This conquest of England by Swegen forms an important stage in our history. It was, for the moment at least, the completion of the Danish invasions in their third and final shape of actual Danish conquest. And it was more than this. The Danish conquest by Swegen was, so to speak, the precedent for the Norman Conquest by William. Swegen’s own possession of England was indeed but momentary; but he at least held the kingdom as long as he lived, and he handed on his mission to his son. The result of Swegen’s invasion showed that the crown of England, of England so lately united into a single kingdom, could be transferred by the event of war from the brow of a native sovereign to that of a foreign invader. It was Swegen’s conquest which made the conquests both of Cnut and of William possible. Cnut’s conquest was of course only the completion of Swegen’s. It was Swegen who conceived the idea, and |Distinction between Swegen’s Conquest and the earlier Danish invasions.| who actually for the first time carried it out. That idea was something very different from anything which had been set before the eyes of any earlier Scandinavian invader. Hitherto England had been largely ravaged, and had even been partly occupied. But mere ravages were in their own nature temporary; and the Danes who had settled in England had been gradually brought into a greater or less degree of submission to the English King, into a greater or less degree of amalgamation with the English people. The third stage of the Danish wars, that which had now for a moment accomplished its object, aimed at something of quite another kind. It sought, as I have before shown,^[716] not merely to ravage or even to occupy, but to transfer the crown of all England, the rule of all its inhabitants, English and Danish alike, into the hands of the King of all Denmark. This object Swegen had now accomplished. Succeeding events indeed called for the work to be done over again by his son Cnut. But the example was set; the establishment of a foreign King in England, his willing or unwilling acknowledgement by the English nation, were things which had now become familiar. What Swegen had done Cnut might do, and |Circumstances in favour of Swegen,| what Cnut had done William might do. Swegen now, like William afterwards, was singularly favoured by fortune. But the good luck of the two invaders took quite different shapes. Swegen found an incapable prince on the throne, under whom no effective resistance was possible. He was thus able to wear out the strength and spirit of the nation by a series of successful, though partial, attacks. He was thus able, at the end of a long series of years, to obtain possession of the whole land without ever having put his forces to the risk of a decisive engagement. |and of William.| William found a hero on the throne; he had therefore, at the very beginning, to stake all his chances on a single battle. But in that single battle England lost her hero, and with him she lost her hope. Swegen and William were thus equally lucky, but William ran a far more |Character of Swegen.| terrible hazard. Swegen is apt to be forgotten in a cursory view of English history, because he is overshadowed by the fame of his son. But Swegen was no ordinary man. If greatness consists in mere skill and stedfastness in carrying out an object, without regard to the moral character of that object, he may even be called a great man.^[717] His purpose was doubtless fixed from the beginning; but he knew how to bide his time, how to mark and to seize his opportunities. Of that species of glory which is won by steady and skilful destruction of one’s fellow-creatures, the glory of an Attila or a Buonaparte, the first Danish conqueror of England is entitled to a large share. Of the high and generous purposes which well nigh justify the ambition of Alexander and of Charles, even of that higher craft of the ruler which goes some way to redeem the crimes of the Norman Conqueror, we see no trace in his career. He was so constantly occupied in aggressive warfare that he had hardly time to show himself as a beneficent prince, even in his native kingdom, and in England, if he had the will, he never had the opportunity, of showing himself in any light but that of a barbarian destroyer.

