and expiatory masses for the dead were strictly enforced, and the Virgin Mary was held in the greatest honour. The inost important distinction, however, existed between the two churches with regard to the marriage of the clergy, and Dunstan, in the true spirit of monasticism, determined on carrying out the rule of celibacy laid down by Gregory II. The priests were compelled to dismiss their wives and children; the secular canons were driven out of the cathedrals and monasteries, and their places filled by ecclesiastics.

3. EDWARD, called the Martyr, was under fifteen years of age when he succeeded to his father's crown, his right to which was disputed by his stepmother Elfrida on behalf of her own son Ethelred, then only six years old. The legitimate king prevailed, chiefly through the instrumentality of Dunstan and his friends; but a horrible tragedy soon removed every obstacle from the path of the ambitious queen-dowager. It happened that about three years after his accession, as Edward was hunting in Dorsetshire, he went to visit his halfbrother Ethelred, then living with his mother in Corfe castle. Elfrida welcomed him at the gate, and invited him to alight; but Edward would take only a draught of wine as he sat on horseback. While he was raising the cup to his lips, one of Elfrida's attendants stabbed him in the back, upon which the king put spurs to his horse and galloped off; but soon becoming faint from loss of blood, he fell from the saddle, and one of his feet getting entangled in the stirrup, he was dragged along the ground till his body became a shapeless corpse (978). ETHELRED the Unready, who now inherited the crown, was deeply afflicted at the death of his half-brother. But the odium of Edward's murder attached no less to him than to his mother, and an attempt was made to bring forward Edgitha, the daughter of the lady whom Edgar had carried off from the convent of Wilton. She preferred, however, the sweets of retirement to the cares and anxieties of royalty, and as A.D. there was no other descendant in the royal line, the boy Ethelred was crowned in the old chapel of Kingston. Ethelred had not been seated on the throne more than three years, when the Danes recommenced their ravages by plundering Southampton, London, and Chester. During several years, while the effeminate sovereign was occupied in disputes with his nobles, the northern pirates continued their incursions till the year 991, when he purchased their forbearance by paying to them 10,000 pounds of silver. But such a sacri

979.

fice did not procure more than a temporary repose; for, tempted by the pusillanimous conduct of the English monarch, fresh hordes of the Northmen soon made their appearance; and in 994, Olave of Norway and Sweyn of Denmark exacted 16,000 pounds as the price of their departure. By a clause in the treaty, these sea-kings bound themselves to embrace the Christian faith; but although Olave faithfully observed the conditions, Sweyn seems to have considered baptism as nothing more than an idle ceremony. Ethelred had neither fleet nor army to keep the pirates in check, and in 1001, he found himself again under the necessity of bribing them with the enormous sum of 24,000 pounds of silver. This money was raised by a land-tax, and the Dane-geld soon became a permanent and oppressive burden upon the people. But they had still greater evils to endure than the payment of this heavy impost. In terms of the treaties, large bodies of the invaders were allowed to winter in the island, by whom the inhabitants were subjected to every species of insult and contumely. The English yeomen were driven from their houses, and compelled to perform the most menial offices, while their wives and daughters were exposed to the most revolting treatment. In their despair, they resolved to exterminate their oppressors: 13th Nov. an extensive conspiracy was formed, and on the 1002. festival of Saint Brice they fell suddenly on the Danes, who were massacred in great numbers, without distinction of age or sex.

4. Sweyn, king of Denmark, whose sister Gunhilda had perished under circumstances of great atrocity in the general massacre, soon after landed with a numerous army to avenge his murdered countrymen. He carried fire and sword through great part of the kingdom: the husbandmen ceased to cultivate those fields which an enemy reaped or laid waste; cities, towns, and villages were burnt to the ground; famine aggravated the wretchedness of the people; and anarchy and confusion completed the ruin of the most flourishing districts. At length, when the impoverished country could no longer supply plunder to his rapacious followers, Sweyn was again A.D. prevailed on to leave its shores by the payment of 1006. 36,000 pounds of silver.

It was soon found that no amount of tribute-money could procure more than a temporary respite from the invasions of the Northmen; and it was accordingly resolved that every landholder should be taxed for the purpose of raising an army

and equipping a navy for the defence of the kingdom. In the spring of the following year, a large fleet was fitted out; but dissension and treachery erelong rendered it useless. Eighty of the vessels were overtaken by a storm and wrecked on the coast; and Ethelred, either through fear or caprice, having abandoned his charge of the remainder, the principal officers followed him, and the seamen, thus deserted by their leaders, separated and carried back the ships to their respective harbours.

As soon as Thurkill, the Dane, heard of this disaster, he reappeared in East Anglia. Canterbury, which during twenty days was nobly defended by Alphege, its archbishop, was at last gained by treachery, and the cathedral church, in which a crowd of women and children had taken refuge with the priests and monks, was burnt to the ground. All who endeavoured to escape from the flaming pile fell by the merciless swords of the Danes. The archbishop was spared some time in the hope of a heavy ransom; but the prelate was poor, and refusing to purchase his life with gold wrung from the suffering people, the barbarians at length put him to death. Seven thousand men, besides those who perished in the cathedral, fell in the sack of Canterbury. After an exterminating war, which lasted three years, Ethelred purchased Thurkill's friendship and a short-lived peace for 48,000 pounds of silver, with the formal cession of several counties.

