The History of England Part 35

[MN 1267.] The merits of the Earl of Gloucester, after he returned to his allegiance, had been so great in restoring the prince to his liberty, and a.s.sisting him in his victories against the rebellious barons, that it was almost impossible to content him in his demands; and his youth and temerity, as well as his great power, tempted him, on some new disgust, to raise again the flames of rebellion in the kingdom. The mutinous populace of London, at his instigation, took to arms; and the prince was obliged to levy an army of thirty thousand men in order to suppress them. Even this second rebellion did not provoke the king to any act of cruelty; and the Earl of Gloucester himself escaped with total impunity. He was only obliged to enter into a bond of twenty thousand marks, that he should never again be guilty of rebellion: a strange method of enforcing the laws, and a proof of the dangerous independence of the barons in those ages!

These potent n.o.bles were, from the danger of the precedent, averse to the execution of the laws of forfeiture and felony against any of their fellows; though they could not, with a good grace, refuse to concur in obliging them to fulfil any voluntary contract and engagement into which they had entered.

[MN 1270.] The prince, finding the state of the kingdom tolerably composed, was seduced, by his avidity for glory and by the prejudices of the age, as well as by the earnest solicitations of the King of France, to undertake an expedition against the infidels in the Holy Land [n]; and he endeavoured previously to settle the state in such a manner as to dread no bad effects from his absence. As the formidable power and turbulent disposition of the Earl of Gloucester gave him apprehensions, he insisted on carrying him along with him, in consequence of a vow which that n.o.bleman had made to undertake the same voyage: in the mean time, he obliged him to resign some of his castles, and to enter into a new bond not to disturb the peace of the kingdom [o]. He sailed from England with an army, and arrived in Lewis's camp before Tunis in Africa, where he found that monarch already dead from the intemperance of the climate and the fatigues of his enterprise. The great, if not only, weakness of this prince in his government, was the imprudent pa.s.sion for crusades; but it was his zeal chiefly that procured him from the clergy the t.i.tle of St. Lewis, by which he is known in the French history; and if that appellation had not been so extremely prost.i.tuted, as to become rather a term of reproach, he seems by his uniform probity and goodness, as well as his piety, to have fully merited the t.i.tle. He was succeeded by his son Philip, denominated the Hardy; a prince of some merit, though much inferior to that of his father.

[FN [n] M. Paris, p. 677. [o] Chron. T. Wykes, p. 90.]

[MN 1271.] Prince Edward, not discouraged by this event, continued his voyage to the Holy Land, where he signalized himself by acts of valour; revived the glory of the English name in those parts; and struck such terror into the Saracens, that they employed an a.s.sa.s.sin to murder him, who wounded him in the arm, but perished in the attempt [p]. Meanwhile, his absence from England was attended with many of those pernicious consequences which had been dreaded from it. The laws were not executed: the barons oppressed the common people with impunity [q]: they gave shelter on their estates to bands of robbers, whom they employed in committing ravages on the estates of their enemies: the populace of London returned to their usual licentiousness: and the old king, unequal to the burden of public affairs, called aloud for his gallant son to return [r], and to a.s.sist him in swaying that sceptre which was ready to drop from his feeble and irresolute hands. [MN 1272. 16th Nov. Death,] At last, overcome by the cares of government and the infirmities of age, he visibly declined, and he expired at St. Edmondsbury, in the sixty-fourth year of his age, and fifty-sixth of his reign; the longest reign that is to be met with in the English annals. His brother, the King of the Romans, (for he never attained the t.i.tle of Emperor,) died about seven months before him.

[FN [p] M. Paris, p. 678, 679. W. Heming. p. 520. [q] Chron. Dunst.

vol. i. p. 404. [r] Rymer, vol. i. p. 869. M. Paris, p. 678.]

[MN and character of the king.] The most obvious circ.u.mstance of Henry's character is his incapacity for government, which rendered him as much a prisoner in the hands of his own ministers and favourites, and as little at his own disposal, as when detained a captive in the hands of his enemies. From this source, rather than from insincerity or treachery, arose his negligence in observing his promises; and he was too easily induced, for the sake of present convenience, to sacrifice the lasting advantages arising from the trust and confidence of his people. Hence too were derived his profusion to favourites, his attachment to strangers, the variableness of his conduct, his hasty resentments, and his sudden forgiveness and return of affection.

