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THE HISTORY

OF

THE ANGLO-SAXON S.

CONTINUATION OF

BOOK VI.

CHAPTER IX.

Ethelred the Unready.

978.

ETHELRED Succeeded on his brother's assassination; but the action which procured his power was too atrocious to give all the effect to the policy of his adherents which had been projected. Dunstan retained his dignity, and at least his influence; for what nation could be so depraved as to patronize a woman, who, at her own gate, had caused her king and son-in-law to be assassinated! In attempting to subvert Dunstan by such a deed, she failed. After no long interval, he excited the popular odium, and the terrors of guilt, so successfully against her, that she became overwhelmed with shame, and took shelter in a nunnery, and in building nunneries, from the public abhorrence.

The reign of Ethelred presents the history of a bad government, uncorrected by its unpopularity and calamities; and of a discontented nation preferring at last the yoke of an invader, whose visits its nobles either invited or encouraged. In the preceding reigns, from Alfred to Edgar, the Anglo-Saxon spirit was never agitated by danger, but it acted to triumph. By its exertions, a rich and powerful nation had been created, which might have continued to predominate in Europe with increasing honour

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and great national felicity. But within a few years after Ethelred's accession the pleasing prospect begins to fade. The tumultuary contests in the last reign between the monks and the clergy, and their respective supporters, had not had time to cease. Dunstan acquiring the direction of the government under Ethelred, involved the throne again in the conflict, and the sovereign was placed at variance with the nobles and parochial clergy. The measures of the government were unsatisfactory to the nation. The chiefs became factious and disloyal, and the people discontented, till a foreign dynasty was at last preferred to the legal native succession.

Ethelred was but ten years of age when he attained the crown. His amiable disposition gave the tears of affection to his brother's memory; but Elfrida could not pardon a sensibility which looked like accusation, and might terminate in rebellion to her will, and the disappointment of her ambition. She seized a waxen candle which was near, and beat and terrified the infant with a dreadful severity, which left him nearly expiring. The anguish of the blows never quitted his remembrance. It is affirmed, that during the remainder of his life, he could not endure the presence of a light. Perhaps the irresolution, the pusillanimity, the yielding imbecility, which characterized him during his long reign, may have originated in the perpetual terror which the guardianship of such a mother, striving to break his temper into passive obedience to her will, on this and other occasions, wilfully produced.

As her power declined, the feelings of the nation expressed themselves more decidedly. The commander of Mercia, and Dunstan, attended by a great crowd, went to Wareham, removed the body of the deceased sovereign, and buried it with honour at Shaftesbury. Dunstan might now triumph: though his opponents might equal him in daring, they were his inferiors in policy.

After a flow of prosperity uninterrupted for nearly a century, England, in the full tide of its strength, was insulted by 980. seven Danish ships, which plundered Southampton and Thanet. The same vikingr, in the next season, ravaged in Cornwall and Devonshire. In the year following, three ships molested the isle of Portland.d

The reappearance of the Northmen excited much conversation at the time. Another attempt of the same sort was made at Wecedport, where the English gained the field of burial,

988.

a Malmsb. 62.

b Flor. 362. Sax. Chron. 125.

e Flor. Wig. 362. Sax. Chron. 125. Tib. B. 1. As Olave Tryggvason was at this time marauding on the English coast, and at last reached the Scilly isles, he may have been the sea-king who renewed the invasion of England.

Flor. 363. Sim. Dun. 161.

• Malmsb. 62.

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