the Danes.

Sweyn.

CHAP. 9. mand of Heming and Anlaff, proceeded to the isle of Thanet. The forces Invasions of disembarked from these vessels were numerous, and the most fruitful parts of Kent were ravaged by them. Canterbury purchased their temporary forbearance with the sum of three thousand pounds. They then sailed to the Isle of Wight, and laid waste the southern provinces between the sea and the Thames. Ethelred raised an army to oppose them, and entrusted it to his son-in-law and favourite, Edric, who, being in communication with the Danish chiefs, drew his troops around London instead of intercepting the enemy, whom he permitted to march laden with their booty, through Hampshire, Surrey and Kent, and to fortify themselves in the isle of Thanet. There they established their winter quarters, making occasional incursions into Kent and Essex. At the ensuing spring they were joined by the East Anglians, who were chiefly of Danish origin, and laying siege to Canterbury, they speedily became masters of that city, which they reduced to a heap of ashes. To save London from the same fate, the sum of forty-eight thousand pounds was given them, with which and with the enormous booty they had acquired, they at length consented to return to Denmark. Such a retreat was sure to be followed by a fresh invasion. Sweyn, the king of Denmark, had long kept up a correspondence with some of the leading men in the court of Ethelred, and particularly with those whose domains were situate in what may be termed the Danish provinces. The treacherous duke of Mercia privately encouraged his views, and prepared his success by the insidious counsels with which he swayed the weak mind of his royal father-in-law. A more powerful fleet than ever was prepared in Denmark, and Sweyn disembarked an army destined rather for conquest than devastation on the shores of the Humber. All Northumbria and Mercia instantly submitted to him, for the troops of Ethelred, by the advice of Edric, were employed in small bodies along the southern coasts of the kingdom. Speedily supplied with cavalry, in which his forces were at first deficient, his march through East Anglia was a triumphant procession, and he was saluted as sovereign in every town. To his son Canute he committed the government of these domains, and hastened to besiege London, where Ethelred had endeavoured to fortify himself. While he lay before the capital, he laid the whole surrounding country under contributions, which were enforced by sanguinary devastations: the provincial kingdom of Wessex, which was considered more immediately as the hereditary domain of Ethelred, was completely ravaged, and its Saxon population put to the sword. The monasteries even in the Danish territories were not spared: their treasures were seized, and when these were exhausted, the monks mortgaged their manors to the duke of Mercia, who, under pretence of protecting them, settled his own military dependents, of whom he had great numbers in his pay, upon them. Thus enriched and re-enforced, Sweyn pressed the siege of London more closely, and the unhappy Ethelred was on the point of being delivered as a prisoner, by his treacherous attendants, into the hands of the Danish conqueror, when he found means to escape privately to Normandy. London instantly surrendered, and Sweyn was proclaimed king of all England. His reign was short: in a few months he expired suddenly, leaving the crowns of Denmark and England to his son Canute.

Siege of
London.

restored.

Apprehensive that the throne of Denmark would, in his absence, be CHAP. 9. seized upon by his younger brother, Canute quitted for a time the newly Canute. acquired realm of England; and Ethelred, who had been recalled immediately upon the death of Sweyn, by his Saxon subjects, was re-instated in Ethelred his capital and surrounded by a considerable body of troops. Edric, the treacherous Duke of Mercia, again sought and procured his favour; and as a proof to the sovereign of his devotion to his interests, he planned and perpetrated a perfidious design against two powerful Danish chieftains. These, whose names were Morcard and Sifferth, having been summoned to attend a council of Saxons and Danes, held at Oxford, were invited by Edric to a feast, at which they and several others of Danish extraction were murdered. After their death, they were accused of treason, and their possessions were accordingly confiscated.

But while Edric by such means as these recovered the confidence of his father-in-law, he maintained an intercourse with Canute, who, having assured himself of the allegiance of his hereditary subjects, had landed at Sandwich with a numerous army. To oppose his progress, an army was raised by Ethelred, who entrusted it to the joint command of his son Edmund and his son-in-law Edric Streon.

Ironside.

It is difficult to understand how the duke of Mercia, after repeated instances of treachery, should still be able to recover the confidence of Ethelred, and even of prince Edmund. On the death of the former, Edmund Edmund was proclaimed king by the Saxons, but the Danish provinces, including the greater part of Mercia, acknowledged the sovereignty of Canute, who immediately laid siege to London. During the siege of that metropolis, about the midsummer of the year 1016, a battle was fought,* in which each of the rival princes, at the head of his troops, gave signal proofs of his conduct and valour; and, after a long and severe contest, the armies withdrew, as if by common consent, from the field of battle, having each sustained nearly an equal loss. Duke Edric, on this occasion, fought on the side of the Danes, and alarmed at perceiving that the English, from attachment to Edmund, disputed the victory with great firmness, had recourse to a stratagem which had nearly proved successful. He cut off the head of a soldier, named Osmer, who very much resembled Edmund, and fixing it upon his spear, he rode towards the English ranks, exclaiming, "Fly, miscreants-here is the head of the king to whom you adhere!" At this sight, the troops began to recede, when Edmund himself, without his helmet, rode up to them, and by his presence and his words revived their confidence and courage.

