him incessantly with tormenting agony, nothing could suppress his unwearied and inextinguishable genius. Though environed with difficulties which would have shipwrecked any other man, his energetic spirit converted them into active instruments to advance him to virtue and to fame.

His religious impressions led him from his childhood to be a frequent visitor at sacred places, for the purposes of giving alms, and offering prayer. It was from this practice, that as he was hunting in Cornwall, near Liskeard, and observing a village church near, he dismounted, and went into it. A Cornish man of religion, called St. Gueryr, had been buried there. The name implied that he had possessed medical powers or reputation; and with a sudden hope of obtaining relief from his distressing malady, Alfred prostrated himself there in silent prayer to God, and remained a long time mentally petitioning that its sufferings might be alleviated. He solicited any change of the divine visitations that would not make him useless in body or contemptible in his personal appearance; for he was afraid of leprosy or blindness, but he implored relief. His devotions ended, he quitted the tomb of the saint, and resumed his journey. No immediate effect followed. He had often prayed before for relief in vain but now, in no long space afterwards, his constitution experienced beneficial alteration, and this complaint entirely ceased, though after his marriage it was succeeded by another and a worse, which lasted till his death (1).

:

868.

For a while we must leave Alfred aspiring to become the student, to describe that storm of desolation and ferocious war which was proceeding from the North to intercept the progress and disturb the happiness of the future king, and to lay waste the whole island with havock the most sanguinary, and ruin the most permanent.

CHAPTER VI.

The Accession of Ethelred, the third Son of Ethelwulph. The Arrival of the Sons of Ragnar Lodbrog in England. Their Revenge on Ella.- Conquests and Depreda

tions.

Ethelred's Death.

866-871.

As the life of Ragnar Lodbrog had disturbed the peace of many regions of Europe, his death became the source of peculiar evil to England. When his sons heard of his fate in the prison in Northumbria, they determined on revenge. Their transient hostilities as sea-kings were laid aside for the grati

(1) Asser, 40. Flor. Wig. 309 Guerir, in Cornish, signifies to heal or cure. Camden places the church near Liskeard. St. Neot lived here after Guerir, and it acquired the name from him of Neot-stoke. Whit. Neot. 109.

fication of this passion; and as their father's fame was the conversation and pride of the North, they found that wherever they spread news of his catastrophe, and their own resolutions to avenge it, their feelings were applauded, and auxiliaries procured to join them, from every part. Bands of warriors confederated from every region for this vindictive object. Jutes, Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, Russians, and others; all the fury and all the valour of the North assembled for the expedition (1), while none of the AngloSaxon kings even suspected the preparations.

Eight kings and twenty earls, the children, relatives, and associates of Ragnar, were its leaders (2). Their armament assembled without molestation, and when it had become numerous enough to promise success to their adventure, Halfden, Ingwar, and Hubba, three of Ragnar's sons, assumed the command, sailed out of the Baltic, and conducted it safely to the English coasts. By some error in the pilotage, or accident of weather, or actual policy, it passed Northumbria, and anchored off the shores of East Anglia.

Ethelred was scarcely seated on his brother's throne, before the great confederacy began to arrive. It found the country in a state auspicious to an invasion. Four distinct governments divided its natural force, whose narrow policy saw nothing but triumph and safety in the destruction of each other. One of these, the peculiar object of the hostility of the North, was plunged in a civil warfare.

Of the Anglo-Saxon governments, the kingdom of Northumbria had been always the most perturbed. Usurper murdering usurper, is the pervading incident. A crowd of ghastly monarchs 'pass swiftly along the page of history as we gaze; and scarcely was the sword of the assassin sheathed before it was drawn against its master, and he was carried to the sepulchre which he had just closed upon another. In this manner, during the last century and a half, no fewer than seventeen sceptred chiefs hurled each other from their joyless throne, and the deaths of the greatest number were accompanied by hecatombs of their friends.

When the Northern fleet suddenly appeared off East Anglia, such sanguinary events were still disturbing Northumbria. Osbert had been four years expelled by Ella from the throne which he had usurped from another, and at this juncture was formidable enough to dare his rival again to the ambitious field (3).

