Queen Emma.

EDMOND IRONSIDE

This prince, who received the name of _Ironside_ from his hardy
valor, possessed courage and abilities sufficient to have prevented his
country from sinking into those calamities, but not to raise it from
that abyss of misery into which it had already fallen. Among the other
misfortunes of the English, treachery and disaffection had crept in
among the nobility and prelates; and Edmond found no better expedient
for stopping the further progress of these fatal evils, than to lead
his army instantly into the field, and to employ them against the
common enemy. After meeting with some success at Gillingnam, he prepared
himself to decide, in one general engagement, the fate of his crown:
and at Scoerston, in the county of Glocester, he offered battle to the
enemy, who were commanded by Canute and Edric. Fortune, in the beginning
of the day, declared for him; but Edric, having cut off the head of one
Osmer, whose countenance resembled that of Edmond fixed it on a spear,
carried it through the ranks in triumph, and called aloud to the
English, that it was time to fly; for, behold! the head of their
sovereign. And though Edmond, observing the consternation of the troops,
took off his helmet, and showed himself to them, the utmost he could
gain by his activity and valor was to leave the victory undecided. Edric
now took a surer method to ruin him, by pretending to desert to him; and
as Edmond was well acquainted with his power, and probably knew no other
of the chief nobility in whom he could repose more confidence, he was
obliged, notwithstanding the repeated perfidy of the man, to give him
a considerable command in the army. A battle soon after ensued at
Assington, in Essex; where Edric, flying in the beginning of the
day, occasioned the total defeat of the English, followed by a great
slaughter of the nobility. The indefatigable Edmond, however, had still
resources. Assembling a new army at Glocester, he was again in condition
to dispute the field; when the Danish and English nobility, equally
harassed with those convulsions obliged their kings to come to a
compromise, and to divide the kingdom between them by treaty. Canute
reserved to himself the northern division, consisting of Mercia, East
Anglia, and Northumberland, which he had entirely subdued. The southern
parts were left to Edmond. The prince survived the treaty about a month.
He was murdered at Oxford by two of his chamberlains, a