Anglo-Saxon England was no stranger to invasions. Viking raids had been part of life for a century, but since the days of Alfred the Great, it was a country stable enough to be able to soak them up. The longboats came and went, but still the king's law ran shires. His churches and abbeys were built more beautifully than ever, and a town that would one day be called London was beginning to grow and prosper on the banks of the Thames. And then one invasion succeeded where the others had failed, and there was a Viking on the throne. His name was Canute, the man we remember for trying to hold back the tides. And while he turned Anglo-Saxon England into part of his vast maritime empire, he went out of his way to change nothing.