--One

hem, and said t

ons should be

dswo

ss to the other side of the Channel. There had been great changes since ?lfred's wise and prosperous reign, or even since the time of ?thelred's predecessor, Eadgar, who was rowed in his royal-barge at Chester by eight of his vassal kings-Kenneth of

age people, through the Celts with their Pictish and Scottish remnant, through the Roman invasion, and the Saxon, more powerful and enduring than any from our point of view, we may trace a kinship

are much greater dramas being played, and we feel, directly we get a hint of it, as children do who have been loitering among petty side-shows on their way to a great play. Here come the Danes again, the kings of De

times as he, but they had been strong enough to keep some sort of control of themselves at any rate. Dunstan the archbishop warned the [Pg173] people, when ?thelred was crowned, that they had no idea of the trouble that was coming, and through the whole reign things went from bad to worse. Dreadful th

off the coast, sending a messenger to make the highwayman's favorite request, your money or your life! One of the first sums boldly demanded of ?thelred's aldermen was ten thousand pounds. We can see how rapidly the wealth of England had increased, for in ?lfred's time the fine for killing a king was a hundred and twenty shillings, and this was consid

d and did as was their wont. Slew and burned ... it was

ould be paid and peace made with them, on condition that they shoul

the army that no one could think or devise how they should be driven from the country. Every shire in Wessex had they cruelly marked with burning and with harrying. The king began then with his witan earnestly to con

e of the ships had been wrecked and there had been some sad disasters at sea, the chronicle has a more despairing tone than ever. "It was as if all counsel

ral way, the great men, or notorious men of history, who stand out before a dim and half-forgotten background, are only typical of their time and representative of it. One very good man, or bad man, cannot be absolutely a single specimen of his kind; there must be others who rank with him, and who have been his upholde

lands of Orkney to England, he was baptized there, and the English bishops were very kind to him, and ?thelred gave him some presents, and made him promise that he would not come plundering to England any more. [Pg176] We are quite surprised to hear that the promise was kept. Swegen the Dane promised too, but he appeared again after a while, and ?thelred thought he would improve upon the fashion of paying Danegelt by order

for his poor people already so abominably taxed and oppressed in every way, and was brave enough to squarely refuse, so the Danes slew him with horrible torture; one might tell many such stories of the cruelty and boldness of the invaders. ?thelred was perfectly helpless or else cowardly and indifferent, and presently Swegen, who had gone back to the North returned with a great fleet and a swarm of followers, [Pg177] and not long afterward he conquered every sort of opposition, even that of the brave Londoners, and was procla

was dead at last, the witan chose Cnut for king in his stead, but the Londoners, who were rich and strong, and who hated the Danes bitterly-the Londoners would have none of the pirates to [Pg178] reign over them, and elected young Eadmund Ironside, a valiant soldier and loyal-hearted fellow who feared nothing and was ready to dare every thing. The two young kings were well matched and fought six great battles, in most of which Ironside gained the advantage, but at last the Danes beat him back-and though everybody was ready for a seventh battle, the witan showed their wisdom for once and forbade any more fighting, and somehow managed to proclaim peace. The young kings treated each other most generously, and called each other brother, and were ver

Illu

m the Register

[Pg179] the kingship. In those days it was a matter of great importance that the king should be able to rule and able to fight, and the best and most powerful member of the royal family was the proper one to choose. The English for a long time had elec

e that his rivals should be disposed of; he knew that the witan and everybody else were tired of the everlasting war and bloodshed. He was fierce and downrigh

ountry to Cnut's half-brother, the king of Sweden, with orders that they should be put out of the way. The king felt such pity for the innocent children, that he sent them away to Hungary instead of ha

ful woman, and marked with the famous Norman dignity and grace. Cnut promised that if they should ever have a son born, he should be the next [Pg181] king of England. Emma's two elder sons,

ign he had executed several powerful English nobles whose influence and antagonism he had reason to fear; but now he favored the English in a marked way, and even ordered his ships and all the pirates and fighting men back to the North. It seems very strange, now, that a king of England ever reigned over Sweden

sea-rover that he should stay quietly at home to rule his kingdom. The spirit of adventure stirred in his veins, and we may be sure that he enjoyed his long and perilous overland journey to Italy. He made the road safer for his countrymen who might also have a pious desire to worship at the famous foreign shrines. He complained to the emperor and the priests at Rome about the robber-chiefs who pounced down upon travellers from their castl