Swegen then was King—or, as the national writers prefer to call him, Tyrant^[718]—over all England. But it |Death of Swegen. February 3, 1014.| was only for a very short time that he enjoyed his ill-gotten dominion. Early in the year after his conquest, about the feast of Candlemas, he died at Gainsborough. The Danish writers bear witness to the Christianity of |His religion.| his later years. During one of his seasons of adversity, he was won back again to the faith from which he had apostatized; he became a zealous believer, a founder of churches and bishoprics. But the German and English writers seem to know nothing of his piety or of his reconversion, unless indeed the denial of the claims of one particular Christian saint can be held to be evidence of |Legend of the death of Swegen.| Christian belief in general. That denial, we are told, was punished by a strange and horrible death. For such an enemy as Swegen could hardly be allowed to go out of the world without some accompaniment of wonder and miracle. For once the discreetest of our Latin chroniclers opens his pages for the reception of a legend. Swegen, he tells us, had a special hatred for the martyred |870.| King Saint Eadmund, the famous victim of Danish cruelty at an earlier time. He denied him all power and holiness; he demanded a heavy tribute from his renowned minster; he threatened, if it were not paid, to burn the town and the townsfolk, to destroy the minster, and to put the clergy^[719] to death by torture. All this is likely enough; we can well believe that Swegen did thus threaten the church of Saint Eadmund, and that he died suddenly while preparing to set out to carry out his threats. The special reverence which Swegen’s son Cnut showed to Saint Eadmund almost amounts to a proof that his father was held to have specially sinned against that martyr. Swegen had held an assembly of some kind which most likely passed for a Witenagemót of his new realm.^[720] He was on his horse, at the head of his army, seemingly on the point of beginning his march from Gainsborough to the threatened minster. He then saw, visible to his eyes only, the holy King of the East-Angles coming against him in full harness and with a spear in his hand. “Help,” he cried, “fellow-soldiers, Saint Eadmund is coming to slay me.” The saint then ran him through with his spear, and the tyrant fell from his horse, and died the same night in horrible torments.^[721] This is a legend of the simplest class. If Swegen died just as he was about to wreak his sacrilegious wrath on Saint Eadmund’s minster, his sudden death would naturally be attributed to the vengeance of Saint Eadmund. The details of the legend are nothing more than a poetical way of expressing this supposed fact. Swegen thus ended his days;^[722] as to the fate of his soul our authorities differ |Swegen’s body taken to Denmark.| widely.^[723] But the body of the departed tyrant is said to have been taken to Denmark, and buried at Roskild, so long the place of coronation and burial of the Danish Kings.

By the death of Swegen his two kingdoms of Denmark and England became vacant. In Denmark he was succeeded by his son Harold, a prince whose name has passed altogether out of English, and almost out of Danish, history. His reign was short; we are told that he was deposed by his subjects on account of his sloth and luxury.^[724] But that he, and not Cnut, was in actual possession |Swegen succeeded in Denmark by Harold. 1014.| of the Danish crown for some time after their father’s death there seems no reason to doubt. As for the English crown, the crews of the Danish fleet assumed |Double election in England; Cnut chosen by the Danish fleet.| the right of disposing of it, and elected Swegen’s other son Cnut, who was present at Gainsborough. This prince, afterwards so famous, was now a stripling of about nineteen,^[725] and the English, who had bowed to his father, had no mind to bow to him without a struggle. The Witan, |The English Witan decree the restoration of Æthelred.| clerical and lay, assembled in due form, and voted, not the election of one of the Æthelings, but the restoration of Æthelred. The words of the formal documents exchanged between the Witan and the absent King peep out in the language of the Chronicles. They sent to say that no lord could be dearer to them than their cyne-hlaford—their lord by birth—if he would only rule them more righteously than he did before.^[726] Æthelred then sent over ambassadors, accompanied by young Eadward, his son by Emma—the nobler offspring of his |Interchange of messages between Æthelred and the Witan.| first marriage are again unnoticed. He promised by their mouths to be good lord to his people, to amend all that had been wrong in his former reign, to forgive all that had been said and done against him, if only they would be faithful and obedient to him. Another version adds the very important engagement that he would submit in all things to the advice of his Witan.^[727] Promises were thus exchanged on both sides; Æthelred was again |Outlawry of all Danish Kings.| acknowledged, and a decree was passed proclaiming every Danish King an outlaw from England.^[728] The expression |Import of the expression.| is singular, unless we look at it in connexion with the actual acknowledgement of Swegen as King. We can hardly conceive a proclamation of outlawry against a foreign invader, if he were a mere foreign invader and nothing else. But if we look on Cnut as a son of the late King and a candidate for the crown, his outlawry by the opposing party is natural enough. Nor is all this a mere legal subtlety. Cnut then, like William afterwards, was fully aware of the advantage of getting, as far as he could, every legal form on his side.

