204 ENGLAND, 



by Hakluyt, " that he sailed along the Norway) coast, so far north a© 

 commonly the whale-hunters used to travel." He invited numbers 

 of learned men into his dominions, and found faithful and useful al- 

 lies in the two Scotch kings, his contemporaries, Gregory and Don- 

 ald, against the Danes. He is said to have fought no less than fifty- 

 six pitched battles. He was inexorable against his corrupt judges, 

 whom he used to hang up in the public highways, as a terror to evil- 

 doers. He died in the year 901 ; and his character is so completely 

 amiable and heroic, that he is justly distinguished with the epithet of 

 the Great. 



Alfred was succeeded by his son Edward the Elder, under whom* 

 though a brave prince, the Danes renewed their invasions. He died 

 in the year 925, and was succeeded by his eldest son Athelstan. This 

 prince greatly encouraged commerce, and made a law, that every 

 merchant who had made three voyages on his own account to the 

 Mediterranean, should be considered as the equal of a thane or noble- 

 man of the first rank. He caused the Scriptures to be translated in- 

 to the Saxon tongue. He encouraged coinage ; and we find by his 

 laws, that archbishops, bishops, and even abbots, had then the privi- 

 lege of coining money. He engaged in several wars with the Scots, 

 in which he was generally successful, and died in 941. The reigns 

 of his successors, Edmund, Edred, and Edwy, were weak and inglo- 

 rious, they being either engaged in wars with the Danes, or disgra- 

 ced by the influence of priests. Edgar, who mounted the throne 

 about the year 959, revived the naval glory of England, and is said to 

 have been rowed down the river Dee by eight kings, his vassals, he 

 sitting at the helm ; but, like his predecessors, he was the slave of 

 priests, particularly St. Dunstan. His reign, however, was pacific 

 and happy, though he was obliged to cede to the Scots all the territo- 

 ry to the north of the Tyne. He was succeeded in 975, by his eldest 

 son Edward, who was barbarously murdered by his step-mother, 

 whose son Ethelred, by the aid of priests, mounted the throne in 978. 

 The English nation, at this time, was overrun with barbarians, and 

 the Danes by degrees became possessed of the finest parts of the 

 country, while their countrymen made sometimes dreadful descents in. 

 the western parts. To get rid of them, he agreed to pay them 30,000/. 

 which was levied by way of tax, and called Danegald, and was the 

 first land-tax in England. In the year 1002, they had made such set- 

 tlements in England, that Ethelred consented to a general massacre 

 of them by the English ; but it is improbable that it was ever carri- 

 ed into execution. Some attempts of that kind were made in parti- 

 cular counties ; but they served only to enrage the Danish king Swein, 

 who, in 1013, drove Ethelred, his queen, and two sons, out of England 

 into Normandy, a province of France, at that time governed by its 

 own princes, styled the dukes of Normandy. Swein being killed was 

 succeeded by his son Canute the Great : but Ethelred returning to 

 England forced Canute to retire to Denmark, from whence he in- 

 vaded England with a vast army, and obliged Edmund Ironside (so 

 called for his great bodily strength) Ethelred's son to divide with him 

 the kingdom. Edmund being assassinated, Canute succeeded to the 

 undivided kingdom; and dying in 1035, his son, Harold Harefoot, 

 did nothing memorable ; and his successor Hardicanute was so de- 

 generate a prince, that the Danish royalty ended with him in Eng- 

 land. 



The family of Ethelred was now called to the throne ; and Edward^ 



