two sons by the second marriage, Alfred and
Edward, were, immediately upon Ethelred's death, conveyed into Normandy
by Queen Emma.

Edmund, who received the name of "Ironside" from his hardy valor,
possessed courage and abilities sufficient to have prevented his country
from sinking into those calamities, but not to raise it from that abyss
of misery into which it had already fallen. Among the other misfortunes
of the English, treachery and disaffection had crept in among the
nobility and prelates; and Edmund found no better expedient for stopping
the further progress of these fatal evils than to lead his army
instantly into the field, and to employ them against the common enemy.
After meeting with some success at Gillingham, he prepared himself to
decide, in one general engagement, the fate of his crown; and at
Scoerston, in the county of Gloucester, he offered battle to the enemy,
who were commanded by Canute and Edric. Fortune, in the beginning of the
day, declared for him; but Edric, having cut off the head of one Osmer,
whose countenance resembled that of Edmund, fixed it on a spear, carried
it through the ranks in triumph, and called aloud to the English that it
was time to fly; for, behold! the head of their sovereign. And though
Edmund, observing the consternation of the troops, took off his helmet,
and showed himself to them, the utmost he could gain by his activity and
valor was to leave the victory undecided. Edric now took a surer method
to ruin him, by pretending to desert to him; and as Edmund was well
acquainted with his power, and probably knew no other of the chief
nobility in whom he could repose more confidence, he was obliged,
notwithstanding the repeated perfidy of the man, to give him a
considerable command in the army. A battle soon after ensued at
Assington, in Essex, where Edric, flying in the beginning of the day,
occasioned the total defeat of the English, followed by a great
slaughter of the nobility. The indefatigable Edmund, however, had still
resources. Assembling a new army at Gloucester, he was again in
condition to dispute the field, when the Danish and English nobility,
equally harassed with those convulsions, obliged their kings to come to
a compromise and to divide the kingdom between them by treaty. Canute
reserved to himself the northern division, consisting of Mercia, East
Anglia, and Northumberland, which he had entirely subdued. The southern
parts were left to Edmund. This princ