On receiving intelligence of the wealth acquired by Thurkill, Sweyn's cupidity was strongly excited, and he resolved to attempt the conquest of all England. At the head of a formidable fleet, he appeared before Sandwich, where he hoped to bring about a revolution by seducing the Danes in Ethelred's pay. Failing in his attempts to shake their fidelity, he shaped his course to the north, and sailing up the Humber, took post at Gainsborough, where he was joined by the Northumbrians, and the men of Lindesey and the Five Burghs (Lincoln, Derby, Stamford, Nottingham, and Leicester). He now marched to the south, levying contributions and destroying everything that impeded his progress: Oxford and Winchester opened their gates; but London repelled all nis attacks. At Bath he assumed the title of King of England, and summoned the thanes of Mercia, Northumbria and Wessex to acknowledge his title and do him homage. The terror he inspired proved of more avail than the legitimacy invoked by Ethelred, who found himself suddenly deserted by the greater

portion of his nobility. Thurkill and the unfortunate monarch then withdrew to Greenwich, upon which London submitted to the Danes, and was entered by Sweyn in triumph. Ethelred, already separated from his queen, Emma, and her two A.D. sons, whom he had sent to Normandy, soon after quitted 1014. England and rejoined his wife.

5. Three weeks had scarcely elapsed after Ethelred's departure, when Sweyn, attacked by a mortal illness, hastened to make his last arrangements, and call his son Canute to succeed him on the throne of England. The death of the man whose genius had subdued them, encouraged the English in the hope of shaking off the Danish yoke; and the thanes and clergy, meeting in London, despatched a messenger to the exiled Ethelred, inviting him to resume his throne, "provided he would govern better than before." Ethelred sent over his son Edward, with solemn promises to forget the past, and to take the advice of the witan or wise men, who formed the great council or parliament of the Saxon kingdom. A new oath of allegiance was taken by the thanes, and a sentence of outlawry pronounced against every Dane who should assume the title of King of England.

Ethelred's first care was to assemble an army to confine Canute within the limits of the Danelagh; and as the king's return had excited a lively enthusiasm among his subjects, his forces were so numerous as to deprive Canute of every hope of success, and he was therefore constrained to leave England. Meanwhile, all Lindesey was ravaged by Ethelred's troops, and the inhabitants of Danish origin were put to the sword. Canute soon after reappeared on the south-eastern coast, and landed near Sandwich, where he was informed of the slaughter of his countrymen. He immediately caused the sons of some of the noblest families in England, whom his father had received as hostages, to be brought before him, and after cutting off their noses, hands, and ears, abandoned them on the shore, and returned to Denmark for reinforcements.

Misfortune had not improved Ethelred; and it was soon discovered that he had brought back from Normandy the same indolence and cruelty that had marked the previous thirty-five years of his reign. Many nobles of Danish descent were sacrificed to his revenge. On one occasion Sigeferth and Morcar, two of the most distinguished lords of Mercia, and chiefs of the Five Burghs, were invited to a banquet, and as they were raising the wine-cup to their lips, they fell beneath

the daggers of Ethelred's assassins. Their followers, in alarm, took refuge in a church; but the sacred edifice afforded theni no protection, for it was immediately set on fire, and they perished miserably in the flames. Alienated by such base conduct, the king's friends now began to desert him; and Thurkill, who had so valiantly defended him against Sweyn and Canute, profited by the opportune receipt of 20,000 pounds of silver to return to Denmark and become reconciled with his sovereign. This chieftain afterwards headed Canute's invading army, which reached England just as death closed the long A.D. and calamitous reign of Ethelred. He left three sons by 1016. his first wife, Edmund, Edwy, and Athelstan ; and two by his second, Edward and Alfred, who were confided to the care of their uncle, Duke Richard II. of Normandy.

6. EDMUND, surnamed Ironside, had hastened to London at the first intelligence of the king's illness, and was proclaimed by the citizens immediately after his father's decease. He vigorously opposed Canute, whom he twice compelled to raise the siege of the capital. After many sanguinary battles, the rival princes agreed to divide the island between them, the northern portion to be ruled by Canute, and the southern by Edmund, the latter retaining a nominal superiority over the portion of the former. This treaty was hardly concluded when Edmund suddenly died (1017), leaving two infant children, Edward and Edmund.

Under King Ethelred, a toll was levied upon every boat arriving at Billingsgate; and the imports were wine and fish from France, with cloth, pepper, cloves, and vinegar from Germany and Flanders. One of the most important AngloSaxon exports was wool, of which the Flemings were the chief purchasers. Other exports were horses and slaves, Ireland being a favourite market for the latter commodity. A curious fact shows how trivial was the home-trade of England: No person was allowed to buy anything above the value of twenty pennies, except within a town, and in the presence of the chief magistrate or of two witnesses. This regulation, no doubt, principally concerned the raising of the king's revenue, the buyer and seller each paying a certain toll on the value of the purchase. Communication between distant parts was comparatively easy: four great roads which had been made by the Romans still existed, and canals were cut in some places.