the king no sooner saw than he loved her, and instantly resolved to obtain her. The better to effect his intentions, he concealed his passion from the husband, and took leave with a seeming indifference; but his revenge was not the less certain and fatal. Athelwold was some time after sent into Northumberland, upon pretence of urgent affairs, and was found murdered in a wood by the way. Some say he was stabbed by the king's own hand; some, that he only commanded the assassination: however this be, Elfrida was invited soon after to court, by the king's own order, and their nuptials were performed with the usual solemnity. Such was the criminal passion of a monarch, whom the monks have thought proper to represent as the most perfect of mankind. His reign was successful, because it was founded upon a compliance with the prejudices of the people; but it produced very sensible evils, and these fell upon his successor. He died after a reign of sixteen years, in the thirty-second year of his age, being succeeded by his son Edward, whom he had by his first marriage with the daughter of earl Ordmer. Edward, surnamed the Martyr, was made king by the A. D. interest of the monks, and lived but four years after his ac975. cession. In his reign there is nothing remarkable, if we except his tragical and memorable end. Though this young monarch had been from the beginning opposed by Elfrida, his step mother, who seems to have united the greatest deformity of mind with the highest graces of person, yet he ever showed her marks of the strongest regard, and even expressed, on all occasions, the most tender affection for her son, his brother. Hunting one day near Corfe-castle, where Elfrida resided, he thought it his duty to pay her a visit, although he was not attended by any of his retinue. There desiring some liquor to be brought him, as he was thirsty, while he was yet holding the cup to his head, one of Elfrida's domestics, instructed for that purpose, stabbed him in the back. The king, finding himself wounded, put spurs to his horse; but, fainting with the loss of blood, he fell from the saddle, and his foot sticking in the stirrup, he was dragged along by his horse till he was killed. Being tracked by the blood, his body was found, and privately interred at Wareham by his servants. Ethelred the second, the son of Edgar and Elfrida, sucA. D. ceeded; a weak and irresolute monarch, incapable of govern979. ing the kingdom, or providing for its safety. After a train of dissensions, follies, and vices, which seem to have marked some of the former reigns, it is not surprising that the country was weakened, or that the people, taught to rely entirely on preternatural assistance, were rendered incapable of defending themselves. During this period, therefore, their old and terrible enemies, the Danes, who seem not to have been loaded with the same accumulation of vice and folly, were daily gaining ground. The weakness and the inexperience of Ethelred appeared to give a favourable opportunity for renewing their depredations; and accordingly they landed on several parts of the coasts, spreading their usual terror and devastation. The English, ill provided to oppose such an enemy, made but a feeble resistance; endeavouring, by treachery and submission, to avert the storm they had not spirit to oppose. The northern invaders, now well acquainted with the defenceless condition of England, made a powerful descent, under the command of Sweyn king of Denmark, and Olave king of Norway, who, sailing up the Humber, committed on all sides their destructive ravages. The English opposed them with a formidable army, but were repulsed with great slaughter. The Danes, encouraged by this success, marched boldly into the heart of the kingdom, filling all places with the marks of horrid cruelty. Ethelred had, upon a former invasion of these pirates, bought them off with money: and he now resolved to put the same expedient in practice once more. He sent ambassadors, therefore, to the two kings, and offered them subsistence and tribute, provided they would restrain their ravages, and depart the kingdom. It has often been remarked, that buying off an invasion only serves to strengthen the enemy, and to invite a repetition of hostilities. Such it happened upon this occasion: Sweyn and Olave agreed to the terms, and peaceably took up their quarters at Southampton, where the sum of sixteen thousand pounds was paid them. Olave returned to his native country, and never infested England more; but Sweyn was less scrupulous, and the composition with him gave but a short interval to the miseries of the English. A. D. 994. A. D. The English now found their situation truly deplorable. The weakness of the king, the divisions of the nobility, the treachery of some, and the cowardice of others, frustrated all their endeavours for mutual defence. The Danes, ever informed of their situation, and ready to take advantage of it, appeared, a short time after the late infamous composition, upon the English shore, and, rising in their demands in proportion to the people's incapacity to oppose, now demanded twenty-four thousand pounds more. This sum they also