In the course of Lent Æthelred came back to England, and met with a joyful welcome in London. It was most likely in a Gemót held on his return that the King and his Witan passed the laws which bear the date of this year.^[729] They relate mainly to ecclesiastical matters, but they contain the same pious and patriotic resolutions as the codes of former years, and they also contain some clauses of a special and remarkable kind. They expressly approve the conduct of certain earlier assemblies, held under Æthelstan, |Illustration of the relation of Church and State.| Eadmund, and Eadgar, which dealt with ecclesiastical and temporal affairs conjointly, and they seem to deplore a separation between the two branches of legislation which had taken place in some later assemblies.^[730] It is not very easy to understand the grounds of this complaint, as in most of the earlier statutes of Æthelred’s reign we certainly find both classes of subjects dealt with. But, whatever was the immediate ground of censure, the expression is remarkable, as illustrating a whole class of feelings which were peculiarly strong in that age, and which afterwards lost |Identification of the Church and the Nation before the Norman Conquest.| much of their power. Under our native Kings the Church and the nation were far more truly one than they were at any time after the Norman Conquest. The nation was deeply religious; the Church was deeply national. The same assemblies and tribunals dealt alike with ecclesiastical and with temporal affairs, without the least idea that either power had thrust itself into the proper province of the other. Bishops and Ealdormen were appointed and deposed by the same authority; they sat side by side to judge and to legislate on matters which, after the Norman Conquest, would have been discussed in distinct assemblies. The laws of this year again proclaim that one God and one King is to be loved and obeyed, that heathenism and treason are alike to be eschewed; that all moral duties are to be discharged by one countryman to another. Such is the general summary of the last recorded legislation of Æthelred, conceived in exactly the same tone as the laws of earlier assemblies.

The spirit which breathes in the decrees of the assembly breathes also in a remarkable specimen of the pious oratory of the age, namely the famous address of Archbishop Wulfstan to the English nation.^[731] Somewhat of exaggeration is always to be looked for in compositions of this kind, but, after making all allowances, we find a frightful picture both of national wretchedness and of national corruption. Since the days of Eadgar everything had gone wrong; sacrilege and unjust judgements, lust and rapine, the neglect of every natural and artificial tie, had stalked unpunished through the land. One King had been murdered; another had been driven into banishment. The abuses of the slave-trade are specially noticed; men even went so far as to sell their nearest kinsfolk. The English, in short, had become worse than the Britons whom they had conquered, even as the Britons were painted by their own Gildas. For all this the judgement of God had come upon the land; the enemy wrought his will upon England without let or hindrance; ten Englishmen would flee before one of the invaders; the last excesses of cruelty and outrage had to be endured without resistance. The speaker exhorts to repentance and amendment; he speaks indeed only of repentance and amendment, and says nothing of the human means of valour and counsel; otherwise one might conceive that the address was in fact a speech delivered in the Gemót which passed the laws of this year.

