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The earlier fortunes of the house of Aescendune must here obtrude themselves upon the notice of the reader, in order that he may more easily comprehend the subsequent pages of our veritable history. Sebbald, the remote ancestor of the family, was amongst the earliest Saxon conquerors of Mercia.
And without awaiting his answer, they strode from the hall. Around Northampton lay the forces of Morcar, the choice of the Anglo- Dane men of Northumbria. Suddenly there was a shout as to arms from the encampment; and Morcar, the young Earl, clad in his link mail, save his helmet, came forth, and cried: "My men are fools to look that way for a foe; yonder lies Mercia, behind it the hills of Wales.
Then the contest was renewed with the Danes, and it was under the reign of Edward that Mercia was once more annexed to Wessex, as well as Northumbria. Edward died in 925, and under the reign of his son Aethelstan the Saxon kingdom reached still greater prosperity. The completion of the West Saxon realm was reserved for Edmund, son of Aethelstan, who ascended the throne in 940, being a mere boy.
I asked, for I had not heard him called by that name before. The only other king of the host beside the three jarls was Bagsac. "Why, of East Anglia. He holds it for Ingvar, while he tries to add Wessex for his own to Mercia. Halfden will be king in Northumbria, maybe, and Hubba over another of the kingdoms." So they had already parted out the land among them beforehand!
But able as Ine was to hold Mercia at bay, he was unable to hush the civil strife that was the curse of Wessex, and a wild legend tells the story of the disgust which drove him from the world. He had feasted royally at one of his country houses, and on the morrow, as he rode from it, his queen bade him turn back thither.
You you, Dona Mercia, might have saved me from what I now suffer." "You speak strangely, Don Gonzales," said Dona Mercia. "Why address such words to me? Our feelings are not always under our own control. I know that you offered me your hand, and the cause of my rejecting your offer was that I could not give you what alone would have made my hand of value.
He was wise beyond his years, being, as I think, about two years younger than myself. And as to this match, of course it was plain that Offa in furthering it was in nowise unwilling to link the land to the east of Mercia to himself in so peaceful a bond as he had linked Wessex in the year when I left home.
If you could learn so much of the British Romans so far away in New South Wales, where there cannot be even a tradition of them, what might you not make of the same amount of study on the very spot. Where we are going is in the real heart of the old kingdom of Mercia, where there are traces of all the various nationalities which made up the conglomerate which became Britain."
When Athelstane was dead, the Danes, both in Northumberland and Mercia, revolted against the English rule, and made Anlaf their king. Archbishop Wulfstan, then of York, sided with them, perhaps being himself of Danish blood. The kingdom was eventually divided between Edmund and Aulaf, until the death of the latter.
The fact that they marched at the call of the King of Mercia and drove the Danes from Nottingham shows that the West Saxon princes are alive to the common danger of the country, and if they are but joined heartily by our people of East Anglia and the Mercians, they may yet succeed in checking the progress of these heathen.
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