The misgovernment of the sons of Cnut hindered the formation of a lasting Danish dynasty in England. The throne of Cerdic was again filled by a son of Woden; but there can be no doubt that the shock given to the country by the Danish Conquest, especially the way in which the ancient nobility was cut off in the long struggle with Swend and Cnut, directly opened the way for the coming of the Norman. Eadward did his best, wittingly or unwillingly, to make his path still easier. This he did by accustoming Englishmen to the sight of strangers--not national kinsmen like Cnut's Danes, but Frenchmen, men of utterly alien speech and manners--enjoying every available place of honour or profit in the country. The great national reaction under Godwine and Harold made England once more England for a few years. But this change, happy as it was, could not altogether do away with the effects of the French predilections of Eadward. With Eadward, then, the Norman Conquest really begins. The men of the generation before the Conquest, the men whose eyes were not to behold the event itself, but who were to do all that they could do to advance or retard it, are now in the full maturity of life, in the full possession of power. Eadward is on the throne of England; Godwine, Leofric, and Siward divide among them the administration of the realm. The next generation, the warriors of Stamfordbridge and Senlac, of York and Ely, are fast growing into maturity. Harold Hadrada is already pursuing his wild career of night-errantry in distant lands, and is astonishing the world by his exploits in Russia and Sicily, at Constantinople and at Jerusalem. The younger warriors of the Conquest, Eadwine and Morcere and Waltheof and Hereward, were probably born, but they must still have been in their cradles or in their mothers' arms. But, among the leaders of Church and State, Ealdred, who lived to place the crown on the head both of Harold and of William, is already a great prelate, abbot of the great house of Tewkesbury, soon to succeed Lyfing in the chair of Worcester. Tostig must have been on the verge of manhood; Swegen and Harold were already men, bold and vigorous, ready to march at their father's bidding, and before long to affect the destiny of their country for evil and for good. Beyond the sea, William, still a boy in years but a man in conduct and counsel, is holding his own among the storms of a troubled minority, and learning those arts of the statesman and the warrior which fitted him to become the wisest ruler of Normandy, the last and greatest conqueror of England.