The siege of London continued, and, during the space of one year, five pitched battles were fought. In these battles, and in the transactions of the period, of which we have a very confused account in the monkish historians, we find duke Edric, alternately in the confidence of Canute and of Edmund. In the fatal battle which was fought at Ashdon, near Walden Battle of in Essex, this traitor held a principal command in the troops of his royal brother-in-law, and in the heat of the engagement, he led off his Mercians

It is doubtful where this battle was fought; but it is generally called the battle of Shire-stone (probably Shirston in Wiltshire.) It lasted two days.

Ashdon.

Death of

Alfric.

CHAP. 9. and joined the Danes. The English ranks were instantly broken, and, throwing down their arms, they betook themselves to flight. In this battle, Alfric, the former duke of Mercia, who had been disgraced and banished by Ethelred for treachery of a similar nature, was slain, fighting by the side of Edmund, to whom he had found means to be reconciled. Many of the English thanes fell in the slaughter that ensued.

England

divided between Edmund

London still held out against the Danish sovereign, and Edmund, in a short time, was able to draw together a very considerable army; but the people began to be weary of a contest, in which one half of the kingdom was arrayed against the other half, and in which it seemed that neither the Saxon nor the Danish race could be secure until the one or the other should be completely extirpated. It was accordingly proposed, that all the country south of the Thames, together with London and the small kingdom of Essex, should be assigned to Edmund; and that Canute should reign over Mercia, Northumbria and East Anglia. Edmund did not long and Canute. enjoy the quiet possession even of this portion of the realm of his ancestors. His traitorous brother-in-law, the duke of Mercia, who had become important chiefly by his power of alternately betraying the contending sovereigns, apprehending that their friendship would be the forerunner of his disgrace, employed two of Edmund's attendants to assassinate him,* and immediately left the court to convey to Canute the first intelligence of the event, and to proclaim the Danish prince sovereign of the whole island. Canute, who profited by the treachery, dissembled for a time his detestation of a traitor, who, by his last crime, had rendered all future services of a similar nature unnecessary. He thanked him for his zeal, and promised to advance him above all the peers of the realm.

Canute sole
Monarch.

No sooner was Canute securely fixed upon the throne, than the duke of Mercia began to feel his displeasure. He seems to have expected the full restoration of Mercia, with such rank and power of sovereignty as had been granted by Alfred to the husband of his daughter Ethelfrida; and, when Canute treated his claims and remonstrances with contempt, he had the audacity to tell that prince, that he was indebted to his arts rather than to his own valour for the crown he wore, and boasted of the murder of Edmund. This was said in the open court, at which many Saxons, whose regard Canute was anxious to conciliate, were present; and he instantly replied “Thou hast then condemned thyself, thou traitor to thy natural lord, thy kinsman, and thy prince!" Edric was seized and bound upon the spot. The king then commanded that he should be beheaded and his body Edric Streon. thrown into the Thames, and that the head should be fixed upon the gate at the entrance of the palace, "for," said he, "I promised to advance him above all the peers of the realm."

Death of

Leofwine,
Duke of
Mercia.

The successor to Edric, in the dukedom or earldom of Mercia, was Leofwine, descended from Leofric, earl of Chester, who distinguished himself in the reign of Ethelbald. Leofwine did not long enjoy this dignity, but, dying, left issue three sons, the eldest of whom was named Leofric. The second, named Norman, was in high military trust under Edric Streon, and on the execution of that nobleman, fell a victim to the

* Some historians relate, that Edric employed his own son, who stabbed Edmund with a knife struck into his fundament when he was easing nature.

violence of the people, although he had not participated in the crimes of CHAP. 9. his patron.

Duke of

Mercia.

Leofric was earl of Chester during the lifetime of his father, and en- Leofric, joyed the confidence of king Canute, at whose death he called a general assembly in Mercia, and by his influence secured the immediate succession of the crown to Harold, surnamed Harefoot. This was done with the consent of earl Goodwin, who, by the favour of Canute, had become the most powerful nobleman in the realm. On the death of Harold, his halfbrother, Hardicanute, was called to the throne, who, during a short reign of three years, rendered himself odious by his cruelty, avarice and gluttony. On one occasion he laid an exorbitant tax upon the kingdom, which the people of Worcester resisted, and slew two of the military agents who were employed in collecting it. An insurrection ensued, which required the united endeavours of Leofric, duke of Mercia, Goodwin, duke of Wessex, and Siward, earl of Northumbria, to appease. These three powerful noblemen marched against the city of Worcester, and in obedience to the commands of the tyrant they burned it to the ground, after having given up for four successive days to the plunder of the soldiery.

it

Confessor.