The nation now seemed to be thoroughly kindled with the spirit expressed in the discourse of the Primate and in the resolutions of the Witan. And for one moment the burst of patriotism reached even to the King. For the first and the last time during his long reign, we see Æthelred engaged in righteous and successful warfare.^[732] Cnut was still at Gainsborough, where he had agreed with the men of Lindesey, a district in which the Danish element was large, to furnish him with horses and to join him in a plundering expedition. But before they were ready, Æthelred came up with his full force, and drove Cnut away to his ships. The defeat must have been decisive, as Cnut sailed away altogether from that part of England,^[733] and steered his course southwards to Sandwich. |Cnut mutilates his hostages.| There he put on shore the hostages who had been given to his father from all parts of England, having first subjected them to various mutilations, as the loss of hands, ears, and noses. He then sailed away to Denmark. Æthelred had thus for once shown real spirit and vigour, and had done a real service to his country. For a moment England |Æthelred ravages Lindesey.| was free from the invaders. But the King disgraced his victory by ravaging Lindesey—no doubt in revenge for its submission to Cnut—as cruelly as Swegen or Cnut could have done. The land was harried with fire and sword, and the people, as far as might be, were slaughtered. |Payment to Thurkill’s fleet.| Lastly, the King levied a tribute of twenty-one thousand or, as some say, thirty thousand,^[734] pounds, for the payment of Thurkill’s fleet which still lay at Greenwich. This fleet, which had so lately been Æthelred’s sole refuge, remained in his service.^[735]

In the same year, as if to illustrate the law that political and natural misfortunes generally come together, the |1014.| sea—in what part of England we are not told—broke in upon the land, and swallowed up many towns and a countless multitude of people.^[736]

In the next year we again come across the name of the infamous Eadric, of whom we have so often heard before, and who now begins a new career of treason even viler and more fatal than anything that has hitherto been recorded of him. On the other hand we have now reached the beginning of the short and glorious career of the hero |First appearance of the Ætheling Eadmund.| Eadmund. This prince seems to have been the third son of Æthelred;^[737] one at least of his elder brothers seems to have died before him; but, if he was not the eldest of the royal house by birth, he soon won for himself the first place by merit. A great Witenagemót was held this year at Oxford, a city whose renown as the seat of a great University belongs to later times, but which the whole course of these wars shows to have been already a place of |History of Oxford.| considerable importance. Its importance however would seem to have been comparatively recent. The well-known legend of Saint Frithswyth^[738] cannot be accepted as historical; but it may be taken as some presumption that Oxford had already become a habitation for man early in the eighth century. But there is no certain historical mention of the place till the early years of the tenth century, |912.| when it appears as one of the chief acquisitions of Eadward the Elder. As it was a frontier town of Mercia and Wessex, we might have expected to find it playing a historic part in far earlier days; but in those times the now utterly insignificant Bensington^[739] seems to have been the chief military post of the frontier. So the now no less insignificant Dorchester was the ecclesiastical capital of a vast diocese, of which the diocese of Oxford, as it stood before recent changes, formed only a small portion. Oxford however was now a place of note; in the new nomenclature of Mercia it had given its name to a shire; and it must have derived some further importance from the presence of the minster which bore the name of the heroine of the local legend. That minster, after an unusual number of changes in its foundation, has at last settled down into the twofold office of the cathedral church of the modern diocese and the chapel of the largest college in the University. The town is mentioned in several charters of the tenth century, one of which, as we have seen, records the burning of the minster in the general massacre of the Danes.^[740] It had |1009–1013.| been, as the course of our story has told us, taken, retaken, and burned in the wars of Swegen. In this year the town, so lately rebuilt after its burning, was the scene of an assembly which was evidently attended by a more than usually numerous body of the Wise Men.^[741] Eadric was now guilty of a crime of the same kind as that by which |1007.| he destroyed Ealdorman Ælfhelm at Shrewsbury nine |Murder of Sigeferth and Morkere by Eadric.| years before. Among the assembled Witan were Sigeferth and Morkere, the sons of Earngrim, two of the chief thegns in the Danish Confederacy of the Seven Boroughs.^[742] These chiefs were invited by Eadric to his own quarters,^[743] where he slew them at a banquet. Æthelred, if he had not ordered this villany, at any rate made himself an accessory after the fact; he confiscated the property of the murdered thegns, and ordered Ealdgyth, the widow of Sigeferth, to be led as a prisoner to Malmesbury. All this would seem to imply some co-operation on the part of the Witan; it may even imply some real guilt in Eadric’s victims; but it in no way lessens the guilt of Eadric and Æthelred. When such things were done, we can understand that men may have thought the rule of the Dane at least not worse than the rule of such Englishmen. A gleam of romance now flashes across the |Marriage of Eadmund and Ealdgyth.| dreary tale of crime and misfortune.^[744] The Ætheling Eadmund had seen the fair widow of Sigeferth, and was smitten with a sudden passion for her. There was no time to be lost; he followed her to her retreat and married her against the will of his father.^[745] The marriage was not without political consequences. Eadmund seems to have looked upon himself, and to have been looked upon by his wife, as the lawful heir of her former husband. Possibly the wealth and dignities of Sigeferth, or some part of them, may have come through his marriage. At any rate Eadmund, at Ealdgyth’s suggestion, demanded the lordships of Sigeferth from his father,^[746] and was refused. |His establishment in the Five Boroughs. August, 1015.| He then went to the Five Boroughs, took possession of the estates of Sigeferth and Morkere, and received the submission of the men of the confederacy.^[747] He thus secured for himself a kind of principality in the North of England, a fact which, in the war which was about again to break out, led to some singular inversions of the usual military geography.

