y married her contrary to the canons, the
monks would be sure to deny her to be his wife, and would insist that
she could be nothing but his strumpet: so that, on the whole, we may
esteem this representation of the matter as certain; at least, as by far
the most probable. If Edwy had only kept a mistress, it is well known,
that there are methods of accommodation with the church, which would
have prevented the clergy from proceeding to such extremities against
him: but his marriage, contrary to the canons, was an insult on their
authority, and called for their highest resentment.]

[Footnote 3: NOTE C, p. 91. Many of the English historians make Edgar's
ships amount to an extravagant number, to three thousand or three
thousand six hundred. See Hoveden, p. 426. Flor. Wigorn, p. 607. Abbas
Rieval, p. 360. Brompton (p. 869) says that Edgar had four thousand
vessels. How can these accounts be reconciled to probability, and to
the state of the navy in the time of Alfred? W. Thorne makes the whole
number amount only to three hundred, which is more probable. The fleet
of Ethelred, Edgar's son, must have been short of a thousand ships; yet
the Saxon Chronicle (p. 137) says it was the greatest navy that ever had
been seen in England.]

[Footnote 4: NOTE D, p. 109. Almost all the ancient historians speak of
this massacre of the Danes as if it had been universal, and as if every
individual of that nation throughout England had been put to death.
But the Danes were almost the sole inhabitants in the kingdoms of
Northumberland and East Anglia, and were very numerous in Mercia. This
representation, therefore, of the matter is absolutely impossible. Great
resistance must have been made, and violent wars ensued; which was not
the case. This account given by Wallingford, though he stands single,
must be admitted as the only true one. We are told that the name
Lurdane, Lord Dane, for an idle, lazy fellow, who lives at other
people's expense, came from the conduct of the Danes who were put to
death. But the English princes had been entirely masters for several
generations, and only supported a military corps of that nation. It
seems probable, therefore, that it was these Danes only that were put to
death.]

[Footnote 5: NOTE E, p. 129. The ingenious author of the article Godwin,
in the Biographia Britannica, has endeavored to clear the memory of
that nobleman, upon the supposition that all the English annals had been
falsified by t