Of course, even when Britain was a colony of France it was still under control of the Danes, since Normandy ("Land of the Northmen") was a Viking outpost. As one website notes: "Despite their eventual conversion to Christianity, their adoption of the French language, and their abandonment of sea-roving for Frankish cavalry warfare in the decades following their settlement in Normandy, the Normans retained many of the traits of their piratical Viking ancestors. They displayed an extreme restlessness and recklessness, a love of fighting accompanied by almost foolhardy courage, and a craftiness and cunning that went hand in hand with outrageous treachery. In their expansion into other parts of Europe, the Normans compiled a record of astonishingly daring exploits in which often a mere handful of men would vanquish an enemy many times as numerous. An unequaled capacity for rapid movement across land and sea, the use of brutal violence, a precocious sense of the use and value of money -- all these traits characterized the Normans." <http://www.orbilat.com/Encyclopaedia/N/Normans.html>
When you consider how the vicious Vikings -- "From the wrath of the Northmen, O Lord, deliver us!" -- morphed into the peace-loving, pro-welfare-state Scandanavians of today, it gives you some hope that Americans, too, might emerge as civilized people in another millennium or so.
Carl
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