BRITAIN AD 1000.

Ann Williams describes the state, of the island at a time when Anglo-Saxon culture was reaching its peak, while also politically challenged by the Vikings.

`THE KING WENT into Cumberland and ravaged very nearly all of it; and his ships went out round Chester and should have come to meet him, but they could not. Then they ravaged the Isle of Man. And the enemy fleet had gone to Richard's kingdom that summer.'

Brief though it is, this entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year 1000 is an epitome of the political history of Britain at the time. The king in question was ...

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