IV. 866. BOOK made some call it the piles. It pursued him from his infancy. But his life and actions show, that, though this debilitating disease was succeeded by another that haunted him incessantly with tormenting agony, nothing could suppress his unwearied and inextinguishable genius. Though environed with difficulties which would have shipwrecked any other man, his energetic spirit converted them into active instruments to advance him to virtue and to fame. His religious impressions led him from his childhood to be a frequent visitor at sacred places, for the purposes of giving alms, and offering prayer. It was from this practice, that as he was hunting in Cornwall, near Liskeard, and observing a village church near, he dismounted, and went into it. A Cornish man of religion, called St. Gueryr, had been buried there. The name implied that he had possessed medical powers or reputation; and with a sudden hope of obtaining relief from his distressing malady, Alfred prostrated himself there in silent prayer to God, and remained a long time mentally petitioning that his sufferings might be alleviated. He solicited any change of the divine visitations that would not make him useless in body or contemptible in his personal appearance; for he was afraid of leprosy or blindness, but he implored relief. His devotions ended, he quitted the tomb of the saint, and resumed his journey. immediate effect followed. He had often prayed before for relief in vain. Happily in no long space afterwards his constitution experienced a beneficial alteration, and this complaint entirely ceased, though after his marriage it was succeeded No by another and a worse, which lasted till his CHAP. death, 21 FOR a while we must leave Alfred aspiring to become the student, to describe that storm of desolation and ferocious war which was proceeding from the North to intercept the progress, and disturb the happiness of the future king; and to lay waste the whole island, with havock the most sanguinary, and ruin the most permanent. Asser, 40. Flor. Wig. 309. Guerir, in Cornish, signifies to heal or cure. Camden places the church near Liskeard. St. Neot lived here after Guerir, and it acquired the name from him of Neotstoke. Whit. Neot. 109. V. 868. BOOK CHAP. VI. The Accession of ETHELRED, the third Son of ETHelwulph.- ETHELRED'S Death. AS the life of Ragnar Lodbrog had disturbed the peace of many regions of Europe, his death 866-871. became the source of peculiar evil to England. When his sons heard of his death in the prison in Northumbria, they determined on revenge. Their transient hostilities as sea-kings were laid aside for the gratification of this passion; and as their father's fame was the conversation and pride of the North, they found that whereever they spread news of his fate, and their own resolutions to avenge it, their feelings were applauded, and auxiliaries procured to join them, from every part. Bands of warriors confederated from every region for this vindictive object. Jutes, Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, Russians, and others; all the fury and all the valour of the North assembled for the expedition', while none of the Anglo-Saxon kings even suspected the preparations. EIGHT kings and twenty earls, the children, relatives, and associates of Ragnar, were its leaders.' Their armament assembled without molestation, and when it had become numerous enough to pro 1 2 Langb. 278. Saxo, 176. M. West. 316. Bromton, 803. Al. Beverl. 92. 2 The kings were Bacseg, Halfden, Ingwar, rums, Oskitel, Amund and Eowls. Al. Bev. 93. to the kings, Sidroc, with a jarl of that name. Harald, p. 14. Hunt. 347. Al. Riev. 353. Ubba, GuthSimeon adds Frena and VI. mise success to their adventure, Halfden, Ingwar, C HA P. and Hubba, three of Ragnar's sons, assumed the command, sailed out of the Baltic, and conducted 866-871. it safely to the English coasts. By some error in the pilotage, or accident of weather, or actual policy, it passed Northumbria, and anchored off the shores of East Anglia. ETHELRED was scarcely seated on his brother's throne, before the great confederacy began to arrive. It found the country in a state auspicious to an invasion. Four distinct governments divided its natural force, whose narrow policy saw nothing but triumph and safety in the destruction of each other. One of these, the peculiar object of the hostility of the North, was plunged in a civil warfare. Of the Anglo-Saxon governments, the kingdom of Northumbria had been always the most perturbed. Usurper murdering usurper, is the pervading incident. A crowd of ghastly monarchs pass swiftly along the page of history as we gaze; and scarcely was the sword of the assassin sheathed before it was drawn against its master, and hę was carried to the sepulchre which he had just closed upon another. In this manner, during the last century and a half, no fewer than seventeen sceptered chief's hurled each other from their joyless throne3, and the deaths of the greatest number were accompanied by hecatombs of their friends. WHEN the Northern fleet suddenly appeared off East Anglia, such sanguinary events were still 3 Ella is called by Huntingdon degenerem, 349. Asser describes him as tyrannum quendam Ella nomine non de regali prosapia progenitum super regni apicem constituerant, p. 18. IV. BOOK disturbing Northumbria. Osbert had been four years expelled by Ella from the throne which he had usurped from another, and at this juncture was formidable enough to dare his rival again to the ambitious field. 866. 4 THE Danish chieftains who first landed, did not at once rush to their destined prey. Whether accident or policy had occasioned them to disembark in East Anglia, they made it a beneficial event. Awing the country by a force which the winds had never wafted from Denmark before, they quietly passed the winter in their camp, collecting provisions and uniting their friends. They demanded a supply of horses from the king, who complied with their request, and mounted the greatest part of their army." He attempted no enmity; he suffered them to enjoy their wintry feasts unmolested; no alliance with the other Saxon kingdoms was made during the interval; each state looked on with hope, that the collected tempest was to burst upon another; and as the menaced government was a rival, nothing but advantage was foreseen from its destruction. 5 THE Northern kings must have contemplated this behaviour with all the satisfaction and contempt of meditative mischief and conscious superiority. The Northumbrian usurpers at last sheathed, though tardily, the swords of contending ambition; 4 Al. Bev. 93. 5 Asser 15. The Icelanders intimate that the Northmen on their first arrival found Ella too powerful; and that Ingwar negotiated with him, and cultivated treasonable intercourse with his subjects, till the complete arrival of the invaders enabled him to prosecute his revenge. 2 Langb. 278. |