, Sussex, Kent, East Anglia, and Essex, with the city of London;
while Canute had Northumbria and Mercia.

Canute professed himself a Christian, and swore to govern his people
according to the old English laws, and to preserve their temporal and
spiritual privileges, a promise which, upon the whole, he well
observed.

And so England entered upon a peace of fifty years, only broken by an
event yet in the womb of time, the Norman Conquest.

"Come, Alfgar," said Edmund, one day soon after these events, "let us
go to Aescendune and fix thy wedding day; Elfwyn need fear no longer
that the sword will be the portion of his grandchildren."

Peace! sweet, sweet peace! oh how joyful it was to be once more in the
deep woods of Aescendune, to hear the sweet song of the birds, and to
fear no evil! Sweet, ineffably sweet were those days to Alfgar and
Ethelgiva!

So the day was at length appointed; it was to be the feast of St.
Andrew, and to take place at Oxenford, which had been assigned to
Edmund's dominions; for he insisted that it should be celebrated with
all the pomp the presence of a king could lend.

It was now the season of the falling leaf and there were only a few
weeks longer to wait.

CHAPTER XXII. SMOOTHER THAN OIL.

It was the latter end of November, and St. Andrew's day drew near,
when a small but select party of friends met together in an old
mansion hard by St. Frideswide's Cathedral, at Oxenford, to enjoy the
evening banquet.

First and foremost was the king of Southern England, the valiant
Ironside, and his attendant and friend Alfgar; Elfwyn and Father
Cuthbert from Aescendune, with the Lady Hilda and Ethelgiva; Herstan,
his wife Bertha, and son Hermann, from Clifton, with his sisters; and
Ethelm, the new bishop of Dorchester, the successor of the martyred
Ednoth.

These, our old acquaintances, had all been gathered together in view
of the approaching union of Alfgar with Ethelgiva, which was to be
solemnised on St. Andrew's day, in the presence of the king. They were
a happy party; all the woes of the past seemed forgotten in the happy
present, or were only remembered in the spirit of the well-known line:

"Haec olim meminisse juvabit."

The more substantial viands were removed, generous wines from warmer
climes were introduced, but there was no need of a harper or of
minstrels, save Edmund himself, or of legends and tales to those whose
lives had passed amidst scenes of excitement. They we