The Danish chieftains who first landed did not at once rush to

(1) 2 Langb. 278. Saxo, 176. A. Beverl. 92. Hunt. 347. M. West. 316. Bromton, 803. Sim. Dun. 13. Al. Riev. 353.

(2) The kings were Bacseg, Halfden, Ingwar, Ubba, Guthrums, Oskitel, Amund and Eowls. Al. Bev. 93. Simeon adds to the kings, Sidroc, with a jarl of that name; Frena and Harald, p. 14.

(3) Ella is called by Huntingdon degenerem, 349. Asser describes him as tyrannum quendam Ella nomine non de regali prosapia progenitum super regni apicem constituerant, p. 18.

their destined prey. Whether accident or policy had occasioned them to disembark in East Anglia, they made it a beneficial event. Awing the country by a force which the winds had never wafted from Denmark (1) before, they quietly passed the winter in their camp, collecting provisions and uniting their friends. They demanded a supply of horses from the king, who complied with their request, and mounted the greatest part of their army (2). He attempted no enmity; he suffered them to enjoy their wintry feasts unmolested; no alliance with the other Saxon kingdoms was made during the interval; each state looked on with hope, that the collected tempest was to burst upon another; and as the menaced government was a rival, nothing but advantage was foreseen from its destruction.

The Northern kings must have contemplated this behaviour with all the satisfaction and contempt of meditative mischief and conscious superiority. The Northumbrian usurpers at last sheathed, though tardily, the swords of contending ambition; and, on the advice of their nobles, united for their mutual defence and the general safety (3).

The invaders, although in many bands, like the Grecian host before Troy, yet submitted to the predominance of Ingwar and Ubbo, or Hubba, two of the sons of Ragnar. Of these two, Ingwar was distinguished for a commanding genius, and Ubbo for his fortitude; both were highly courageous, and inordinately cruel (4).

867.

In the next spring, the invaders roused from their useful repose, and marched into Yorkshire. The metropolis of the county was their first object; and, on the first of March, it yielded to their attack. Devastation followed their footsteps; they extended their divisions to the Tyne, but, without passing it, returned to York (5).

Osbert and Ella, having completed their pacification, moved forwards, accompanied with eight of their earls, and on the 12th of April, assaulted the Northmen near York. The Danes, surprised by the attack, fled into the city. The English pursued with the eagerness of anticipated victory, broke down the slight walls (6),

(1) Al. Bev. 93.

(2) Asser, 15. The Icelanders intimate that the Northmen on their first arrival found Ella too powerful; and that Ingwar negotiated with him, and cultivated treasonable intercourse with his subjects, till the complete arrival of the invaders enabled him to prosecute his revenge. 2 Langb. 278.

(3) Hunt. 349. Asser, 18. So Sim. Dun. 14.

(4) Hunt. 348. Ubbo is called chief of the Frisians by Sim. Dun. 70. Adam of Bremen describes Ingwar as the most cruel of all, and as destroying Christians every where in torments, p. 14. He is also called Ivar.

(5) Sim. Dun. 14. In this year Ealstan died, the celebrated bishop and statesman. Asser, 18.

(6) Asser remarks, that York had not at this period walls so firm and stable as in the latter part of Alfred's reign, 18.

and entered, conflicting promiscuously with their enemies; but having abandoned the great advantage of their superior discipline, the English rushed only to destruction. No nation could hope to excel the Northmen in personal intrepidity or manual dexterity; from their childhood they were exercised in single combat and disorderly warfare; the disunited Northumbrians were therefore cut down with irremediable slaughter. Osbert and Ella, their chiefs, and most of their army perished (1). The sons of Ragnar inflicted a cruel and inhuman retaliation on Ella, for their father's sufferings. They divided his back, spread his ribs into the figure of an eagle, and agonised his lacerated flesh by the addition of the saline stimulant (2).

After this battle, decisive of the fate of Northumbria, it appeared no more as an Anglo-Saxon kingdom. The people beyond the Tyne appointed Egbert as their sovereign, but in a few years he was expelled, and one Ricseg took the shadowy diadem. In 876 he died with grief at the distresses of his country, and another Egbert obtained the nominal honours (3). But Ingwar was the Danish chief, who, profiting by his victory, assumed the sceptre of Northumbria from the Humber to the Tyne (4).