appen any more. There is something very touching in the way that he says he had made a great many good resolves about his future life, and that he is not ashamed to own that he has done wrong over and over again, but he means, by God's help, to amend entirely. He vows to Heaven that he will govern his life rightly, and rule his kingdom honestly and piously, and that neither rich nor poor shall be oppressed or hardshipped. There never was a better letter, altogether, and Cnut kept his promises so well that the old Anglo-Saxon chronicle, which aches with stories of war and trouble, grows quite dull now in the la

ght there might be some chance of their gaining a right to the throne, and the younger one, ?lfred, had come over to England with his knights and gentlemen. Harold seized them and was most cruel; he first blinded his half-brother and then had him put to death. This made a great noise in Normandy, and there is one good thing to be said about Harthacnut, that he was bitterly angry with his brother, and also with Earl Godwine, a famous nobleman, who was the most powerful man in England next the king. He was Cnut's favorite and chief adviser, but Harthacnut suspected tha

n the throne. Eadward was the last of the line, and in his day began [Pg185]

their houses, and what changes had come to the country in general. There were certain hindrances to civilization, and lacks of a fitting progress and true growth. Let us see what these things were, and how the greater refinement of the Normans,

em in many ways, and they sank under such habits as quickly as they had risen under the necessities that war makes for sacrifices and temperance. They were suffering, too, from their insularity; they were taken up with their own affairs, and had kept apart from the progress of the rest of Europe. There was a new wave and impulse of scholarship, which had not yet reached [Pg186] them. It was ebb-t

elred and Emma, who had been since his childhood at the Norman court. His murdered brother ?lfred had been canonized by the romantic sympathy of his English friends; he was remembered now as a saintly young martyr to English patriotism, and the disreputable reign of Cnut's sons had made the virtues of the ancient race of English kings very br

annel. There are interesting accounts, which may or may not be true, of his conversations with Godwine; but the stronger man prevailed. The very promise he made to uphold the new king's rights might make Eadward feel assured and hopeful of some stability and quietness in his reign. England was far behind Normandy in social or scholarly progress; to reign over Englishmen did not appear the most rewarding or alluring career to the fastidious, delicate, cloister-man. The rough-heartiness and red-cheeked faces of his subjects must have contrasted poorly with his Norman belongings, so much more refined and thoughtful, not to say adroit and disse

n them, of the whole southern part of the kingdom. It was mainly through Godwine's influence that Eadward was crowned king, and we may look to the same cause for his marriage with the earl's daughter Edith, but the line of English princes, of whom Godwine hoped to be ancestor, never appeared, for the king was childless, and soon made an enemy of his father-in-law. Some people say that Godwine did not treat his royal son with much respect having once put him on the throne. Eadward too never was able to forget the suspicion a

appeared to wish to surround himself wholly with Normans, and the whole aspect of the English court was changed little by li

forsook him [Pg190] and were loyal to the crown, and the great earl was banished for conscience sake, he and all his family, for the king even sent away his own wife, though he kept all her lands and treasures, which was not so saint-like and unworldly as one might have expected. One of Godwine's sons had proved himself a very base and treacherous man, and the earl had shielded him; this was one reason why his defence of English liberty was so overlooked by his countrymen, but the Normans had a great triumph over this defeat, and praised the pious king and told long stories of his austere life, his prayers, and holy life. After he was canonized these stories were lengthened still more, but while he was yet without a halo some of his contemporaries charge him with laziness and incapacity. He certainly was lacking in kingly qualities, but he gained the respect and love of many of his subjects, and was no doubt as good as so weak a man c

nd Breton gentlemen in search of adventure and aggrandizement. It makes a great difference whether we read the story of this time in English or in French records. Often the stories are directly opposite to each other, and only the most careful steps along the path keep one from wandering off one way or the other into unjust partisanship. Especially is this true of Godwine, the confessor's great contemporary. He seems, at any rate, to have been a man much ahead of his time in knowledge of affairs and foresight of the probable effects [Pg192] from the causes of his own day. His brother earls were jealous of him; the Church complained of his lack of generosity; even his acknowledged eloquence was listened to incredulously; and his good government of his own provinces, pr

ight of each other almost, here and there in the quiet English fields. Even in London itself the great White Tower was already setting its strong foundations; [Pg193] a citadel for the town, a fort to keep the borderers and Danes at bay were necessary enough to a country, but England was being turned into another Normandy and Brittany, with these new houses that were built

the young Duke William had levelled many of them to the ground in quarrelsome Normandy. There was no English word for this awesome new word-castles! The free and open halls of the English thanes were a strange contrast to the new order of dwelling-places. Robert of Jumièges had been ma

ung duke. It would not be strange if his imagination were busy with some idea of enlarging his horizon by a look at his neighbors. Eadward had no heir, they had talked together oftentimes, perhap

g1