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Updated: May 15, 2025
Strangely enough, Walter, son of Godgifu daughter of AEthelred, was a possible, though not a likely, candidate for the rule of England as well as of Maine. The people of Maine are not likely to have thought of this bit of genealogy. But it was doubtless present to the minds alike of William and of Harold.
So says William of Malmesbury, who, so many years later, read the story, as he says, in the records of the Church of St. Frideswyde. Aethelred is made to say, in a deed of grant of lands to St. Brice. On that day Aethelred, "by the advice of his satraps, determined to destroy the tares among the wheat, the Danes in England."
One time Alfred took a fort in Kent, in which were the wife and two sons of Hasting. Now Hasting had not long before given oaths and hostages to Alfred, and the two boys had been baptised, the King being godfather to one of them and Alderman Aethelred to the other. But Hasting did not at all keep to his oath, but went on plundering all the same.
He and his bad advisers adopted the practice of buying off the invaders at a large price. In 994 Swegen invaded the country. He had been baptized, but had gone back to heathenism. In 1013 England was completely conquered by him. Aethelred fled to Duke Richard the Good of Normandy.
So King Aethelred abode praying, and the heathen men fought against Alfred the Aetheling. And Alfred said, "I cannot abide till the King my brother comes forth; I must either flee, or fight alone with the heathen men." So Alfred the Aetheling and his men fought against the five Earls. Now the heathen men stood on the higher ground and the Christians on the lower.
And King Aethelred was set against the Kings and Alfred the Aetheling against the Earls. And the heathen men came on against them. But King Aethelred heard mass in his tent. And men said, "Come forth, O King, to the fight, for the heathen men press hard upon us." And King Aethelred said, "I will serve God first and man after, so I will not come forth till all the words of the mass be ended."
CANUTE. The son of Aethelred, Edmund, surnamed Ironside, after the death of Swegen, kept up the war with his son Cnut, or Canute. After fighting six pitched battles with him, Edmund consented to divide the kingdom with him; but in the same year the English king died. He had professed Christianity, and unexpectedly proved himself, after his accession, to be a good ruler.
Certain of these fled into the minster, as into a fortress, and therefore it was burned and the books and monuments destroyed. For this cause Aethelred gives lands to the minster, "fro Charwell brigge andlong the streame, fro Merewell to Rugslawe, fro the lawe to the foule putte," and so forth.
After that he never wore his crown, but left it on the image of Jesus on the cross. Canute inherited the crown of Denmark, and won Norway and part of Sweden; so that he was the most powerful prince of his time. His sons, however, did not rule well; and in 1042 the English chose for king one of their own people, Edward, called the Confessor, the son of Aethelred.
Then the mass was over, and King Aethelred came forth and fought against the two Kings, and slew Bagsecg the King with his own hand and smote the heathen men with a great slaughter and chased them even unto Reading. In 871, on Aethelred's death, Alfred became King of the West-Saxons and Over-lord of all England, as his father had appointed so long before with the consent of his Wise Men.
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