A dismal sacrifice had been offered up to the manes of Ragnar, yet the invaders did not depart. It was soon evident that their object was to conquer, in order to occupy; desolation followed their victories, because Northmen could not move to battle without it; but while plunder was the concomitant of their march, dominion became the passion of their chiefs.

The country was affected by a great dearth this year, which the presence of such enemies must have enhanced. Alfred had now reached his nineteenth year; he was raised by his brother to an inferior participation of the regal dignity, and he married Ealswitha,

867. the daughter of a Mercian nobleman (5). The earAlfred's marriage. nestness with which Alfred in his Boetius speaks of conjugal affection implies that this union contributed greatly to his felicity.

(1) Asser, 18. Sim. Dun. 14. The place where they fell was in Bromton's time called Ellescroft. Bromt. 803.

(2) Frag. Isl. 2 Lang. 279. Ragnar Saga, ib. The Scalld Sigvatr. ib. Saxo Gram. 177. This punishment was often inflicted by these savage conquerors on their enemies. See some instances in Stephanius, 193.

(3) Sim. Dun. 14, Matt. West. 326, 327, 328. Leland's Collect. ii. p. 373.

(4) The language of the Northern writers is, that Ivar obtained that part of England which his ancestors had possessed. Ragnar Saga, in Torfæus Series Dan. Olaff Tryggv. Saga, ib. 375. This adds that he reigned a long while, and died without issue, 376. So Frag. Isl. 2 Langb. 279.

(5) Ethelred, surnamed the Large. The mother of Alfred's queen was Eadburh, of the family of the Mercian kings. Asser frequently saw her before her death, and calls her a venerable woman Her daughter's merit as a wife leads us to infer the excellence and careful nurture of the mother, 19.

The Northmen, having resolved on their plans of occupation and conquest, began to separate into divisions. One body rebuilt York, cultivated the country round it, and continued to colonise it (1). It may be presumed that Ingwar headed these. Other bands devoted themselves to promote the ambition of those chieftains who also aspired to royal settlements.

868.

This army passed the Humber into Mercia, and established themselves at Nottingham (2), where they wintered. Alarmed by their approach, Burrhed, the king, and his nobles, sent an urgent embassy to West Saxony for assistance. Ethelred, with judicious policy, hastened to his wishes. He joined the Mercian with Alfred and the whole force of his dominions; and their united armies marched towards the frontier through which the invaders had penetrated.

They found the Northmen in possession of Nottingham; the Danes discerned the great superiority of the allied armies, and remained within the strong walls and castle of the town (3). The Anglo-Saxons were incapable of breaking through these fortifications, and their mutual respect, after an ineffectual struggle, occasioned a pacification, advantageous only to the Danes. The invaders were to retreat to York, and the kings of Wessex, satisfied with having delivered Mercia, and not discerning the danger of suffering the Northmen to remain in any part of the island, re-e turned home (4).

The Northmen retired to York with great booty (5). In this year two of the most terrible calamities to mankind occurred, a great famine, and its inevitable attendant, a mortality of cattle, and of the human race (6). The general misery presented no temptations to the rapacity of the Northmen, and they remained a year in their Yorkshire stations (7).

870.

When spring arrived, they threw off all disguise, and signalised this fourth year of their residence in England by a series of hostilities the most fatal, and of ravages

(1) Sin. Dun. Vita St. Cuthberti, 71.

(2) Its British name was Tiguo Cobauc, the house of caves, Asser, 19. Ty, is a house in Welsh now; and cwb, a concavity. In the charter of 868, it is called Snothryngham, the house of Snothryng; which in the days of Ingulf had become changed to Nothingham, p. 18, 19.

(3) Pagani munitione fortissimorum murorum et arcis validissimæ confidentes. Ingulf, 20. Burrhed in a charter to Croyland, dated Aug. 1. 868, states himself to have made it at Snothryngham before his brother's friends, and all his people assembled to besiege the pagans.

(4) Asser, 20., mentions no conflict; the Saxon Chronicle asserts, that an attack was made on the intrenchments, but disgraces the Anglo-Saxons, by adding, that it was not severe, p. 79. The monk of Croyland praises the young earl Algar, for his prowess in the affair, p. 18.

(5) Ingulf, 18-20.

(7) Sax. Chron. 80. Asser, 20.

(6) Asser, 20.