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repair of London ; and a list of all former English Kings. Then we come to the Danish ravages in France under Hasting.]

After inflicting on Gaul all this wretchedness. . . Hasting-the wicked thief-sailed off to Lunis, and thought to storm the city. But the townsfolk... flew to arms . . and, do all he could, he might not win the place. So, at the last, he sent unto the Bishop . . . saying that he was sick unto death, and was humbly fain to be christened. Thereat was the Bishop full glad; and they made peace with this enemy of peace, and freely let his folk into the city. So this wicked Hasting was borne unto the church, and dipped in the sacred font. And the Bishop and the Mayor upraised him therefrom [i.e., stood sponsors] to their own destruction, and he received the Holy Chrism, and to his ship was he borne back again.

§ 15. Thereafter, at dead of night, was he clad in armour, and laid on a bier; and, under their coats, he bade his men wear shirts of mail; and so, with feigned lamentation, bare they him to the church, as dead. There, in his sacred vestments, was the Bishop, all ready to sacrifice the Host for the departed—when, lo! up from the bier sprang that son of perdition, Hasting; down he cut the Bishop and the Count, and fell, raging like a wolf, upon the people . . . old and young were massacred, the city was spoiled, and the walls thereof beaten down. . .

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§ 16. [Alfred's abbeys are next recorded, and his method in almsgiving and devotion, also his lantern, his justice, his sister's death, the adventure of the three Irishmen, and the comet of 892, which is called in the Saxon tongue Vexed Star." Alfred's system of 'Hundreds ' follows; and then the great invasion, of 893, with another story of Hasting.]

But the heathen... fled. to Milton, whither the King hotly chased them, and stayed not till he had driven them one and all into the stronghold that Hasting the Cruel had wrought there. Straightway did he beset the place... and gave his whole mind to the taking of it. And Hasting the Dane (since of holding out he lost all hope) bethought him how he might, by falsehood, cheat the King into pity. . . . Sureties gave he, and bound him by oath, that, might he but be let go, never more would he vex England. And the more to assure the King, he sent unto him his two sons-but boys were they-that, if he would, he might give them the Sacraments of the Faith and Baptism. Ever was the pious King more ready to save the souls of the heathen than to slay them . . . and, after the boys were regenerated in the sacred Font, then suffered he their father Hasting, and the rest of the misbelievers, to depart in peace, according to the troth-plight. . . .

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[The campaigns of 894 are now recorded, with the treason of Hasting and the capture of his wife and children.]

No harm would the King do unto them, seeing that he had himself upraised the one lad from the Font, and Earl Ethelred the other; therefore suffered he them to depart, mother and sons.

1 Roger misunderstands the Old English fixed, i.e., haired, a literal rendering of the Latin cometa.

§ 17. [We now come to the campaigns of 895 and 396 (as in A.S. Chronicle); the vision of Rollo, and his invasion of 'the land which was then called Neustria, but now Normandy, from these very Northmen.'

The sea-fight in Devon is next mentioned (not described), and the hanging of the pirates.]

Thereafter did the King hold his realm in peace all the rest of his life; giving himself wholly to the repair of churches, to almsdeeds, and to lawgiving...

$18. In the year 900, Alfred, the Most Gracious King of the English changed his temporal kingdom for the eternal, on Wednesday the 28th day of October, in the fifth indiction. He was buried at Winchester in the New Monastery, which he himself had founded, clad in the robe of blessed immortality, and awaiting the General Resurrection, when once again shall he be crowned.

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T

X.

JOHN OF WALLINGFORD.

HE chronicle seems to have been written about 1255, as it mentions Catherine, daughter of Henry III. (born 1253, died 1257), among his living progeny. The author was a monk of St. Alban's. It begins with the English Conquest, and ends with the accession of Edward the Confessor. Its materials are handled with marked freedom and confidence; the writer, in fact, belonged to the band of Higher Critics, as a glance at his pages will promptly show. All mere historical facts are made to bow to the preconceived idea with which he starts in a fashion quite modern. He writes, however, with no little spirit and force, and is well worth reading.

His work is to be found in Gale's English Historians,' and a translation in 'The Church Historians of England.' There is an MS. in the Cottonian series, with a portrait of the author, seemingly by his own hand.

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JOHN OF WALLINGFORD.

§ I. Egbert . . . next began to reign . . . and won for himself by a valiant arms-deed, all the realms that had been under the King of Mercia. For his son Ethelwulf sent he, with a mighty muster, to drive beyond Thames Baldred, King of Kent, . . . nor had Kent a King of her own any more, but yielded obedience unto the Kings of Wessex. Meanwhile in Northumbria reigned Ethelred, and after him Osbert, for thirteen years. Him did the Northumbrians drive from his kingship, and in his stead put they Ella, howbeit not of the blood royal. [Here follows the Danish sack of York, from Asser.]

