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Läsebok. N:o 94—95.
91
in the town of Pavia they had seen a ragged beggar-woman,
who had once been handsome, but was then shrivelled, bent,
and yellow, wandering about the streets, crying for bread;
and that this beggar-woman was the poisoning English queen.
It was, indeed, Edburga; and so she died, without a shelter
for her wretched head.
Egbert, not considering himself safe in England, in
consequence of his having claimed the crown of Wessex (for he
thought his rival might take him prisoner and put hirn to
death), sought refuge at the court of Charlemagne, King of
France. On the death of Beortric, so unhappily poisoned by
mistake, Egbert came back to Britain; succeeded to the throne
of Wessex; conquered some of the other monarchs of the
seven kingdoms; added their territories to his own, and for
the first time, callcd the country over which he ruled,
England.
And now, new enemies arose, who for a long time
troubled England sorely. These were the Northmen, the people
of Denmark and Norway, whom the English called the Danes.
They were a warlike people, quite at home upon the sea;
not Christians; very daring and cruel. They came over in
ships, and plundered and burned wheresoever they landed.
Once they beat Egbert in battle. Once, Egbert beat them.
But, they cared no more for being beaten than the English
themselves. In the four following short reigns, of
Ethel-wulf", and his three sons, Ethelbald *, Ethelbert, and
Ethel-red, they came back, over and over again, burning and
plundering, and laying England waste. In the last mentioned
reign, they seized Edmund, king of East England, and bound
him to a tree. Then, they proposed to him that he should
change his religion; but he being a good Christian, steadily
refused. Upon that, they beat him, made cowardly jests upon
him, all defenceless as he was, shot arrows at him, and, finally
struck off his head. It is impossible to say whose head they
might have struck off next, but for the death of king
Ethel-red from a wound he had received in fighting against them,
and the succession to his throne of the best and wisest king
that ever lived in England.
c) 90. Alfred the Great.
Alfred the Great was a young man, three-and-twenty
years of age, when he became king. Twice in his childhood,
he had been taken to Rome, where the Saxon nobles were in
the habit of going on journeys which they supposed to be
religious; and, once, he had stayed for some time in Paris.
Learning, however, was so little cared for, then, that at twelve
* Eth’elbald.
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