Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

A Child's History of England by Charles Dickens
page 38 of 524 (07%)
onward through the water; and were reflected in the shining shields
that hung upon their sides. The ship that bore the standard of the
King of the sea-kings was carved and painted like a mighty serpent;
and the King in his anger prayed that the Gods in whom he trusted
might all desert him, if his serpent did not strike its fangs into
England's heart.

And indeed it did. For, the great army landing from the great
fleet, near Exeter, went forward, laying England waste, and
striking their lances in the earth as they advanced, or throwing
them into rivers, in token of their making all the island theirs.
In remembrance of the black November night when the Danes were
murdered, wheresoever the invaders came, they made the Saxons
prepare and spread for them great feasts; and when they had eaten
those feasts, and had drunk a curse to England with wild
rejoicings, they drew their swords, and killed their Saxon
entertainers, and marched on. For six long years they carried on
this war: burning the crops, farmhouses, barns, mills, granaries;
killing the labourers in the fields; preventing the seed from being
sown in the ground; causing famine and starvation; leaving only
heaps of ruin and smoking ashes, where they had found rich towns.
To crown this misery, English officers and men deserted, and even
the favourites of Ethelred the Unready, becoming traitors, seized
many of the English ships, turned pirates against their own
country, and aided by a storm occasioned the loss of nearly the
whole English navy.

There was but one man of note, at this miserable pass, who was true
to his country and the feeble King. He was a priest, and a brave
one. For twenty days, the Archbishop of Canterbury defended that
DigitalOcean Referral Badge