of Elfrida gave him a stab behind. The prince finding himself wounded, put spurs to his horse; but becoming faint by loss of blood, his foot stuck in the stirrup when he fell from the saddle, and he was dragged along by his unruly horse till he expired. Being tracked along by the blood, his body was found, and he was privately interred at Wareham by his servant. Thence the appellation of martyr was given him by the people, though his murder had no connection with any religious principle or opinion. He was succeeded by his brother Ethelred.

ETHELRED, fourteenth King from the Heptarchy.

Ann. 978 to 1000.

The Danes, partly from the establishments which the death of Charlemagne and the weakness of his successors had enabled that piratical nation to obtain in the north of France, partly from the vigour and warlike spirit which Alfred the Great had revived in England, had ceased to disturb that country by their irruptions. But being informed of the change produced by the dissentions, follies, and vices which had marked the reigns of the last English kings, and that the people, taught by their monks to rely entirely on præternatural assistance, were become incapable of defending themselves; these old and terrible enemies considered the weakness and inexperience of Ethelred as the most favourable opportunity for renewing their depredations. They landed accordingly, at different times, on several parts of the coast, met every where but a feeble resistance, and were bribed to depart the kingdom on receiving ten thousand pounds.

The invaders being thus acquainted with the defenceless condition of England, made a powerful descent under the command of Swein, king of Den

mark, and Olave, king of Norway, and spread their destructive ravages on all sides. The English opposed them with a formidable army, but were repulsed with great slaughter. Ethelred, to whom historians give the epithet of the unready, instead of rousing his people to defend with courage their honour and their property, resolved again to buy off the invasion with a sum of sixteen thousand pounds. Swein and Olave agreed to the terms. Olave returned to Norway. But a short time after this shameful composition, the Danes appeared again upon the English shore, and asked an additional subsidy of twenty-five thousand pounds, to which the English had the meanness and imprudence to submit.

The receiving of this sum was not the only motive of the Danes to depart a kingdom so incapable of resisting their efforts. They were invited over by their countrymen in Normandy, who, at this very time, were hard pressed by the armies of Robert, king of France, and who found it difficult to defend the settlement, which, with so much advantage to themselves and so much glory to their nation, they had made in that country in 912, under the reign of the French king Charles le Simple.

Ann. 1001 to 1002.

Ethelred, who was now a widower, observing the close connection thus maintained among all the Danes, however divided in government or situation, considered an alliance with that formidable people as the surest means to restore tranquillity in his kingdom. He accordingly made his addresses to Emma, sister to Richard, second duke of Normandy, and he soon succeeded in his negociation. The princess came over this year to England, and was married to Ethelred. It remained to provide against

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the treachery of those numerous Danish families who had been permitted by Alfred the Great to settle in Northumberland and East Anglia, and who, upon every threatened invasion, were always ready to join their countrymen against those among whom they were allowed to reside. Ethelred, from a policy incident to weak princes, adopted the resolu tion of putting them to the sword throughout all his dominions. This plot was carried on with such secrecy, that it was executed every where on the same day (Nov. 13, 1002). Even Gunilda, sister of the king of Denmark, who had married Earl Paling, and had embraced Christianity, was seized, and condemned to death by Ethelred, after seeing her husband and children butchered before her face.

Ann. 1003 to 1016.

Swein being informed of this massacre, appears off the western coasts, meditating slaughter and furious with revenge. The English vainly attempt to collect their dispirited troops; cowardice and treachery dissipate them. A dreadful famine, partly from bad seasons, and partly from the decay of agriculture, increases their miseries, the particulars of which would be too tedious to relate. Indeed they would offer nothing but repeated accounts of the sacking and burning of towns, of the devastation of the open country, of the appearance of the enemy in every quarter of the kingdom, of their diligence in discovering every corner which had not been ransacked by their former violence.

The English, overwhelmed with such calamities, submit to purchase again a precarious peace in the year 1007, by the payment of thirty thousand pounds, which was levied by way of tax, called danegelt, and was the first land tax in England. Ethelred, intending to employ this interval in mak

ing preparations against the return of the enemy, assembles a navy, consisting nearly of eight hundred vessels, but all hopes of success are disappointed by the factions, animosities, and dissentions of the nobility, while that formidable armament was considered by the Danes as a sufficient motive for a new irruption. The English saw no other expedient against it than that of buying a new peace, for which they paid forty-eight thousand pounds; but to no purpose, as the Danes, disregarding all engagements, continued their devastations, levied a new contribution of eight thousand pounds upon the county of Kent alone, and murdered the archbishop of Canterbury, who had refused to countenance this exaction. The English nobility found no other resource than that of submitting every where to the Danish monarch, and accordingly swore allegiance to him, and gave him hostages for their fidelity. Ethelred, equally afraid, fled into Normandy, where he had already sent the queen and her two sons, Alfred and Edward, in the year 1013. Richard received them with a generosity that does honour to hs memory.

Swein died about six weeks after; and Ethelred seized with eagerness so favourable an opportunity of reascending his throne; but his misconduct, indolence, credulity, and cowardice obstructed all success. At length, after having seen the greatest part of his kingdom invaded, after refusing to head his troops against the enemy, he retired to London, where he died after an inglorious reign of thirtyfive years. Edmund, the eldest of his sons succeeded to his throne and to his misfortunes.

During that reign, and in the year 987, the Carlovingian dynasty, weakened and degraded by the imbecility of its last princes, lost the crown of France, which was assumed by Hugh Capet, the chief of the third dynasty.

EDMOND IRONSIDE, fifteenth King from the

Heptarchy.

Ann. 1016.

Edmond received the surname of Ironside from his hardy opposition to the enemy. But he had to contend with one of the most vigilant and power ful monarchs in Europe, as Canute, afterwards surnamed the Great, succeeded Swein as king of Denmark, and also as general of the Danish force in England. In the first battle Edmond obtained some indecisive advantages; in the second, the Danes were victorious; the indefatigable Edmond, however, had still resources: assembling a new army at Gloucester, he was again in a condition to dispute the field, when the Danish and English nobility, equally harassed with those convulsions, obliged their kings to divide the kingdom between them. By the treaty agreed on at Gloucester, Canute reserved to himself the northern division, consisting of Mercia, East Anglia, and Northumberland; the southern parts were left to Edmond; 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, sixteenth King from the Heptarchy. Ann. 1017 to 1035.

Before seizing the southern provinces, which by the death of Edmond naturally devolved to his sons, Canute, anxious to cover his usurpation under plausible pretences, summoned a general assembly of the states of the kingdom, to decide whether in the