's ships amount to an
extravagant number, to three thousand, or three thousand six hundred:
see Hoveden, p. 426. Flor. Wigorn. p. 607. Abbas Rieval. p. 360.
Brompton, p. 869, says, that Edgar had four thousand vessels. How can
these accounts be reconciled to probability, and to the state of the
navy in the time of Alfred? W. Thorne makes the whole number amount
only to three hundred, which is more probable. The fleet of Ethelred,
Edgar's son, must have been short of one thousand ships; yet the Saxon
Chronicle, p. 137, says, it was the greatest navy that ever had been
seen in England.

NOTE [D]

Almost all the ancient historians speak of this massacre of the Danes
as if it had been universal, and as if every individual of that nation
throughout England had been put to death. But the Danes were almost
the sole inhabitants in the kingdoms of Northumberland and East-
Anglia, and were very numerous in Mercia. This representation,
therefore, of the matter is absolutely impossible. Great resistance
must have been made, and violent wars ensued; which was not the case.
This account given by Wallingford, though he stands single, must he
admitted as the only true one. We are told that the name LURDANE,
LORD DANE, for an idle lazy fellow, who lives at other people's
expense, came from the conduct of the Danes, who were put to death.
But the English princes had been entirely masters for several
generations; and only supported a military corps of that nation. It
seems probable, therefore, that it was these Danes only that were put
to death.

NOTE [E]

The ingenious author of the article GODWIN, in the Biographia
Britannica, has endeavoured to clear the memory of that nobleman, upon
the supposition, that all the English annals had been falsified by the
Norman historians after the Conquest. But that this supposition has
not much foundation, appears hence, that almost all these historians
have given a very good character to his son Harold, whom it was much
more the interest of the Norman cause to blacken.

NOTE [F]

The whole story of the transactions between Edward, Harold, and the
Duke of Normandy, is told so differently by the ancient writers, that
there are few important passages of the English history liable to so
great uncertainty. I have followed the account which appeared to me
the most consistent and probable. It does not seem likely, that
Edward ever executed a will in the duke's favour, much less t