that renowmedlie) so often as they did encounter, and séeking the
totall regiment, were dispossessed of their partile principalitie,
which by warlike violence they obteined; and for that the Saxons were
interessed in the land, and these but violent incrochers, vnable
to kéepe that which they came to by constreint; we haue thought it
conuenient to comprise the troubled estate of that time in the sixt
booke; the rather for the necessarie consequence of matters then in
motion: and héere déeme it not amisse, at so great and shamefull
loosenesse (speciallie in a prince) ministring hart and courage to the
enimie, to begin the seuenth booke. Wherin is expressed the chiefest
time of their flourishing estate in this land; if in tumults, vprores,
battels, and bloudshed, such a kind of estate may possiblie be
found. For héere the Danes lord it, heere they take vpon them like
souereignes, & héere (if at anie time they had absolute authoritie)
they did what they might in the highest degrée: as shall be declared
in the vnfortunate affaires of vngratious Egelred or Etheldred, the
sonne of king Edgar, and of his last wife queene Alfred, who was
ordeined king in place of his brother Edward, after the same Edward
was dispatched out of the waie, and began his reigne ouer this
[Sidenote: 979. _Simon Dun._]
realme of England, in the yéere of our Lord 979, which was in the
seuenth yéere of the emperor Otho the second, in the 24 of Lothaire K.
of France, and about the second or third yeere of Kenneth the third
[Sidenote: _Simon Dun._]
of that name king of Scotland.

This Egelred or Etheldred was the 30 in number from Cerdicus the first
king of the Westsaxons: through his negligent gouernment, the state of
the commonwealth fell into such decaie (as writers doo report) that
vnder him it may be said, how the kingdome was come to the vttermost