Thus the Saxons had no connection with the present kingdom of Saxony, though part of Prussian Saxony was probably within their borders. As Professor Freeman says in his _Historical Geography of Europe_ (p. 207), “After the breaking up of the great Saxon duchy (1191), from most of the old Saxon lands the Saxon name may be looked on as having altogether passed away. The name of Saxony as a geographical expression clave to the Eastphalian remnant of the old duchy, and to Thuringia and the Slavonic conquests to the East.” One might add, that by a curious coincidence, Hanover, the home of the old continental Saxons, was for 123 years (1714–1837) ruled by descendants of Alfred the Great who were kings of the Saxons over the sea. These Saxon neighbors of the Franks are not to be thought of as mere savages. They had probably to some extent exchanged the nomad life of the shepherd for the more settled habits of the tiller of the ground. The old Germanic institution of the Folksthing as described by Tacitus, still apparently flourished among them. They had already been brought into a sort of loose connection with the Frankish kingdom, having at intervals paid a yearly tribute of 500 cows to a Merovingian king and an Arnulfing mayor of the palace. There does not seem any reason to suppose that at the time of the accession of Charles they nourished any thought of deadly enmity to their Frankish neighbors, or would have dreamed of uniting their tribes in a well-organized invasion of the prosperous Rhine-lands--in fact, throughout the struggle which followed, the inability of the Saxons to combine for the mere purpose of defence against impending invasion is conspicuous and absurd. But no doubt they were lawless and disagreeable neighbors, often indulging in such raids as for centuries kept the Scottish Border in turmoil, and above all the majority of them were still heathens. The missionaries who like Boniface had crossed the sea from England to convert their German kinsfolk had hitherto labored chiefly among the Frisians, but had also made some impression on the mass of Saxon heathenism. From the fierce wars which Penda, the heathen King of Mercia, waged with Christian Northumberland, we can imagine what suspicious rage the success of these English missionaries would arouse in the minds of the still heathen chiefs of the East and Westphalians.