III. [sic] Ethelbald and Ethelbert, joint Kings of England.
Ethelbald, whose reign was but short, and no ways remarkable, died in 800, and was buried at Sherborne, in Dorsetshire.
Ethelbert, the fourth King of England.
Though Ethelbert bore an excellent character, yet he was no favourite of fortune; for from his coronation in 860, to his death in 866, he had one continued conflict with the Danes. He was interred at Sherborne, near his brother.
Ethelred, the fifth King of England.
In 866, Ethelred, third son of Ethelwulf, succeeded to the crown: in whose reign the Danes committed great ravages through the kingdom.
Notwithstanding, in 868, a great famine and plague happened in England, yet those merciless and blood-thirsty Pagans the Danes, in 869, through their aversion to Christianity, set fire to the religious houses in the city of York, murdered the monks, ravished the nuns, and made a sacrifice of Edmund, titular King of the East Angles, by first shooting his body full of arrows, and afterwards cutting off his head. He was soon after interred at St. Edmundsbury, in the county of Suffolk, from whom it has ever since been distinguished by that name, as the manner of that Prince's death entitled him to the honour of martyrdom.
Ethelred, after having reigned six years, was buried at Winbourn, in the county of Dorset.
Alfred the Great, sixth King of England.
In the year 872, Alfred the Great (the fourth son of Ethelwulf) succeeded his brother Ethelred, whose moral virtues endeared him so far to his subjects, that they honoured him with the appellation of the Father of the English Constitution. He was crowned at Winchester.