For Cnut had sailed away to Denmark only to sail back to England on the first opportunity.^[748] He is said to have proposed to his brother Harold, the reigning King, to make a division of Denmark and to share in a joint expedition to England.^[749] The former proposal at least was rejected; whether Harold accompanied his brother to England is less certain;^[750] but in any case he was utterly overshadowed by the fame of Cnut, and he soon vanishes from history altogether. According to one account, the voyage was undertaken at the express suggestion of Thurkill, who sailed to Denmark and there made his peace with Cnut.^[751] Thurkill was certainly on Cnut’s side in the war of the next year; he may have thought himself absolved from his duty to Æthelred by that prince’s flight; but on the whole it is more likely |Cnut invades England. Summer, 1015.| that his change of sides happened later. At any rate, Cnut set sail with a fleet whose numbers are variously stated at two hundred ships^[752] and at a thousand,^[753] and of whose stateliness we read as brilliant an account as of those of his father. Moreover we are told that the whole of the crews consisted of men of noble birth in the flower of their age.^[754] With this splendid company, Cnut sailed first to Sandwich, and thence steered along the south coast to Fromemouth; that is to the harbour of Poole and Wareham, the common mouth of the Dorsetshire |He ravages Wessex.| Frome and the Dorsetshire Trent. He then harried the shires of Somerset, Dorset, and Wiltshire, while King Æthelred lay sick at Corsham in the last-named shire. The Ætheling Eadmund now began to levy an army in his new principality,^[755] and Eadric seemingly did the same in his old Mercian government. But the traitor was still |Plans of Eadmund hindered by Eadric.| at his old tricks. When the two divisions came together, Eadric made several attempts to destroy his brother-in-law, the result of which was that the two armies separated, |Eadric rebels, seduces the Danish fleet, and joins Cnut.| leaving the field open to the enemy. Eadric now openly rebelled; he seduced the crews of forty Danish ships in the royal service, those doubtless which were left from Thurkill’s fleet, and joined Cnut. This may have been the time when Thurkill himself took service under his native prince. Or it may have been after Æthelred’s death and the election of Cnut by a large body of the English Witan.^[756] In the latter case, at all events, his allegiance to his old master was no longer binding; the war between Cnut and Eadmund might seem to him a struggle between two candidates for the English crown, in which he, as a Dane, might honourably take the side of the candidate of his own nation.

