THE DANISH OLIGARCHY: DISAFFECTIONS ATTENDING CHRONIC USURPATION
PROCLIVITIES.


Edgar was succeeded by his son Edward, called "the Martyr," who ascended
the throne at the age of fifteen years. His step-mother, Elfrida,
opposed him, and favored her own son, Ethelred. Edward was assassinated
in 978, at the instigation of his step-mother, and that's what's the
martyr with him.

During his reign there was a good deal of ill feeling, and Edward would
no doubt have been deposed but for the influence of the church under
Dunstan.

Ethelred was but ten years old when he began reigning. Sadly poor
Dunstan crowned him, his own eyes still wet with sorrow over the cruel
death of Edward. He foretold that Ethelred would have a stormy reign,
with sleet and variable winds, changing to snow.

During the remainder of the great prelate's life he, as it were, stood
between the usurper and the people, and protected them from the
threatening storm.

But in 991, shortly after the death of Dunstan, a great army of
Norwegians came over to England for purposes of pillage. To say that it
was an allopathic pillage would not be an extravagant statement. They
were extremely rude people, like all the nations of northern Europe at
that time,--Rome being the Boston of the Old World, and Copenhagen the
Fort Dodge of that period.