received; and this only served to stimulate 1002. their desire of fresh exactions. But they soon had a material cause of resentment given them, by which the infraction of the stipulated treaty became necessary. The Danes, as hath been already observed, had made several settlements, for many years before, in different parts of the kingdom. There, without mixing with the natives, they still maintained a peaceable correspondence and connexion among them. Their military superiority was generally acknowledged by all; and the kings of England had been accustomed to keep in pay bodies of Danish troops, whom they quartered in different parts of the country. These mercenaries had attained to such a height of luxury, according to the old English writers, that they combed their hair once a day, bathed themselves once a week, and, by these arts, then esteemed effeminate, had rendered themselves so agreeable to the fair sex, that they debauched the wives and daughters of the English, and had dishonoured many families. To those insults was added the treachery of their conduct upon every threatened invasion, as they still showed their attachment to their own countrymen, against those among whom they were permitted to reside. These were motives sufficient, in that barbarous age, for a general massacre; and Ethelred, by a policy incident to weak princes, embraced the cruel resolution of putting them all to the sword. This plot was carried on with such secrecy, that it was executed in one day, and all the Danes in England were destroyed without mercy. But this massacre, so perfidious in the contriving, and so cruel in the execution, instead of ending the long miseries of the people, only prepared the way for greater calamities. While the English were congratulating each other upon their late deliverance from an inveterate enemy, Sweyn, king of Denmark, who had been informed of their treacherous cruelties, appeared off the western coasts with a large fleet, meditating slaughter, and furious with revenge. The English vainly attempted to summon their forces together; treachery and cowardice still operated to dispirit their troops, or to dissipate them. To these miseries a dreadful famine was added, partly from the bad seasons, and partly from the decay of agriculture. For a while they supposed that the Danish devastations would be retarded by the payment of thirty thousand pounds, which the invaders agreed to accept; but this, as in the former cases, afforded but a temporary relief. For a while they placed some hopes in a powerful navy, which they found means to equip; but this was soon divided and dispersed, without doing them any service. Nothing therefore now remained, but their suffering the just indignation of the conqueror, and undergoing all the evils that war, inflamed by revenge, could inflict. During this period, a general consternation, together with a mutual diffidence and dissension, prevailed. Cessations from these calamities were purchased, one after another, by immense sums; but as they afforded only a short alleviation of the common distress, no other resource remained at last than that of submitting to the Danish monarch, of swearing allegiance to him, and giving hostages as pledges of sincerity. Ethelred was obliged to fly into Normandy, and the whole country thus came under the power of Sweyn, his victorious rival. A. D. 1013. The death of Sweyn, which happened about six weeks after, seemed to offer a favourable opportunity of restoring Ethelred to the throne, and his subjects to their liberties. Accordingly he seized it with avidity: but his misconduct was incurable; and his indolence, credulity, and cowardice obstructed all success. At length, after having seen the greatest part of the kingdom seized by the insulting enemy, after refusing to head his troops to oppose them, he retired to London, where he ended an inglorious reign of thirtyseven years by a natural death, leaving behind him two sons, the elder of whom, Edmund, succeeded to his crown and his misfortunes. Edmund, his son and successor, received the surname of A. D. Ironside, from his hardy opposition to the enemy; but this 1016. opposition seemed as ineffectual to restore the happiness of his country as it was to continue him in the possession of the throne. He was opposed by one of the most powerful and vigilant monarchs then in Europe; for Canute, afterwards surnamed the Great, succeeded Sweyn as king of Denmark, and also as general of the Danish forces in England. The contest between these two monarchs was therefore managed with great obstinacy and perseverance; the first battle that was fought appeared indecisive; a second followed, in which the Danes were victorious: but Edmund still having interest enough to bring a third army into the field, the Danish and English nobility, equally harassed by these convulsions, obliged their kings to come to a compromise, and to divide the kingdom between them by treaty. Canute reserved to himself the northern parts of the kingdom; the southern parts were left to Edmund : but this prince being murdered about a month after the treaty by his two chamberlains, at Oxford, Canute was left