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Not far away, Edwin, the Saxon King of Northumbria, was slain in battle fighting against Penda, King of Mercia, and Cadwallader, King of Wales; and in all probability his body was buried at the village of Edwinstowe. The earliest definite notice of Sherwood dates from the days of Henry the Second, when William Peverel had control and profit of the district under the Crown.
Dona Mercia did not oppose their union, for she perceived that Antonio Herezuelo possessed courage, determination, and a superior intellect, beside a gentle and loving disposition qualities calculated to secure her daughter's happiness, and which would enable him to protect her during the troublous times which she feared might be coming on Spain.
Alban, dost thou hesitate, man?" "No, not an instant," said Harold, stung to the quick. "Not, couldst thou offer me all Mercia as her dower, would I wed the daughter of Algar; and bend my knee, as a son to a wife's father, to the man who despises my lineage, while he truckles to my power."
Sigurd's host went back in the autumn, rich with the treasure of Alsi the king; and from that time forward no Danish host ever sought our shores. Wars enough have been in England here, but they have not harmed us. No host has been suffered to cross the borders of Lindsey or East Anglia, save in peace, and in the wars of Penda of Mercia Havelok has taken no part.
For Northumbria there was Strathclyde on the west and Scotland on the north; for Mercia there was Wales; and for Wessex there were the British remnants in Devon and in Cornwall. But a kingdom may have too much hinterland. Scotland taxed for centuries the assimilative capacity of united England; it was too much for Northumbria to digest.
"The old jealousy, I suppose," he answered grimly. "As if a lad like myself was likely to try to overturn a throne! Here had I hardly settled down in Mercia as a fighter of the Welsh and hanger-on of Offa's court, when there come Bertric's messengers, asking that I should be given up, and backing the demand with a request for closer alliance by marriage.
Bishop Stubbs, speaking of the early Fasti of Peterborough, says: "Mercia, late in its formation as a kingdom, sprang at once into a great state under Penda; late in its adoption of Christianity, it seems from the period of its conversion to have taken a prominent place at once among the Christian powers.
Edmund, trusting little to their sincerity in this forced submission, used the precaution of removing the Five-burgers from the towns of Mercia, in which they had been allowed to settle; because it was always found, that they took advantage of every commotion, and introduced the rebellious, or foreign Danes, into the heart of the kingdom.
Under the Danish kings, the other divisions of England fell under the rule of three great Earls. The Danish Northumbria was ruled by the great Northman Siward Bjorn; Mercia was governed by the house of Leofric, an old noble family connected with the ancient line of Mercian kings.
The throne of the boy-king really rested for support on the Earls of Mercia and Northumbria, Eadwine and Morkere; and William, crossing the Thames at Wallingford and marching into Hertfordshire, threatened to cut them off from their earldoms. The masterly movement forced the Earls to hurry home, and London gave way at once.
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