taken deep root, when the Danes came to ravage the monastic settlements. For a time the Cross and the Raven must have struggled for mastery here like the encountering tides of Solent, till that new wave of invaders ebbed back or was absorbed into the old one; then again the Island became overflowed by a fresh storm of conquest. If we consider from how many races, in three continents, the Roman soldiery were drawn, and how the northmen must have mixed their blood with that of a miscellany of captives, it is clear that, when overrun by a fresh cross-breed between Gauls and Vikings, the population of our islands, large and small, could in many parts have been no very pure stock, such as is fondly imagined by the pride of modern Pan-Celticism and Anglo-Saxondom. In Norman England, the Wight soon emerges into note. King William visited it to seize his ambitious brother Odo at Carisbrooke. The fortress there was enlarged by William Fitz-Osborne, to whom the Island had been granted, and who salved his conscience for any high-handed acts of conquest by giving six churches to the Norman Abbey of Lira, the beginning of a close connection with that continental foundation. His son lost this lordship through treason; then for two centuries it was in the hands of the Redvers, Earls of Devon, who grew to be quasi-independent princes. The last of their line was Isabella de Fortibus, holding her head high as Lady of the Island till on her deathbed, her children being dead, she sold her rights to Edward I. for 6000 marks. Henceforth this dependency was governed for the crown through lieutenants at first known as Wardens, an office held by great names like Edward III. in his childhood, the Earl of Salisbury, the Duke of York, the Duke of Gloucester, Anthony Woodvile, Earl of Rivers; and in such hands more than once showing a tendency to become hereditary. Their post was no sinecure, for at this period the Island made a striking point for French raids that have left their mark on its towns. Not that the raiding was all on one side. The islanders long remembered ruefully how Sir Edward Woodvile led the flower of their manhood into France, when of more than four hundred fighters only one boy escaped to tell the tale of their destruction, that seems to have been wrought by French artillery, turning the tables on the English long-bow.