Instead of reducing the dangerous power of his n.o.bles, by obliging them to observe the laws towards their inferiors, and setting them the salutary example in his own government, he was seduced to imitate their conduct, and to make his arbitrary will, or rather that of his ministers, the rule of his actions. Instead of accommodating himself, by a strict frugality, to the embarra.s.sed situation in which his revenue had been left by the military expeditions of his uncle, the dissipations of his father, and the usurpations of the barons; he was tempted to levy money by irregular exactions, which, without enriching himself, impoverished, at least disgusted, his people. Of all men, nature seemed least to have fitted him for being a tyrant; yet there are instances of oppression in his reign, which, though derived from the precedents left him by his predecessors, had been carefully guarded against by the great charter, and are inconsistent with all rules of good government. And on the whole, we may say, that greater abilities, with his good dispositions, would have prevented him from falling into his faults; or, with worse dispositions, would have enabled him to maintain and defend them.

This prince was noted for his piety and devotion, and his regular attendance on public wors.h.i.+p; and a saying of his on that head is much celebrated by ancient writers. He was engaged in a dispute with Lewis IX. of France, concerning the preference between sermons and ma.s.ses: he maintained the superiority of the latter, and affirmed that he would rather have one hour's conversation with a friend, than hear twenty of the most elaborate discourses p.r.o.nounced in his praise [s].

[FN [s] Walsing. Edw. I. p. 43.]

Henry left two sons, Edward, his successor, and Edmond, Earl of Lancaster; and two daughters, Margaret, Queen of Scotland, and Beatrix, d.u.c.h.ess of Britany. He had five other children, who died in their infancy.

[MN Miscellaneous transactions of the reign.]

The following are the most remarkable laws enacted during this reign.

There had been great disputes between the civil and ecclesiastical courts concerning b.a.s.t.a.r.dy. The common law had deemed all those to be b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who were born before wedlock; by the canon law they were legitimate: and when any dispute of inheritance arose, it had formerly been usual for the civil courts to issue writs to the spiritual, directing them to inquire into the legitimacy of the person. The bishop always returned an answer agreeable to the canon law, though contrary to the munic.i.p.al law of the kingdom. For this reason the civil courts had changed the terms of their writ; and instead of requiring the spiritual courts to make inquisition concerning the legitimacy of the person, they only proposed the simple question of fact, whether he were born, before or after wedlock? The prelates complained of this practice to the Parliament a.s.sembled at Merton in the twentieth of this king, and desired that the munic.i.p.al law might be rendered conformable to the canon; but received from all the n.o.bility the memorable reply, NOLUMUS LEGES ANGLIAE MUTARE! We will not change the laws of England [t].

[FN [t] Statute of Merton, chap. 9.]

After the civil wars, the Parliament, summoned at Marlebridge, gave their approbation to most of the ordinances which had been established by the reforming barons, and which, though advantageous to the security of the people, had not received the sanction of a legal authority. Among other laws, it was there enacted, that all appeals from the courts of inferior lords should be carried directly to the king's courts without pa.s.sing through the courts of the lords immediately superior [u]. It was ordained that money should bear no interest during the minority of the debtor [w]. This law was reasonable, as the estates of minors were always in the hands of their lords, and the debtors could not pay interest where they had no revenue. The charter of King John had granted this indulgence: it was omitted in that of Henry III., for what reason is not known; but it was renewed by the statute of Marlebridge. Most of the other articles of this statute are calculated to restrain the oppressions of sheriffs, and the violence and iniquities committed in distraining cattle and other goods. Cattle and the instruments of husbandry formed at that time the chief riches of the people.

[FN [u] Statute of Marleb. chap. 20. [w] Ibid. chap. 16.]

