Five youthful kings and seven earls were laid in slumber by the sword, and of their army countless shipmen and Scots. The West Saxons onward throughout the day, in bands, pursued the footsteps of the loathed nations. Carnage greater has not been in this island, of people slain by the edge of the sword, since from the east hither came the Angles and Saxons."

A.D. 940. Athelstan dies at Gloucester, Oct. 27; Edmund the atheling succeeds.

EDMUND I.

THE short reign of Edmund was almost entirely occupied in an attempt to reduce the Anglo-Danes to something like real submission to the Saxon monarchs. He was killed in his own court in the year 946, in the 25th year of his age; and, his two sons, Edwy and Edgar, being minors, he was succeeded by his brother Edred.

A.D. 941. The Northumbrians choose Anlaf of Ireland for their king.

Edmund recaptures the Five Burghs from the Danes. A.D. 943. Anlaf captures Tamworth in Mercia. He is besieged in Leicester by Edmund, but escapes.

Anlaf submits to King Edmund, is baptized, and is "royally gifted" by him.

These were Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham, Stamford, and Derby, the inhabitants of which, by need constrained, had ere while a long time dwelt in captive chains to heathen men.'

Regnold also submits, and is baptized, near the close of the year.

A.D. 944. Northumbria entirely subdued, and Anlaf expelled.

Dublin captured from the Northmen by the Irish.

A.D. 945. Cumberland ravaged by Edmund, and granted to Malcolm, king of the Scots, "on the condition that he should be his fellow-worker, as well by sea as by land."

The Northmen retake Dublin.

A.D. 946. King Edmund is killed in his own hall by Liofa, an outlaw, at Pucklechurch, (in Gloucestershire, not far from Bristol,) May 26; his brother Edred succeeds.

EDRED.

EDRED, the son of Edward I., was more successful than Edmund had been, and, though they more than once rose against him, finally reduced the Anglo-Danes to subjection. He then gave himself up mainly to a religious course of life, and entrusted the direction of public affairs to the celebrated Dunstan. He died in 955, and was succeeded by his nephew Edwy.

A.D. 946. Edred crowned, Sunday, August 16. The Northumbrians revolt, but are defeated by Edred; "and the Scots gave him oaths, that they would that he would."

A.D. 947. "King Edred came to Taddenes-scylf,

a It had been not long before seized by the Northmen; it was ruled as a separate principality by the Scottish heir-apparent, and was not reannexed to England till the time of Edward I.

(Topcliffe, near Thirsk,) and there Wulstan the archbishop [of York] and all the Northumbrian witan plighted their troth to the king; and within a little while they belied all, both pledge and all oaths."

A.D. 948. The Northumbrians choose Eric, a Dane, for their king. Edred ravages their country, and the great minster at Ripon, built by Wilfred, is burnt.

The Northumbrians abandon Eric, and submit.

“King Howel the Good, son of Cadel, the chief and glory of all the Britons, diede."

A.D. 949. Anlaf Cuiran, a son of Sihtric, comes to Northumbria, and is received as king.

A.D. 952. Wulstan, archbishop of York, imprisoned, “because he had been oft accused to the king."

The Northumbrians expel Anlaf Cuiran, and recall Eric.

A.D. 954. The Northumbrians again expel Eric, and submit to King Edred1.

Wulstan is released, and appointed to the see of Dorchester.

A.D. 955. King Edred dies at Frome, Nov. 23, and is buried at Winchester. Edwy, his brother's son, succeeds.

EDWY.

EDWY, the elder son of Edmund, succeeded his uncle Edred. The chief events of his short, unhappy reign,

• Chronicle of the Princes of Wales.

f From this time, Simeon of Durham remarks, there were no more kings in Northumbria; its rulers, though nearly independent, only had the title of duke, or count, or earl.

were the banishment of Dunstan, his uncle's minister, and the revolt of the Mercian and Northumbrian provinces. His marriage with Elgiva, who was "too nearly related" to him, called down the censures of the Church; and he died in 959, before he had attained his 19th year.

A.D. 955. Edwy is crowned at Kingston by archbishop Odo.

A.D. 956. The abbot Dunstan is banished by the king.

A.D. 957. The Mercians and Northumbrians choose Edgar, the brother of Edwy, for their king.

A.D. 958. "This year archbishop Odo separated king Edwy and Elgiva, because they were too nearly related."

Elgiva is put to death.

Edwy dies, Oct. 1; his brother Edgar succeeds.

EDGAR.

EDGAR, the second son of Edmund, had so much more peaceable a reign than any of his predecessors, that he has received the title of the Pacific. He preserved his states from war by ever shewing himself prepared for it, favoured the restoration of religious houses ruined in the troubled times of preceding kings, and greatly patronized the monastic rule; whence he is much praised by early writers, although his private conduct was marked by vice and cruelty. He died in 975, leaving by Ethelfleda, his first wife, Edward, who succeeded him, and a daughter,

Edith; and by Elfritha, his second wife, Ethelred, who also became king.

A.D. 958. King Edgar recalls the abbot Dunstan, who receives the see of Worcester, and afterwards that of London in the same year.

A.D. 959. "Odo the Good," archbishop of Canterbury, dies; Dunstan of London succeeds him.

A.D. 961. The Northmen land in Scotland, and kill the king, at Forteviot.

A.D. 962. St. Paul's minster, in London, burnt.

A.D. 963. The abbot Ethelwold becomes bishop of Winchester, and expels the secular priests. "Afterwards, then came he to the king, Edgar, and begged of him that he would give him all the minsters that heathen men had formerly broken down, because he would restore them; and the king blithely granted it." Ely and Medeshamstede (Peterborough), "where were nothing but old walls and wild woods," are accordingly restored.

A.D. 964. King Edgar expels the secular priests from many minsters, and replaces them with monks.

A.D. 965. Edgar marries Elfritha, the daughter of Ordgar, the ealdorman of Devonshire.

Such was the title among his cotemporaries of one whom comparatively recent writers have described as a monster. He appears only to have carried out the recognised rule in separating Edwy and Elgiva; and Eadmer, the author the nearest to his time, expressly says that Elgiva's death was the act of the Mercian partisans of Edgar. Odo was the son of a Danish chief, and had been banished from his home in boyhood for frequenting a Christian church. Some canons of his and a synodical epistle, which remain to us, have been pronounced "grave and pious compositions, very creditable to his memory."

I