CHAPTER VI.
THE DANISH OLIGARCHY: DISAFFECTIONS ATTENDING CHRONIC USURPATION PROCLIVITIES.
Edgar was succeeded by his son Edward, called "the Martyr," who ascended the throne at the age of fifteen years. His step-mother, Elfrida, opposed him, and favored her own son, Ethelred. Edward was assassinated in 978, at the instigation of his step-mother, and that's what's the martyr with him.
During his reign there was a good deal of ill feeling, and Edward would no doubt have been deposed but for the influence of the church under Dunstan.
Ethelred was but ten years old when he began reigning. Sadly poor Dunstan crowned him, his own eyes still wet with sorrow over the cruel death of Edward. He foretold that Ethelred would have a stormy reign, with sleet and variable winds, changing to snow.
During the remainder of the great prelate's life he, as it were, stood between the usurper and the people, and protected them from the threatening storm.
But in 991, shortly after the death of Dunstan, a great army of Norwegians came over to England for purposes of pillage. To say that it was an allopathic pillage would not be an extravagant statement. They were extremely rude people, like all the nations of northern Europe at that time,—Rome being the Boston of the Old World, and Copenhagen the Fort Dodge of that period.
The Norwegians ate everything that did not belong to the mineral kingdom, and left the green fields of merry England looking like a base-ball ground. So wicked and warlike were they that the sad and defeated country was obliged to give the conquering Norske ten thousand pounds of silver.
Dunstan died at the age of sixty-three, and years afterwards was canonized; but firearms had not been invented at the time of his death. He led the civilization and progress of England, and was a pioneer in cherishing the fine arts.
Olaf, who led the Norwegians against England, afterwards became king of
Norway, and with the Danes used to ever and anon sack Great
Britain,—i.e., eat everybody out of house and home, and then ask for
a sack of silver as the price of peace.