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Her heart was full of solemn yet not sad thoughts; peace, sweet peace, was the subject of her meditations, and she thought with gratitude of Him who had hitherto preserved Mercia from the foe, who had indeed for nearly two years ceased to molest England. But as she gazed, her attention was attracted to a light on the opposite hills.
"You may be sure," he said, "that ere long we shall see their galleys on the coast. When they have eaten up Mercia and Anglia they will assuredly come hither, and we shall have to fight for our lives, and unless we are prepared it will go hard with us."
The desertion of Eadric to Cnut as soon as he appeared off the coast threw open England to his arms; Wessex and Mercia submitted to him; and though the loyalty of London enabled Eadmund, when his father's death raised him in 1016 to the throne, to struggle bravely for a few months against the Danes, a decisive overthrow at Assandun and a treaty of partition which this wrested from him at Olney were soon followed by the young king's death.
Morcar and Edwin promised solemnly to lead the forces of Northumbria and Mercia to London without a day's delay, and though Harold trusted his brothers-in-law but little, he hoped they would have to yield to the patriotic spirit of the thanes and to play their part as Englishmen.
The greater the sphere of a subject's jurisdiction, the more it menaced the monarchy and national unity; and after Canute's empire had fallen to pieces under his worthless sons, the restoration of Ecgberht's line in the person of Edward the Confessor merely provided a figurehead under whose nominal rule the great earls of Wessex, Mercia, Northumbria, and East Anglia fought at first for control of the monarchy and at length for the crown itself.
Each thegn then put his hand into Harold's, and called himself Harold's man. "Now, more than ever," said the wise old thegn who had before spoken, "will it be needful to heal all dissension in the kingdom to reconcile with us Mercia and Northumbria, and make the kingdom one against the foe.
It is said that King Alfred, who succeeded in expelling the Danes, acquiesced in these clerks thus taking possession of the place, although the former King of Mercia, finding the monasteries deserted, had annexed all their property.
Penda of Mercia has the character of being murderously hostile; but it was land, not creed, that he cared for. He was quite broad and undenominational in his slaughters. About A. D. 545, a great plague raged at Soissons, and the people begged for the return of their bishop. He went back to his old charge, and there is no suggestion that he ever left it again.
Its history begins with the battle of Ellandune between Mercia and Wessex, in which the victor Egbert of the West Saxon line made good his claim to be overlord of England. It was here that the greater West Saxon, Alfred, defeated the Danish invaders, and here again Sweyn turned the tables and burnt and slew in true pirate fashion.
The rest of the island to the north and inland exclusive of what was still unconquered was occupied by various branches of the Angle stock grouped into the kingdoms of East Anglia, Mercia, and Northumbria. During the seventh and eighth centuries there were constant wars of conquest among these kingdoms.
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