erable.--Accusations against Emma.--Her wretched end.--Edmund's
children.--Godwin.--Harold.--Plans of Edward.--Plots and counterplots.

It is not to be supposed that, even in the warlike times of which we are
writing, such a potentate as a duke of Normandy would invade a country
like England, so large and powerful in comparison to his own, without
some pretext. William's pretext was, that he himself was the legitimate
successor to the English crown, and that the English king who possessed
it at the time of his invasion was a usurper. In order that the reader
may understand the nature and origin of this his claim, it is necessary
to relate somewhat in full the story of the Lady Emma.

By referring to the genealogy of the Norman line of dukes contained in
the second chapter of this volume, it will be seen that Emma was the
daughter of the first Richard. She was celebrated in her early years for
her great personal beauty. They called her _the Pearl of Normandy_.

She married, at length, one of the kings of England, whose name was
Ethelred. England was at that time distracted by civil wars, waged
between the two antagonist races of Saxons and Danes. There were, in
fact, two separate dynasties or lines of kings, who were contending, all
the time, for the mastery. In these contests, sometimes the Danes would
triumph for a time, and sometimes the Saxons; and sometimes both races
would have a royal representative in the field, each claiming the
throne, and reigning over separate portions of the island. Thus there
were, at certain periods, two kingdoms in England, both covering the
same territory, and claiming the government of the same population--with
two kings, two capitals, two administrations--while the wretched
inhabitants were distracted and ruined by the terrible conflicts to
which these hostile pretensions gave rise.

Ethelred was of the Saxon line. He was a widower at the time of his
marriage to Emma, nearly forty years old, and he had, among other
children by his former wife, a son named Edmund, an active, energetic
young man, who afterward became king. One motive which he had in view in
marrying Emma was to strengthen his position by securing the alliance of
the Normans of Normandy. The Danes, his English enemies, were Normans.
The government of Normandy would therefore be naturally inclined to
take part with them. By this marriage, however, Ethelred hoped to detach
the Normans of France from the cause of his ene