y is told of one of these Saxon
princesses. A certain king upon the Continent, whose dominions lay
between the Rhine and the German Ocean, had proposed for her hand in
behalf of his son, whose name was Radiger. The consent of the princess
was given, and the contract closed. The king himself soon afterward
died, but before he died he changed his mind in respect to the
marriage of his son. It seems that he had himself married a second
wife, the daughter of a king of the Franks, a powerful continental
people; and as, in consequence of his own approaching death, his son
would come unexpectedly into possession of the throne, and would need
immediately all the support which a powerful alliance could give him,
he recommended to him to give up the Saxon princess, and connect
himself, instead, with the Franks, as he himself had done. The
prince entered into these views; his father died, and he immediately
afterward married his father's youthful widow--his own step-mother--a
union which, however monstrous it would be regarded in our day, seems
not to have been considered any thing very extraordinary then.

The Anglo-Saxon princess was very indignant at this violation of his
plighted faith on the part of her suitor. She raised an army and
equipped a fleet, and set sail with the force which she had thus
assembled across the German Ocean, to call the faithless Radiger to
account. Her fleet entered the mouth of the Rhine, and her troops
landed, herself at the head of them. She then divided her army into
two portions, keeping one division as a guard for herself at her own
encampment, which she established near the place of her landing, while
she sent the other portion to seek and attack Radiger, who was, in the
mean time, assembling his forces, in a state of great alarm at this
sudden and unexpected danger.

In due time this division returned, reporting that they had met and
encountered Radiger, and had entirely defeated him. They came back
triumphing in their victory, considering evidently, that the faithless
lover had been well punished for his offense. The princess, however,
instead of sharing in their satisfaction, ordered them to make a
new incursion into the interior, and not to return without bringing
Radiger with them as their prisoner. They did so; and after hunting
the defeated and distressed king from place to place, they succeeded,
at last, in seizing him in a wood, and brought him in to the
princess's encampment. He beg