t witnesses to prove that he was entirely free
from all participation in the affair. He took also a much more
effectual method to secure an acquittal, by making to King Hardicanute
some most magnificent presents. One of these was a small ship,
profusely enriched and ornamented with gold. It contained eighty
soldiers, armed in the Danish style, with weapons of the most
highly-finished and costly construction. They each carried a Danish
axe on the left shoulder, and a javelin in the right hand, both richly
gilt, and they had each of them a bracelet on his arm, containing six
ounces of solid gold. Such at least is the story. The presents might
be considered in the light either of a bribe to corrupt justice, or
in that of a fine to satisfy it. In fact, the line, in those days,
between bribes to purchase acquittal and fines atoning for the offense
seems not to have been very accurately drawn.

Hardicanute, when fairly established on his throne, governed his realm
like a tyrant. He oppressed the Saxons especially without any mercy.
The effect of his cruelties, and those of the Danes who acted under
him, was, however, not to humble and subdue the Saxon spirit, but
to awaken and arouse it. Plots and conspiracies began to be formed
against him, and against the whole Danish party. Godwin himself began
to meditate some decisive measures, when, suddenly, Hardicanute died.
Godwin immediately took the field at the head of all his forces,
and organized a general movement throughout the kingdom for calling
Edward, Alfred's brother, to the throne. This insurrection was
triumphantly successful. The Danish forces that undertook to resist it
were driven to the northward. The leaders were slain or put to flight.
A remnant of them escaped to the sea-shore, where they embarked on
board such vessels as they could find, and left England forever; and
this was the final termination of the political authority of the
Danes over the realm of England--the consummation and end of Alfred's
military labors and schemes, coming surely at last, though deferred
for two centuries after his decease.

What follows belongs rather to the history of William the Conqueror
than to that of Alfred, for Godwin invited Edward, Emma's Norman son,
to come and assume the crown; and his coming, together with that of
the many Norman attendants that accompanied or followed him, led, in
the end, to the Norman invasion and conquest. Godwin might probably
have made himself ki