eir
due order and sequence.

Therefore he has attempted in every instance to consult such original
authorities as lay within his reach, and has done his best to present
an honest picture of the times.

The period selected on the present occasion is full of the deepest
interest. The English and the Danish invaders of their soil were
struggling desperately for the possession of England--a struggle
aggravated by religious bitterness, and by the sanguinary nature of
the Danish creed.

The reign of Ethelred the Unready, from his accession, after the
murder of his innocent brother, until the scene depicted in the
nineteenth chapter of the tale, was a tragedy ever deepening. Its
details will seem dark enough as read herein, but how utterly dark
they were can only be appreciated by those who study the contemporary
annals. Many facts therein given have been rejected by the Author as
too harrowing in their nature; and he has preferred to render the
contemplation of woe and suffering less painful, by a display of those
virtues of patience, resignation, and brave submission to the Divine
will, which affliction never fails to bring out in the fold of Christ,
whose promise stands ever fast, that the strength of His people shall
be equal to their needs.

With the death of the unhappy king, and the accession of his brave but
unfortunate son, the whole character of the history changes.
Englishmen are henceforth at least a match for their oppressors, and
the result of the long contest is the conversion of their foes to
Christianity, their king setting the example, and the union of the two
races--not the submission of one to the other. The Danish element had
been received into the English nation to join in moulding the future
national character--to add its own special virtues to the typical
Englishman of the future.

One more rude shock had yet to be sustained before the alloy of
foreign blood was complete--the Norman Conquest. This is the subject
of the Third Story of Aescendune, which has yet to be written.

One character in the tale has always puzzled historians--a character,
so far as the author knows, absolutely without redeeming trait--Edric
Streorn. It is well said that no man is utterly bad, and perhaps he
possessed domestic virtues which were thought unworthy of the
attention of the chroniclers; but as they picture him--now prompting
Ethelred to deeds of treachery against the Danes, now joining those
Danes themselves, an