This defection of Eadric—perhaps of Thurkill—settled |Wessex submits to Cnut.| the fate of Southern England. All Wessex now submitted to the invader; hostages were given and horses were furnished. The kingdom was now practically divided; but—owing mainly to the romantic marriage and settlement of Eadmund—it was divided in a manner exactly opposite from that which might have been naturally looked for. The Thames is, as usual, the boundary; but the English Ætheling reigns to the north, the Danish King to the south, of that river; the Mercians and Northumbrians are arrayed under the Dragon of Wessex, while the West-Saxons themselves serve, however unwillingly, under the Danish Raven. On these strange terms the war began again early in the next year, the last year of |Cnut and Eadric invade Mercia. January, 1016.| this long struggle. Just before the Epiphany, Cnut and Eadric, with their mixed force of Danes and West-Saxons, crossed the Thames at Cricklade,^[757] and entered Mercia. They harried Warwickshire in the usual fashion, ravaging, |Vain attempts of Eadmund to keep an army together.| burning, slaying, as they went. The Ætheling now gathered an army in Mercia, but his troops refused to fight, unless King Æthelred and the Londoners joined them. The army then dispersed in the wonderful way in which armies did disperse in those days. Presently the Ætheling put forth proclamations, summoning every man to join his standard, and denouncing the full penalties of the law against all who held back.^[758] By these means he gathered a larger army; he then sent to his father, who was in London, praying him to join him with whatever forces he could gather. Æthelred did so, and joined his son’s muster with a considerable body of troops. But the old ill luck was at work; the only thing that can be said is that Æthelred was most likely dragged to the field from his death-bed. The two divisions had hardly joined when the King found out, or professed to find out, treacherous plots against his person. These he made an excuse for disbanding the whole army and going back to London. |Eadmund and Uhtred join forces.| With such a King what could be done? Eadmund withdrew to Northumberland, the government of his brother-in-law Uhtred. That Earl, it will be remembered, had been, to say the least, somewhat hasty in submitting to |[1013.]| Swegen, but he now gladly joined Eadmund. All men deemed that the Ætheling would raise a third army in |Ravages of the two armies.| Northumberland, and would march against Cnut. But he and Uhtred contented themselves with ravaging three Mercian shires which had refused to help them against the Danes,^[759] namely Staffordshire, Shropshire, and Cheshire. Cnut meanwhile went plundering on his side through the shires of Buckingham, Bedford, Huntingdon, Northampton, then by Stamford, through Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire, on towards York. The ravaging of his country and the danger of his capital caused Uhtred to |Northumberland under Uhtred submits to Cnut.| cease his own ravages and to hasten homewards. He found further resistance useless;^[760] he submitted to Cnut and gave hostages. The Dane was now again lord of all England,^[761] save only London and whatever extent of country could be held in obedience from London. But now the vengeance of the old feud came upon Uhtred. Thurbrand, whom he had before engaged and omitted to |Murder of Uhtred.| kill, was now allowed to kill him. As Uhtred came to pay his homage to his new prince at a place called Wiheal, a curtain was drawn aside, and armed men stepped forward, who slew the Earl and forty of his companions, among whom one Thurcytel son of Navena is specially mentioned.^[762] This evil deed also was attributed to Eadric, |Eric made Earl of the Northumbrians.| the common author of all evil. The earldom of Northumberland was given by Cnut to a Dane named Eric, who had married his sister Gytha, and had held the government of Norway under Swegen.^[763] But it seems that Eadwulf Cutel, the brother of the murdered Uhtred, either was allowed to hold Bernicia under the supremacy of Eric, or else succeeded to the whole when Eric was banished some years later. The whole North was thus lost; it was again as thoroughly under Danish rule as it had been before the conquests of Eadward. And, worse still, Wessex was under Danish rule too, and it had even outrun Northumberland in its submission. But London still held out; Cnut therefore hastened to subdue the last stronghold of the national life. Events had followed fast upon one another. Christmas had passed before Cnut crossed the |Cnut prepares to attack London.| Thames, and Easter had not come when he crossed it again. He hastened with all speed to his fleet in the Dorset haven, and prepared to sail with his whole force against the still faithful city. Eadmund, either now or earlier,^[764] hastened to join his father in its defence. Cnut was on his voyage, but he seems to have gone more leisurely than might have been expected after the speed |Death of Æthelred. April 23, 1016.| of his march from Yorkshire.^[765] He had only reached Southampton, when tidings were brought of the death of Æthelred. He died on Saint George’s day, probably of the same sickness of which we read the year before, and was buried in Saint Paul’s Minster.

§ 6. The War of Cnut and Eadmund. 1016.

