le at Brunanburh,
of which the site is unknown. His victory was celebrated in a splendid
war-song.

13. =Eadmund (940-946) and Eadred (946-955).=--AEthelstan died in
=940=. He was succeeded by his young brother, Eadmund, who had fought
bravely at Brunanburh. Eadmund had to meet a general rising of the
Danes of Mercia as well as of those of the north. After he had
suppressed the rising he showed himself to be a great statesman as
well as a great warrior. The relations between the king of the English
and the king of the Scots had for some time been very uncertain.
Little is definitely known about them but it looks as if they joined
the English whenever they were afraid of the Danes, and joined the
Danes whenever they were afraid of the English. Eadmund took an
opportunity of making it to be the interest of the Scottish king
permanently to join the English. The southern part of the kingdom of
Strathclyde had for some time been under the English kings. In =945=
Eadmund overran the remainder, but gave it to Malcolm on condition
that he should be his fellow-worker by sea and land. The king of Scots
thus entered into a position of dependent alliance towards Eadmund. A
great step was thus taken in the direction in which the inhabitants of
Britain afterwards walked. The dominant powers in the island were to
be English and Scots, not English and Danes. Eadmund thought it worth
while to conciliate the Scottish Celts rather than to endeavour to
conquer them. The result of Eadmund's statesmanship was soon made
manifest. He himself did not live to gather its fruits. In =946= an
outlaw who had taken his seat at a feast in his hall slew him as he
was attempting to drag him out by the hair. The next king, Eadred, the
last of Eadward's sons, though sickly, had all the spirit of his race.
He had another sharp struggle with the Danes, but in =954= he made
himself their master. North-humberland was now thoroughly amalgamated
with the English kingdom, and was to be governed by an Englishman,
Oswulf, with the title of Earl, an old Danish title equivalent to the
English Ealdorman, having nothing to do, except philologically, with
the old English word Eorl.

14. =Danes and English.=--In =955= Eadred died, having completed the
work which AElfred had begun, and which had been carried on by his son
and his three grandsons. England, from the Forth to the Channel, was
under one ruler. Even the contrast between Englishmen and Danes was
soon, for t