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Even then the restless Danes and frontier settlers were a source of annoyance until about 925, when Edward died; but at his death he was the undisputed king of all Britain, and all the various sub-monarchs and associate rulers gave up their claims to him. He was assisted in his affairs of state by his widowed sister, Ethelfleda.
King Alfred sent a nauie of his ships well furnished with men of warre into Eastangle, the which at the mouth of the riuer called Sture, incountering with 16 ships of the Danes, set vpon them, and ouercame them in fight: but as they returned with their prises, they incountered with another mightie armie of the enimies, and fighting with them were ouercome and vanquished. Malm. Ethelfleda.
Ethelfleda, which were built in the fourteenth century, taking the place of two chapels, in Norman style, only about half their length measured from west to east. These two chapels were pulled down after the parish bought the church, to save the expense of keeping them in repair.
Gradually the greater part of England acknowledged the rule of Alfred. The kingdom of Kent was again united to that of Wessex; while Mercia, which extended across the centre of England from Anglia to Wales, was governed for Alfred by Ethelred the Ealdorman, who was the head of the powerful family of the Hwiccas, and had received the hand of Alfred's daughter Ethelfleda.
The church stands upon a hill, where Ethelfleda, Lady of Mercia, built a castle to resist the Danes, A.D. 914, about the time that she erected similar bulwarks at Tamworth and other towns in the Midland counties, but there are no antiquities worth the trouble of visiting.
Edgar, King of Mercia and Wessex, restorer of the monastery. 4. Ethelfleda, his queen. 5. Brando , Abbot. 6. Hereward, the Saxon patriot , nephew of Abbot Brando, and knighted by him. 7. John deSais , Abbot. He commenced the building of the existing choir. 8. Robert of Lindsey , Abbot. He holds a model of the west front, probably built or begun in his time. 10. Godfrey of Crowland , Abbot.
Wilfred sat alone in an upper chamber of the donjon tower the Conqueror had erected at Oxford, hard by the mound thrown up by Ethelfleda, lady of the Mercians and daughter of Alfred. For thither the king had caused him to be removed, unwilling to stain the holy precincts of Abingdon with a deed of blood, and confiding fully in Robert d'Oyly, the governor of his new castle.
These walls were standing but ruinous when the noble daughter of Alfred, Ethelfleda, restored them in 907. A volume would be needed to give a full account of Chester's varied history, and our main concern is with the treasures that remain. The circumference of the walls is nearly two miles, and there are four principal gates besides posterns the North, East, Bridge-gate, and Water-gate.
Ethelfleda, whose name we have so often had occasion to mention as the builder of castles and churches, founded the collegiate church of St. Alkmund; and Athelstan established a mint here. It is evident that the "Athelstan the Unready," mentioned in Ivanhoe, must have very much degenerated from the ancestor who established a mint for ready money.
A boat was descending the Isis, rowed by six stout rowers; it was evidently from Oxenford, for the men bore the badges of Robert D'Oyly, the Norman lord of that city, who had just built the tower which yet stands, gray and old, beside the mound raised on Isis banks by Ethelfleda, lady of Mercia, daughter of the great Alfred, and sister of Edward the Elder.
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