volve in considerable obscurity. Our business is with a province and not with the kingdom at large.

In the year 983, which was early in the unfortunate reign of Ethelred II. died Alfer, the powerful duke of Mercia, who, notwithstanding his animosity towards the monks, was a statesman of resolute mind. He sought to give stability to the crown by uniting the nobility and secular clergy in its support, against the more popular faction of the monks and their dependents; we are therefore not surprised to find his memory stigmatized by the monkish historians of that period, who assert that long before his death he was afflicted with the morbus pediculosus as a divine punishment for his iniquities.

He was succeeded in his title and domains by his son Alfric, who is mentioned by Ingulphus, as one who enforced the levy of insupportable sums on the monasteries for the payment of tribute to the Danes. In the year 986, Alfric was banished. The cause of his banishment does not appear, but he was probably suspected of carrying on negociations with the invaders. When a peace was made in 991 with the Danish leaders, Alfric, together with Earl Ethelward, negociated the terms and engaged for the payment of ten thousand pounds, as a recompense to these marauders for quitting the country. Alfric, after this was recalled and placed in high offices of trust, but he did not desist from his treacherous correspondence with the enemy. The policy of the court was pusillanimous and fraudulent; nor did the nobility feel any compunction at engaging in the most traitorous designs. Duke Alfric, in courting an alliance with the Danes, was undoubtedly actuated by a desire to retain his territories, under a power whom he might foresee to be destined to drive from the throne a sovereign who had lost the confidence of the people; and it is not impossible that he might look forward to the separation of Mercia, and the other Danish districts from the Saxon crown. Whatever were his views, he contrived to obtain from Ethelred the command of a fleet, which that monarch had prepared to defend the coast; and then, being in sight of the enemy, he sailed privately away, and left the vessels with which he was entrusted to the mercy of the foe. The fleet had been equipped out of the money which he had himself levied upon the monasteries, and of which he and the king were suspected to have shared a considerable portion. It is only from this circumstance that we can account for his being speedily again restored to the favour of Ethelred, who entrusted him with the command of a large and well-appointed army, destined to oppose Sweyn, king of Denmark, who, with a fleet of three hundred sail, had landed upon the coast of Cornwall, and marched directly against Exeter. That city was taken and made a heap of ashes, and Sweyn marched with his victorious troops through the counties of Wiltshire and Hampshire, laying waste the country in his progress. The inhabitants of those districts, driven from their homes, joined the advancing army under the command of the duke of Mercia, and expectation was raised that the invader would be defeated, and that the spoils with which his camp was laden, would be taken from him. The armies met on the borders of Hampshire, but just as the attack was about to commence, duke Alfric feigned himself to be taken sick very suddenly, and led off the army under his command, in such a direction that the king of Denmark had time to take Salisbury and other towns, which having pillaged and consumed to ashes, he marched unmolested to his ships and set sail with his booty to his native country.

Whether it was in consequence of this conduct that Alfric was disgraced, and deprived of the dukedom of Mercia, is uncertain, but we find him in the year 1007 dispossessed of his territories, which were bestowed on Edric, surnamed Streon, or the Acquirer. This man was of low origin, but by the acuteness and versatility of his mind, had attained so complete an influence over his sovereign, that the most manifest proofs of his treachery could never wholly eradicate the favour and confidence to which he owed his elevation. Ethelred bestowed upon him his daughter Edgitha in marriage, and appointed Brithric, the brother of Edric, to the command of the fleet destined to act against the Danes. These two brothers employed their interest with the infatuated monarch in ruining many of the wealthiest thanes, whose riches and possessions were confiscated in consequence of the charges brought against them. Among these was Wolnoth, earl of Kent, the father of the celebrated Goodwin, afterwards as distinguished for his immense wealth as for Qq

his eminent treachery, which seems to be the prevailing characteristic of the Saxon nobility of that period. Wolnoth was nearly related to the two brothers, for Edric Streon is by many historians stated to be the uncle of Goodwin.* It is not improbable that Wolnoth had married a sister of the two brothers. In consequence of accusations brought against him, Wolnoth fled from a prosecution in which he suspected that his destruction was previously concerted, and being joined by several leaders of the fleet under Brithric, with their vessels, he infested the coasts, and particularly levied large contributions from Mercia and East Anglia. Brithric, by the direction of Edric, who was desirous to preserve his own domains from spoliation, set sail with the large and well-appointed fleet destined to protect the coast from the ravages of the Danes, to chastise their private enemy. A storm arose: the vessels were scattered and many of them wrecked: Brithric was lost, and most of the surviving captains were persuaded to unite with Wolnoth in his piratical enterprises. In fact, this species of piracy along the coasts, appears, from the accounts of the old historians, to have become quite common; and it is doubtful whether the country suffered more from the Danes than from the armaments of the greedy and ambitious thanes, who were ever ready to join and participate in the booty of the invaders.

The Danes were ever ready to take advantage of the disorders of a country where a few powerful noblemen controlled the king and were intent upon ruining one another. In the year 1009, two large fleets of these invaders arrived on the coasts of England; one of which, under the command of Heming and Anlaff, proceeded to the isle of Thanet. The forces 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

The genealogy given by Dugdale can scarcely be correct, for he makes three generations between Edric and Goodwin, that is, in less than twenty-five years.

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.

Apprehensive that the throne of Denmark would, in his absence, be seized upon by his younger brother, Canute quitted for a time the newly acquired realm of England; and Ethelred, who had been recalled immediately upon the death of Sweyn, by his Saxon subjects, was re-instated in 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-inlaw Edric Streon.

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 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, 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 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.

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

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.

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 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.

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 Ethelfleda ; 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 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."

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

Leofric was earl of Chester during the lifetime of his father, and enjoyed 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 half brother, 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 it up for four successive days to the plunder of the soldiery.

Edward, surnamed the Confessor, was, on the death of Hardicanute, 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.

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

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, illsuited 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 of Goodwin, Harold became duke of Wessex, and the earldom of the East 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.

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 sanctified 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 occa

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