and without even an oar, to be launched upon the ocean, and left to chance, and the mercy of the waves. For some time the unfortunate prince continued to keep afloat within sight of land, until at last the wind rose, and perceiving that every billow but rolled him further into the hopeless ocean, he preferred an instant to a lingering death, and leaped boldly into the deep. His body was afterwards washed ashore, and for seven years Athelstan is said to have mourned over his brother's death, with deep and bitter sorrow. Athelstan died about the year 940 or 941; and, as he left no children, he was succeeded by his brother Edmund.
[CHAPTER XXVI.]
THE REIGNS OF EDMUND AND EDRED.
"The time has been, my senses would have cool'd
To hear a night shriek; and my fell of hair
Would at a dismal treatise rouse, and stir
As life were in't: I have supped full with horrors;
Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts,
Cannot once start me.—Wherefore was that cry?
The king, my lord, is dead."—Shakspere.
Edmund, surnamed the Elder, had scarcely attained his eighteenth year, when he ascended the Saxon throne. Many of Athelstan's former enemies were still alive, and Anlaf, who had played so prominent a part at the battle of Brunanburg, again came over from Ireland, and placed himself at the head of the Northumbrian Danes, with whom he marched into Mercia, attacked Tamworth, and, in his first battle, defeated the Saxons. England was not yet destined to be subject to the sway of one king, for, after several defeats, Edmund employed the Archbishops of York and Canterbury to negotiate with Anlaf, and peace was concluded on the conditions that the Northumbrian prince was to reign over that part of England which extended to the north of Watling Street—the boundaries of which it is difficult to define. Another clause was also annexed, which placed the Saxon throne in greater jeopardy than it had ever before been; for Edmund entered into an agreement with Anlaf, that whoever survived the other should become the sole and undisputed sovereign of England. Death saved the Saxons from the degrading and dangerous position into which they had fallen, for Anlaf died in the following year, and after his death Edmund lost no time in taking possession of that portion of the kingdom which had been wrested from him by the valour of the Danish king.
It may be that the youth or inexperience of Edmund made him fearful of measuring his strength against a veteran like Anlaf, for when he had once resolved to reduce the Danes to authority, he acted as became a descendant of Alfred, and not only subjected Northumbria to his sway, but drove the Danes from the towns they had so long occupied on the frontiers of Mercia, clearing the whole line of country from Stamford to Lincoln; and, crossing the Trent, he drove them from the cities of Leicester, Nottingham, and Derby, thus sweeping the whole of the midland counties of the Danes, and peopling the strongholds from which he had driven them with Saxons, and amply making up for the vacillating weakness which marked the first year of his reign. Neither did his conquests end here; he next invaded Cumbria, unnecessarily tortured the sons of Dunmail, and then gave the small state to Malcolm of Scotland, on condition that he should defend the northern dominions, both by sea and land, against all invaders. Strange as it may appear, he was assisted in the subjugation of this petty kingdom by one of the Welsh kings, although Cumberland and Westmoreland, which formed the kingdom of Cumbria, were at this time inhabited by a remnant of the ancient Britons, over whom reigned Dunmail, its last Celtic king. Although the reign of Edmund is among the briefest of our early Saxon kings, containing but the mere entry of his name, a battle or two, and then his untimely death, embracing, from his first assuming the crown to his being borne to the grave, not more than five years, it offers to the contemplative mind much matter for meditation. He commenced his reign by a dishonourable concession, such as Athelstan would never have thought of, though it had cost him both his kingdom and his life in resisting it. He ended it by an act of cruelty, causing the eyes of the sons of Dunmail to be put out. Shortly after this, he fell in his own banqueting-hall, by the hand of a robber, in the midst of his nobles; while the wine-cup was circulating in celebration of the great Saxon feast held in memory of St. Augustine, he was struck dead by the dagger of Leof. At what place the deed was done, how the robber obtained admittance into the hall, whether angry words were exchanged between the assassin and the king, nothing certain is known—so much do the accounts vary in the old chronicles, although all admit the fact.