Edward, surnamed the Confessor, was on the death of Hardicanute, Edward the established on the throne by the influence of the three great peers just mentioned, who seem to have possessed among themselves the whole power of the realm. Goodwin, duke of Wessex, hesitated to espouse the cause of Edward until that prince had sworn to make his daughter Editha the sharer of his throne. On his accession, Edward could not disguise his hatred of Goodwin, of whom, however, he stood in such dread, that, after · deferring his nuptials upon various pretences for two years, he at length married his daughter, and found himself continually compelled to yield to the counsels of her father. The authority assumed and exercised by Goodwin was counteracted by the joint endeavours of Siward, earl of Northumbria, and Leofric, duke of Mercia; the former of whom bore a high reputation for valour and wisdom, while the latter was so esteemed for his piety, charity and wise administration, that his authority throughout Mercia equalled that of an independent sovereign. In the troubles excited by Goodwin and his aspiring family, Leofric always employed his talents and his power in support of the monarch, whose mind was feeble and contracted, ill-suited to the contentions with which he was surrounded, and whose strongest passion was hatred of the very man whose daughter he had been compelled to make his queen. So extreme was this hatred, that although his consort was beautiful, amiable and intelligent, he refrained from her bed, and frequently caused her to be confined in the cell of a monastery. Having been brought up in Normandy, Edward had formed his early friendships and habits in the court of that dukedom, and he greatly alienated the affections of his English subjects by the encouragement he bestowed upon those foreigners. Leofric remonstrated in vain, and his son Algar, a spirited youth, openly expressed his disgust, and connected himself with Harold, son of Goodwin, who subsequently married his daughter. On the death

Dugdale says that Algitha, the wife of Harold, was the daughter of Algar: Rapin and other writers say the sister.

Confessor.

CHAP. 9. of Goodwin, Harold became duke of Wessex, and the earldom of the East Edward the Saxons, previously held by Harold, was bestowed upon Algar. In what manner this alliance had provoked the jealousy of Edward and his Norman favourites, is not explained by any particular charge against Algar, but we find that in 1055, he was banished, after deliberations held by a general council in London. Irritated at this sentence, he sailed to Ireland with eighteen vessels, and uniting himself with some Norwegian pirates, committed extensive devastations along the western coasts of the kingdom. He then formed an alliance with Griffin,* king of Wales, and invaded Herefordshire with a powerful army which that sovereign had raised and placed under his command. He was opposed by Ranulph de Mantes, who had been appointed earl of that district, but him he speedily defeated, and became master of Hereford, which he plundered, setting fire to the cathedral and monastery. His farther progress was checked by the advance of Harold, at the head of a large body of forces which he had raised in his own territories. Algar made no resistance, but trusting to the generosity of and his influence with Harold, a negociation was entered into; and his Welsh auxiliaries being dismissed, Algar was restored to his earldom.

Death of
Leofric.

It was not long after the return of his son, that Leofric died, who is spoken of by the historians of that period, as a man of pacific counsels, distinguished at once for his generosity and his piety. His wife was the celebrated Godiva, a lady of extraordinary beauty and great devotion, descended from an ancient Saxon family, surnamed Thorold, who had large possessions and honours in Lincolnshire, and had been, from its earliest establishment, great benefactors to the monastery of Croyland. Thorold, the brother of Godiva, founded the abbey of Spalding, which was attached to Croyland, and in the deed of gift, which was executed in the year 1051, he styles himself, Thorold of Bukenhale, and states that he acts by the permission of his most noble lord, Leofric, earl of Leicester, and of the most noble countess Godiva, his sister, the wife of Leofric, and with consent and good will of his lord and kinsman, earl Algar, their eldest son and heir.-Leofric himself was the founder and enricher of many monasteries; " among which," says Ingulphus, "at the instigation of his wife, by name Godiva, the most lovely as regards the body and the most sanctibenefactress fied with respect to the heart, of woman kind, he immensely enriched the monastery of Coventry, with great and numerous endowments." The inhabitants of Coventry were particularly the objects of her esteem and patronage, and she took many opportunities to second the prayers and petitions of the burghers to be relieved from various harsh customs and taxes which injured their trade and reduced some of them to a state of servitude. On one occasion, when she had implored Leofric by the love of God and the Virgin Mary to give freedom to the citizens, he told her he could no more part with what he considered belonged to the honour of his authority, than she could herself do an outrage to the delicacy of her modesty; and as she continued pertinaciously to argue the point with him, he declared that it was no more his part to remit these appendages to his

Godiva,

of Coventry.

* Griffin or Griffith married Algar's daughter, who, on the death of the Welsh prince, which happened in less than two years, became the wife of Harold.