I know that England is often portrayed as being the victim of raids by other nations - Islamic raids, Norse raids, Irish raids, etc. Usually it’s a sort of seaside settlement being attacked by a group of what seem to be pirates, certainly not an invading army with the sanction of their country of origin. But I never hear about English raiders doing the same to other nearby people. Raiding Africa is a whole other kettle of fish - they definitely seem to have done that.

But wouldn’t they have done this? It seems odd that they would only be victims of raiding from nearby peoples and never choose to raid those peoples themselves. If they did raid, when did they stop? If they didn’t raid, why not?