In the thirty-fifth year of this king an a.s.size was fixed of bread, the price of which was settled, according to the different prices of corn, from one s.h.i.+lling a quarter to seven s.h.i.+llings and sixpence [x], money of that age. These great variations are alone a proof of bad tillage [y]: yet did the prices often rise much higher than any taken notice of by the statute. The Chronicle of Dunstable tells us, that, in this reign, wheat was once sold for a mark, nay, for a pound, a quarter, that is, three pounds of our present money [z]. The same law affords us a proof of the little communication between the parts of the kingdom, from the very different prices which the same commodity bore at the same time. A brewer, says the statute, may sell two gallons of ale for a penny in cities, and three or four gallons for the same price in the country. At present, such commodities, by the great consumption of the people, and the great stocks of the brewers, are rather cheapest in cities. The Chronicle above mentioned observes, that wheat one year was sold in many places for eight s.h.i.+llings a quarter, but never rose in Dunstable above a crown.

[FN [x] Statutes at Large, p. 6. [y] We learn from Cicero's Orations against Verres, lib. 3, cap. 84, 92, that the price of corn in Sicily was, during the praetors.h.i.+p of Sacerdos, five Denarii a Modius; during that of Verres, which immediately succeeded, only two Sesterces; that is, ten times lower; a presumption, or rather a proof, of the very bad state of tillage in ancient times. [z] Knyghton, p. 2444.]

Though commerce was still very low, it seems rather to have increased since the Conquest; at least if we may judge of the increase of money by the price of corn. The medium between the highest and lowest prices of wheat, a.s.signed by the statute, is four s.h.i.+llings and three pence a quarter, that is, twelve s.h.i.+llings and nine pence of our present money. This is near half of the middling price in our time.

Yet the middling price of cattle, so late as the reign of King Richard, we find to be above eight, near ten times lower than the present. Is not this the true inference, from comparing these facts, that, in all uncivilized nations, cattle, which propagate of themselves, bear always a lower price than corn, which requires more art and stock to render it plentiful than those nations are possessed of? It is to be remarked that Henry's a.s.size of corn was copied from a preceding a.s.size established by King John; consequently, the prices which we have here compared of corn and cattle may be looked on as contemporary; and they were drawn, not from one particular year, but from an estimation of the middling prices for a series of years. It is true, the prices a.s.signed by the a.s.size of Richard were meant as a standard for the accompts of sheriffs and escheators; and as considerable profits were allowed to these ministers, we may naturally suppose, that the common value of cattle was somewhat higher: yet still, so great a difference between the prices of corn and cattle as that of four to one, compared to the present rates, affords important reflections concerning the very different state of industry and tillage in the two periods.

Interest had in that age amounted to an enormous height, as might be expected from the barbarism of the times and men's ignorance of commerce. Instances occur of fifty per cent paid for money [a].

There is an edict of Philip Augustus near this period, limiting the Jews in France to forty-eight per cent [b]. Such profits tempted the Jews to remain in the kingdom, notwithstanding the grievous oppressions to which, from the prevalent bigotry and rapine of the age, they were continually exposed. It is easy to imagine how precarious their state must have been under an indigent prince, somewhat restrained in his tyranny over his native subjects, but who possessed an unlimited authority over the Jews, the sole proprietors of money in the kingdom, and hated, on account of their riches, their religion, and their usury: yet will our ideas scarcely come up to the extortions which, in fact, we find to have been practised upon them.

In the year 1241, twenty thousand marks were exacted from them [c]: two years after money was again extorted; and one Jew alone, Aaron of York, was obliged to pay above four thousand marks [d]. In 1250, Henry renewed his oppressions; and the same Aaron was condemned to pay him thirty thousand marks upon an accusation of forgery [e]: the high penalty imposed upon him, and which, it seems, he was thought able to pay, is rather a presumption of his innocence than of his guilt. In 1255, the king demanded eight thousand marks from the Jews, and threatened to hang them if they refused compliance. They now lost all patience, and desired leave to retire with their effects out of the kingdom. But the king replied: "How can I remedy the oppressions you complain of? I am myself a beggar. I am spoiled, I am stripped of all my revenues: I owe above two hundred thousand marks; and if I had said three hundred thousand, I should not exceed the truth: I am obliged to pay my son, Prince Edward, fifteen thousand marks a year: I have not a farthing; and I must have money, from any hand, from any quarter, or by any means." He then delivered over the Jews to the Earl of Cornwall, that those whom the one brother had flayed, the other might embowel, to make use of the words of the historian [f].

