A D.

Hardicanute remains in Denmark; Edward lands, but returns to
Normandy; Alfred lands at Herne Bay, and is received by Earl
Godwin; he is captured and cruelly treated; he dies.

Harold is declared full king over all the Island.

1039 Duncan, king of Scots, is murdered at Bothgouanan by Macbeth, who succeeds to the throne.

1040 Harold dies and is buried at Westminster. Hardicanute arrives in England, and is accepted as king.

1042 He dies at a feast, and is buried at Winchester.

Accession of Edward the Confessor.

He marries Editha, the daughter of earl Godwin.

1043 The Danes, under king Magnus, threaten to invade England, but retire. 1044 Sweyn II., son of earl Godwin, violates an abbess and is exiled; he becomes a pirate and murders his cousin Beorn; he is pardoned and restored to his government.

1051 A retainer of Eustace, count of Boulogne, kills an Englishman at Dover, and the count and his followers are driven out; earl Godwin is disgraced; he flies to Flanders; his sons Harold and Leofwin go to Ireland.

Edward seizes the jewels and money of his queen Editha, and confines her in the monastery of Wherwell; William, duke of Normandy, visits England at the king's invitation.

1052 Earl Godwin lands on the south coast; he and his sons Harold and

Leofwin sail up the Thames and stop at Southwark; the Normans and French are banished; the queen set at liberty; Wilnot, one of the sons, and Haco, a grandson of the earl, are given as hostages, and sent to Normandy; Sweyn is banished and goes on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; the Saxon authority is rendered supreme.

Earl Godwin dies at Windsor, and is succeeded in his titles and possessions by Harold, his eldest son.

1054 Siward, Earl of Northumbria, defeats Macbeth, near Dunsinane. 1056 Dec. 5. Macduff and Malcolm defeat and slay Macbeth.

1057 April 3. Lulach, successor of Macbeth, is defeated and slain at the battle of Eassie by Malcolm III.

1063 Harold with his brother Tostig overcome the Welsh, who decapitate their king Griffith, and send his head to Harold; the Welsh give hostages, and engage to pay the ancient tribute.

Edward, the outlaw, arrives in London and dies soon after, and is

buried in St. Paul's.

1065 Harold is wrecked on the French coast; is taken prisoner; is ransomed by the duke of Normandy; Harold swears to aid William to get possession of the English crown after Edward's death.

Tostig is expelled from Northumbria, and Morcar is appointed earl in his stead; he flies to Bruges.

Nov. 30. Harold arrives in London.

A.D.

1066 Jan. 5. Edward the Confessor dies and is buried at Westminster. Harold is proclaimed king; the foreign favourites are dismissed; duke William demands by his ambassadors the fulfilment of Harold's oath; he refuses; the pope sanctions the invasion of England.

Tostig ravages the Isle of Wight and the coast of Lincolnshire; sails up the Humber, but is beaten off; Hardrada, king of Norway, invades England, and with Tostig defeats earls Morcar and Edwin, and takes York; Harold fights and beats them at Stamford-bridge, and Hardrada and Tostig are slain.

Sept. 28. The Normans land at Bulverhithe, march to Hastings, and form a fortified camp.

They ravage the surrounding country.

Harold arrives in London from the north, and in six days marches against the Normans.

Oct. 14. The battle of Hastings; Harold is slain.

WHILST the army of the king of the Anglo-Saxons, and that of the invader were confronting each other, a fresh detachment of vessels from Normandy had crossed the channel to rejoin the great fleet stationed in the roads of Hastings. Their commanders landed, by mistake, several miles farther north, at a place called Rumen-ey, now Romney. The inhabitants of the coast received the Normans as enemies, and a battle took place, in which the foreigners were vanquished. William learnt their defeat, a few days after his victory, and, to spare a similar misfortune to the recruits that he still expected from across the strait, he resolved, first of all, to secure possession of the south-eastern coast. Instead, therefore, of advancing towards London, he marched back to Hastings, and remained there for some time, in order to try if his presence might not induce the people of the neighbouring country to submit themselves voluntarily. But, receiving no peaceful advances, the conqueror resumed his march, with the remains of his army, and the fresh troops which had arrived, in the interval, from Normandy. He proceeded along the shore, from south to north, devastating all in his course. At Romney he avenged the defeat of his soldiers by burning the houses and massacring the inhabitants. From Romney he marched towards Dover, the strongest place on the coast, of which he had formerly attempted