The throne was now again vacant; England was at last set free from the worst and weakest of her native Kings. Æthelred had misgoverned his kingdom till the rule of heathen invaders was felt to be at least not worse than his. He had been deposed and driven out; his kingdom had been reduced to the decks of a few hired Danish ships. He had been restored; adversity had wrought no lasting reform; he had thrown away every advantage, and his kingdom was again confined within the walls of London. That true-hearted city was once more the bulwark of England, the centre of every patriotic hope, the special object of every hostile attack. Beyond its walls, all was either actually in the hands of the invader or exposed to his power. The Witan of England, Bishops, Abbots, Ealdormen, |Double election to the crown of Cnut and Eadmund. April, 1016.| Thegns, all who were without the walls of London, met in full Gemót, and chose Cnut to the vacant throne. They may well have deemed that further resistance was hopeless, and it should not be forgotten that the full glory of the character of Eadmund had not yet displayed itself. He had shown a gallant spirit, but he had as yet achieved no signal success; the harrying of the three Mercian shires was, to say the least, a very harsh measure; and he may have shown somewhat of turbulence and self-will in the affair of his marriage and settlement in the Five Boroughs. The assembly therefore passed him by; they chose—perhaps they could hardly help choosing—the Conqueror; they hastened to Southampton, they abjured the whole house of Æthelred, they swore oaths to Cnut and received oaths from him that he would be a good and faithful lord to them before God and before the world. It was perhaps at this time that he received baptism or confirmation at the hands of Æthelnoth the future Archbishop; but he does not seem to have received the ecclesiastical rite of coronation.^[766] And even his election did not represent the voice of all England. We now meet with, what is so common in German, and so rare in English, history, a double election to the crown. Cnut was chosen at Southampton, but the citizens of London, with such of the other Witan as were within the city, held a counter Gemót—no doubt the earlier of the two in date—and with one voice^[767] elected the Ætheling Eadmund. His coronation at the hands of Archbishop Lyfing followed. The town which had been of late the usual place for the consecration of Kings, Kingston in Surrey, was probably in possession of the enemy; at all events the rite was done within the walls of the city, no doubt in the minster of Saint Paul, where the late King had just been buried. Whether Eadmund was the eldest surviving son of Æthelred is uncertain;^[768] there could be no doubt as to |Short and glorious reign of Eadmund.| his being the worthiest. Now, after the long and dreary reign of his father, England had once more at her head a true King of Men, a hero worthy to wield the sword of Ælfred and Æthelstan. The change came at once; with her new King England received a new life; after twenty-eight |988–1016.| years of unutterable weakness and degradation, we now come to seven months of almost superhuman energy. |Change wrought by a single worthy leader.| We see that all that had been wanting through that long and wretched time was a worthy leader; we see that, without such a leader, the English people were helpless; we see that, under such a leader, even after all that they had gone through, they were still capable of exertions which, twenty or even ten years before, would have driven back the invaders for ever. Everything that could weaken and demoralize a people, everything that could thoroughly weigh down and dishearten them, had fallen on the English nation during the long misgovernment of Æthelred. A generation had grown up which had been used from its childhood to see invaders land and ravage at pleasure. They had seen the noblest local efforts thwarted by incompetence and treachery at head-quarters. They had seen a King and his counsellors incapable of any better device than that of buying off the heathen invader for a moment. They had seen the strength of the nation, while the enemy was preying on its vitals, wasted on distant, bootless, and unrighteous enterprises. They had seen the basest of traitors basking in the royal smiles, while the true and valiant defenders of their country were left unrewarded and unnoticed. Such had been the unvaried course of English history for eight and twenty years. But, even after all this, the heart of the English people still was sound. The wretched Æthelred had ended his days, and under his glorious son hope and courage woke to life again. In the days of the father, one shire would no longer help another; in the days of the son, the most distant parts of the land sent their contingents to the national armies of England. Those armies, instead of flying at the first blow, instead of disbanding before a blow was struck, could now face the enemy in pitched battle after pitched battle. The standard of England again waved over fields on which the English arms were often crowned with victory, and where defeat at least never was disgrace. Once only in the course of his long reign had Æthelred dared to meet a Danish King in open fight. Now six great battles in seven months showed what Englishmen could still do under a King worthy of his people. The year of the battles of Eadmund is worthy to |871.| be placed alongside of the year of the battles of Ælfred. But the traitor still lived to thwart the noblest efforts of the hero; Eadric still remained the evil genius of the reign of Eadmund no less than of the reign of his father.