Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

1T2 MARTYRDOM OF
with Elphege,1 are a proof of this. The result of
Ethelred's weak policy and apology for internal peace
was becoming more disastrous year by year. The
Danegelt had ignominiously failed. Ethelred had
recourse to a wholesale massacre of the Danes in
England. In revenge, Sweyn, King of Denmark,
after repeatedly bringing desolation
-
to the land,
established himself on the throne, and the sceptre
slipped from Ethelred's feeble grasp. A Danish
dynasty followed till the days of Ethelred's son, the
last prince of the Saxon house, who reigned on the
throne of his fathers. Ingulf describes Sweyn as
being a wholesale destroyer. " He burns forests,
disembowels peasants, and puts all good people to
death by a variety of torments."'2 He had laid waste
a great part of England (vastata magna parte Anglice)
when he appeared in 1011 before Canterbury. On
the twentieth day of the siege, according to a con-
temporary historian,3 a portion of the old city was
set fire to, and the conquering hordes poured in to
carry out their cruel pleasure. The inhabitants were
put to the sword, defenceless women were massacred,
their infants torn from their arms to suffer a
horrible death. Then it was that the chief pastor
offered himself as a victim for his agonising flock.
Elphege left the sheltering walls of his cathedral,
where the monks were engaged in prayer, and
1 Alford, Annales, t. iii. p. -150
2 Ibid:, p. 456.
3 Hoveden.