King John, his father, once demanded ten thousand marks from a Jew of Bristol; and on his refusal, ordered one of his teeth to be drawn every day till he should comply. The Jew lost seven teeth, and then paid the sum required of him [g]. One talliage paid upon the Jews in 1243 amounted to sixty thousand marks [h]; a sum equal to the whole yearly revenue of the crown.

[FN [a] M. Paris, p. 586. [b] Brussel, Traite des Fiefs, vol. i. p.

576 [c] M. Paris, p. 372. [d] Ibid. p. 410. [e] Ibid. p. 525. [f]

M. Paris, p. 606. [g] Ibid. p. 160. [h] Madox, p. 152.]

To give a better pretence for extortions, the improbable and absurd accusation, which has been at different times advanced against that nation, was revived in England, that they had crucified a child in derision of the sufferings of Christ. Eighteen of them were hanged at once for this crime [i]: though it is nowise credible, that even the antipathy borne them by the Christians, and the oppressions under which they laboured, would ever have pushed them to be guilty of that dangerous enormity. But it is natural to imagine, that a race, exposed to such insults and indignities, both from king and people, and who had so uncertain an enjoyment of their riches, would carry usury to the utmost extremity, and by their great profits make themselves some compensation for their continual perils.

[FN [i] M. Paris, p. 613.]

Though these acts of violence against the Jews proceeded much from bigotry, they were still more derived from avidity and rapine. So far from desiring in that age to convert them, it was enacted by law in France, that if any Jew embraced Christianity, he forfeited all his goods, without exception, to the king, or his superior lord. These plunderers were careful, lest the profits, accruing from their dominion over that unhappy race, should be diminished by their conversion [k].

[FN [k] Brussel, vol. i. p. 622. Du Cange, verbo JUDAEI.]

Commerce must be in a wretched condition, where interest was so high, and where the sole proprietors of money employed it in usury only, and were exposed to such extortion and injustice. But the bad police of the country was another obstacle to improvements; and rendered all communication dangerous, and all property precarious. The Chronicle of Dunstable says [l], that men were never secure in the houses, and that whole villages were often plundered by bands of robbers, though no civil wars at that time prevailed in the kingdom. In 1249, some years before the insurrection of the barons, two merchants of Brabant came to the king at Winchester, and told him that they had been spoiled of all their goods by certain robbers, whom they knew, because they saw their faces every day in his court; that like practices prevailed all over England, and travellers were continually exposed to the danger of being robbed, bound, wounded, and murdered; that these crimes escaped with impunity, because the ministers of justice themselves were in a confederacy was the robbers; and that they, for their part, instead of bringing matters to a fruitless trial by law, were willing, though merchants, to decide their cause with the robbers by arms and a duel. The king, provoked at these abuses, ordered a jury to be enclosed, and to try the robbers: the jury, though consisting of twelve men of property in Hamps.h.i.+re, were found to be also in a confederacy with the felons, and acquitted them. Henry, in a rage, committed the jury to prison, threatened them with a severe punishment, and ordered a new jury to be enclosed, who, dreading the fate of their fellows, at last found a verdict against the criminals.

Many of the king's own household were discovered to have partic.i.p.ated in the guilt; and they said for their excuse, that they received no wages from him, and were obliged to rob for a maintenance [m].

KNIGHTS AND ESQUIRES, says the Dictum of Kenilworth, WHO WERE ROBBERS, IF THEY HAVE NO LAND, SHALL PAY THE HALF OF THEIR GOODS, AND FIND SUFFICIENT SECURITY TO KEEP HENCEFORTH THE PEACE OF THE KINGDOM. Such were the matters of the times!

[FN [1] Vol. i. p. 155. [m] M. Paris, p. 509.]

One can the less repine, during the prevalence of such manners, at the frauds and forgeries of the clergy; as it gives less disturbance to society, to take men's money from them with their own consent, though by deceits and lies, than to ravish it by open force and violence.

