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The Northumbrian Danes, untaught even by their recent escape from the Norwegian, regarded with ungrateful coldness a war limited at present to the southern coasts; and the vast territory under Mercia was, with more excuse, equally supine; while their two young Earls, too new in their command to have much sway with their subject populations, had they been in their capitals, had now arrived in London; and there lingered, making head, doubtless, against the intrigues in favour of the Atheling; so little had Harold's marriage with Aldyth brought him, at the hour of his dreadest need, the power for which happiness had been resigned!
"You had not then entered the priesthood; and on entering it, and putting off the secular habit, I should have thought, my lord, that you would have put off all thoughts and feelings of the past," answered Dona Mercia calmly. "Not so easy a task," replied the Bishop. "A scene like this conjures up the recollection of days gone by and never to return.
The King's policy of finding aid among his new ministers broke down when these became themselves ealdormen. With their local position they took up the feudal claims of independence; and Eadric, whom Æthelred raised to be ealdorman of Mercia, became a power that overawed the Crown. In this paralysis of the central authority all organization and union was lost.
And that was the last which any man in Mercia saw of the fair princess who had been the pride of the land, for she came safely to far Crowland, in the fenland, and there pined and died. It is said that the parting between her and her terrible mother was such that men will tell little thereof.
To this day Worcester retains the plan of the original Roman camp, but it does not seem to have made at that time much mark in history. The Britons captured it, and named the place Wigoma Ceaster, and it was afterwards incorporated into Mercia. In the eleventh century a castle was built near the Severn, and the earlier kings of England were frequently its residents.
Late at night messengers arrived at the royal quarters, bringing information that Edgar was at Alcester, the ancient Alauna, beyond the Avon, and that Osric, the great Earl of Mercia, was with him collecting troops. A council was held at once, and it was decided to leave the Watling Street and to march for the Avon by cross-country routes.
Though he has got Baddeby, Norman was covetous of Avalcomb. When his lord, Edric Jarl, was still King Edmund's man, he twice beset the castle, and my father twice held it against him. And his greed was such that he could not stay away even after Edric had become the man of Canute." It was the nun's turn for bewilderment. "The man of Canute? Edric of Mercia, who is married to the King's sister?
Quendritha has let us see that in one way or the other she would fain have East Anglia. I think that she spoke unwarily to you, my king." "Nay," said Selred the priest; "I hold that she sounded you as to whether you had any thought of adding Mercia to your own realm.
While the German princes who reigned at Paris, Toledo, Arles, and Ravenna listened with reverence to the instructions of bishops, adored the relics of martyrs, and took part eagerly in disputes touching the Nicene theology, the rulers of Wessex and Mercia were still performing savage rites in the temples of Thor and Woden.
They evacuated their posts and strong-holds in Wessex, and went down the Thames to London, which was in Mercia, and there commenced a new course of conquest and plunder, where they had no such powerful foe to oppose them. Buthred was the king of Mercia. He could not resist Hubba and his Danes alone, and he could not now have Alfred's assistance.
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