in peaceable possession of the whole kingdom. Canute, though he had gratified his ambition in obtaining possession of the English crown, yet was obliged at first to make some mortifying concessions; and, in order to gain the affections of the nobility, he endeavoured to gratify their avarice. But as his power grew stronger, and his title more secure, he then resumed those grants which he had made, and even put many of the English nobles to death, sensible that those who had betrayed their native sovereign would never be true to him. Nor was he less severe in his exactions upon the subordinate ranks of the people, levying at one time seventy-two thousand pounds upon the country, and eleven thousand more upon the city of London only. Having thus strengthened his new power by effectually weakening all who had wealth or authority to withstand him, he next began to show the merciful side of his character. Nor does it seem without just grounds that he is represented by some historians as one of the first characters in those barbarous ages. The invectives which are thrown out against him by the English writers seem merely the effect of national resentment or prejudice, unsupported by truth. His first step to reconcile the English to his yoke, was, by sending back to Denmark as many of his followers as he could safely spare. He made no distinction between the English and Danes in the administration of justice, but restored the Saxon customs in a general assembly of the kingdom. The two nations thus uniting with each other, were glad to breathe for a while from the tumult and slaughter in which they had involved each other; and to confirm their amity, the king himself married Emma, the sister of Richard, duke of Normandy, who had ever warmly espoused the interests of the English. Canute, having thus settled his power in England beyond the danger of a revolution, made a voyage to Denmark, as his native dominions were attacked by the king of Sweden. In this expedition, Godwin, an English earl, was particularly distinguished for his valour, and acquired that fame which laid a foundation for the im mense power he acquired during the succeeding reigns. In another voyage he made to Denmark, he attacked Norway; and, expelling Olave from his kingdom, annexed it to his own empire. Thus, being at once king of England, Denmark, and Norway, he was considered as the most warlike and potent prince in Europe; while the security of his power inclined his temper, which was naturally cruel, to mercy. As his reign was begun in blood, he was, towards the end of it, willing to atone for his former fierceness by acts of penance and devotion. He built churches, endowed monasteries, and appointed revenues for the celebration of mass. He even undertook a pilgrimage to Rome, where he remained a considerable time; and, besides obtaining from the pope some privileges for the English school erected there, he engaged all the princes through whose dominions he passed, to desist from those heavy impositions which they were accustomed to exact from the English pilgrims. The piety of the latter part of his life, and the resolute valour of the former, were topics that filled the mouths of his courtiers with flattery and praise. They even affected to think his power uncontrollable, and that all things would be obedient to his command. Canute, sensible of their adulation, is said to have taken the following method to reprove them. He ordered his chair to be set on the sea-shore while the tide was coming in, and commanded the sea to retire. "Thou art under my dominion," cried he: " the land upon which I sit is mine; I charge, thee, therefore, not to approach, nor dare to wet the feet of thy sovereign." He feigned to sit some time in expectation of submission, till the waves began to surround him: then, turning to his courtiers, he observed, that the titles of lord and master belonged only to Him whom both earth and seas were ready to obey. Thus feared and respected, he lived many years honoured with the surname of Great for his power, but deserving it still more for his virtues. He died at Shaftesbury, in the nineteenth year of his reign, leaving behind three sons, Sweyn, Harold, and Hardicanute. Sweyn was crowned king of Norway; Hardicanute was put in possession of Denmark; and Harold succeeded his father on the English throne. A. D. Harold, surnamed Harefoot, from his swiftness in running, 1035. upon his first coming to the crown met with no small opposition from his younger brother, Hardicanute. But, by the intervention of the nobles, a compromise was made between them; by which it was agreed that Harold should have London, and all the provinces north of the Thames, while the possession of the southern parts should be ceded to Hardicanute; and, until that prince should appear in person, Emma, his mother, should govern in his stead. But this agreement was of short duration; for, queen Emma having brought over from Normandy Edward and Alfred, descendants of the ancient Saxon kings, Alfred was invited, with the warmest professions of friendship, by Harold to London, and treacherously set upon, by his orders, on the way. Six hundred of |