Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days by Emily Hickey
page 68 of 82 (82%)
page 68 of 82 (82%)
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"And they kept the archbishop with them as long as to the time when they martyred him. "A.D. 1012. In this year came Eadric the ealdorman, and all the chief witan, religious and lay, of the English folk of London, before Easter: Easterday was then on the date of the Ides of April (13th April). And they were there then so long as until all the tribute was paid, after Easter; that was eight and forty thousand pounds. Then on the Saturday (19th April) was the (Danish) army greatly stirred up against the bishop, because he would not promise them any money; but he forbad that anything should be given for him. They were also very drunken, because wine had been brought there from the south. Then took they the bishop, led him to their husting on the eve of Sunday, the octave of the Pasch; and there they then shamefully killed him: they pelted him with bones and the heads of oxen, and then one of them struck him with an axe-iron on the head, so that with the blow he sank down; and his holy blood fell on the earth, and that his holy soul be sent to God's kingdom." A sorrowful story of evil folly and treachery: a splendid story of steadfastness to the end: of glorious martyrdom. The refusal to allow himself to be ransomed at his pillaged people's cost; the greed of the Danes; the death-stroke given him, we are told, in another chronicle, in mercy, to put an end to his sufferings, given him by a newly-made convert of his. And see how the Church has shown us, in her canonisation as a martyr saint, of this man, who died not directly to testify to the truth of the religion of Jesus, but for the sake of justice, that justice is the outcome of Christianity, and that he who dies for justice sake dies for God. |
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