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howling barbarians poured in, exulting to find CHAP. Christian priests to massacre. The venerable abbot was hewed down at the altar by the cruel Oskitul, and the attendant ministers were beheaded after him. The old men and children, who ran affrighted from the choir, were seized and tortured, to discover the treasure of the place. The prior suffered in the vestry, the subprior in the refectory; every part of the sacred edifice was stained with blood. One child only, of ten years of age, whose beautiful countenance happened to interest the younger Sidroc, was permitted to survive. The spoilers broke down all the tombs and monuments, with the avaricious hope of discovering treasures; and, on the third day, they committed the superb edifice to the flames.

WITH a great plunder of cattle, the insatiate barbarians marched the next day to Peterborough.31 There stood a monastery, the glory of the architecture of the age, and whose library was a large repository of books, which the anxious labours of two centuries had collected. But arts and science were toys not worthy even to amuse their women, in the

30 One of the Sidrocs had already distinguished himself for his aggressions on France. In 852, and 855, he entered the Seine with much successful depredation. Chron. Fontanel. Bouquet 7. p. 40-43.

31 This also stands in the land of the Girvii or Fenmen, who occupied those immense marshes, containing millions of acres, where the counties of Lincoln, Cambridge, Huntingdon, and Northampton meet. Camd. 408. The marshes are described by Hugo Candidus as furnishing wood and turf for fire, hay for cattle, reeds for thatching, and fish and water-fowl for subsistence. Peterborough monastery was in the best portion. On one side was a range of water, on the other woods and a cultivated country. It was accessible on all sides but the East, where a boat was requisite.

IV.

870.

BOOK estimation of these invaders. They assailed the gates and fastenings, and with their archers and machines attacked the walls. The monks resisted with all their means of annoyance. A brother of Ubbo was carried off to his tent, wounded by the blow of a stone. This incident added a new incentive to the cruel fury of the Northmen. They burst in at the second assault under Ubbo. He slew the hoary abbot, and all the monks, with his own weapon. Every other inhabitant was slaughtered without mercy by his followers. One man only had a gleam of humanity. Sidroc cautioned the little boy, whom he had saved from Croyland, to keep out of the way of Ubbo. The immense booty which they were gorged with did not mitigate their love of ruin. The much admired monastery, and its valuable and scarcely reparable literary treasures, were soon wrapt in fire. For fifteen days the conflagration continued.

THE Northmen, turning to the south, advanced to Huntingdon. The two earls Sidroc were appointed to guard the rear and the baggage over the rivers. As they were passing the Nen2, after the rest of the army, two cars, laden with vast wealth and property, with all the cattle drawing them, were overturned, at the left of the stone bridge, into a depthless whirlpool. While all the attendants of the younger Sidroc were employed in recovering what was possible of the loss, the child of Croyland ran into the nearest wood, and, walking all night, he beheld the smoking ruins of his monastery at the dawn.

32 This river runs through Northampton, making many reaches by the winding of its banks. Camden calls it a very noble river, p. 430.

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He found that the monks had returned from In- C HA P. carig the day before, and were laboriously toiling to extinguish the flames, which yet raged in various divisions of the monastery. When they heard from the infant the fate of their superior and elder brethren, unconquerable sorrow suspended their exertions, till wearied nature compelled a remission of their grief. They collected such as they could find of the mutilated and half-consumed bodies, and buried them with sympathetic reverence. Having repaired part of the ruins, they chose another abbot; when the hermits of Incarig came to implore their charitable care for the bodies at Peterborough, which the animals of prey were violating. A deputation of monks was sent, who found the corpses, and interred them in one large grave, with the abbot at the summit. A stony pyramid covered his remains, round which were afterwards engraven their images in memorial of the catastrophe.

33

SPREADING devastation and murder around them as they marched, the Northmen proceeded into Cambridgeshire. Ely and its first Christian church and monastery, with the heroic nuns, who mutilated their faces to preserve their honour, were destroyed by the ruthless enemy; and many other places were desolated.