During this reign the papal power was at its summit, and was even beginning insensibly to decline, by reason of the immeasurable avarice and extortions of the court of Rome, which disgusted the clergy as well as laity, in every kingdom of Europe. England itself, though sunk in the deepest abyss of ignorance and superst.i.tion, had seriously entertained thoughts of shaking off the papal yoke [n]; and the Roman pontiff was obliged to think of new expedients for riveting it faster upon the Christian world. For this purpose, Gregory IX. published his decretals [o], which are a collection of forgeries, favourable to the court of Rome, and consist of the supposed decrees of popes in the first centuries. But these forgeries are so gross, and confound so palpably all language, history, chronology, and antiquities, matters more stubborn than any speculative truths whatsoever, that even that church, which is not startled at the most monstrous contradictions and absurdities, has been obliged to abandon them to the critics. But in the dark period of the thirteenth century they pa.s.sed for undisputed and authentic; and men, entangled in the mazes of this false literature, joined to the philosophy, equally false, of the times, had nothing wherewithal to defend themselves, but some small remains of common sense, which pa.s.sed for profaneness and impiety, and the indelible regard to self-interest, which, as it was the sole motive in the priests for framing these impostures, served also, in some degree, to protect the laity against them.

[FN [n] M. Paris, p. 421. [o] Trivet, p. 191.]

Another expedient, devised by the church of Rome, in this period, for securing her power, was the inst.i.tution of new religious orders, chiefly the Dominicans and Franciscans, who proceeded with all the zeal and success that attend novelties; were better qualified to gain the populace than the old orders, now become rich and indolent; maintained a perpetual rivals.h.i.+p with each other in promoting their gainful superst.i.tions; and acquired a great dominion over the minds, and, consequently, over the purses of men, by pretending a desire of poverty and a contempt for riches. The quarrels which arose between these orders, lying still under the control of the sovereign pontiff, never disturbed the peace of the church, and served only as a spur to their industry in promoting the common cause; and though the Dominicans lost some popularity by their denial of the immaculate conception, a point in which they unwarily engaged too far to be able to recede with honour, they counterbalanced this disadvantage, by acquiring more solid establishments, by gaining the confidence of kings and princes, and by exercising the jurisdiction a.s.signed them, of ultimate judges and punishers of heresy. Thus, the several orders of monks became a kind of regular troops or garrisons of the Romish church; and though the temporal interests of society, still more the cause of true piety, were hurt, by their various devices to captivate the populace, they proved the chief supports of that mighty fabric of superst.i.tion, and till the revival of true learning, secured it from any dangerous invasion.

The trial by ordeal was abolished in this reign by order of council: a faint mark of improvement in the age [p].

[FN [p] Rymer, vol. i. p. 228. Spellman, p. 326.]

Henry granted a charter to the town of Newcastle, in which he gave the inhabitants a licence to dig coal. This is the first mention of coal in England.

We learn from Madox [q], that this king gave, at one time, one hundred s.h.i.+llings to master Henry, his poet: also the same year he orders this poet ten pounds.

[FN [q] Page 268.]

It appears from Selden, that, in the forty-seventh of his reign, a hundred and fifty temporal, and fifty spiritual barons were summoned to perform the service due by their tenures [r]. In the thirty-fifth of the subsequent reign, eighty-six temporal barons, twenty bishops, and forty-eight abbots, were summoned to a Parliament convened at Carlisle [s].

[FN [r] t.i.tles of Honour, part ii. Chap. 3. [s] Parl. Hist. vol. i.

p. 151.]

NOTES.

NOTE [A]

This question has been disputed with as great zeal and even acrimony, between the Scotch and Irish antiquaries, as if the honour of their respective countries were the most deeply concerned in the decision.

