t in deserting with twenty ships to the Danes. Brightric pursued
him with a fleet of eighty sail; but his ships being shattered in a
tempest, and stranded on the coast, he was suddenly attacked by
Wolfnoth, and all his vessels were burnt or destroyed. The imbecility
of the king was little capable of repairing this misfortune: the
treachery of Edric frustrated every plan for future defence; and the
English navy, disconcerted, discouraged, and divided, was at last
scattered into its several harbours.
[FN [r] There were 243,600 hides in England. Consequently the ships
equipped must be 785. The cavalry was 30,450 men.]

It is almost impossible, or would be tedious, to relate particularly
all the miseries to which the English were thenceforth exposed. We
hear of nothing but the sacking and burning of towns; the devastation
of the open country; the appearance of the enemy in every quarter of
the kingdom; their cruel diligence in discovering any corner which had
not been ransacked by their former violence. The broken and
disjointed narration of the ancient historians is here well adapted to
the nature of the war, which was conducted by such sudden inroads as
would have been dangerous even to an united and well-governed kingdom,
but proved fatal, where nothing but a general consternation and mutual
diffidence and dissension prevailed. The governors of one province
refused to march to the assistance of another, and were at last
terrified from assembling their forces for the defence of their own
province. General councils were summoned; but either no resolution
was taken, or none was carried into execution. And the only expedient
in which the English agreed, was the base and imprudent one of buying
a new peace from the Danes, by the payment of forty-eight thousand
pounds.

[MN 1011.] This measure did not bring them even that short interval
of repose which they had expected from it. The Danes, disregarding
all engagements, continued their devastations and hostilities; levied
a new contribution of eight thousand pounds upon the county of Kent
alone; murdered the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had refused to
countenance this exaction; and the English nobility found no other
resource than that of submitting every where to the Danish monarch,
swearing allegiance to him [MN 1013.], and delivering him hostages for
their fidelity. Ethelred, equally afraid of the violence of the enemy
and the treachery of his own subjects, fl