34

of East

THE sanguinary invaders went afterwards into Invasion East Anglia. The throne of this kingdom was Anglia. occupied by Edmund, a man praised for his affa

33 Ingulf, 22-24. Chron. Petrib. 18-20.

34 Abbo Floriacensis, who wrote in the tenth century, describes East Anglia as nearly environed with waters; immense marshes, an hundred miles in extent, were on the north; the ocean on the east and south. On the west it was protected from the irruptions of the other members of the octarchy, by a mound of earth like a lofty wall. Its soil was fertile and VOL. I.

L L

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BOOK bility, his gentleness, and humility. He may have merited all the lavish encomiums which he has received for the milder virtues; but he was deficient in those manly energies whose vigorous activity would have met the storm in its fury, and might have disarmed it of its terrors.35

INGWAR, separating from Ubbo, proceeded to the place where Edmund resided. The picture annexed to his route represents a burning country, the highways strewed with the victims of massacre, violated women, the husband expiring on his own threshold near his wife, and the infant torn from its mother's bosom, and slain before her eyes to increase her screams. Ingwar had heard a favourable account of Edward's warlike abilities, and by a rapid movement endeavoured, according to the usual plan of the Northmen37, to surprise the king, before he

36

pleasant; it was full of lakes two or three miles in space; its marshes were peopled with monks. MSS. Cott. Library. Tib. B. 2. p. 3.

35 One of the fullest accounts of the fate of Edmund, is in the little book of Abbo. He addresses it to the famous Dunstan, from whom he had the particulars he narrates. He intimates that Dunstan used to repeat them with eyes moist with tears, and had learnt them from an old soldier of Edmund's, who simply and faithfully recounted them upon his oath to the illustrious Ethelstan. Abbo's treatise has been printed abroad in Acta Sanctorum. Cologne, vol. vi. p. 465–472. ed. 1575. 36" Maritus cum conjuge aut mortuus aut moribundus jacebat in limine; infans raptus a matris uberibus, ut major esset ejulatus, trucidabatur coram maternis obtutibus." Abbo, MSS. p. 3. This author was so well acquainted with Virgil and Horace as to cite them in his little work.

37 Abbo remarks of the Danish nation, 66 cum semper studeat rapto vivere, nunquam tamen indicta pugna palam contendit cum hoste, nisi preventa insidiis, ablata spe ad portus navium remeandi," MSS. p. 6.

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could present an armed country to repel him. Ed- CHA P. mund, though horrors had for some time been raging round his frontiers, was roused to no preparations; had meditated no warfare. He was dwelling quietly in a village near Hagilsdun, when the active Dane appeared near him, and he was taken completely unawares.

His earl, Ulfketul, had made one effort to save East Anglia, but it failed. His army was decisively beaten at Thetford with profuse slaughter; and this calamity deeply wounded the mind of Edmund, who did not reflect, that to resist the Danes with energy, was not merely to uphold his own domination, but to protect his people from the most fatal ruin." 39

As Ingwar drew nigh to the royal residence he sent one of his countrymen to the king, with a haughty command, to divide his treasures, submit to his religion, and reign in subjection to his will. "And who are you that should dare to withstand our power! The storm of the ocean deters not our proposed enterprise, but serves us instead of Neither the loud roarings of the sky, nor its darting lightnings have ever injured us. Submit, then, with your subjects, to a master whom even the elements respect." 40

oars.

38 The Hill of Eagles. It is now, says Bromton, 805, called Hoxne. It is upon the Waveney, a little river dividing part of Norfolk from Suffolk. It is not far from Diss in Norfolk. Camden names it Hoxon, p. 375.

39 Ingulf, 24. Asser, 20. Matt. West. 318.

40❝ Et quis tu, ut tantæ potentiæ insolenter audeas contradicere? Marinæ tempestatis procella nostris servit remigiis, nec movet a preposito directæ intentionis.- Quibus nec ingens mugitus cœli, nec crebri jactus fulminum unquam nocuerunt. Esto itaque, cum tuis omnibus, sub hoc imperatore maximo eui famulantur elementa." Abbo, ib.