We shall not enter into any detail on so uninteresting a subject, but shall propose our opinion in a few words. It appears more than probable, from the similitude of language and manners, that Britain either was originally peopled, or was subdued, by the migration of inhabitants from Gaul, and Ireland from Britain: the position of the several countries is an additional reason that favours this conclusion. It appears also probable, that the migration of that colony of Gauls or Celts, who peopled or subdued Ireland, was originally made from the north-west parts of Britain; and this conjecture (if it do not merit a higher name) is founded both on the Irish language, which is a very different dialect from the Welsh, and from the language anciently spoken in South Britain; and on the vicinity of Lancas.h.i.+re, c.u.mberland, Galloway, and Argyles.h.i.+re, to that island. These events, as they pa.s.sed long before the age of history and records, must be known by reasoning alone, which in this case seems to be pretty satisfactory: Caesar and Tacitus, not to mention a mult.i.tude of other Greek and Roman authors, were guided by like inferences. But besides these primitive facts, which lie in a very remote antiquity, it is a matter of positive and undoubted testimony, that the Roman province of Britain, during the time of the lower empire, was much infested by bands of robbers or pirates, whom the provincial Britons called Scots or Scuits; a name which was probably used as a term of reproach, and which these banditti themselves did not acknowledge or a.s.sume. We may infer from two pa.s.sages in Claudian, and from one in Orosius, and another in Isidore, that the chief seat of these Scots was in Ireland. That some part of the Irish freebooters migrated back to the north-west parts of Britain, whence their ancestors had probably been derived in a more remote age, is positively a.s.serted by Bede, and implied in Gildas. I grant that neither Bede nor Gildas are Caesars or Tacituses; but such as they are, they remain the sole testimony on the subject, and therefore must be relied on for want of better: happily, the frivolousness of the question corresponds to the weakness of the authorities. Not to mention, that if any part of the traditional history of a barbarous people can be relied on, it is the genealogy of nations, and even sometimes that of families. It is in vain to argue against these facts from the supposed warlike disposition of the Highlanders, and unwarlike of the ancient Irish. Those arguments are still much weaker than the authorities. Nations change very quickly in these particulars. The Britons were unable to resist the Picts and Scots, and invited over the Saxons for their defence, who repelled those invaders: yet the same Britons valiantly resisted for one hundred and fifty years, not only this victorious band of Saxons, but infinite numbers more, who poured in upon them from all quarters. Robert Bruce, in 1322, made a peace, in which England, after many defeats, was constrained to acknowledge the independence of his country: yet in no more distant period than ten years after, Scotland was totally subdued by a small handful of English, led by a few private n.o.blemen.

All history is full of such events. The Irish Scots, in the course of two or three centuries, might find time and opportunities sufficient to settle in North Britain, though we can neither a.s.sign the period nor causes of that revolution. Their barbarous manner of life rendered them much fitter than the Romans for subduing these mountaineers. And, in a word, it is clear from the language of the two countries, that the Highlanders and the Irish are the same people, and that the one are a colony from the other. We have positive evidence which, though from neutral persons, is not perhaps the best that may be wished for, that the former, in the third or fourth century, sprang from the latter: we have no evidence at all that the latter sprang from the former. I shall add, that the name of Erse or Irish given by the low-country Scotch to the language of the Scotch Highlanders, is a certain proof of the traditional opinion delivered from father to son, that the latter people came originally from Ireland.

NOTE [B]

There is a seeming contradiction in ancient historians with regard to some circ.u.mstances in the story of Edwy and Elgiva. It is agreed that this prince had a violent pa.s.sion for his second or third cousin, Elgiva, whom he married, though within the degrees prohibited by the canons. It is also agreed, that he was dragged from a lady on the day of his coronation, and that the lady was afterwards treated with the singular barbarity above mentioned. The only difference is, that Osberne and some others call her his strumpet, not his wife, as she is said to be by Malmesbury. But this difference is easily reconciled; for if Edwy married her contrary to the canons, the monks would be sure to deny her to be his wife, and would insist that she could be nothing but his strumpet; to that, on the whole, we may esteem this representation of the matter as certain, at least, as by far the most probable. If Edwy had only kept a mistress, it is well known that there are methods of accommodation with the church, which would have prevented the clergy from proceeding to such extremities against him: but his marriage contrary to the canons, was an insult on their authority, and called for their highest resentment.

NOTE [C]

Many of the English historians make Edgar's s.h.i.+ps 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 s.h.i.+ps; 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 ma.s.sacre 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.