1007
The country, wasted by the Danes, harassed by the fruitless expeditions of its own forces, was reduced to the utmost desolation, and at last submitted to the infamy of purchasing a precarious peace from the enemy, by the payment of thirty thousand pounds.
The English endeavored to employ this interval in making preparations against the return of the Danes, which they had reason soon to expect. A law was made, ordering the proprietors of eight hides of land to provide each a horseman and a complete suit of armor, and those of three hundred and ten hides to equip a ship for the defence of the coast. When this navy was assembled, which must have consisted of near eight hundred vessels,[*] all hopes of its success were disappointed by the factions, animosities, and dissensions of the nobility. Edric had impelled his brother Brightric to prefer an accusation of treason against Wolfnoth, governor of Sussex, the father of the famous Earl Godwin; and that nobleman, well acquainted with the malevolence as well as power of his enemy, found no means of safety Dut in deserting with twenty ships to the Danes.
[* There were two hundred and forty-three thousand
six hundred hides in England. Consequently, the ships
equipped must be seven hundred and eighty-five. The cavalry
was thirty thousand four hundred and fifty men.]
Brightric pursued him with a fleet of eighty sail; but his ships being shattered in a tempest, and stranded on the coast, he was suddenly attacked by Wolfnoth, and all his vessels burnt and destroyed. The imbecility of the king was little capable of repairing this misfortune. The treachery of Edric frustrated every plan for future defence; and the English navy, disconcerted, discouraged, and divided, was at last scattered into its several harbors.
It is almost impossible, or would be tedious, to relate particularly all the miseries to which the English were henceforth exposed. We hear of nothing but the sacking and burning of towns; the devastation of the open country; the appearance of the enemy in every quarter of the kingdom; their cruel diligence in discovering any corner which had not been ransacked by their former violence. The broken and disjointed narration of the ancient historians is here well adapted to the nature of the war, which was conducted by such sudden inroads, as would have been dangerous even to a united and well-governed kingdom, but proved fatal where nothing but a general consternation and mutual diffidence and dissension prevailed. The governors of one province refused to march to the assistance of another, and were at last terrified from assembling their forces for the defence of their own province. General councils were summoned; but either no resolution was taken, or none was carried into execution. And the only expedient in which the English agreed, was the base and imprudent one of buying a new peace from the Danes, by the payment of forty-eight thousand pounds.
1011.
This measure did not bring them even that short interval of repose which they had expected from it. The Danes, disregarding all engagements, continued their devastations and hostilities; levied a new contribution of eight thousand pounds upon the county of Kent alone; murdered the archbishop of Canterbury, who had refused to countenance this exaction; and the English nobility found no other resource than that of submitting everywhere to the Danish monarch, swearing allegiance to him, and delivering him hostages for their fidelity. Ethelred equally afraid of the violence of the enemy, and the treachery of his own subjects, fled into Normandy,
1013
whither he had sent before him Queen Emma, and her two sons, Alfred and Edward. Richard received his unhappy guests with a generosity that does honor to his memory.