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§ 2. Then did the Danes make Egbert King of such of the Northumbrian folk as were left, and there reigned he five years [see p. 184]. Surrey also, and Sussex, and Essex, and East Anglia, yea and the Kings of Mercia came under him, and he reigned in all thirty years and five. . . After him came his son Ethelwulf, . . . who left four sons, Ethelbald, Ethelbert, Ethelred, and Alfred. Ethelbald . . . reigned five years, and fought without ceasing against the Danes, as did his brothers after him, Ethelbert and Ethelred, . . all alike giving their lives to free their folk and their fatherland. But amongst these brethren could Alfred get him no honour; for why, he was as yet but a youth.

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3. Along with all these Kings was St. Swithun

far-famed amongst

all his fellow-clerks for holy life and conversation. To him did the aforesaid King [Egbert] commit for teaching . . . his son Ethelwulf, his only comfort, the one hope of the realm and heir to all of right. . . . Fainer was he to live as a tonsured priest than of worldly worship and kingly power, and in the church of Winchester came he unto the order of sub-deacon, and served it well, with good hope to rise further.

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§ 4. But when Egbert... died, then did all the land-folk call for Ethelwulf, his only sọn, to be King, seeing that his alone was the right. Yet, forasmuch as it was a thing unheard of that a sub-deacon should be drawn back to the lay world, much strife arose thereon between the clergy and the laity. Then sought they counsel of the Apostolic See ; . . . and Pope Leo, having called together a council on this petition, assented thereto (as being the people's wish, and for the common weal), that Ethelwulf, by his dispensation, should fall back from his sub-diaconate to the kingship.

OF THE COMING OF THE Danes.

§ 5. Now, then, are we entering on the troublous tale of many a war ; wherefore we beg our reader, if he thinketh us all too brief, to look on this at least as a general sketch. In such storm of events who can track the course of each several wave? . . .

6. On the origin of the Danes . . . historians differ. Some say they are sprung from the Trojan Antenor, . . . others, with perhaps more

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reason, that they are . . . from the Goths. who issuing from the island of Scanza [Scandinavia] set them down by the Mæotid Marsh [the sea of Azof] and after in Denmark [Danubio].1 Amongst this folk long was it the wont (until it was checked when they took on the Christian Faith), that the father should drive forth all his sons, save one only to be his heir, . . . to seek them new homes, for that their own land might not support them all. Hence were they held as foes by all nations round about them. Let whoso will read their story, and he will find not safe from these Goths. . . .

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§ 7. And now . . . God, who can turn even evil unto good end, drew forth His sword to cut short the English, and made hordes beyond count to boil over, so to speak, from Denmark. Yea, and they abide even unto this day, a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence unto all around them. The first band at this time (for already held they many a place in England), led Ingwar and Hubba, next came Rollo and his gang, then Guthrum. And all these, for twenty years, fulfilled in divers places the chastisement ordained before of God.

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§ 8. Ingwar, then, and Hubba, landed first in Northumbria, and utterly wasted all that sea-bord, from the Scottish Sea even unto East Anglia. The shrines of the Saints burnt they; cities, hamlets and castles laid they even with the ground; yea, and sold for a slave Cuthred, a man of royal race, whom Hardecnut, one of their chiefs, had taken captive. But him did St. Cuthbert ere long set free in wondrous wise, and exalted him to be King. Moreover they burnt the Abbey of Wearmouth, wherein the holy Bede, the friend of God, tasted of the joys of contemplation, and which, even unto this day, keepeth alive the name and fame of that Venerable Doctor.

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$9. Thereafter came Ingwar unto East Anglia. This district faceth the North-east, and hath many a ship-harbour. Very safe is it from land attack . . . but without defence against perils from the sea. [There slew they Edmund], . . . the King and martyr, and joining unto them other Danes, froward as themselves, . . . who had, by this, won most part of Mercia, they even stormed and took London. Nor had the men of London any hope of escape, seeing that all the power of the South and West was broken. Only Ethelred reigned yet in West Anglia; and in the next year did he too pay the debt of nature, and Alfred, the last of the sons of Ethelwulf, reigned in his stead.

Of Alfred, FIRST MONARCH OF ALL ENGLAND.

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§ 10. In the year 849 from the Incarnation of our Lord was born Alfred, King of the Anglo-Saxons, in that part of England which is called Berkshire.

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1 The confusion between Denmark and the Danube is often in the Chroniclers. The Goths from Scandinavia really did settle first in southern Russia and then by the Danube.

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