THE DANISH CONQUEST. A.D. 958--1035.


The last very prosperous king was Alfred's great-grandson, Edgar, who
was owned as their over-lord by all the kings of the remains of the
Britons in Wales and Scotland. Once, eight of these kings came to
meet him at Chester, and rowed him in his barge along the river Dee.
It was the grandest day a king of England enjoyed for many years.
Edgar was called the peaceable, because there were no attacks by the
Danes at all through his reign. In fact, the Northmen and Danes had
been fighting among themselves at home, and these fights generally
ended in some one going off as a Sea-King, with all his friends, and
trying to gain a new home in some fresh country. One great party of
Northmen under a very tall and mighty chief named Rollo, had some time
before, thus gone to France, and forced the King to give them a great
piece of his country, just opposite to England, which was called after
them Normandy. There they learned to talk French, and grew like
Frenchmen, though they remained a great deal braver, and more spirited
than any of their neighbors.

There were continually fleets of Danish ships coming to England; and
the son of Edgar, whose name was Ethelred, was a helpless, cowardly
sort of man, so slow and tardy, that his people called him Ethelred
the Unready. Instead of fitting out ships to fight against the Danes,
he took the money the ships ought to have cost to pay them to go away
without plundering; and as to those who had come into the country
without his leave, he called them his guard, took them into his pay,
and let them live in the houses of the English, where they were very
rude, and gave themselves great airs, making the English feed them on