Leof had been banished for six years; he suddenly appeared in the presence of the king; his object, beyond doubt, was to slay him. Could we but prove that the murderer belonged to the ancient Cymry, we should probably not be far in error in concluding that he came to revenge the tortures which had been inflicted on the British princes, who were blinded by the command of Edmund. Vengeance only could have induced an armed and banished robber to rush into the presence of the king, when he was feasting in the midst of his nobles, and there, on his own hearth, to deprive him of life. Strange that the scene of an event so well known, should be buried in obscurity. There must have been motives that impelled the murderer to perpetrate such a deed, which were unfavourable to the character of Edmund, or we should have met with something more than the mere entry of his violent death in the early chronicles. He was slain in his twenty-third year—in the dawn of manhood; but where he fell, or in what place he was buried, history has not left a single record that we can rely upon. Malmesbury says, "His death opened the door for fable all over England." How ominous his rising! how dark and sudden his setting! what splendour surrounded his noonday career; yet, withal, his life might be written in four brief sentences—"He perilled his kingdom in his youth—nobly redeemed the false step he had taken—committed an act of inhuman cruelty—was afterwards murdered, in the year 946."
Edred succeeded Edmund, for the son of the latter was but a child when his father was slain. They were both sons of Edward the Elder by his second marriage, and, from the date of his death, must have been mere infants when he died. Both could claim the great Alfred as their grandfather.
During the short reign of Anlaf, and the subjection of Northumbria by Edmund, we lose sight of Eric, the son of Harold of Norway, to whom Athelstan had generously given the crown of this northern kingdom, out of the respect he bore to his father. But Eric cared not to occupy a peaceful throne: if he was to be a king at all, he was resolved it should be a sea-king, so he took to his ships, and left his subjects to shift for themselves as they best could; for he had often, during his sovereignty, whiled away the pleasant summer months with a little pirating—had often treated his followers to an agreeable excursion on the sea, where they plundered all the ships they could, and conquered and slew their crews, no doubt capturing our own merchants, whenever a chance offered. After amusing himself and his companions for some time, by preying upon all who came in his way, around the coast of Scotland, he ventured over into Ireland, gathered what he could there, crossed the sea again, and ravaged Wales, picking up along the northern coast, whenever he came near home, all the choice spirits he could find about the Orkneys and the Hebrides. With these he roamed at his pleasure, plundering wherever he could, and performing such feats on the ocean as Robin Hood and his merry men are, in a later day, supposed to have done in our old English forests. He was also joined by many of the most renowned sea-robbers from Norway, for the bold Vikingr found but little encouragement to plunder under the government of "Haco the Good." When Eric was weary of these rough Mid-summer holidays, he came back again to his kingdom, moored his ships, and placed his battle-axe upon the "smoky beam" until the following spring, never troubling himself about law or justice, but leaving his subjects either to do as they pleased, or follow the lawless example he set them:—he quaffed his cup, and sang his stormy sea-songs, and little recked Eric the Norwegian how the world went, so long as he could get out upon the windy ocean, and meet with prey and plunder upon the billows of the deep. All seems to have gone merrily with him, until, in an evil hour, he was either tempted or persuaded to ravage England. Where he landed is not known, but his success is said to have been great, and when he returned to Northumbria laden with plunder, his Danish subjects received him with warm welcome; although they had but just before sworn fidelity to Edred, still their hearts were with the daring sea-king, and they hailed him the more eagerly since Edred, after having received their oaths of allegiance, had turned his back upon the north. The Saxon king, although young, soon turned round, and punished the wavering Danes for their disloyalty. They again promised submission; but scarcely had he reached York before Eric was upon his heels, and so unexpectedly did he fall upon the army of the Saxon king, that he cut off the rear-guard before he retreated. Edred once more wheeled round, over-ran Northumbria, compelled them to renounce Eric, inflicted a heavy fine, again received hostages and promises of allegiance, and took his departure. Eric but lingered on the sea until he was fairly out of sight, and then prepared to take vengeance upon the subjects who had disowned him.