permanent happiness accruing to the chiefs from a
numerous clan of quiet peasantry, from the annual
riches of tillage, and from the mercantile import-
ation of every other luxury; the lessons, though rude,
of their new Christian clergy; the natural indolence
and quietude of human nature, when permitted to
follow its own tendencies, and when freed from the
goading stings of want, by the fruitful harvests of
regular labour; must have alienated a large part of
the northern society from the practice of their
ancestors, and must have made a piracy, in an
accumulating ratio, unpopular and dishonourable.
Human reason is never slow to amend its erring
associations, when once a new beam of light occurs
to it; and nothing can more strongly paint the pro-
gressive change of manners, than the rapid degrad-
ation of the meaning of the word vikingr.
first designating a soldier, it became appropriated
by pirates, when every warrior pirated. But now
that the condemning voice of society was rising
against rapine, the vikingr hastened fast to become
a synonime of the robber. Poets, who often stamp
the morals of ages, and who always influence the
population of the day, began to brand it with that
opprobrium, which, from their numbers, falls with
the most deterring effect.

90

At

89 The editors of the Gunnlaugi Saga give many examples of this, p. 298-300.

90 Thus Sighvatr, the scalld of Olave, sang:

Rapinæ ita pati isti homines suæ

Pænam debuere

Scelestorum genus et nequam hominum,
Ille sic furta est amolitus.

Sexcentis jussit patriæ terræ

Custos, armis et gladiis præscidi

Piratis et hostibus capita regni.

Snorre, 316. tom. ii.

CHAP.

VIII.

BOOK

VI.

THE improved feelings of society on this subject could not accumulate without communicating some contagion to the vikingr themselves. Though the novel sentiment might be unable to annihilate their evil habits, it awakened, in their fierce bosoms, a little sense of moral distinction; it compelled them to seek some shield of merit to avert that most terrible of all ills, the contempt and hatred of the society to which we belong. They began to feel that it was not honourable for a brave man to prey upon the peaceful merchant, who feeds and benefits his contemporaries, nor to murder the unoffending passenger whom various necessities enforce to roam. A new sort of pirates then appeared more suitable to the new-born morality of their feelings, and to the mental revolutions of the day. The peculiar and self-chosen task of these meritorious warriors was to protect the defenceless navigator, and to seek and assail the indiscriminate plunderer." The exact chronology of these new characters is not clear but they seem reasonably to belong to the last age of piracy. Their existence was, above all laws, efficacious in destroying piracy. They executed what society sighed for, and what wise kings enacted; and their appearance must have hastened the odium of the indiscriminate pirate, who became gradually hunted down as the general enemy of the human race. It is pleasing to read of this distinction in so many authors. Some men associated with the solemnity of an oath, that they would in piracy acquire money honourably, because they would exterminate the berserkir and the malignant, and give safety to the merchant.92 So others pur

91 See the Torsteins Saga, ap. Verelius. Herv. Saga, 47.
92 Bua Saga, ap. Barth. 457.

VIII.

sued piracy to deprive the plundering vikingr of CHAP. the spoil they had torn from the husbandman and merchants. With the same character, Eric the Good is exhibited in the Knytlinga Saga."4

By the laws of the pirate Hialmar, we see that they bound themselves to protect trade and agriculture, not to plunder women, nor to force them to their ships if unwilling, nor to eat raw flesh, which was the practice of the savage pirate.95

On the whole, we may state, that after the tenth century piracy became discreditable; and that in every succeeding reign it approached nearer to its extinction, until it was completely superseded by the influence of commerce, the firmer establishment of legal governments, improved notions of morality, and the experience of the superior comforts of social order, industry, and peaceful pursuits.

93 The Vatzdæla, ap. Barth. 458.

94 Knytlinga Saga, ap. Barth. 452.

95 Bartholin states these laws from the Orvar Oddr Sogu, p. 456.; and see the laws of the sea-king Half, another of this band of naval chivalry, in Bartho. 455. Saxo also describes another set of heroes, who, in the following age, fought against the common pirates, lib. xiv. p. 259.

VI.

Unready.

978.

CHAP. IX.

ETHELRED the Unready.

BOOK ETHELRED succeeded on his brother's assassinEthelred ation; but the action which procured his power the was too atrocious to give all the effect to the policy of his adherents which had been projected. Dunstan retained his dignity, and at least his influence; for what nation could be so depraved as to patronise a woman, who, at her own gate, had caused her king and son-in-law to be assassinated! In attempting to subvert Dunstan by such a deed, she failed. After no long interval, he excited the popular odium, and the terrors of guilt, so successfully against her, that she became overwhelmed with shame, and took shelter in a nunnery, and in building nunneries, from the public abhorrence.

THE reign of Ethelred presents the history of a bad government, uncorrected by its unpopularity and calamities; and of a discontented nation preferring at last the yoke of an invader, whose visits its nobles either invited or encouraged. In the preceding reigns, from Alfred to Edgar, the AngloSaxon spirit was never agitated by danger, but it acted to triumph. By its exertions, a rich and powerful nation had been created, which might have continued to predominate in Europe with increasing honour and great national felicity. But within a few years after Ethelred's accession the pleasing prospect begins to fade. The tumultuary contests in the last reign between the monks and the clergy, and their respective supporters,

CHAP.

IX. Ethelred

the

978.

had not had time to cease. Dunstan acquiring the direction of the government under Ethelred, involved the throne again in the conflict, and the Unready. sovereign was placed at variance with the nobles and parochial clergy. The measures of the government were unsatisfactory to the nation. The chiefs became factious and disloyal, and the people discontented, till a foreign dynasty was at last preferred to the legal native succession.

ETHELRED was but ten years of age when he attained the crown. His amiable disposition gave tears of affection to his brother's memory; but Elfrida could not pardon a sensibility which looked like accusation, and might terminate in rebellion to her will, and in disappointment to her ambition. She seized a waxen candle which was near, and beat the terrified infant with a dreadful severity, which left him nearly expiring. The anguish of the blows never quitted his remembrance. It is affirmed, that during the remainder of his life he could not endure the presence of a light. Perhaps the irresolution, the pusillanimity, the yielding imbecility, which characterised him during his long reign, may have originated in the perpetual terror which the guardianship of such a mother, striving to break his temper into passive obedience to her will, on this and other occasions, wilfully produced.

1

As her power declined, the feelings of the nation expressed themselves more decidedly. The commander of Mercia, and Dunstan, attended by a great crowd, went to Wareham, removed the body of the deceased sovereign, and buried it with honour at Shaftesbury.2 Dunstan might now

1 Malmsb. 62.

VOL. II.

X

2 Flor. 362. Sax. Chron. 125.