to obtain peaceful possession by means of the oath which he exacted from Harold. The fortress of Dover, recently finished by the son of Godwin, under happier auspices, was situated on a rock which naturally arose precipitously from the sea that washed its base, and on which much pains and labour had been expended, in trimming it on all sides, so as to render it as smooth as a wall. The details of the siege by the Normans are not known; all that we learn from historians is, that the town of Dover was burnt down, and that, influenced either by terror or treason, the garrison of the fortress surrendered it. William passed eight days at Dover, in constructing new walls and works of defence; then, changing his route, and discontinuing his course along the coast, he marched towards the metropolis.

The Norman army advanced by the great Roman way, called by the English Wetlinga-street, the same which had so often served as a common boundary in the divisions of territory between the Saxons and the Danes. This road led from Dover to London through the middle of the province of Kent; the conquerors traversed a portion of it without their passage being disputed; but in one place, where the road approached the Thames, on the border of a forest well adapted for an ambuscade, a large body of armed Saxons suddenly appeared. They were commanded by two priests, Egelsig, abbot of the monastery of St. Augustine, at Canterbury, and the archbishop of Canterbury, Stigand, the same who had crowned king Harold. It is not exactly known what occurred in this encounter, whether there was a battle, followed by a treaty between the two armies, or whether the capitulation was concluded without fighting. It appears, however, that the army of Kent stipulated for all the inhabitants of that province, who engaged to offer no further resistance to the conquerors, on condition that they should remain as free, after the conquest, as they had been before it.

In thus treating for themselves, and separating their own fate from that of their country, the men of Kent, (if indeed it be true that they entered into this compact,) acted in a manner more hurtful to the common cause than advantageous to themselves;

for no edict of the time gives any evidence that the foreigner kept faith with them, or distinguished them from the rest of the English in his oppressive measures and laws. Archbishop Stigand, either having joined in this capitulation, or vainly opposed it (which is the most probable conjecture, considering his proud and intrepid character), quitted the province which had laid down its arms and repaired to London, where submission had not yet been thought of. The inhabitants of this great town, and the chiefs who were assembled there, had resolved to fight a second battle, which, well ordered and ably commanded, would be, to all appearance, more fortunate than the first.

But a supreme commander was needed under whom all the troops and all volunteers might rally, and the national council, which ought to have named this commander, delayed making a decision, agitated and divided as it was by divers intrigues and pretentions. Neither of the brothers of the late king, who were men capable of worthily filling his place, had survived the battle of Hastings. Harold had left two sons, who were still very young, and too little known to the people; it does not appear that they were then proposed as claimants to the throne. Amongst all the candidates, the most powerful from their wealth and renown were Edwin and Morkar, brothers-in-law of Harold, the chiefs of Northumbria and Mercia. They had the suffrages of all the men of the north of England; but the citizens of London, the inhabitants of the south, and some others, set up in opposition to them, young Edgar, the nephew of king Edward, who was surnamed Ætheling, or the illustrious, on account of his descent from several kings. This young man, feeble minded, and without any acquired reputation, had been unable, a year before, to stand against the popularity of Harold; but he now outweighed that of the sons of Alfgar, and was supported against them by Stigand himself, and by Eldred, archbishop of York.

Among the rest of the bishops there were several who were neither in favour of Edgar nor of his competitors, but demanded that submission should be made to him who had brought the pope's bull and the consecrated standard. Some of these men